House of the Dying Sun

House of the Dying Sun has been in my backlog since I was still writing about everything I added there. It's a mission-based 6DOF shooter, and as I found out, its main selling point is most probably VR support, especially ~3 years ago when it came out and VR was much more hyped.

The game's simple. You control a ship and fly through an asteroid field, killing other ships. There's different missions, difficulties, some upgrades and different weapons, and an optional "flagship" boss fight at the end of every mission. Clearly, most of the focus has been placed on visuals, and there is a preference on realism (as far as sci-fi space shooters go) rather than ease or fun of play. The ships are a bit floaty and difficult to control, and enemies are difficult to see unless they're straight in your face. It's all quite realistic, and probably very aesthetically pleasing in VR, but as a game, falls short on the fun.
Adding to this, there isn't a lot of variety, and the whole ordeal is only a few hours, unless you're going for 100% completion, in which case it might take longer, but would also be repetitive.

Not enough content, not enough fun. Pretty, and possibly attempting to cash in on the VR aspect, but I couldn't really tell you about how it feels there. As much as I know, I can't recommend it.

Simmiland

Simmiland is a god game mixed with a card game. There's the usual island, autonomous humans running around and doing their best (which isn't very good, mind you) to survive, and you blasting the ground with various things like plants, rocks, wildlife, weather, or even some natural disasters. There's a little mixture of exploration through trying out different combinations. For example, sunshine increases temperature, causing grasslands to turn to deserts, but also swamps to tropics. A plant in a desert is a cactus, but in water, a coral. Wildlife on grasslands is a harmless chicken, but wildlife in a tundra is a polar bear that will maul a lot of your people. The tacked on card deck system limits what god powers you can use at a given time.

To mention some of the better parts first, I liked the cheery atmosphere it had. Can't say the music and graphics were much, but they fit well, so that can only be a positive. Trying out the combinations of what does what, how everything interacts, and trying to understand what goes through the minds of my little creatures running around was also pretty nice, but sadly lost its luster quickly, as content dried out. That can be said for the whole game, where I had seen 50% in the first 20 minutes, 75% in an hour, and 90% in about two hours. The rest was going to be repetitive, as nothing was going to go significantly differently in the next playthrough.

I think the worst part (aside from the lack of content) was that you had to guess too much. Sure, exploration was fun at first, but since advancement through the game was almost exclusively through your godly deeds, it got very difficult to guess the right combinations for those last items, mostly devolving into spamming your cards, hoping something would happen. And speaking of spamming, the game was fairly frantic for a "card game". Never mind that the whole card aspect could have been left out without making anything worse, but the most effective way of getting through the first half of the game was to just use all your cards as fast as you could to make all the suitable environments and items for your people. They themselves did relatively little that influenced you back, so really, the interaction with the game was just poor.

I've never been a fan of god games, instead preferring the management types of games. Cutting the AI allows you to make much larger and complex things inside the game, and means the player doesn't have to rely on the AI not acting like an idiot. Even though most management games only allow you to say what needs to be done, and not order your people around directly, it still creates a better interaction with the game, instead of the one-sidedness of god games.
All in all, I enjoyed it for the first hour or so, while it was new, shiny, and showering me with unexpected things. Then it ran out of things to shower me with, and I realized it wasn't all that great. Not recommendable.

A House of Many Doors

I gave A House of Many Doors a good attempt. It's supposedly very similar to Sunless Sea, although I couldn't verify that as I've not played the latter. I can, however, compare it to Faster Than Light. In case you're not familiar with either of those games, the essence (of at least FTL and A House of Many Doors) is that you're leading a ship with some grand goal. To get to that goal, you have to navigate around the world, manage your crew and supplies, make decisions, and quite often have a battle. The battles are very similar as well, with you commanding the crew around the ship, trying to destroy the opposing ship while the enemy does the same. The main difference is that A House of Many Doors focuses a lot more on the story.

... The main difference in essence, that is. Realistically the main difference is that A House of Many Doors is pretty poorly made. Were the idea well executed, I might even like it - I mean FTL was decent. However, A House of Many Doors has a lot of issues. To name some: Visual bugs where sprites slide off into infinity, layer issues blocking important game information, an overall inconsistent and arguably poor art style, a lack of explanation of what most stuff does or how to do various things... despite the otherwise overabundance of text. I understand it's a game with a lot of lore and story, but I felt like I was reading a book, not playing a game - some visual novels have more visual action than this game. The writing wasn't bad, and was actually somewhat interesting, but it felt disjoint as the game had barely started and I was already chasing like 3 different plot lines with tens of items in my inventory that maybe had some grander use.

Overall, a jumble of individually nicely written text walls with a terribly executed game on top. I feel like the author might have had more success writing a book or an interactive novel, not a game. Might have helped make the story and lore less spread out and more sensible. But as a game, not only is it not worth playing, it diminishes the quality of the underlying story. I wouldn't recommend it.
I noticed I did not have Sunless Sea nor Skies in my backlog, despite them seemingly being very similar games, just with higher production quality? In any case, because or despite of this game, I will not be trying either of those either. However from all I've read, I feel confident in recommending both of them (and FTL) over this. If you felt this game idea to be up your alley, try the Sunless games first, then come back to this if you want more.

PS. I misspelled the name of the game as "A House of Many Doots" far too many times. I found this humorous, and hoped you might as well, as a change from my undesirably dry writing.

End-of-week Report

I am not completing as many games as I had hoped. I've no clue as to what excuses to give anymore, even. Time just vanishes somewhere.
I started with Return of the Obra Dinn a few days ago, and I'm quite enjoying it. It will probably take some 10-20 hours to complete, but it's rather exhausting to play in single sessions, so I might start some other games alongside it.

If anyone remembers, I talked about a scoring formula I made some time ago. I discovered a bit of redundancy in it not too long after, and I finally got around to crunching the algebra to simplify it. The weighing constants no longer looked as pretty, but as they were arbitrary anyways, I changed them around a bit, which in turn slightly changed the ordering of the games. These changes are represented in my backlog Sheet, but will also eventually make their way into the Steam Leaderboards site.

Finally, I am going on a vacation for almost a full week next week, so there will be no progress on anything then. Next week's report will be skipped, but expect a return the week after.

• Games in backlog: 293 (+3)
• of which Early Access: 57 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 1

Devil Engine

Devil Engine is a pretty standard bullet hell shooter. I don't have a lot to say about it, and I'll mention upfront that it was nothing noteworthy.

To start with the positive sides, the art and soundtrack are good enough to mention on their own. The opening sequence of the game really hyped me up, but sadly that hype died down in mere minutes as I discovered I don't have mouse controls, and was instead given a one-way speed cycling button, as if that would make the arrow keys even close to a substitute for a controller, let alone a mouse. So, okay, sure, after my first game over I was quickly given a "very easy mode", which did indeed make things a bit easier, but no less frustrating that I didn't have as fine a control over my ship as I knew I could have.
I suppose it's not too big of a bother, considering I didn't encounter any outstanding elements in the game. The main gimmick it used to differ from the rest was a bullet absorption field around your ship for a fraction of a second that spent your combo multiplier. I think this was to be the remedy to its otherwise overwhelming (or poorly designed, who can tell, really) bullet patterns, instead of something that could be properly dodged. I don't know, I didn't like this change, but then again, I didn't get much use out of it due to my terrible keyboard skills.

Overall, most of my experience was ruined due to the lack of mouse support. As far as I could tell, even if it had mouse support, it wouldn't have been a particularly good game from its gameplay standpoint. I wouldn't recommend it.

End-of-week Report

Another week has passed. How time flies.
I can't really expect to not get new games to my backlog. It's usually 1-2 new ones per week, so if I want to get the counts down a meager 3 reviews per week just won't do. Still, it's better than none I suppose, and the numbers have gone down, even if only just a bit.

• Games in backlog: 290 (-1)
• of which Early Access: 56 (-2)
• Games reviewed last week: 3

Teamfight Tactics

Me covering a recent and popular game here? What is this? Still, I played quite many Teamfight Tactics games over the past few days, and I figured there's no excuse as to why it wouldn't qualify.

Teamfight Tactics (or TFT for short) is a separate game in the League of Legends universe and client, probably created due to the huge popularity of the Dota 2 Auto Chess mod. (Which, as I hear, isn't original either, but based off of some already existing but not so well known game.)
It's not a very complicated game. It's an 8-player FFA that happens in 1v1 rounds until the last person is alive. Between each round you get some money and a selection of 5 champions with increasing prices as the rounds go on. You buy some of those champions, deploy them on the battlefield, try to gather 3-of-a-kind duplicates to combine and power them up, and try to get various numbers of role duplicates that also give bonuses. Refresh your pool of 5 for a small sum if you don't get what you like, or spend to level up yourself to deploy more champions. There also exist combinable items from minion rounds and some champion draft rounds. Otherwise, each round you're pit against another player, and your champions battle it out to the death without any further input from you.

