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Prey
63 hours playtime
43 of 58 achievements
i actually bought prey along with dishonored 2 directly from steam during a sale (most of my purchases these days are bundles), and chose to play prey first because someone i follow on twitter recommended it. i liked it enough i played it twice — once as a hero and once killing everything in sight.
while the possibility of any object turning into a 4-legged alien spider creature and attacking me didn’t turn out to be all that important for me (the larger, less sneaky forms were more threatening), i definitely got into the world of prey and enjoyed the bits of story as they opened up. there were enough hints (some arrived at through dying) that i saw the ending coming, but that didn’t take away from it. i liked the way it wasn’t entirely clear who to trust: i changed my mind on alex a couple times.
i largely wasn’t interested in the combat but i did enjoy sneaking around and watching. until i didn’t enjoy it anymore because i just wanted to get through . . . so mostly i’d clear an area of enemies so i could run freely. the recycling / fabricating fed into my tendency to collect all the junk i can find and supports use of whatever weapon is your favorite so long as you can recycle enough junk into the raw materials to fabricate its ammunition.
definitely give prey a go. i rarely buy games anymore but i’m glad i bought this one!
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Puzzle Agent 2
3 hours playtime
52 of 52 achievements
i enjoyed the puzzles and quirkiness of the original puzzle agent, so was pretty excited for puzzle agent 2. it delivered exactly what i expected and i picked up all the achievements in my first playthough, just looking up a solution for that one type of puzzle that i’m just not good at. one puzzle was timed and i didn’t figure out how it wanted me to indicate my solutions until too late, but i was able to retry just that one after reaching the end. if you enjoyed the original puzzle agent i definitely recommend puzzle agent 2.
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Brütal Legend
23 hours playtime
23 of 59 achievements
the story in brütal legend was every bit as jack black as i could imagine. i knew going in that the main character was voiced by jack black in story where metal music is a super power, and was pleasantly surprised to recognize some of the other characters as well. the first time i jumped in my car and its radio started playing “metal” by tenacious d i knew i was going to play the entire story. it may have less appeal if you’re not a jack black or metal fan (i rarely choose to listen to metal but definitely appreciate jack black — i only recognized 2 or 3 of the songs in the whole game and there are many).
i completed all the side missions that popped up and they were certainly repetitive, but at least short. the main story missions had more variety and were also more fun because they had more story. overall brütal legend is slightly better than mediocre, but the style kept me coming back. i didn’t bother with seeking out all of the collectibles (but did stop for them when i came across one) and didn’t try the multiplayer.
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Alan Wake's American Nightmare
5 hours playtime
4 of 12 achievements
alan wake’s american nightmare was my first better in the dark game of the season. it’s been a while since i played the first alan wake, but this one definitely didn’t live up to it. while it added the time loop mechanic which was a little interesting, it was almost completely lacking in story and didn’t draw me in much at all. the fighting system felt pretty good with my controller. i wanted to like the other human characters in the game but they weren’t very developed.
even if you were really into the original alan wake i wouldn’t recommend putting any money into alan wake’s american nightmare.
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Torchlight II
26 hours playtime
59 of 119 achievements
i played torchlight ii single player with the engineer class. it takes what was good about torchlight and adds co-op (which i didn’t try) and probably some other stuff that i can’t pick out because the two games blend together in my head. i don’t get into action rpgs all that much, but this one never got tedious. i’m happy to have beaten it and also will be happy to break it out again if i get a chance to play with friends.