Issue #4
April Report
_____________________________________A Tale of Quarantine, Sandokan, and Stadia.
Ok, second month stuck at home. Trying to do smart working, but I feel pretty bored. Luckily the season is warm, so I take some time to read, open air, sunglasses on… And explore the islands around Mompracem, in the Adventures of Sandokan! I feel 15 years off, reading those books I used to love when I was a child (and still I do!).
Yeah, the fight agains my backlog is going well, this month I reached a milestone: I completed half of the games won on SteamGifts! Of course it’s not that hard, having won just 24 games this far, since I only enter games from my wishlist, and that list is pretty short… But still, it’s a milestone! :D
“Play A Game You Won On SteamGifts” events really help me, this month I was able to play two games fitting the theme, so I’m pretty satisfied… And also one game fitting the BLAEO theme! Even if it was not on Steam, but on Uplay.
And then a new obstacle appeared: Google offered Stadia Pro for free, for two months, with 9 games that can be played. And since one of them looked interesting, and another one was on my wishlist… Well, you know how it ended. It’s an interesting experience, playing a game you don’t have installed on your PC, on streaming: if the internet speeds will grow and be stable in the future, this may be the future of gaming. Today, at least where I live, in certain periods of the day it’s still too hard to get a connection fast and stable enough to play this way in a proper way.
Total Backlog (as shown by GOG Galaxy 2.0)
Steam Backlog
Won on SG
I fell in love with this game. A remaster of an old classic - that I'm too young to know. But this remaster is made in a great way. The art is just lovely: the characters are really well designed, as well as the various enemies and the environment. The music is amazing too, the main theme is carried on in the different lands and dungeons and is always recognizable, and always different. And very pleasant, it gives you the strenght to defeat the monsters :D Thanks to these aspects, I can forgive some technical defects, related to the sometimes slippery movements of the character. It's a nice experience.
Played on Twitch.
In my mind, this is not how HOGs should be. The idea is very nice: talking about a historical event, and telling it through the personal stories of a couple of soldiers, their lives, their letters and so on. But the technical application of this idea is simply awful. Random unrelated stuff from different epochs, and with random dimensions, scattered on a landscape, and with the difficulty due to the bad graphical resolution of the game, make it really hard to get inside the atmosphere of the game. Or even simply to appreciate it.
Played on Steam.
This is a relaxing games, with some inspiration coming from Animal Crossing, I think. You go around this island, talking to ~~people~~ other animals, helping them and getting rewards. You can start digging stuff, fishing, you can play beachstickball... And reach the top of the mountain, that is the final goal of your not-that-short hike. Everybody you meet is gentle and kind, and also the game is gentle, as it doesn't ever get hard, or even challenging. If you need something relaxing for a couple of hours, this could be a nice choice.
Played on Epic.
Not a good HOG game, even if it's far better than the other title focused on the civil war. Still there are random objects of random size. Still the graphic quality is pretty bad. This time, at least, the items are not hard to find just because they're extra small in the far background. The game follows the story of a character on the Titanic, living strange adventures - I don't know why, but that's the way you can put HOG inside that story, so it's ok. But still, there are far better HOGs around, in every aspect.
Played on Steam.
Another nice insight into mythology and folklore: this time they come from an old Russian population. You travel across all the worlds of the living and the dead, and meet the significant spirits that populate them. Not much of a game, of course: some small and pretty easy puzzles are the only gameplay part, the rest is just walking and reading; but still an interesting experience. On top of this, the art is pretty nice.
Played on Steam.
GYLT
This is an exclusive of Google Stadia, created by Tequila Works - I was curious about this game, having really enjoyed one game from this group (The Sexy Brutale). It is indeed an interesting game, with Little Nightmare vibes (or at least I think, I've never played this other title XD). The main character is a schoolgirl, who has to find her disappeared cousin. The location is the school, during the night, populated with monsters. A nightmare atmosphere, well done. Those monsters represent the theme of the game: the phenomenon of bullying at school. So every space, every room changes its appearance in a nightmarish way, and everything makes you think about that problem. On the gameplay side, it is pretty simple, both in "stealth" sequences and "fight" ones; and you are pretty guided towards the places you have to reach, every time. So in conclusion: a good game on an important social theme, but it could have been better.
Played on Google Stadia.