Honestly, it's simple but fun and fast enough. I have just two main problems with it.
For one, it just doesn't have enough depth. You don't have a lot of choices to make, and you're eventually going to settle into some technique(s), even if the choice of technique is influenced by what champions you're given and, if you manage to track that, what your opponents are building. Very fine details aside, it stops being a game of skill, but rather just repeating the same few sets and combinations of motions.
Secondly, and everyone complains about this, the RNG is too much. Sure, some is necessary to keep the game fun through unpredictability and forcing to adapt, and if you're given overall hundreds of champions as choices each game, it somewhat balances out that you're lucky on some rolls, unlucky on others. However, the minion rounds that are the main income of items, which play a huge role in your performance, also drop a random amount of items. While, sure, it's fair in that everyone has the same odds, it's completely possible that you will get either double or half the amount someone else does, which either spells out very good odds of winning, or your near-certain loss. If you're playing to win, you might as well quit if the first minion rounds do not bless you with enough items, to save time. Much like playing with a missing teammate, your odds are grim, and while the game might still last a while, it's hardly fun.

Still, the game is supposedly in beta, probably rushed out to get a slice of the hot pie, and hopefully more improvements are incoming in the following weeks and months. For now, I'm already tired of it, for the two reasons mentioned above. However, it's free and fun while you don't know it very well yet, so I'd give it a "why not" recommendation. Play it for a few hours and see what all the fuss is about so you could talk along the next time someone inevitably brings up one of these kinds of games.

The Vagrant

It must have yet again been the boatloads of positive reviews that caused me to try a 4€ game where all female characters have breasts the size of their heads. It wasn't as bad as it could have been though. The Vagrant was in fact not some sort of weird pseudo-porn game, but a reasonably good RPG... for its price point, that is.

The entire thing lasts for <10 hours, and I feel like whoever made this set out to make a game, fill some checkboxes, and call it a day. Like, sure, we have varying equipment, upgrading, decent combat, a skill tree, some cooking + potion buff system, an interconnected map, a story, etc., but it all feels pretty "meh" at best, rather bad at worst. I couldn't really highlight anything good about the game, and I find it lacks polish. To name some examples:

• Everything drops coins or other pickups, but they often fly past you before you can pick them up, meaning you have to run back for each thing you kill/destroy. This is annoying.
• You can knock monsters down. They are then invulnerable to damage until they get themselves up, forcing you to just sit there and wait. This is annoying.
• The map and story connections are just all over the place. I know I have a bad sense of direction, but I have no idea what links where or how, and they both have me completely lost with their spontaneous transitions.
• Some systems like cooking are rather useless, and you can just not use them without impacting the game.
• Possibly a design choice, but the art and animations feel way too much like paper cutouts with hinges. I know that's a sizeable half of what 2D animation is, but you're supposed to try to hide that.

So, yeah, there's definitely loads of better RPGs (and metroidvanias, if you think it looks more like one) out there. I could only maybe suggest it if your time isn't worth much and the price calls to you. Me, I care about my time, less so for my money, and it's not worth the former.
No recommendation.

Dead in Vinland

I have mixed feelings about Dead In Vinland. It's a management survival game about a family who ends up on an island, forced to start living from scratch, all while dealing with a tyrant to whom they have to pay tribute. It's supposedly an improvement over their previous "Dead In" game of a similar nature, but neither have glowing reviews overall. Personally, I think it does a lot of things right, but just fails to hit a sweet spot to really make it enjoyable.

I think Dead In Vinland nails the survival aspect well. Survival isn't just something you do on the side, but concretely the main focus. Every day is a struggle to keep everyone fed and alive while also putting a little effort on the side to progressing to earn back the initial supplies and keeping up with the ever-increasing tribute. It's definitely not too easy, and while I wouldn't say it's too difficult either, the constant promise of loss looming above you doesn't really make you feel good about the experience. Maybe you're not supposed to. Maybe you're supposed to feel the same despair your characters do, and the game accomplishes that well, but I don't find it enjoyable.
I think the main aspect contributing to my displeasure was the positive feedback loop (not so positive at all, despite the name), where if my characters got tired, injured, hungry, etc., then they lost performance and/or had to take some time off to recover, which in turn gave less resources, and less progress, furthering the doom that perhaps caused this in the first place. I will praise the balance, that this feedback loop did not spiral into actually losing nor the game becoming a walk in the park, but despite constantly improving, getting new people, and supposedly becoming better, I never felt like things started looking up. Progression wasn't satisfying.
The other aspect was the micromanagement being a bit too extensive. Too much time spent looking at statuses and numbers, telling characters what to do, and too little gameplay in the sense of stuff happening.

Overall, opposite to the story the game seemingly followed, I started Dead In Vinland with a good amount of hope in the first hours. There was a promise of building a great village, finding new people, and overthrowing the tyrant of the island. However, as I got closer to that goal in the game, my hope in reality disappeared. Seeing my efforts not make a difference to my well-being made me lose hope until I eventually gave up. Which was a shame, because I was looking forward to seeing how the story would unfold.
I can't really recommend this, as I didn't have the fortitude to see it through to the end. However, it's not a bad game, and I had a solid 8+ hours of fun with it. Perhaps you'll like it if the survival aspect is really up your alley, and you don't think the frustration of the constant impending doom will get to you, but I have my doubts.

End-of-week Report

Moving took a lot of my time and caused me to fall behind in progress a bit again.
I started playing Dead in Vinland. It's a game, not quite sure what I think about it yet - not super good nor bad.

• Games in backlog: 291 (+2)
• of which Early Access: 58 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

Continuing the fight against the dreaded third hundred of the backlog. Most of the week went on Path of Exile, some on board games with friends which I don't write about. Net positive progress though, so all's good.

• Games in backlog: 289 (-2)
• of which Early Access: 57
• Games reviewed last week: 2

Armed with Wings: Rearmed

Armed with Wings seems to be a rather old Flash game series. I have not played any of those games before and I didn't really look into it much, but this Rearmed version is apparently a sort of remake, not a sequel. It's a level-based hack-and-slash game with some platforming involved.

I didn't think much of the platforming part. Considering the game doesn't really have jumping, the platforming puzzles were somewhat limited or specific in nature. It's not too important, however, as most of the game's focus was on combat. Now, the combat looks neat, and seems to have a good amount of depth, but I have no idea how it works. The attack patterns of my character, and in which cases I manage to get a hit in, in which cases the enemy just blocks it, seem rather arbitrary. I mean, I'm sure there's a logical system in there, but it's not explained whatsoever. And, honestly, I can't play like that. The game isn't easy enough to button mash through it, which is in itself a good thing, but if I am not given the knowledge on how not button mashing is better, it's not very useful. Sure, I could figure out the system eventually, but it's rather painful until then, and considering the depth of it, would probably take a while.
More minor grievances include the combat feeling a bit stiff for a game with such a heavy focus on it, your lovely bird not having any use in combat, and that I'm just not a fan of the level-based system. Perhaps I'm spoiled on metroidvanias with a nice world to run through.

Overall, I got rather quickly frustrated at not understanding the combat and why stuff worked sometimes but failed in a seemingly identical situation some other time. I also didn't see any elements of it which particularly captivated me, so unless you think you can figure out that combat and hope to discover a better game beyond that point, I wouldn't recommend it.

Tooth and Tail

Well well, how did an RTS manage to slip into my backlog? Said slippery RTS is Tooth and Tail, and I honestly didn't give it too long of a try before tossing it aside.

I really didn't see much anything in Tooth and Tail. On one hand, it's a pretty generic RTS with building troops with rather common abilities, and not too many of them at that. On the other, it's heavily dumbed down in the name of accessibility or something - mainly that you can't really micromanage your units, which is kind of the whole point of RTS games. See, the way movement works here is that your "cursor" is a rather slow moving unit with health that has to lead the charge, and upon arriving at a place, can summon other units to that place. It just seems like making your very cursor vulnerable to attack and death is a pretty bad idea. Worse still, fighting on two fronts isn't really a thing.
But are there any redeeming qualities to this game? Honestly, no, none that I saw. There's just flat out better RTS games out there, and if you want to play with basically just one unit, go play another game genre. I can't recommend this game.

End-of-week Report

Well, I've finished my studies. I successfully defended my bachelor's thesis last week. All that's left is the graduation ceremony, but for all practical purposes, I've finished university.

As far as other stuff goes, the summer heat is getting to me somewhat. I'm feeling quite lethargic from the near-30 degree weather in an apartment without any air conditioning (or ventilation) - it reduces my appetite and my motivation to do anything. Feels a bit like a certain state of mind I'd rather avoid.
But that's just excuses not to play more games. And who wants to make excuses for something wonderful like that. I'm going to be trying Path of Exile again after multiple years next week. Overall, the old log increased again last week, but that's how it goes if I don't complete anything.

• Games in backlog: 291 (+3)
• of which Early Access: 57
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

I got something done after all. At this seemingly temporary pace, only 2-3 more years to go.
I'll get my last summer vacation starting middle of next week, save for any time I decide to be unemployed for an extended period of time in the future. I really can't tell if I'll have more or less free time after I get a job, but I'm sure life will at least be a bit different.

Ah, but who am I rambling to? Have a look at numbers going down.

• Games in backlog: 288 (-3)
• of which Early Access: 57 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2

Indecision.

