I quit my last job in July. I'd been in it since 2006, a whole adult lifetime spent not just playing games for a living, but also writing about them. In the days and weeks after, I came to a horrific realisation: I had become dependent on writing about games. Couldn't function without it. I'd been blogpilled.
Every time I played a game I had thoughts about the game, and every time I had thoughts about the game I suddenly had...nobody to tell. You think my wife gives a shit what I thought about Dave The Diver? I got halfway through the game's elevator pitch--"he's a diver, but you also run a sushi-"--before she just walked away. You think the guys on my football team even knew about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, let alone wanted to hear me say crap like "it's like Icarus flying too close to Jet Set Radio's sun?" Newsflash, they only want to hear about FIFA EA Sports FC Ultimate Team.
Despondent, I turned to a small group of friends--also handily unemployed--and got them to help me start this website. The cover story was so that we could all "have jobs", but it was mostly so I'd once again have somewhere to burden you all with random thoughts about video games that I'd played and even occasionally enjoyed, because if I couldn't do that then what was even the point of playing them in the first place.
Now that the site is up and running, I figured this post--a blog all about the games I played between July and now--would be a good way to get a lot of those pent-up opinions out of my system. And also let us get something on record about a bunch of games we weren't able to cover in the months before launch!
DAVE THE DIVER
Fun! Never thought I'd be diving for stuff and running a sushi restaurant in the same game using completely different mechanics, but here we are.
ORDER OF BATTLE
Did you know this game is my most-played ever on Steam? That surprised the hell out of me, until I looked at how many expansions and new campaigns have been released over the years, all of which I've played and mostly loved. The latest, Allies Victorious, covers the final years of the Second World War in the West, and having missed it last year when it was released I figured I had time to circle back around and try it out.
This is not a perfect series, far from it. It has always had serious issues with its AI and inconsistent mission design, but when it sings--mostly on big maps where you can roll tanks around at will--it's great. And Allies Victorious does a lot of singing.
BOMBRUSH CYBERFUNK
Ahh, man, I was so excited for this game. It looked exactly like Jet Set Radio, and even went and got the same composer! Sadly the resemblance was purely superficial, and I bailed on this very early on.
JUMPLIGHT ODYSSEY
I was going to write a huge piece on this game for the debut of Aftermath, but when the time came my heart couldn't take it. On paper, and in its early trailers, Jumplight Odyssey--based on stuff like Star Blazers and Macross--looked like the perfect video game for me and me in particular, marrying ship management with Sims-like crew considerations and some of my favourite anime. And it came so close to pulling it off; Jumplight is a blast to play initially, and really nails the brief in terms of its look and vibes.
But it completely falls down as you progress, because its interface and design simply don't give you the information and access to systems you need to keep everything running smoothly. To their credit developers League of Geeks have been working hard on constantly updating the game, so I'll probably revisit it in a few months to see if some of those gaps have been filled in.
STARFIELD
I cannot believe this game took this long to make and cost so much money.
SHADOW GAMBIT: THE CURSED CREW
It's a huge bummer that developers Mimimi closed down straight after the release of this game, because I can think of few other examples where a single studio is able to so completely own an entire genre. If you're into real-time tactics there's simply nothing better out there than Mimimi's efforts, and Shadow Gambit was a perfection of all the great work they'd done on Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes III.
BALDUR'S GATE 3
This is a pretty good video game.
EA SPORTS FC 24
I don't know why I was willing to give this game a chance. I thought that the new branding and new name would be an opportunity for EA to breathe some life into a stale, decrepit old series. But nope. I know modern video games are more expensive to make than their predecessors, but this game's basic foundations, models and animation (especially everyone's big shoulders and the way players ice skate across the grass) have been largely unchanged for over a decade now. Sports gamers deserve better than this!
CYBER KNIGHTS FLASHPOINT
Well hello there. This one slipped by most people, and was only brought to my attention when someone from the 3MA Discord said it was "like Invisible Inc", which was enough to get me sitting bolt upright in my chair. Invisible Inc. is a turn-based tactics game from 2015 with a wonderful emphasis on stealth that hasn't even been attempted, let alone matched, since. Cyber Knights tries to do the same thing, and while it's much rougher around the edges, it's still very cool.
CITIES SKYLINES II
Looked cool in trailers. Then it ran so poorly that one time I clicked on an airport and it overheated my CPU, causing my system to reboot directly to the bios with warning messages I had never even seen before. I haven't touched it since.
ROBOCOP: ROGUE CITY
A remarkable example of working within your means. With the budget and scope of this game it would have been so easy to just dump a shitty shooter on the market and call it a day, but this is a surprisingly faithful tribute to the character and movies. Getting Peter Weller back to do the voice was the icing on the cake.
HELLBOY: WEB OF WYRD
Why is it so hard to get this guy right? It's maybe my favourite comic series of all time, and not a single adaptation--whether Hollywood movie or previous games--I've seen comes close to nailing Mike Mignola's blend of folklore mystery and wry humour. Web of Wyrd at least gets things right visually, but the voice acting (despite the late Lance Reddick's best attempts) all feels weirdly out of place, and the Souls-combat-on-a-budget gameplay wears pretty thin pretty quick.
ASSASSIN'S CREED MIRAGE
You know what, I might just write more about this another time. I didn't think I'd be into its back to basics approach, but turns out after the bloated excess of the last few games I am very into it.
And that's it! All future video game impressions will be posted to this website, and in a (hopefully) timely manner to boot.