A nice game, from the creators of the great Steamworld Dig games. They tried to do what they had to do: keep the style, but change the game, to avoid repeating themselves forever. They had courage, and the result is indeed good. A classic epic fantasy story, where you create your team, fight enemies to level up and increase your skills, towards the final fight agains the big boss. The combat system is similar to the one of Slay the Spire, thus you have to build your deck of cards and play them during the battle to attack. If you add to this the funny style and sense of humour typical of the Steamworld games, you have a really enjoyable game. Even if the battles, after a while, get pretty repetitive, and always longer. But still... I liked much more Steamworld Dig.
Played on Google Stadia.
TOGETHER-20
I am a single player type of gamer, so I think I will only play games with AI companions. Like Child of Light, where you add companions to your team during the adventure, starting with a firefly.
This is a nice alternative way to tell a fairytale, and it's done in a pretty good way. The story is pretty classic but nice, and sometimes emotional; side quests and characters are not too flat and boring; the music is relaxing, and the art is really pleasant (even if a little too cold, in the colour spectrum). The continuous rhymes in dialogs also increase the sensation of being in a fable. On the other hand, the combat system is not that nice, as battles get (very) long and boring towards the end, even if you will probably never get beaten: there is something unbalanced below.
Played on Uplay.
Happy Easter! Happy Fool's day!
The Chosen Juan returns! This sequel is just like the first one, full of humour, with more of everything. More enemies, more moves, and especially MORE CHICKEN! But there is nothing really new, nothing that could make it memorable. In the end it results in a funny game, but nothing memorable. And some platforming parts are just too hard to be reasonable.
Played on Steam.
Deponia: The Complete Journey
A nice P'n'C adventure, where you play as Rufus: a genius of absurdity. You have to collect stuff, combine it, interact with npcs, to achieve senselessly reasonable effects and reactions, and progress with the story. And usually make something explode. And in the end, you may also save the world. The art is good, the dialogues are funny, the puzzles are often pretty difficult - sometimes overwhelmingly difficult, as the usual logic is pretty perpendicular to Rufus' mind - but in the end, it was a nice adventure.
Played on Steam.
May is coming.
Hey! I like the banner at the start of your posts. Looks very good and made me want to read about your month, especially since I wasn’t sure who Sandokan was anymore. Reading older books can be great, I’m rereading a few books myself at the moment because of the lockdown.
Congratulation on beating 50% of your SG wins. Great feat to achieve.
Thank you! I work to improve my report from one month to another, when I find some time to play with it, so it becomes a little more complete and pleasant, hopefully.
Yeah, Salgari was an italian adventure writer, famous for 2 independent characters he created, Sandokan and The Black Corsair. I associate him with Dumas, Verne, and London in some aspects (yeah, child-time adventure novels), but I don’t think he is really known outside Italy. In Sandokan’s novels he creates pirate adventures around India and Malaysia, set in the mid-nineteenth century (the most fascinating adventures, to me, are usually set in that century). The funny thing is that he never set foot outside Italy, so he got all the info from books and talks - so probably many things are exaggerated, false or impossible, but still exotic and enjoyable.
I always try to read something, but due to work it is not always easy, especially when book are large and heavy to carry with you, like this one. XD
And I have a large backlog also in my book library, I may add it to next month reports, if I will be able to make some progress! :D
I have some recollection of Sandokan, though I’ve never read a novel featuring him, so I don’t know where they are from. And you are right, I don’t think I’ve heard of Salgari before. I guess a lot of those older adventure novels were written by people purely imagining what the world looks like.
I actually managed to beat my book backlog, that’s why I’m stuck with rereading books right now. But bookshops are reopening here now, so I should be able to get new reading material soon. My reading habits vary, there are months where I read a ton and months where I read almost nothing. It’s not always easy for me to find time and tranquillity to read. But it’s definitely a great hobby to have!
Beating your backlog is a great achievement there, too! Unluckily I’m the kind of person that goes shopping in libraries, instead of other kind of shops, and I kept this habit also when I had far less time than before, due to university first, and lab work now… So the backlog increased exponentially! But in the last months I’m trying to prevent myself from buying books, and find time to read on the train, if I’m not too sleepy.
I know they made very very old movies/Tv series on Sandokan, maybe it’s known also from them…
I love shopping for books as well, but I limited myself to only go when I start the last book in my book backlog. Took me some time to adjust to that, but now it works great. I totally get that this is not a solution working for everyone though :) I thankfully don’t have to commute far to work, so my reading mostly takes place before going to bed. But lately I’ve been so tired that I don’t get much reading done before falling asleep :D
Yes, I think I heard about Sandokan from an old TV show. You are probably right!