I played a thing. It might have been a game. It's called Indecision. and it left an impression on me in the 40 minutes it took for me to finish it.
I would tell you more about this game, but I can't. For one, because that would spoil it. But also because there isn't much to say about this game. It's more of a collection of ideas, more of an experience than a proper game. It doesn't cost much anything, time- nor money-wise, maybe 2-3 hours to see everything there is.
It's really quite brilliant, and I simply had to give it a spot on my list. I wasn't really sure what to file it under, but it seems my "Story Puzzle" category is currently occupied by these "experience" types of games. As the creator also mentions, this game is not for everyone, but it was an experience I needed, and I would recommend you experience it too.

PS. I think there's potential in some of these ideas to be developed further, into something bigger. Indecision. gave me some weird, somewhat unfounded hope that we will not be running out of games that push the boundaries of what can be done in games, even if this game alone is not that remarkable.

Celeste

Celeste is a platformer. It has been described as having a great soundtrack and story. It is also comfortably among the 100 highest rated games on Steam at this point. So, naturally, I had high expectations going into it. Sadly, I was gravely disappointed. Partially my own fault, as I was swayed by what good I had heard about the game, but I must say I am very surprised about its popularity.

I think my biggest surprise was that Celeste really was just a platformer. It didn't promise much more, but I thus fail to see the appeal. I feel like repeating my thoughts from my I wanna be The Cat review, but Celeste perhaps deserves a bit better. It is also a very difficult platformer with relatively simple controls - moving, jumping, climbing on walls, and a mid-air dash replenished upon hitting the ground. Throw in some level-specific stuff like moving platforms, spring boards, dash refreshers, some others, and of course environmental spike and pit hazards, and that's pretty much the whole game.

The levels aren't that difficult at first, and again, I wouldn't really hold the difficulty against the game too much, especially with an existing easy mode. My main problem is that I fail to find the fun in this game. Maybe plain platformers just aren't my cup of tea, but I will echo my thoughts from before. It's not about figuring out what to do - the path and actions to the goal are generally clear after a short look at the level. Instead, the gameplay comes down to your platforming skill - your capability to press the right buttons in the right order, with timings often accurate to a tenth of a second. If you fail that, you do the same thing again, until you succeed. That is not my idea of fun, it's repetitive and tedious, and it is why I am astonished that there are so many people who want exactly this.
Regarding the other aspects... As you may have guessed, I didn't get very far, but I hear there's a bit more story later on. Don't expect to find any at the beginning though. The soundtrack? I didn't see it as anything special. Perhaps only the art and the environment somewhat caught my eye. To me, the game is quite unremarkable.

Maybe I'll think harder before deciding to try out a pure platformer the next time. Still, as just a platformer and nothing more, I can't fault it for much. The levels and mechanics were well-made, if a little bare in features for my taste. Considering how much others praise it, I can't in good faith tell you that you shouldn't play it if you like platformers. Still, as I personally fail to see the appeal, I can't personally recommend it either.

End-of-week Report

Well well, what's this? Progress? It's only temporary, I assure you. Next week is exam week, and the week after that I got to defend my thesis. Still, I'm glad I got to laze for a little while.

• Games in backlog: 291 (-1)
• of which Early Access: 58
• Games reviewed last week: 4

Rez Infinite

With the limited time I have, I sometimes just add games to my list because they are positively received. Surely hundreds of people saying something is good means it's not completely terrible, and there's at least some chance of me liking it, right? Well, sometimes I have no idea what people are thinking, and Rez Infinite is a fine example.

It's a game where you fly "on-rails" through some digital-glitchy-wireframe-looking world and the only thing you have to (and can) do, is drag your mouse over pretty much everything that moves to destroy it. That's it. That's the game. It's got all the excitement of a generic clicker game, for only a tiny fraction of the content and dopamine release. There isn't even much to bash here, since it's barely a game. How it has over 500 reviews for a >90% positive score, I'll never know. Don't... don't touch it yourself.

911 Operator

911 Operator is a game that mimics the job of a dispatcher who answers various emergency calls. I could not tell you about how accurately the game portrays this, but it does at least have a serious tone about it and creates a somewhat believable atmosphere. Whether this supposed authenticity means something to you is yours to decide, but thematically, this is not a game that speaks to me. Form, however, is not something I would much grade a game for, so how's the gameplay?

Well, in the game you control a number of various police, medical, and firefighting vehicles on a city map. All around the map, emergencies can pop up, and it's up to you to quickly dispatch suitable vehicles to deal with them, depending on the nature of the emergency. Occasionally, instead of getting a direct request to send a police and an ambulance, for example, you get a call, and have to, through a fully voiced dialogue with different response options, figure out the location and nature of the emergency and perhaps offer initial help while sending the vehicles you believe to be right. After the day, you get your profits from that day and can use them to buy new vehicles, new staff, new equipment, and arrange anything you already have. Not really the job of the dispatcher in reality, but whatever makes the game more interesting, I suppose.

Now, the problem is that there isn't much to do in the game past the initial couple of hours. Starting from the last things I mentioned, the "squad" management aspect of the game is pretty useless. There's a lot of detail in the personal skills of the workers, speed and capacity of vehicles, and somewhat in their equipment, but it doesn't matter. More vehicles and people, if you can afford them, is better, so buy them. You don't have the time or need to consider the specialties of your vehicles and people, except for how many patients / criminals they can fit, just send whoever is the closest suitable one. So, really, that part could be tossed out in favor of improving the rest of the game.
The calls are quite interesting at first, and can actually somewhat teach you about actual first aid in emergencies. I particularly liked one where a man had just lost a leg to an accident with a machine and you not only had to give first aid help, but also provide psychological assistance like ensuring he doesn't just give up while the medics got there. These were the best part of the game, but sadly started repeating quite frequently after just 2 hours. The rest of the game is just a game of clicking the right colored vehicles to go to the right colored locations. Helps if you take a quick glance at how many people might need to be transported away, or if a heavier police team might be necessary, but it wasn't very stimulating nonetheless.

If you particularly care for the thematic of this game, then it might be a more interesting experience, but otherwise, prepare to run out of excitement a couple of hours in. You quickly familiarize yourself with all the concepts of the game, then soon all the dialogue, and then it just becomes a game of clicking through the right choices - not very exciting. I actually liked it for the first hour or two, and I feel like it could be improved by making the map and dispatch system somewhat more complicated. There should be some challenge in performing your duties, but right now, I just can't recommend playing this.

Unworthy

Oh hey, it's another game that basically blatantly rips off the core elements of Dark Souls but sticks to an overall simpler and smaller game and a 2D world. It is Unworthy, and it quite reminds me of Salt and Sanctuary, except it's shorter and simpler still. As I've said before, there's nothing inherently bad about copying the design of another game, but by doing so, you put your game at a direct comparison with what you copied. In the case of Dark Souls, there's some pretty big shoes to fill, and if you don't plan to do a better job, then there better be something quite unique about your game.

Sadly, Unworthy stays too close to the formula with not much new and exciting to offer. There's less enemy types, less equipment, less customization, worse lore, the maps are on the bland side... I'd say the biggest flaw however is the lack of choice in general. Too often did I find myself being locked to a path because there was some prerequisite I had to fill, often in the form of defeating a boss, or simply because the world was too linear. Or for example after acquiring a new weapon, a hammer, everything suddenly wanted me to use it to solve some platforming puzzle or break down a wall instead of offering me multiple ways to approach the problem. It may seem like nitpicking, as a lot of games have linearity and singular solutions, but I feel like it's worth highlighting this lack of choice as it's definitely not as good as the alternative that I've come to expect from these kinds of games.
Another big problem I had was with spending my Sin, which acts as a sort of currency for improving my character. As a direct copy of Souls, it was dropped on death, and lost if not picked up before dying again. And, you know, that's fine, but there was an alarming lack of places to spend it. The occasional places that would accept these as payment were so few and far between it was very difficult to not lose the majority of what you had gathered. Worse still, the ones I encountered did not allow using them again, leaving no reason to come back. Considering the lack of teleportation at save points, I feel the journey back to use them would have been a fine price to pay.

Overall, Unworthy is not a bad game. It's just not new nor original, and isn't good enough to not be eclipsed by the games that came before it. As such, I can't recommend it. If you want an experience like this, play Salt and Sanctuary, or even one of the Souls games. Unworthy just... isn't worthy.

Tales of Berseria

I believe it took me approximately nine months overall to finish Tales of Berseria. As such, what I remember of it is kind of smeared across a very long time, but I'll do my best to recollect it.

Tales of Berseria is the latest in the series of Tales games that has spanned 16 games since 1995. As most have not been available on PC (until the rather recent ports) I have only played the previous installment, Tales of Zestiria, and thus lack a good comparison point. Still, I can offer my thoughts on the game as something separate, and perhaps that's a useful viewpoint as well.
Tales of Berseria is a JRPG, and I've had a bad history with such games. They tend to have a massive focus on story, often spending more time on dialogue and cutscenes than gameplay. There is of course the story versus gameplay perspective to consider, where if one is better, you dislike having to do the other. And the final frequent issue of JRPGs is the needlessly complicated game mechanics, which devolve to some small subset of mechanics that turn out to be an optimal solution, leaving you with both a steep learning curve and a lot of unused portions of gameplay. To my dismay, Tales of Berseria is not an exception, not really at least.

