So i finally summoned enough courage to play Alien: Isolation. This one's been sitting on the shelf for a while..
Let me tell you, i am shocked that this game didn't come out like, last year or something. It is gorgeous

A big part of that gorgeousness is the environment design. Along with lovely lighting and effects, the Sevastopol space station (and docked vessels) are crafted with an amazing attention to detail. Also impressive is that they very much keep to the style of "future tech, as presented by the 70s" - monitors are chunky and monochrome; hacking tools look like Gameboys; everything has knobs and dials, and beeps and scans like something made back then

The sound of the game is as impressively well-designed as the environment. Along with the clicks and whirs of machinery, there's beeps from various devices, hisses and clanks from the ventilation (is there something in there?), the vaguely threatening mutterings of a Working Joe android, and then suddenly the thump of something large dropping from above, followed by stomping as it searches for you; it seems to be getting closer..

As an audio-visual piece Alien: Isolation is lovely - as a game, it is terrifying. The Alien is constantly hunting you, and gets better at it as the game progresses; you're fairly fragile, even on lower difficulties, and you're almost always under-equipped. It's part of the challenge (and fun, i guess), to find creative uses for what you do have, to get out of whatever bad situation you're in this time. Even scrounging for ammo and parts presents a risk

Lastly, something i didn't exactly expect was the Metroid influence. I'm not sure how much was intentional, and how much was "just neat game design", but instead of being a fully linear narrative game (it still mostly is), different parts of the station become available as you acquire the tools to unlock them. Also, the whole vibe and basic setup gave me flashbacks of Metroid: Fusion. Of course with Metroid being influenced by Alien (the movie), i could very easily be reading into things

I usually play games in the evening, after work, and with the Deck it's more common that i play in bed. I'll just say; very bad idea to play this game before bed. The last few chapters were particularly sleep-stopping, where the intensity cranks up to eleven. Although to be honest, i'm a bit of a baby when it comes to horror, so your personal terror may vary.
Fully recommend this game*

*if you can handle it

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a game that attempts to emulate the famous bomb defusing scenes, in movies and TV. Once again, an ingenious idea for a game, and executed neatly as well

It's an exclusively co-op game, where one player has the Bomb Defusal Manual in front of them, and the other has the bomb itself. Player one must then guide player two through defusing the bomb, without mistakes, and before the bomb goes off

Each bomb is helpfully divided into modules that need to be individually defused, and the arcane rules of correctly doing this leads to a back-and-forth between the two players that quite accurately emulates the scenes it's based on. Take a look if you're interested

Playing this on the Deck made it much easier to rope in my (non game-playing) partner, and we ended up having a lot of fun. We've made it to the end of the "Challenging" section, which is enough for beaten purposes, but we may play more - and i might try get other friends/family into a round or two

Well, it's been quite a while since my last post here - i've been playing Tyranny (and some other games here and there, but mostly Tyranny). A game where "sometimes, evil wins", as the advertising tagline said back then. Tyranny is a game from Obsidian, who have explored similar themes of power and the nature of evil in Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Fallout: New Vegas (with similar levels of quality writing). Here they dive straight in though; evil is not just a path you can choose in your fantasy role-play, it's the baseline state of the world. Your choices here are ones of compromise and negotiation, of choosing the "lesser evil" - whatever that is to you

Gameplay-wise, it has the same backbone as their game before this one, Pillars of Eternity, which itself was largely a recreation of the Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale) - an isometric party RPG roughly based on Dungeons & Dragons' rules, that opts for real-time play (with tactical pause), rather than fully turn-based. Where Pillars was explicitly modelled after D & D and its character class system, Tyranny goes for a skill-based system instead: every character can use any skill, and doing so gives some experience in that skill; enough experience and it ranks up, which then contributes to overall character experience (and levels there). If you've played Skyrim (who hasn't) you'll know what i'm talking about. The six fundamental character attributes will give inherent bonuses to different skills, along with their usual bonuses to health, defense, damage, etc

