Report #15: June 2021
Yes, a bit early with the report this time around, but I’m not likely to finish any more games this month, so why not get this post done quickly. I recently won The Walking Dead: The Final Season on SG and wanted to play it without too much delay. I still had the preceding season to finish and so played these two pretty much back-to-back. While they were both pretty good, I can safely say that I’m a bit Telltale’d out for now. I thought the writing generally improved over the last few seasons, especially with dropping the trademark choose-who-dies moments. The achievement of the series is Clementine’s development arc, which is a coming-of-age story that video games rarely try to dip into.
The third game I finished this month (today, actually) was Hiveswap, Act I, and I must reluctantly admit that I don’t get the praise it’s been given. Going in, I wasn’t at all familiar with the web comic or the Kickstarter drive - I just saw a short, cutesy adventure with Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. Having now played it, I didn’t much care for the characters, the story, the jokes, or the puzzles - I am glad it was short though!
I’ve also started putting some modest time into some endless games, in the hope that I will be able to close them out later on this year. July and August tend to be the worst months for gaming, though, so those are longer-term goals, but I’m still trying to stay on track with one SG win finished every month. Let’s meet up here again by the end of July and see how things went, shall we?
Beaten or Completed
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The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
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The Walking Dead: The Final Season
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HIVESWAP: ACT 1
Chipping Away
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Everything
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Planet Coaster
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PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
For Consideration, July
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Catherine Classic
I find it much easier to read through the monthly posts when they’re stretched out over a few days, so I’m all for posting a few days early!
At least Hiveswap wasn’t too long! Sometimes overly hyped games just don’t work for me as well, I think maybe it’s the hivemind that’s controlling all those positive reviews…like, you don’t want to be the one guy giving a negative (or mediocre) review when everyone’s praising the game to heaven…
How do you like Everything? I never know what to make of this game, but I’m not intrigued enough to try it out myself.
Certain niche games tend to attract mostly its intended audience, the people who will ‘get it’ and are more likely to enjoy it. Maybe this was a case where most buyers already knew and appreciated the comic? I dunno.
Everything is a bit of a strange bird, not really a game at all. It’s more a surrealist experience that explores relationships between the things of the world and how we view them. Most gamers would probably respond with “That’s not for me” and move on with their backlogs, but if you find that sort of thing interesting you might find it worthwhile. It also has a lovely self-playing feature, so that you can leave it to play itself while you go and, say, read a book or something. I wish more titles did that.
Ah, the self playing feature sounds interesting, but apart from that, I guess I’ll make no effort to get the game. Thanks for the reply!