To get the comparison out of the way, the previous game, Zestiria definitely had it worse. While it's fundamentally the same, with the gameplay consisting of running around a somewhat open world, entering battles, attacking the enemies until their HP finally drops to zero, leveling up, upgrading your gear, and being interrupted with neverending dialogue and cutscenes at every possible moment, Berseria did it better in pretty much all regards. A better skill system, a simplified (but no less useful) gear progression system, better characters, and a better story, to name a few.
The story was definitely the better half of this game, and what kept me playing. While the gameplay wasn't bad initially, it simply grew stale over time, as I figured out the optimal patterns by which to fight, and combat just became an obstacle. However, allow me to praise the combat for how effective and dynamic it looked. While it could have definitely been better mechanically, it was quite the eye candy.

The reason this game took nine months for me (aside from having a lot to do IRL) is that it took a grand total of 85 hours to beat. While I'm generally all for having longer games and more playtime, the problem here was that what made up the majority of that time were not the good parts of the game. I feel there was only enough story and "combat enjoyment" for maybe 40 hours, and that would have been enough and made for a better game. Condense the story, condense the fights, leave the player with a higher enjoyment per hour, which is what often really matters these days. Past about 50 hours, I was so tired of slogging through the game I considered quitting. The only thing that stopped me was that the game was enjoyable in all aspects at first, and by the time I had gotten to the point I didn't want to play anymore, I kept going just because I was invested in the story.

In conclusion - a good story with mediocre gameplay that drags on for far too long. If JRPGs in general are your cup of tea, then this might be quite enjoyable. All things considered, I would have to say I recommend it, but do be warned that it will take an eternity to complete. Tales of Berseria also earns a spot on the list of the best RPGs I've played, but rather barely. I guess you could say it's on the side of "good", rather than "the best", and might fall out someday. Still, I will await the next installment, and if it's as much of an improvement as Berseria was over Zestiria, I hope I'll be glad to play it.

End-of-week Report

There. Done. 85+ hours, but it's finished. The review will be up tomorrow, and the report of how all the accumulated games have completely filled my backlog in the meanwhile is down below. I got one more week of moderate relaxation, and then up to two more weeks of the hell of finishing uni.

Surprisingly, the amount of Early Access games still continues to go down, even as the overall amount increases. Perhaps putting your game in Early Access is no longer trending and people are back to publishing finished games?

• Games in backlog: 292 (+7)
• of which Early Access: 58 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week

Last week was an utterly draining experience of finishing my thesis. It is done now though, and I've had a bit of time to rest, so I want to complete some games at long last. Tales of Berseria will be finished in the next few days, end of the week at worst, and then I get to go on to others.

No report last week, and none this week, as I haven't caught up in looking through Steam's games. I could probably update in the next few days, but I don't see the hurry. The report shall resume next week.

End-of-week Report

Has this blog been more about vague hints regarding my personal life and studies than games for the past months? Probably so. Do I have the time to do anything about it, short of stopping posting altogether? Probably not. I noted 5 weeks ago, how there's still a bunch more coming after my thesis deadline, but this still feels like the big immediately hurdle looming over the horizon right now, so I'm still hoping for the "it'll be over in 2 weeks" scenario.
Have a report:

• Games in backlog: 285 (+2)
• of which Early Access: 59 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

3 weeks until my thesis deadline, and I am now, for sure, on the last stretch of Berseria. Mostly unrelated events, but I wonder which will come around first.
Life's been a bit rough this last week, but that just makes it more likely that it won't get even worse. Got to keep my eyes on the prizes, not the potential doom and and gloom.
Have a report:

• Games in backlog: 283
• of which Early Access: 60 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

I got another session of Tales of Berseria in. According to my current low standards, that's a successful week.
Honestly, I hate this, but I have 4 weeks left to go. I'm making steady progress IRL, at least.
Have a report:

• Games in backlog: 283 (+2)
• of which Early Access: 61
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

5 more weeks until my suffering ends. Last week was hell, next will probably be too - don't expect anything. Have a report.

• Games in backlog: 281 (+2)
• of which Early Access: 61 (+2)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

I tried actually restricting my time to work and play these last few days. I somewhat hate such rigid methods of self-discipline, but I suppose it might be necessary when facing a large task - my thesis - which I can't complete by just binging it until it's done, but rather have to self-manage my time to do it. It also gives me more freedom when playing, since I can feel like I really earned this play time, and I've done enough work that I will not fall behind in getting things done.
Overall, I'd say it was positive, as I managed to continue Tales of Berseria after nearly 6 months. I hope I can do more streams in the near future, and that this time allocation scheme, unappealing as it may be, makes me spend my time better until I finish all I need to do.

I was pretty upset at reaching even 200 games, but now I have to fight against reaching 300. Realizing I have a problem with my time management, and not making excuses, is the first step. The willpower to start fixing it is the second. The third step, perseverance, should hopefully be easier, as long as I'm pushing in the right direction and see my efforts getting me closer to my goals.

• Games in backlog: 279 (+2)
• of which Early Access: 59
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

I know how dumb it is, not getting anything done week after week, yet still putting up a weekly message saying how I did nothing. I just want to keep this rolling, and not let it completely die.
Truth be told, I probably have time, but I have a bit more than a month left to write my thesis, which is giving me anxiety, and that in turn is causing me to procrastinate, which leaves me with no time to play new games. One way or the other, the cycle will break early May, but then exams are close, and after that it's the thesis defense, finishing uni, and then I have to worry about moving and finding a job for the first time. They're all the same kind of not-that-time-consuming-but-pretty-stressful activities aaaand... I don't like that. Nothing to do but to endure though.

• Games in backlog: 277 (+2)
• of which Early Access: 59 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

Didn't even waste that much time on games last week, yet I still somehow lost all my time. I gotta get serious about this.
On another note, the amount of games in Early Access has been dropping consistently over the past weeks. I add more games, yet the amount in EA still decreases. Very interesting.

• Games in backlog: 275 (+3)
• of which Early Access: 58 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

Plans don't mean anything if you don't follow through with them. I had planned to make significant progress with either Divinity or Tales of Berseria over the weekend, but instead I played Warframe.
Curse limited time events in games that promise you rewards you feel like you want in the future and can't get again even nearly that easily. "Play me now, you won't get to later!" As if... Still, I fall for it. At least I'm starting to reach that point in Mabinogi where most events don't matter much to me anymore, so that would be one game I'd play in the "background" rather than the "foreground".

• Games in backlog: 272 (+3)
• of which Early Access: 59 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

I feel like I have to not play some of the stuff I find less entertaining, even if I like it now, and starting again later is a thing that's not really going to happen. Gotta get over that hurdle of unsatisfying starts to find the nice experiences beyond. For the greater good fun. But I've already had this monologue before.
Still got a review done, so all's fine. Have a report instead of my blabbering.

• Games in backlog: 269 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 60 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 1

End-of-week Report

Had some time to continue with games I have started but that remain unfinished for now in the last week. Happily also spent some free time clearing out other things from my to-do list. There's clear progress, at least from my view. Just needs more progress, faster.

Oh, also, have a project I worked on last semester. (Worked in a team, one of my teammates is hosting that, so I've no control over how long it might stay up.)

• Games in backlog: 268 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 61
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

What do you mean it's four days past the end of the week?
Uh, just have the report. And don't worry, I'm not being super busy, it's other things that kept me from posting this. More regular content soon, I... want to swear, but I know I can't.

• Games in backlog: 267 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 61 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 1

Apex Legends (and other Battle Royales)

Apex Legends is not the first so-called Battle Royale game I've played, but I did think I would not be playing any more after playing the ones I did. Honestly, these absurdly popular games do not need more publicity in my opinion, but I'm going to talk about them anyways. This post has a broader scope than what I usually do, but I hope you'll still find it relevant.

I would like to start with some background regarding Battle Royales. I'd say as far as games go, the game that sparked this genre was the DayZ mod back in 2012. DayZ basically went like this:
You start out generally far from others, and with nothing on you. Usually, the next while is spent on running around the map, checking various houses and other locations for weapons, armor, and general supplies. Sooner or later you run into someone else, a fight ensues, and somebody emerges victorious, getting to loot everything the loser had on them. Sound familiar? That's because it's extremely similar to the Battle Royales we have today.