There are skill trees though, with passive and active abilities, and since each playable character has a unique set, this ends up mostly defining their "class". As the MC, you have a bit more leeway in how you want to define your play-style though. Along with abilities, we have a fairly unique spell system, which everyone can make use of, provided they've trained the appropriate skills. It's worth mentioning because of its interesting implementation; all spells need a core sigil, which defines the type of magic (fire, frost, emotion, etc), and an expression sigil which defines the form of the spell (touch, ranged bolt, cone blast, area, aura, etc), along with some optional accents, which modify aspects of the spell (damage, range, duration, etc). Besides being genuinely fun to explore all the spell constructions, the use of linguistic terms draws parallels to the real source of power in this world (we'll get to that in a bit)

Game mechanics are all well and good, but the reason we're here is for the masterful writing and narrative. The game starts (after character creation, naturally) with a conquest phase, where you choose the actions that your character made during the Conquest of the Tiers, the last corner of the world unconquered by Kyros the Overlord. This section is a great snapshot of the decisions you'll make during the game, because there is no option to save the people of the Tiers - it will be dominated; you only get to decide how that domination is carried out. After that, you are sent to administer Kyros' Peace to the final remaining rebellion in the Tiers (and the whole world), where two of Kyros' armies, the Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus, are struggling to cooperate enough to squash the rebels

And so the stage is set for an exploration of evil, and all the tiny compromises we make with ourselves to protect what we have, but which ultimately enable the spread of tyranny. There are three major factions you can join up with (Disfavored, Scarlet Chorus, and Rebels), and each of them explore different aspects of this negotiation with yourself, and with the people hoping to exert their power on you. The storyline sends you and your party to a couple of areas, with their own factions, and their own disputes, so you can explore these questions even more. You play as a Fatebinder of Tunon the Adjudicator, which means most of the game involves arbitrating disputes, interpreting Kyros' laws into a suitable resolution

Along the way, you start to realise that it's these judgements and resolutions, and the reputation that they generate among the people, is the source of Kyros' overwhelming power. To me, this is simply a supernatural skew of the power structures of this world, the real one, where power generates reputation, and is rewarded with more power. Just that idea on its own would be impressive, but the fact that it's conveyed through a video-game - an interactive medium - where you can actively make choices and exert your will, is simply amazing

So i finally played Titanfall 2, and yeah, it's a lot better than what i'd expect from a military shooter single-player campaign. Of course i knew this going in, having heard about it before, but what can i say? Good game is good

At it's core it's still a military shooter, but it adds a bunch of extra mechanics to shake things up and differentiate itself. For starters you can double-jump and wall-run, and i'm not sure, but it felt like a proper momentum-based system, rather than the controlled animations i'd expected. The guns are pretty traditional in design, with a few energy weapons sprinkled in, but grenades seem a bit more inventive. From the start of the game, you have an active-camo ability, which adds that one extra layer of tactical choice around firefights

Then of course, there's the Titans. During the campaign, your character only interacts with the one - and his AI character is arguably the star of the show - but you can change load-outs to your liking. Battles inside a Titan are different beasts - it's slower and more deliberate, and they each have a set of abilities on cool-downs, as well as an ultimate that charges through damage. A little bit more of a back and forth, push and pull, when battling titan vs. titan. You are also free (in most cases), to simply exit the titan and take your chances on foot, but i found no reason to do that besides for achievements. A slight missed opportunity there, i think

All these mechanics, used in spectacular set-pieces during the campaign, is what made the game stand out back in the day - of particular note is the level Effect & Cause, which uses a time-travel mechanic to great effect (heh). I'm glad i finally played it, and it's a shame it didn't last longer

Aragami is a stealth game in the classic sense: sneaking around with a character that has very slight combat skill, but does have some choice tools for staying undetected. In this case, the tools are shadow-based powers, as well as some traditional ninja tools

The game starts with your player character summoned through some dark ritual as a spirit of vengeance. Soon after, you are introduced to the first two (fundamental) powers: the ability to teleport to any shadow within range; and the ability to "paint" an area in temporary shadow, for use with the previous warping power. These powers are funded by a "mana" gauge on your character's back (nice touch), which automatically refills in when in shadow, but also empties when in light. There's also a third "twilight" zone that does neither. The light system also (naturally) affects your detect-ability by patrols, so you're highly incentivised to blink from shadow to shadow across an area, timing blinks to avoid guards' sight-lines.

