Still alive, still gaming

Well, for a year that was defined by people sitting at home I didn’t do that much gaming. Well, to be fair. I actually played a lot. It just wasn’t that much difference stuff. Also, I live with the fairly lucky situation that I could do my job more or less without any changes (outside of meetings) and we had not shortage of work as well. So let’s get to the bit of gaming I did.

• Don't Escape Trilogy
  

  5 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• DreadOut 2
  

  13 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• Left 4 Dead 2
  

  266 hours playtime

  101 of 101 achievements

• Mages of Mystralia
  

  19 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

• Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove
  

  81 hours playtime

  138 of 138 achievements

• The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
  

  7 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

Don’t Escape Trilogy: Only bought this because I saw part 4 and thought it might be an idea to try out the earlier version. It is - as the name implies - a collection of three games all fairly short and different enough with their own unique short story. In all cases the goal is to avoid escaping. And all games are basically point & click, collecting stuff and applying it at the correct place. In the first game you are finding yourself in a hut and have to seal it and yourself from the inside so you don’t break out at night when you do …… stuff. So it is a direct subversion of the Escape Room games. The second game is what I assume to be the closest one to part 4, a ressource management game (time) where you have to decided where to go in which order to scavenge stuff and to shut in yourself to avoid the coming zombie onslaught. Last game is on a Space Station where you have to find out what happened and how to get rid of the “unwanted passenger”. It gets the closest to an eerie feeling of the three. Overall, the games are not to complex and achievements can be figured out alone without relying on guides. A nice diversion and I think I have a better understanding on what would expect me if I buy or trade for the last part.

DreadOut 2: After the mixed reviews in the beginning, I gave in and bought the game anyway. Mainly because review score is not always an indication and because I played both prequels, know about their issues and still liked them very much. And I wanted to see how the story goes on for Linda. The developers wanted to go on for a more open world feeling, mixed with the same more linear design we have seen in DreadOut. Overall, the game keeps it main gimmick of “fighting” ghosts with the camera, supported by levels with a new melee fight system now. Perspective is hereby switching from third person (most of the time) to first person (using camera). The fighting - both with camera and melee - is still plagued by the same problems than DreadOut. Inability to avoid certain hits and potentially being stunlocked. Add to this a story which doesn’t bother to explain itself in all details and you have an understanding for the mixed reviews. Although, the story telling got slightly more direct than its predecessors and is overall fairly interesting, even when confusing and partly painful for seeing all the shit being dumped on the main character. Also, DreadOut has an interesting Lore behind and gets the atmosphere for a horror game right. If you played the prequels and liked them, I think you are safe by playing this too.

Left 4 Dead 2: Like other games before I had completed this once. And like other games before, someone thought it was a cool idea to add an update and increase achievements. So I had to go hunt again. Personally, I could have lived without playing Left 4 Dead 2 again, although I have no issues with the update (AFTER 10 YEARS) per se. If you missed all the drama surrounding the update release and the burning forum you can be glad, although it was fairly entertaining how a few upset people tried to paint the image of ALL mankind totally being against the update. The new update (and achievements) center mostly around new & old survival maps and surviving 10 minutes on each of them. Which is …. kinda annoying. Because you need other people for it and they are …. of mixed quality. Sure, you could cheat it. But what’s the point of that? If you like the survival mode I think there is a lot of value in the update. However, I would say that it is a merely niche group. Don’t think I have to explain the gameplay of L4D2.