There has been some experimentation with the formula over the years with different games trying different things. The following is not the exact order of how things went, but...
DayZ actually kind of (re-)sparked the "zombie survival" theme at first. Many games that required you to worry about your human needs while gathering other equipment to kill zombies emerged. But it was soon discovered that people didn't quite care about the zombie aspect. Rust strikes me as a notable example, starting out as a DayZ clone (with some Minecraft-esque resource gathering and base building, some of which has survived to the BRs of this day, namely Fortnite) in 2013, but removing zombies in 2014. ARK came out in 2015 and became perhaps the most popular game in this building-survival-PvP genre over the next year(s), but I would wager that that's where that train stopped. (Hey, even ARK got its own Battle Royale version of the game in 2016.)
Scrolling a bit back in time, although I do not know much about it, a movie by the name of The Hunger Games came out in 2012 and got quite popular. That quickly led to a Minecraft mod of the same name and similar content, and in 2013 - although the author didn't say it was connected to the movie - a mod to DayZ (mod) named Battle Royale. Instead, a different movie was cited as the inspiration - a 2000 Japanese movie by the same name, Battle Royale, but apparently the contents of both movies were similar enough. Battle Royale (the game) gave the genre its name (although I suppose it was really the movie that the name came from... or the 1996 book before that? Listen, really, Battle Royales are not a new concept...), along with a lot of other much-needed things, like simultaneous spawns making sure everyone started on equal footing, a goal to be the last one alive instead of just playing until you were inevitably killed by some new spawns or got tired, and a closing ring to make sure the action kept going and the remaining survivors would inevitably find each other.
There's actually quite the funny story here, as the author of this Battle Royale mod perhaps sounds familiar. It was PlayerUnknown, mostly known for his Battlegrounds (2017). But before working on Battlegrounds, he actually assisted in the development of a branch of H1Z1, that would become another well-known Battle Royale in 2016. (Worth noting that H1Z1 used to be just a late-to-the-party zombie survival game back in 2015, but the project was split, and not many cared about the zombie part of the game anymore.) The punchline of course is that PlayerUnknown made a trio of Battle Royale games that he had compete with each other in a Battle Royale fashion. At least I find that humorous.
While all of the previously mentioned games enjoyed a huge amount of popularity, it was PUBG that really exploded, having the most consecutive players online in any game ever since League of Legends. (Okay, there's the Asian shooter named CrossFire, but that's not relevant here for multiple reasons.) After that, a lot of large companies took interest in the Battle Royale genre too, quickly refitting their shooters into a Battle Royale to reap the cash from the craze. Fortnite Battle Royale, releasing the same year as PUBG, was particularly successful, supposedly smashing all consecutive player counts ever, probably due to its Free to Play nature. And then most recently there was the also Free to Play title Apex Legends, which I played a bit more than the rest, which was supposed to be the main topic of this post, and what I will finally get to in a little while, after some of my own thoughts on all this.

I just wanted to mention that if you look back at this pile of games in the past 7 years, you'll find them all connected in various ways. Each next one has been trying to use or build upon the popularity of the last one, almost without exception being rushed out the door so fast they end up as a buggy and unpolished mess, quick to forsake anything they had previously been working on. And I hate each and every one of them. It's not just because they're blatant rushed cash-grabs made by people who evidently don't care about the games they made, past or present (with the exception of the original DayZ mod which started this, which was a buggy mess for other reasons), but also because I find the concepts around which the games are made to be flawed in design. Looking at the player numbers, people obviously don't agree with me, but at least let me explain why I dislike them.
To start off, I'd like to establish that I believe the goal of the game is to win. Doesn't sound too far-fetched, I hope. Now, since the game is a free-for-all, and the winner is decided by who's alive the last, not who has the most kills or any other score metric, the best approach is to just steer clear of combat unless you're going to get a clear victory or are absolutely forced to fight - generally at the very end. Some disagree and believe conflict gives you better chances of winning later on, but I simply find that claim to be unfounded. Of course, the game leading you to avoid one of, if not the main gameplay element, combat, is pretty bad.
Secondly, for all the fairness the games are believed to have, most of the conflicts aren't actually very fair. Usually someone will be at an advantage or disadvantage, often quite a major one, due to luck of finding loot, being caught off guard or in a bad spot, being attacked by 2 people/squads, or something else. While I'd agree that it is ultimately kind of your fault if you engage at a disadvantage or get caught in a disadvantage, that does not change the fact that a lot of conflicts don't feel fair and thus as exciting as they could be. Further, they can put such an abrupt end to your game. All that time preparing for a fight, only the be caught with your pants down feels terrible.
Finally, people love winning. I know PvP games upset a lot of people because they lose so often in comparison to PvE games. People want a challenge and losing is acceptable, but most would want something better than a 50% win rate, as that doesn't quite feel fulfilling. Sadly, nobody has yet to find a way to have more than half the people win in a PvP game, for for each winner there has to be a loser, on average, lest the losers be doomed from the very beginning. However, it amazes me that people would be fine with the opposite. Indeed, this does not mean giving any players an inherent (dis)advantage in the beginning, but it does mean you'll very rarely win. Perhaps already knowing that victory is probably not coming desensitizes people to losing over and over again. Still, I do not buy into this, and find the "everybody loses" design to be terrible.
In light of these problems, it baffles me how Battle Royales became so immensely popular. At least League of Legends is a well-made game. Not a mess of bugs. Has a balanced progression through the match, maximizing the challenge and excitement by keeping the game as fair as possible, adjusting as time goes on. I don't understand how, several years later, the standards of players have dropped so much.

By now, I've pretty much explained everything about Battle Royales in general, and Apex Legends is quite adhering to the standards with no major deviations. However, there are still a few reasons why I've been playing this for the time being, instead of some other Battle Royale. What first captured my interest was that it was made by Titanfall developers. I had heard a lot of good stuff about Titanfall, but never really got to play it. When I heard that Apex Legends felt a lot like Titanfall in terms of movement and combat, I figured I should try it.
While it's still a Battle Royale in all its design, it's also quite well made. I like the graphics, I love sliding, running up walls, how the guns handle, the long time to kill, the fact that all the characters have some unique abilities, and that I have not found nigh any bugs, and definitely nothing that would hinder my gameplay.
Still, my frustrations listed above remain, and while I've been having fun playing with my friends for the past few days, it's already beginning to exhaust itself. I feel like I played it, enjoyed it, but am very quick to put it back down, and leave on brief-but-good terms with the game. If Battle Royales don't interest you at all, Apex Legends is probably not going to change your mind. But if you like them or have been curious as to what they are, I believe Apex Legends might just be the best place to go to right now. That is, a partial recommendation from me.

So there, that should be an overview (and my thoughts) of the evolving trends that have been dominating a lot of the game market in the past 7 years. For how much longer, I do not know, but I am looking forward to some completely new vector popping up, and it being something I can get into more, instead of a few more years of this stuff. All of the games losing massive amounts of players some time after launch gives me hope, but with how many new titles are coming out, they might just be migrating. In any case, you probably won't see me heading back to these, but then again, that's the same note I started this post on.

End-of-week Report

As I said, it's going to be a slow start back up. I completed my Crusader Kings II campaign last week, which must have spanned over 200 hours. You can imagine the time sink that was, but at least I'm all crusaded out now, so no more of that game for a while. I got half of everything by the end. Half a million gold, half a million points, half a million army levies, and half the map.

School picks back up tomorrow, but this last semester should be my smallest, as already discussed last week.
The next review you'll see from me will probably be about Tales of Berseria, as I finally get around to finishing it, and then it's back to clearing the random rubble I roll for a while, until I hit some good game again.

• Games in backlog: 266 (+2)
• of which Early Access: 60
• Games reviewed last week: 0

We Were Here Too

First review after over 4 months. Writing always feels stiff after such a long break, but hopefully it won't be too bad. Just feels good to be back at it.

The game this time around is We Were Here Too. It's a co-op only puzzle game, which I believe handles the co-op aspect really well. The controls are simple - move around, click stuff to interact with it, and uniquely, hold the right mouse button to use your walkie-talkie to communicate with the person on the other end. The game's asymmetric and absolutely has to be played with someone who hasn't played it before. You're both thrust into completely separated rooms with no instructions on what to do, and have to communicate both effectively and efficiently to figure out what needs to be done to escape through the series of rooms.
We Were Here Too takes maybe 4 hours to complete, depending on how quickly both parties catch on to what has to be done, so it's a rather short game. There's a special ending for finding all hidden switches, which might take another few hours, if you want to attempt that.

I quite enjoyed the authentic walkie-talkie, which isn't like the comfortable voice chat tools we have today that allow for simultaneous two-way communication, nope. If you hold down the button, you can't hear the other player, and while that might seem like a nuisance, it creates for a much more interesting experience, where you're almost forced to say stuff like "over" to prevent trying to talk at the same time and both missing what the other wanted to say. However, my praise for the puzzles is not quite as high. While the overall idea for the game is interesting, I feel like there could have been better puzzles to complement it. Especially annoying was the time limit on some of those, where adhering to that was more difficult than the puzzle itself. That's not to say the puzzles were bad, it's just that they could have been better, and I really wish they would have been better, since I absolutely loved the concept of the game.
Sadly, it seems the general opinion is that the first episode (this one is the second, see) was better in terms of puzzles, and just as long in gameplay. This worries me that perhaps the developer isn't committed enough to want to make the potential third episode longer and/or doesn't have good ideas for the puzzles, leaving less hope for some day getting a better version of the same idea.

While We Were Here Too did good for not sticking to some existing game formula, it's not quite memorable enough to make my list. Either better puzzles or more hours of gameplay might have helped, but its uniqueness alone isn't sufficient. I wouldn't recommend playing with someone random (not that you could, since the servers are empty), but if you have a friend who would accompany you on this journey, then I believe it's worth the few hours it takes to gain this unique experience.