There's also your trusty sword you can use to stab a guard from behind, or quickly silence one that's found you. Finding scrolls in each level lets you unlock (and upgrade) some helpful stealthy abilities, grouped into defensive, aggressive, and passive techniques. Passives are things like hiding bodies with shadow; ledge & ceiling kill abilities; and marking the location of collectibles. These abilities cost nothing except time, and i found were almost always useful. Defensive abilities include seeing enemies through walls, dropping decoys, and temporary invisibility. For the aggressive we have kunai to kill from range; an area blind; and a shadow trap to remove guards from this world. Defensive and aggressive powers don't use your shadow meter, but are on a usage system (two uses for most, if not all). It's kind of weird to have a separate resource for this, but it feels like a way to limit over-reliance - otherwise we could just infinite kunai everything, i guess..

Story-wise, as said before we've been summoned to wreak bloody vengeance on the invading forces of light. It seems to be a young girl who's brought you into being, and she tasks you with freeing the imprisoned empress as your primary goal. The game follows a mission structure, with a different narrative objective each time, but mechanically boils down to "get from point A to B" - the environments you travel through are nice to look at though, and the game has a good overall art-style. You get a mission rating at the end, and bonus emblems for being undetected; killing all enemies; and killing no-one. Over the course of these missions, you slowly find out more about the history of this land, and the main players involved - a decent tale of heroes and revenge, but nothing world-shaking

The DLC campaign, Nightfall, was an interesting one. To start, i was a bit tired of the gameplay by the end of the main campaign, so i came into this with a less-than-receptive attitude. To counteract this, i could clearly see that the devs were conscious of this tiredness, because Nightfall shakes up the mission structure a fair bit. It's still generally A to B, but instead of blindly following a mission marker, they'll have you search an area for intel first, or tail a messenger through village streets. This adjustment, combined with the fact that all shadow powers are unlocked at the start, made the game's objectives feel a little more open to my own planning and experimentation. The entire DLC campaign can be played in co-op as well, for extra stealthy shenanigans

Overall, a decent stealth game, if a little bit too traditional to really transform the genre. Shadow-blinking does feel real good though...

OlliOlli 2 is almost exactly what you would imagine a sequel to OlliOlli would be - the tricks library has expanded along with new skating mechanics; levels are more complex and wilder in aesthetic; there's a multiplayer mode; and the art style has changed slightly

The most significant addition is obviously the manuals, where instead of landing straight and banking your combo, you can opt to land on the front or back wheels as another trick. You still travel forward like this, and can still launch into tricks, so effectively this extends your combo infinitely (or to the end of the level, at least). There's also revert landings, which can be combined with manuals; and grind-switches, where you can change the type of grind mid-rail; both for bonus points and combo multiplier. OlliOlli 2 also added sloped surfaces now (the things they can do with computers), which means gaining speed passively, but also ramps that have a perfect launch system, similar to perfect landings and grinds

The left-stick trick library has been expanded (for some reason), with modifiers by holding bumpers, as well as reversing rotation directions on the stick (half-turn forward, quarter-turn back, release, etc), to add a whole bunch more tricks that i'll probably never execute even once. The whole amateur-pro campaign structure is maintained from the first game, and the level challenges incorporate these new tricks, which technically makes OlliOlli 2 harder than the first game, but fortunately i didn't need to complete them all, as there's new achievements for grinding out a bunch of the new mechanics, after which i could just skate without much pressure

I blasted through OlliOlli 2 in pretty much a single evening. I suppose it's all the time i spent bailing and restarting in OlliOlli 1 that helped that happen, but honestly it feels like i didn't even play the game. Maybe OlliOlli World will keep me for longer..

