Report #64

Tell Me Why is a story focused adventure game, reminding me of Life is Strange in many ways. It was free during the Pride Month. I got it and started playing right away. The first scenes of the game immediately captured me. Beautiful graphics! The game is set in rural Alaska and the landscapes and scenery is just impressive. The soundtrack is well done as well, but pales in comparison to the aesthetics. The gameplay was fine as well, but nothing too special -- which isn't necessary since the game focuses on the story. And the story was interesting and captivating as well. I don't have a lot of points of contact with transsexuality in RL, so it was interesting to take a peek into this and its own set of problems. It was educating to see the insecurities but also prejudices on both sides.

In the end though, I think the game tries to be too many things at once. Is it about transsexuality and the coming out of one of the MCs? Is it a crime story? A family drama? A love story? Choosing to be all of that is a bit detrimental to the game as a whole in my opinion, at least for the medium playtime of about 13 hours.

All in all I can recommend the game, the beautiful Alaskan landscapes are reason enough.

AirLand Battle is not only the name of a NATO doctrine from the 80s but also the name of a military RTS set in the same time. It is the second part of the Wargame trilogy by Eugen Systems. You command a set of armies during a fictional military culmination of the cold war, where the Soviet Union invades Scandinavia. [Disclaimer: Yeah, I thought about whether it's appropriate to play this game during Putin's invasion of the Ukraine…but after all we play games about war all the time, so I think it's hypocritical to stop now -- it's not like there were no wars before.]

It adds to the first part in several ways while remaining the same game at the core. Newly added is a strategic map, where you can move your armies and deploy strategic strikes like air reconnaissance or naval strikes, before attacking an enemy, leading to a tactical skirmish. The tactical skirmishes are largely the same as in European Escalation with the addition of fighter jets. Funnily enough that's the aspect of the game I wasn't able to really get to work for me… The game offers quite a challenge and it took me a while to get used to the gameplay again. It's incredibly hectic and it's super easy to miss a crucial development on some part on the map while you are focused elsewhere. Combined with the often steep difficulty it lead me to rage quit the game on a few occasions.

I don't think this game appeals to everyone, but I can recommend the game, if you know what you are getting into. It depicts very well how the different parts of an army have to work together to achieve victory -- at least if you try to minimize your losses. Tanks are great, but there are many situations where they are useless without infantry support and vice versa. And so on. It also offers a huge variety of different troops and enough different skirmish maps to give you a new challenge again and again. Just be prepared to rage a bit from time to time ;)

Ballads at Midnight is a free VN. I don't have a lot of experience with the genre, so it would be interesting to hear what a VN connoisseur thinks about the game.

I enjoyed the art style of the game and I was intrigued how the story would progress. The protagonists are likeable and the (few) choices really make you think.

However, I have several complaints about the game as well. I did not enjoy the female voice actor, especially her singing. But mainly I had some problems with the writing: Good writing is not achieved just by using pompous words and injecting a descriptive adjective wherever possible. It bothered me greatly. In fact, I'm hesitant to recommend the game. I only give it an average rating because it's free. And somewhat short.