I'm back! I hope...

It's been far too long, even by my estimates. I thought I'd be back by New Year's, at the latest, but it took another month on top of that. But it's done - the semester is over, and I can finally rest, even if it is just one week until the next one begins. But the next one won't be as bad as the last one, it just can't be. Sure, I have the huge task of writing my thesis, but I also have a lot of time set aside for it, so that should be fine. All of the other courses are a bit boring in comparison to the last semester, but no projects means no huge time sinks, so I should be fine.

Truth be told, I haven't really finished the big games that kept me busy back when I left, but I can at least work on getting through them now, instead of just letting them sit. This means that I won't get right back at it with full steam, but more of a slow start, at least from an external perspective. I do, however, already have a review in store for later today.

I've caught back up with all the games releasing (never mind catching up with playing them though), but I haven't tallied the counts in a long while. I'm almost afraid to see what has happened, but here's the latest report:

• Games in backlog: 264 (+36) (Oh lawd, these numbers...)
• of which Early Access: 60 (+6)
• Games reviewed last week: 1

Yet another break

There's always a time period during which stuff is kind of not going as you want it to go, but you're not sure if you can still manage or not.
Well that time period is over now. I have reached the conclusion that... no, I can not manage.
I 100% blame my university and how they put an unacceptable amount of work into this semester that is not backed by any course points, meaning that aside from the coursework that I had planned for myself for this semester (which was already quite a lot), they gave extra, mandatory, and unforeseen work.
The result is that I have to work for 60-80 hours each week, which would be ridiculous (also unpaid, since I'm not getting anything from this aside from not getting tossed out) overtime, were we looking at this in a job's context instead.

What that means for this place, is that I simply don't have time for it anymore. I will return when, through some miracle or through doubling down on doing stuff, forsaking all my free time, I once again have time to not deal with schoolwork. New year's, maybe.

End-of-week Report

[Last week's report is still relevant. This is all I have time for.]

End-of-week Report

I'm just trying to think of a witty joke to conceal my time-shortage related stress right now. New games? Yeah, someday. For now, two software projects and preparation for writing my thesis next semester, as well as other sprinkled bits of work. Deliver me from this, please.

The games aren't relenting either, still growing in number. I'm contemplating some lapses on judgement on my part these past weeks on what I've been adding, but... Screw it. I can't find it in myself to care at this point in time. This shall be my future self's problem. Have a report.

• Games in backlog: 228 (+6)
• of which Early Access: 54 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

Still playing Crusader Kings II, which takes as much time as any of the other micromanagement games like Dwarf Fortress or Factorio. Aside from the obvious (school), it is mostly the reason why I haven't played many new games lately, and also the reason why I try to avoid games of such length until I've mostly caught up with everything else. However, it's fun, and... I'm not going to give that up. I'll just finish this one game (which is a gigantic task), then probably not play for a while as I tackle other games.
I've also nearly finished my almost-biannual Terraria playthrough after about 4 months of very irregular play. Always feels nice to finish a long game. And then there was that random review this week, so it's not all dead.

Meanwhile, my Steam Wishlist finally passed 300 titles, so that's worrying for me. I'm contemplating a purge of 50+ games, but then again, just looking through them all again would take a long while that could be spent on playing them, so I don't know. Maybe a bit later.

• Games in backlog: 222 (+4)
• of which Early Access: 55 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 1

Never Split the Party

Never Split the Party caught my eye and skipped in line due to being free, and being multiplayer. My friends and I are always burning through games we can (and might want to) play together faster than they come out, so any half-decent opportunity is worth jumping on.

Sadly, the opportunity was the only half-decent thing here. The game itself tries to be a copy of The Binding of Isaac, except they kind of butchered all aspects of it and it's a buggy mess. But as I already mentioned, it's multiplayer, and it's free, except for most character classes which cost nigh 20€. Absurd, really.

In case my bashing hasn't been clear enough, don't even take a look this game's way. If you wanted a multiplayer Binding of Isaac, then you'll have more fun playing that simultaneously on different computers and talking about your experience than you will playing this game.

End-of-week Report

I have severely underestimated the amount of work I've had to do. It's usually the end of a semester that robs me of all my time, not the beginning. At least unlike with my games, there's a constant feeling of progress. I just hope it's actually faster than the amount of new work being piled on. Life comes first, but I'll try to find time to continue with my games.
Have a report that has lost its former glory, being reduced to 3 lines.

• Games in backlog: 218 (+4)
• of which Early Access: 54
• Games reviewed last week: 0

End-of-week Report

The blame this week goes to: Crusader Kings II, Tales of Berseria, Mabinogi, and the continuing start of my school semester.
At least the first of those got a review, so it wasn't an empty week. Surprisingly, no new additions to the backlog this week.

• Games in backlog: 214
• of which Early Access: 54
• Games reviewed last week: 1

Crusader Kings II

I'm a bit hesitant on how I feel about Crusader Kings II. I actually only decided to play it because I acquired it for free during one of their promotions and because of all the stories I've heard about the game. It's a bit legendary, you see, yet the Steam reviews don't really reflect that, and neither did my initial impression of it through looking at its gameplay and descriptions. And if you were to ask for my honest, in a way, opinion, I'd still have to agree with that. But after binging it for more than 12 hours on some days, how can I really walk away and say I didn't enjoy it and that it's not a good game?

Crusader Kings II is one of Paradox's Grand Strategy games. They're really a genre of their own. I would say they're most similar to Turn-Based Strategy games in that your main focus is on building up these cities (counties), keeping control of them, and using your armies to conquer more for yourself. Crusader Kings isn't really turn-based though - the simulation is always running, albeit slowly or even on pause whenever you want in singleplayer.
However, a big difference is that ultimately, this game is not about your counties and your armies, and how well they're doing. It's about you, as the ruler. And unlike other strategy games, you're just a human with all your human problems you need to take care of, and so are your subjects. Ruling too much land by yourself? You'll have trouble administrating it, meaning less taxes, and fewer armies. Divide your land up into pieces to give to your vassals? Better hope they're content with your rule, or they'll plot to rebel against you. Own a large kingdom but are about to succumb to disease or old age? Watch as your land gets divided amongst your children and your unhappy vassals use the opportunity to claim independence from you. And there's just so much more.

Ultimately, most of these differences from a regular TBS (or a 4X, to be more precise) are that things are more difficult. A large domain and a powerful army will never guarantee your success, and in the long run, nothing will. Rise and fall, and rise again, but so will your enemies. Some, myself included, would consider this lack of control and these restraints which seek to pull you from power ever stronger as you achieve more of it to be terrible. Why am I even playing and trying to grow larger if I can't truly win, or if I can ever only control a tiny speck of this land I own?
The latter was what frustrated me in Stellaris as well, which is considered to be like a halfway point between a Grand Strategy and a 4X game. You may recall I didn't ultimately like Stellaris, and although with different wording, I criticized this same uncertainty of it, where its gameplay can't quite decide where to fit. I approached CK2 with the same mindset, and I believe that's where I went wrong. CK2 is not a 4X game, and it shouldn't be played like one. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey there, and those same amazing little stories you can tell after your long playing sessions.

Overall, I can't deny I've enjoyed playing Crusader Kings after I got over the initial steep learning curve and past the 4X mindset of absolute control and conquest. Still, it's far from a great game in my opinion with lots of flaws, which would take too long to point out. The game's pretty massive with lots to do, and it's an experience you can't quite get anywhere else (aside from perhaps Paradox's other Grand Strategy games). And despite its flaws, I love this experience and would in fact recommend playing it if you have a ton of time to spend.

End-of-week Report

I wasn't expecting to have time for anything on the first week of school. The beginning and the end are always a little hectic.

Tales of Berseria might actually be starting to reach it's conclusion after the 48 hours I've already played it. I'm not sure how much more of it I can take. They've really stretched it out, and there's not much interesting to do. I hope it ends soon, or I might just quit that one too...

• Games in backlog: 214
• of which Early Access: 54
• Games reviewed last week: 0

Regarding tracking visual novels and VR games in the report:
See, I can't play VR games, even if I roll them.
As for VNs... Well, Steam isn't the best place to gauge how good they may be. Steam's good for regular games, also because there is no other place which actually has all this user review info on all these games. Visual novels however have VNDB, which provides much better results, because the ratings there are by people who are much more into VNs, and are better judges of them because of it. So while I do keep my Steam list of VNs, I actually scout new ones out on VNDB, making the number of VNs on my list mostly irrelevant.
So, this is why I'm excluding them from now on. Less information to keep track of this way, which makes for less interesting data, but it's probably for the best. Truth be told, should the games ever run out, I'm doing away with that report altogether. But we've still got a ways to go until that happens.

End-of-week Report

Busy week this one, actually.

For starters, I played Vermintide 2 over the free weekend it had. Basically, it's an all-around improved version of Left 4 Dead 2. It is so incredibly similar, I wonder how they got away with it. In that sense, there is nothing wrong with the game, but the negative reviews apparently come from broken promises on the devs' part, and because the players wanted more than what they got. Objectively speaking, Left 4 Dead 2 has great reviews, and this one is most definitely a better game, and would by that logic deserve better reviews, but sadly, it's not how the world works. I've never been a fan of the genre though, and this game was never on my list, hence the not-full-review. It was still fun for the 2 days and dozen-or-so hours I played it, but that's that.

