Dead Island 2 (XSX Game Pass)

For a game that, reportedly, had a long and torturous development cycle, this one turned out really good. The first game, for me, is something of a cult classic- a far better game than most people give it credit for. Basically, it's Zombie Apocalypse Borderlands, just like Redfall is Vampire Apocalypse Borderlands.

The main difference from the first game (and Riptide I suppose), is that Dead Island 2 isn't set on an island- it's set in L.A....called Hell-A in the game. Instead of three or 4 really large open maps like the first game, this time you play across 8 smaller, linked maps. The smaller maps result in tighter designed pathways through the story, including unlocking shortcuts something like in From Software games.

Combat is primarily melee focused, though guns are quite useful against some of the Apex variants of the zombies. The combat and missions are even more over the top than earlier games, and that's really saying something. A lot of people don't like the first-person perspective for melee focused games, but here it works for me- requiring timing of heavy attacks and blocking as zombies rush you.

Very fun game, in a B-Grade Zombie movie sort of way. The Xbox version worked really well. This is a game made for last generation consoles, so runs well on current consoles and PC's.

Under The Moon

So what do you play when you don't have a new game? In my case the answer is to start tackling you GOG backlog, preferably a shorter game.

This is a game that once given away as a part of Good Old Games Week from 28-30 April 2023. And why GOG decided to gift this one away as a part of that particular promotion I have Idea as this game is neither Good nor Old.

The premise is "A Hidden Object Game in 3D with riddles as clue". Which is fine if the execution is good. But this game, built with Unreal Engine is just bad. The graphic is laggy and glitchy, the riddles are dull. The environment is boring, sometimes I have a hard time to differentiate items. And the worst of all the use of AI voice actor, like in those clickbait Youtube shorts and their ilk.

I have no idea why this game pass the GOG curation, if that even exists nowadays. If this game is for a school project made by kids then its fine. But not as a product to sale.

But hey at least an additional 1 game in my GOG library now tagged as Completed.

Lust from Beyond: Scarlet (Steam)

The other free game that leads into the full game. This game feels much more like a demo or sampler of gameplay, whereas Prologue was its own stand-alone short story in its own right. Both are free though, so no reason not to play them between the two full games in the series.