Year 2021 | Issue #1-2
January-February Report
______________________________________A Tale of New Starts, ABC, and Surprises.
Hey everybody, how are you?
First report for 2021! I hope this year will be great. From the entertainment point of view, I was quite satisfied with a couple of thing I watched and played. In the first couple weeks of the year I binge watched The Good Place, a funny and “elegant” fantasy sitcom, and I pretty enjoyed it, some of the characters are just amazingly funny to me.
From the gaming point of view, I decided to face the ABC challenge, even if I didn’t find precise rules for it. I just made a list with 26 games, each starting with a different letter (X is missing, shame on me!) and I will try to beat them all, this year. Yay!
I played some good, and some less good games. The month started with Reventure, and after that of course any game would be a step back. This was just so funny! Then I faced the good HOG trilogy of the Nightmares from the deep, I had a sudden need for that kind of games, and I was not disappointed. The I felt like playing some bigger stuff, so I went back to my youth with Jurassic World Evolution, it’s always nice having a T-Rex eat some people XD Many other hours sank in making stuff explode - and not much more, actually - in Just Cause 3 XXL, a game not equipped with a rich story, but enjoyable enough to be played for some hours, even if it started being totally repetitive before long. And to conclude, back to some smaller games: some relax with the adventures of the elephant Yono, a couple of minutes to understand that Turbo Pug DX wasn’t even worth the time spent to play it, and a strange indie experience named The Hex, quite interesting indeed.
* as shown by GOG Galaxy 2.0
Jurassic World Evolution
A nice game to create your own Jurassic Park! Not very hard, and pretty limited (aka absent) customization of the park when compared to 20 year old RCT games, but you have dinosaurs! :D
Played on Epic.
Yono and the Celestial Elephants
Funny, cute game with some easy puzzles and a simple story. Clearly made for kids. The volumes and interactions with the world are sometimes clunky.
Played on Amazon.
The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
Super short, kids focused, investigation. You just talk to all the 6 people on the island, and the case is solved. There's also some funny humour.
Played on Steam.
Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard
Super short, kids focused, investigation. You just talk to all the 6 people in the city (twice), and the case is solved. There's also some funny humour. A little improvement to the previous chapter.
Played on Steam.
Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren's Call
A great improvement to the previous chapter. The story is pretty interesting, the mechanics are more or less the same for this HOG, the visual quality is improved.
Played on Steam.
Nightmares from the Deep 3: Davy Jones
The conclusion of the trilogy. Somewhat worse than the previous chapter. The story wasn't at the same level, and also the quality of the puzzles was lower.
Played on Steam.
This is a strange thing. I don't even know how to categorize it. Various characters, various sub-stories, various sub-games of different genre, all linked together in the end to contribute to the same story, and to solve the mystery surrounding a night at the inn. An interesting experience.
Played on Steam.
Meh. Controls are not super precise, the game looks a lot unpolished. Of course it's nearly free; but still, I don't think it's worth the time invested in playing it.
Played on Steam.
January 2021:
One! And such a great one, I should say.
This was such a great, "troll" twist on the classic "hero saves the princess from evil lord" genre! The pixel art was awesome, and the mechanics were just so perfectly designed and balanced. The humour was just amazing. This is one of the not many games where I felt compelled to explore all the possible outcomes.
Played on Steam.
February 2021: Groundhog Day
Not this time.
January 2021: Veni, Vidi, Wiki!
I had a sudden need for HOGs.
A nice HOG, with an entertaining story and setting with pirates and ghosts. The puzzles are usually quite simple. The main drawback are the horribly low quality cutscenes.
Played on Steam.
February 2021: Never Gonna Give You Up
Funny theme, nice game.
Aim of the game: make everything explode! Then again! And again! Graphics and gameplay are enjoyable. Game is fun for the first 15 hours, then it gets more and more repetitive. Due to a story that is not much varied, also.
Played on Steam.
March is marchin on.
Won Reventure, and this is really fun. While there is some minor “oh, these last few are going to be hell to find” dread already after just 27 endings, I am still enjoying both my sucesses and my failures.
I really should get back to completing (possibly restarting, since I started with a busted monitor and I guess I missed some secret collectibles as a result) NotD1 and then do the rest of the trilogy.
Totally one of my best gaming experiences, Reventure :D
And yeah, the Nightmares from the Deep trilogy is a nice HOG story, when you’re in the right mood for that kind of games.
I’m still sad that The Good Place ended ;__;
Honestly I appreciated the fact that they had enough courage to stop after 4 seasons, without making it longer with useless fillers just to earn some more money. Indeed it was a good experience!
Don’t take me wrong, I completely agree. I just don’t rewatch shows so seeing it end was a bit of a sad experience for me because I enjoyed it so much ahah
I can feel it actually, I cried with the last episode of Scrubs :D
Oh, no, now I’m scared! I’m watching that for the first time and I’m in the middle of Season 6 :o
You’ll love it till the end <3
Of course the real end, of Season 8. Season 9 doesn’t exist.
Oh, no, now I’m double scared! Guess I’ll lower my expectations for that non-existent season 9.