Additionally, I read through Phenomeno one night. It was supposedly the best Visual Novel that was under 2 hours, which is why I picked it. (Not that I have any clue how they rate the times - it always takes me twice as long to finish them.) I'd say it was a good but not great horror story. Surprised and fooled me at times, and never used any dumb cliches like jump scares, instead properly developing the eerie atmosphere. Still, it had some moments in the story that just didn't add up, which hurt the whole in many aspects. On the upside, it's free. On the downside, it's fan-translated (a few small mistakes every paragraph, but it's still completely understandable at all times), and is only an adaption of the first of the six light novels it is based on, leaving the story unfinished. There is no English translation available for the LNs either, so I guess I won't ever get to read them.

Well, that was a bit long for just a "passing mention".
Anyways, my last year of school is beginning tomorrow. Not at all satisfied with my progress over the summer, but at least I can see where and why my time went. I don't think it's a lost cause ever getting this pile of games over with, I just have to do it at some point. As someone once told me: There's never time to do anything. Not today, not tomorrow, and not in a week or a month. That's why you just have to do that thing.
I guess it's a bit ambiguous, but what I gathered from it is that this lack of time is just an ever-present feeling. No matter how much or little you fit in your schedule, you'll always feel out of time, but if you just don't think about whether you have time do something and do it, you can get it done. Realistically speaking, of course you have a limited amount of time, but what I just said comes from that very few people are actually out of time. They still have time to do more, but if they start thinking about it, they won't find that time.
So I'm confident that if I really want, I can complete this pile of games. But it's still easier said than done. I mean just look at these numbers:

• Games in backlog: 283
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 53 (+2 - I'm really not even playing these from my list, maybe I should exclude them from the report along with VR, would make for more realistic numbers...)
• of which Early Access: 61 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 3-ish

PS. I also hammered together some CSS to make embedding images prettier, mostly on my side. The defaults really make we want to dive in there and just rip some of that stuff out, but I know that would take too long to be worth it.

Bytepath

Bytepath is basically a game of Asteroids on steroids. The premise is mostly the same in that various stuff flies in from the edges of the screen, and you got to shoot and/or dodge that stuff. What sets Bytepath apart though, is it's insane upgrade system. There's several different ships, a few dozen classes, and several hundred passive skill nodes in the form of a Path of Exile skill tree, which it most definitely did rip off, but that's not a bad thing.
These upgrade systems allow for many different paths, allowing you to come up with your own unique way of beating the game. It's quite satisfying to see the synergies between the upgrades play out, and the entire thing is like an incremental game.

Now, what is bad, is that the game kind of fails to do anything with this potential. In fact, just as I'm about to reach the point where I'm just getting these ridiculous(ly fun) synergies up, I also reach the point where I beat the game. You can start over with even more increased power, but there's no real point.
Basically, you need to get to level 40 to win, up to which point the difficulty ramps up at a balanced pace. After that, the game quickly throws everything else it has at you, and if your build is good enough to survive that, you might as well keep playing forever. (Picture related.) I found out I could get to the point where I basically get invincibility off of killing enemies, and that invincibility lasted longer than it took to get it. Couple it with an ever increasing attack speed buff from kills, and I was all set to play until I get bored of gaining points. (As you can see, the points left the screen, my combo counter is over 10000, giving me over 1000% extra attack speed. I'm also at level 100, which is far past the final level of 40.)

Overall, I had fun playing it, but it quickly exhausts itself due to the lack of things to do. In less than an hour, Bytepath becomes a game of just mindlessly holding down buttons, watching as everything before you dies. You stop caring for enemy types and pickups, and you don't really get to feel the potential of this bullet-spewing monstrosity you've created. I would've loved a bigger map, maybe some bosses, and it could have really shined if it actually added a game to the upgrade simulator. But as it stands, it won't make my list. A partial recommendation only - if you want something to do for an hour or two.

PS. This actually opened up my eyes to why Path of Exile might be more fun then I've given it credit for. I haven't looked at it enough from the perspective of it being an upgrade simulator instead of an ARPG.

Music Racer

Sometimes I wonder if I should even post about the bad games I find. And I don't mean just game I didn't enjoy enough, because that's most all of the content here, I mean actually bad games.
Music Racer is someone's attempt at Audiosurf, except I don't think they ever quite hit the point of having at least all the same features in it, let alone any improvements. Curious why I even added this game to my list, since I'm not a big fan of listening to music of my own choice for the sole purpose of playing along to it. That's all this game is, see. The comparisons to Audiosurf are all well and accurate, and this is basically a downgrade on all accounts. I've nothing to say. No use even considering this.

End-of-week Report

Oh boy, Overwatch and Star Citizen free weekends.
I last tried Overwatch during its open beta, and I can say nothing noteworthy has changed. I can of course not deny that it is a well made game and deserves its popularity, but on a personal level, if I wanted to play a shooter, I'd play a regular one without all the twitch-based gameplay, and if I wanted to play a team-based ability spam game, I'd turn to a traditional MOBA. Hence, I've no motivation to play it. This is as close to a review as you're going to get from me.

As for Star Citizen, it is a game about the future, for the future. Even after 200 million dollars and several years of development time, it still seems a long ways off from being a coherent, playable thing. I must say that what they do have so far is very impressive, and if a game of this quality would release in full, it would be absolutely astonishing, but it hasn't yet, so it isn't yet.
It also still has numerous bugs, the user experience is often clunky, and most importantly of all, it's a game for the future, because computers of this age can not run it. With 16GB of RAM, the best last gen i5 CPU, a GTX 960, and a well-optimized computer, this thing is pulling around 20 fps with up to a second lag spikes every ten-or-so seconds. And that's on the absolute lowest settings. Barely playable. If I had to recommend specs? 32GB of RAM, newest generation i7 or better, along with at least a GTX 1070, and all 50-100GB of it installed on an SSD.
But I am most definitely looking forward to playing it in 5 years or so. What they're doing is really impressive. They just have to hope nothing comes along and makes a similar thing faster and releases before them.

Well, that was a fun double mini-review. Onto the regular report.

• Games in backlog: 283 (+4)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 51 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 60 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2-ish

Age of Wonders III

Age of Wonders III, like most 4X games, isn't really the kind you can complete entirely, since you're supposed to just keep starting over until you don't feel like playing anymore. Of course, if you like the game, who knows how long into it that will happen. I would never get around to telling you my thoughts on it at that rate. So instead, I played a little bit of the campaign, won a couple scenarios, and am now ready to impart my gained knowledge.

Hoping you'd know what a 4X game is, I'd jump straight to comparing Age of Wonders with some others of the genre.

• Inevitably, I can not leave out Civilization V, it being the most well-known of them. And as usual, the main difference I would point out is that Age of Wonders focuses a lot more heavily on combat. Not any more heavily than most strategy games of the turn-based nature, mind you, but rather it's Civ that's the odd one out.
• The other large difference, and this time from all others that I know, is that Age of Wonders plays a lot quicker. There's approximately just as much action going on in a single turn, but 40-turn games are entirely feasible, while even the longest ones probably wouldn't pass 200 turns. That is of course assuming all the players are not prolongening it on purpose. I find this a really nice aspect of the game, as it actually allows for games to be completed in a single sitting, or just a few, instead of dragging on for weeks or months. Not that I don't like long games, it's just that it's great to have a shorter option available.
• As a moderate difference, Age of Wonders has fairly complicated units and battle interactions. The battles are played out on a hex grid, and instead of the usual attack, defense, and whether the unit is ranged, each unit instead has it's own set of abilities, and a "character sheet" consisting of potentially dozens of different traits that further shape it.
• There is a rather extensive magic system, which allows for major influence over the world through its use. Terraforming, summons, offensive and defensive spells, and more.
• As for downsides, I find town customization options are heavily limited and boring. There's very few buildings, and their effects are very simplistic.
• Additionally, there is no tech tree in the game, which I believe is a contributor to the fast pacing. Town upgrades and spells dictate how powerful your units can be, and both can get to end-game levels fairly quickly, while skipping lots of lower level stuff.
• And finally, though this would need more playtime from me to confirm, I have a feeling like the balance is slightly off.

Overall, a simpler and faster 4X TBS game than most, but it definitely has a spot on my list for still being pretty good, as well as filling a sort of gap in the genre. Would recommend.

End-of-week Report

Slow progress, and I feel like there's a bunch of games that are nearing completion, but just aren't getting there for one reason or another. When talking multiplayer, I completely blame my friends' apparent reluctance to finish anything. Play it until just before the end, then quit. Baffling.
Have the latest report...

• Games in backlog: 279 (-1)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 50
• of which Early Access: 61 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2

Delver

Delver is like Minecraft. Except it doesn't have mining. Or crafting. I guess it only has the blocky, pixely world with the same kind of first person camera and is, coincidentally, made in Java. (Which, by no coincidence this time, also creates technical problems for the game.) Anyways, it's not a very good comparison, but I'm just feeling tired this time around.

