Journey

Journey is a game that is somewhat of an art piece.  You play as a traveler in a desolate world, freeing floating bits of cloth that attach themselves to you in fashion and allow you to jump further.

Sound boring?  Yes, it is.

Apparently it is designed to be played with another person since you can only communicate using a musical note, an interesting journey.  I assumed this would mean I would need a partner to traverse certain obstacles, but I didn't see a hint of another player nor how I would find one during my playthrough and never saw anything that I wasn't able to attain.

I wanted to like this game, but I'm not really sure what other people see in it ...

The Flame in the Flood

The Flame in the Flood is a survival game where you and your dog are floating down the "river that has become the world".   You can stop off at some islands on the way as you guide your small raft to refuel, scavenge supplies, craft snares and upgrade your raft.

Presumably there is an end to the trip down the river, but games like these where you are crafting upgrades for your ship and supplies and inventory require a few playthroughs to get a handle on what's important.  In my playthrough, I struggled even piloting the raft and feel like I missed a lot of supplies until eventually sailing to an island full of boars that gored me to death (there he is on the right by the bus -- avenge me!).

 

How To Survive

How To Survive is a twin stick shooter that has you crafting bows and surviving zombies on an island in order to escape.  It's a simple game from a smaller developer that was done pretty well.  

When I was playing the tutorial levels I assumed there would be some sort of base building or survival, but this game is more arcade mode.  "Make it to the helicopter" is the first of the challenge missions, where you get a pretty good assortment of the variety of zombie types the game offers (exploding tubbies, armored soldiers, face-huggers).

In the end I feel like it's proof of concept to a game that has more persistence.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey on the tail end of a couple other Ubisoft games was a bit overwhelming in concept and I wasn't really looking forward to this play.  But the Assassin's Creed games do create great cinematic moments, and this did not fail in that regards.  

You are Alexios in 450 B.C. - grandson of Leonidas, cast from the mountaintop by your own father for killing an elder while trying to save your sister, you survived and grew up on a remote island and return to carve your way across Ancient Greece in search of your mother and to question your father. 

The Animus story is that effectively the Precursors were meddling in the affairs of humans ("Project Olympos" that was referenced was presumably their deification) when there was a bit of a mutiny and they decided to let humans evolve naturally.  Decent origin story, and allows for mythical creatures in the land to ... deal with.

The Sinking City

The Sinking City wants to be a game that I love, but falls short in many ways.

It's based on the Dagon story by H.P. Lovecraft, where you are an investigator trying to investigate the weird goings on of a town while having mysterious visions of your own.  What I love is that this game doesn't hold your hand in the way that's become so commonplace, you have to actually read quest information to figure out which house on the corner of such and such, and find it yourself with a map and searching archives at the newspaper and police stations for clues.

But the game is .. in a word ... boring?  It put me to sleep playing it, twice.  Maybe I'll watch a Let's Play to see what I'm missing and get back to it ... 

Far Cry New Dawn

Far Cry New Dawn continues the storyline from Far Cry 5 forward.  It's 17 years in the future, people have been surviving in bunkers for a while as the world recovered from nuclear fallout - and communities are banded together but being overrun by a new gang.

Gameplay is somewhat changed, as you are crafting most of your weapons so there is an upgrade process they can go through, so there is an additional resource gathering component to the grind.

The story is as formula as you would expect, this is a situation we've been in with lots of prior games - you advance your settlement, they come and hamper you until some major event (character killed or base overrun) and you end up having to kill your adversaries.  Sure enough....

The thing that I did find myself enjoying more than other games was the dialog, each of the characters was once again full of precious little exchanges - probably more than in 5 because they only allowed one companion, so all of the dialog was directed at you.   My favorite line -- "You think you're so smart that when I catch you, I'm going to sew your butt cheeks together so you KNOW you're just full of shit!"

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a FPS shooter where you play as cop turned resistance fighter when a failed attempt to arrest the cult leader turns into a rescue mission for your squad.

The intro level was amazingly well done, the tension they created while entering the nationalist/terrorist headquarters, and the flight away from them was terrifying.  It provided a great motivation for the game as you rescue the citizens of an overrun town to gain influence over areas and drive away the P.E.G. (Peggy's).

What really blew me away (literally?) was the ending, spoiler alert, John Seed has been monologing about the decline of society the whole game, and once you defeat him, he drifts into another one of his "the world is corrupt" speeches and a nuke goes off behind him.   The next 3 minutes of the game have you driving your group at neckbreaking speeds back to the survival bunker in front of the blast wave while more nukes are blinding you occasionally with explosions.  (Nice touch to have burning animals running from the engulfed forest.)

Fade to black with the bad guy and you alone in the bunker, you chained to the bed.  What a great ending!!!!  

Bound By Flame

You can think of Bound By Flame as a poor mans Dragon's Age, or perhaps the Witcher.  It's made by a smaller studio, and well done for what it accomplishes.  You are a warden of some power that in protecting the red mages in their attempt to thwart the 7 undead captains, get inhabited by what I presume is a fire demon and are able to use it's powers to imbue yourself with fiery advantages.

The combat with the bosses I fought was a bit lackluster, really just a matter of committing to learn and use the parry-block of each of their because they will poise through your every hit.

Fifteen years ago, or on an earlier console - this would be an amazing game.