Mages of Mystralia: Now this is a little gem. I will skip on the story. It is there, it is okay but it is overall neglible. You play a young girl which had to flee from home because she accidently burned something down, because she is a mage. And being a mage is forbidden in the valley since someone had to go crazy before. So you are encountering another mage, who tutors you and from there on you start more or less. The heart and soul of the game is the magic system which you unlock step by step. After finding your very special magic tome, you start with basically four spells, each with its own element. Basically, you have a melee spell, an direct damage spell, an AoE spell and an ego spell for effects on yourself. You then start to unlock runes which you can use to customize your spells. You find movement, and your direct damage fire spell is a fireball. Now you find another rune and you have a homing fireball. Then you find the Copy rune and you have three homing fireballs. Then you can do larger fireballs or increase their spread. And then you learn to use different elements per spell category and then you learn even the combine the spells, allowing you to create large mayhem (until you run out of mana). It is kinda entertaining although most people probably go into the same direction with their spells. But there is a large variety to be discovered. And if you want to make a fire dash, leaving behind a fire copy of yourself which explodes upon being hit, creating a deadly fire rain. Then yea, that is possible as well. Want to create a stone wall which shoots homing iceballs on nearby enemies. Yes, that is possible as well. I’m not sure I have seen a magic system this flexible since Magicka. Long story short. It is fun.

Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove: Shovel Knight should be fairly known as well. It is a platformer game inspired by the Mega Man series were you have to fight a series of evil Knights in order to save the day. Upon winning you gain a new ability from your opponent, giving you more and more weaponry. Main difference to Mega Man is that you have an overworld map which gives you less flexibility for the order you want to face your opponents but introduces non-battle areas, rpg elements and secrets. All in all you get you vivid mix which works very well. This main game is accompanied by four spin-offs which I want go into more detail here. Most of them played a bit different, although there is at least one which is to similar to the first game (level-wise) and playing all games in short succession can also feel a bit like a drag. This is supported by achievements which have a lot of interesting ideas but also those which add on the drag. EACH of the four platformer games has an achievement for completing it, completing it and destroying all save points, completing it and never dying to begin with, completing it in 1:30 hour or less. You can partially combine these runs but you need to do at least two, often three runs of the same game.

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier: Well, after being very sour having played The Walking Dead - Season 2 I wasn’t sure I would continue playing this series. Why? Because there is no hope. I have no issues that Telltale games are strictly linear in their story most time, I loved Tales from the Borderlands. I have an issue though with the Walking Dead and their main motto: There is no hope. So if you are meeting someone in the game you can pretty sure that he will die at one point. The more important he is, the more gruesome the death will be. As such I started the game without trying to not get overly attached to the characters and awaiting them to do stupid stuff. In defense of the game, certain unavoidable scenarios are this time more justified as there is a driving force behind the shit happening. Also, there are actually more people surviving dependent on how you play the game. But yea, there are still horrible decisions by non-player characters which could have easily avoided the death of countless people (I’m looking at you brother!) or some people simply not getting the message and keeping hitting on me.
Overall, I liked this entry a bit better than Season 2. I liked the protagonist and some other characters were portrayed a bit better than in earlier entries. If there is still something which kinda made me mad is that I gave in to easily to the doctor’s “wish” and that I didn’t get the best ending because Clementine trusted me to much!! And that despite me ratting her out TWICE.

And that’s it on completed games. Obviously, I also played more Vermintide 2 (and 100 % Orange Juice for that matter which had a really fair new achievement mechanic added). What I have not mentioned here because I have not completed it (yet) is Baba is you. I just want to name it shortly because it is an amazing puzzle game and has one of the most logical and fairest level design I have seen. There are nearly no red herrings and from looking at the tiles given and the shape of the map, you can figure out the correct answer. Strangely enough, it is also one of the best co-op experiences I ever had. I played with a friend, starting levels, trying stuff out and discussing solutions. Both of us could control the player figure with their respective controller and some random comments from the one lead to solutions the other one already figured out, but didnt know what it was far. A creative game which rewards exploration of possibilities. Currently, there is just one level left for me which I have to complete to progress which is kinda annoying. Haven’t tried it for months. Maybe I’ll get back to it and finally complete this amazing game.

And now back to the old meta-game. What to play next? I still haven’t finished Resident Evil Zero or started the Sunless Sea :P But at least I traded two games from my Shadow Backlog for two other games.

Fire Mage: https://i.imgur.com/W8F9Eyl.mp4
Ice Spell: https://i.imgur.com/O2Q2gws.mp4