Thumper is rhythm violence, exactly like it says on the tin. You play a metal beetle, skating down a track, forced to rhythmically move, flap and bounce to reach a floating head that seems to get angrier the closer you get

So what i wrote above is a creative stretch - i'm coming up with a story for the events of the game - but that's because Thumper is so abstract, things like theme and narrative just sort of, slide off. All that's left is the pure mechanical aspects, and some trippy visuals

Let's talk mechanics then. Well i'm not going to rewrite the whole manual, so please see here, if you don't know the moves already (don't worry, it's literally one page). The awesome part about Thumper is the music itself, which comes as much from the backing track as it does from each of these player inputs. As each obstacle arrives on the track (one measure/bar ahead) it makes a slightly different sound, which adds to the track being generated, but also helps a keen ear stay a step ahead

While the game is still very mechanical and abstract, it still managed to bring out emotions in me, which i guess is the whole attraction of music in general, that some arbitrary sequence of sounds can somehow be "sad", or "happy"

Also, it's just really rad to input a perfectly timed sequence of thumps, turns and bounces, for some unknown reason.
Also also, that ending… woah…. that was damn good

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is kind of a depressing game - at least by its premise. It's set in a world of space-travel, dungeon-delving, treasure and magic, but where all of those things are eternally out of reach for you, costing more than you'd be able to make in several lifetimes

You play as the alien janitor of a spaceport, and the job is just as glamorous as you'd expect. The opening sees you resolving to explore the dungeons below the spaceport for treasure, so you can finally leave and start your new life as a space-faring adventurer. Unfortunately, you are almost immediately cursed with a floating (noisy) skull, and so your new goal is to get rid of that first. The spaceport itself is a crossroads for adventuring types - there are weapons and armor vendors, mages guilds, alchemists, and exotic food vendors - so someone here would know how to help, right? You just need to ask around..

But while you do that, you need to eat and sleep and generally take care of yourself, and that costs money. As a janitor, you get paid in municipal credits to incinerate trash around the space-port, and you could save money by buying the cheapest vending machine food, but that might make you sick, which could mean paying for medicine. And also you occasionally get itchy in your current gender, so you have to pay to get that shifted (four different choices). And sometimes the spaceport guards feel like you won't put up a fight if they just take some of your cash (you won't). All of these things paint a picture of someone living at the lower edges of society, just trying to make enough to survive one more day. This is the part that can feel quite grim

While tidying up the trash, sometimes you find something that looks like it could be sold for more that you'd get paid for incinerating it, but even though vendors are everywhere, they're only interested in certain items, and those interests change with the days, and you can only carry so much. It's tough, this game, and not in the classically "hard" game sense, more like the oppressing feeling weighing you down mentally that there must be a better way to be doing this, that if you could just make a really good sale, or save enough to have some security, things would be better

Sometimes things are better though; there are the good moments, where you catch a bit of a break, and it's genuinely relieving. Also, you get to know the area over time, so you develop a rhythm of when and where you can get a good deal. The curse you're under constantly drains your luck, so learning where the shrines are to pray at, becomes part of that daily routine as well. Keeping your luck up seems to have an effect on the items you find, and encounters you have, so it's generally a good idea. Also, the space-port is lively and colourful, and full of interesting people. At the end of each day, you're prompted to write what you did in your diary before going to bed. You have to write something, and of course you could just mash the keyboard, but why not take the time to reflect on your day? It's these moments of observation and reflection (and good fortune) that bring the bright feelings, in a largely dreary game

There's some side-quest-y type tasks you can do while you work towards breaking the curse, which are small but interesting, and most of them are rewarded with achievements. There's also however, a literal achievement peddler you can find around the red district. They'll sell some items that give specific achievements, but also sells an (expensive) item that will simply give a random achievement. The catch? Depending on your luck, there's a chance that you lose all of your achievements instead. You'll get a consolation achievement for this happening (which makes it required for 100%), and you can re-unlock everything you lost, but as a achievement hunter myself, i found this whole idea very amusing. Just an interesting side note

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is not a game for everyone. It doesn't reward hard work the way games normally do, and at times it's genuinely hard to keep pushing through, but i stayed around for those moments of happiness at the small joys