See, Delver's a roguelike instead, and this time rather close to the formula. True permadeath, lots of mystery surrounding the world the first time around, and other stuff, I'm sure. I don't know, I don't have much to say. It's not very fun. It's short, poorly utilizes the height dimension to the point where the bugs (like bad hitboxes) caused by it outweigh any benefits it may bring. That is, except for the nice graphics. I think it does the blocky art style pretty well, especially once you consider the particles and lighting. But the controls were no good, there wasn't much content, and whatever mystery it held for the first 15-30 minutes quickly wore off.
I'll be honest, maybe I should actually be feeling like playing a new game when I do, but I think I wouldn't have thought much better of it anyways. So that's that - it's no good.

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile

Would you look at that, it's The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile - a game from the makers of Salt and Sanctuary. The former was published on Steam a year later (along with Charlie Murder), probably due to the resounding success of Salt and Sanctuary, but it's actually a game from 2011. Overall, not that old, but still worth noting that it came out quite a few years before their big success.

I am immediately reminded of the hyper-violence games I used to play on Kongregate and Newgrounds. Back then, I had no clue what I was doing, mostly just mashing buttons, following a rather linear path to wherever the game guided me. I might have thought that this was just due to being a kid, and not being all that bright at the time, but looking at this game, there really isn't much of an indicator as to what the grander goal is. The camera is zoomed in real close, I'm given no feedback on how much damage I might be doing, how much I might need to do, or what might be triggering the various things that are happening. Luckily if I button mash with just a little bit of sense, I can get through it all while still feeling pretty good about myself due to the visual effects the game gives me.

Sadly, I can't say it's very fun to mash buttons and effortlessly kill stuff. This game does just feel a bit gratuitous, and I'm not a big fan of that. It doesn't feel like it does anything more than the free games I got to play 10 years ago, though, yes, I would be comparing it to the best ones of that time, and further, I can't even say I didn't have fun.

Difficult verdict to place here, but I'm afraid it just isn't good enough for my list. However, if you have a few hours to kill and feel like playing something violent, this isn't at all a bad pick. Play it, maybe have some fun, but don't expect too much.

End-of-week Report

Ludum Dare is this weekend, so I have been doing that and will continue tomorrow. Honestly, I understand less and less each year why I'm still taking part in it. It was a really helpful experience the first couple times, but each next time I'm just even more dissatisfied with both the journey and the destination. Maybe solo it would work, but there's just no such thing as an unified vision as a team. If the person whose idea is being made is not a strong leader, everyone else will either suffer or make others suffer due to misaligned goals.
But enough bitter rambling, have a report. Last 3 weeks to go before school begins again. Got to make the most of it.

• Games in backlog: 280
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 50
• of which Early Access: 60 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2

Superflight

Superflight is almost in Steam's top 100 in terms of user reviews at the time of writing, so I expected it to be a fun game. It's a game about gliding in a wingsuit or some such through randomly generated short, blocky, and colorful levels. Gain points for flying close to walls or through loops, stay alive for as long as you can, and get a high score.

Honestly, the gliding thing wasn't half-bad... for the first 10 minutes, but after that, I'm not really sure what to look for in this game. I guess you could practice and get good at flying through lots of tiny holes and near all sorts of walls, but that's such a simplistic thing to get good at - there really are no other features in the game. What's more, if you're going for a high score, just don't take any risks. Fly for hours, days even, taking no risks, and you'll get the top score. Except you obviously don't want to play that long.

I'm really just disappointed in such a highly rated game, but I guess the tranquility factor in this game was appealing to a lot of people. Personally, I don't see it at all, and would confidently suggest staying away.

Space Between Worlds

I happened upon this little free game recently, and something about it captured my attention that I wanted to play right away. I'm glad I did. It's a 10 minute long emotional experience, with basically no graphics nor much gameplay, but it really reminds me of the good times I had playing free Flash games back in the day. It's just the same style.
I'd recommend taking 10 minutes out of your day and playing it, there's really not much to lose.

End-of-week Report

Chugging along, doing things, writing this way too late in the evening...
Can't really think of anything to say, so just have the progress report.

Oh yeah, I missed the goal I set for myself by like 30 games. As we can see from the past 30 days, I'm clearly not going to reach an average of 1 game more played than added per day by the end of this month either. But I have to get through these games somehow. What to do, what to do...

• Games in backlog: 280 (-2)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 50 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 61 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2

PS. Finished watching Trigun. It was okay I guess. Couldn't quite relate.

Shift Quantum

Small world out there. I found Shift Quantum on the Steam store the other day, and I can only assume it's the same folks who made the various Shift games in Flash back in the day. Fun little games, pretty good for being free and what was available at the time. They also made Epistory as it turns out, which I rather liked. Always good to see developers whose games I played all those years ago still there, still making games.

Shift is a puzzle game where you have to traverse a level via platforming. The twist? You can press shift to Shift, which turns everything inside out. What's up is now down, and what's solid is now not. This creates a whole bunch of new possibilities when combined with the other mechanics, such as pushing blocks, collecting stuff to open/move doors/platforms, and even changing the direction of gravity. It's not a very complicated mechanic, but it creates ways to think outside the box, like Portal, except not quite such a stroke of gold.

Quantum doesn't really deliver much anything new except for nicer graphics and sounds, and a bit more gameplay. Overall though, it's still too short for my liking and nothing that great as a game. Good for a free Flash game, not good enough for a paid game. But if you've never played Shift before and like non-standard puzzlers, it might be worth trying out, even if just the Flash versions while they're still available.

Siralim 2

Siralim 2 is a dungeon-crawler based on randomness and quantity. Basically, what has been done is that hundreds of monsters, items, spells, and other such bits have been created, most have been given some forms of random enhancements and allow for combinations between them to create a near-infinite amount of combinations. Throw these things into dungeons, allow the player the capture and find them, then create challenges that the player has to try to overcome by assembling a proper team.
And this sounds real fine on paper for me. I'm a huge fan of generated content, combinations and synergies, and the emergent gameplay that could and should arise from that. However, I found my time with it to be incredibly tedious.

I'd like to start off with criticizing the control scheme and looks of the game. Rather uncharacteristic of me, as I absolutely love, for example, Dwarf Fortress, which is rather guilty of both of these things.
An easy problem to see is that the game is played with just 6 keys - WASD, select, and back. While it means there's no difficulty in learning the controls, it's quite hindering to get around the menus. And this game requires a metric ton of navigating menus. Mouse selection or keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking S 10 times followed by W 10 times soon afterwards would be really, really nice. if you're going for a keyboard-only control scheme, make it very well optimized. This one is not.
As for the graphics, they're simply charring. While that doesn't really hurt the gameplay, I just dislike looking at them most of the time. I wouldn't complain about graphics that aren't good and don't try to be, but I do complain if they're trying to be more than the author was capable of. Also there's recurring problems with the pixels getting very un-square if any of the viewport settings are just slightly off the default. It's hard to explain, but it looks really bad.

As for the gameplay, I find it to be too much of a grindfest. The huge amount of randomization is good for keeping things somewhat fresh for however long you want to play, or for collection enthusiasts, so if you've got 1000 hours to burn, and just want to do something, it can be a nice time waster. However, if you're like me and desire quality over quantity, then all this nigh-infinite content doesn't matter, since it's not enjoyable enough.
You're allowed to advance at your own pace for the most part, but you can't just rush through everything since you're not strong enough. Grind away at lower floors for as long as you want and you should eventually win one way or the other. I personally would prefer the perfectionist approach, where I take my time to explore everything and look through all the possibilities, but the game throws so much stuff at me all the time, that looking through all my spells, all my equipment, all my monsters is infeasible.
And these describe the two alternative paths through which you should be able to play the game, as well as the problems with them. Either grind or think of the right combinations to get really strong. But grinding is boring button mashing, and thinking takes too long, not because it's difficult but because there's too many things.

Overall, this game may very well be enjoyable to those to whom these things do not sound so bad. It's not very popular, but it is quite highly rated on Steam, meaning the few people who play it, like it. But unless you can go look at what the game is and think to yourself that "yes, this is exactly what I've been looking for", it's not going to be enjoyable. For the record, there's also a third game out in Early Access right now. Much like with the first game, it's mostly just more of the same, but with a few differences, as far as I understand. No major revamps to any game systems or graphics.

End-of-week Report

Still busy with Tales of Berseria, and I also started with Age of Wonders III. The latter has been sitting in my library for forever, and it's surprisingly good. I regret not playing it earlier.
There's always a small problem with posting a review for non-ending games that I don't quit. That's because I always post a review when I either finish or quit, but if I do neither, I should post it at some optimal point between when I've played the most, yet the game hasn't become overly familiar yet.
I'm 20 hours in so far, but I feel like I'd want to play different races, maybe something that isn't the campaign... Explore as many different possibilities as I can.

Anyway, onto the report. The number of games is miraculously still going up. I think this is a sign that I need to just cull a whole bunch without playing them. Maybe if when I reach 300, how about that?

• Games in backlog: 282 (+3)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 49 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 62 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2
• Games to end-of-month goal: 32 (10.7/day)