After beating Mass Effect 3 I felt the desire for some more epic sci-fi shooting in urban environments, so I figured that that's a good occasion to finish my run through the Gears series and beat Gears 5 on Xbox Series X now.

When I beat Gears 4 two and a half years ago I enjoyed it a lot and felt that the Coalition did a much better job continuing an established series than 343 Industries did with Halo. Gears 5, though, left me very disappointed.

Simply put, it's a very solid shooter with absolutely gorgeous graphics but it failed to get me excited in any way. It's been a while since I played the earlier games and I'm honestly not sure what features are new here but all in all I felt that the game just repeats the same old patterns and does not even do so at the highest possible quality, neither in terms of spectacle nor gameplay.

One thing that really struck me is that the encounters are extremely static and, unless a certain type of tank enemy shows up, the game barely gives you any reason to move around. All too often you can just sit around behind cover and pick enemies off one by one without facing any serious threat. In my memory that wasn't the case in the original series. And even the more spectacular set pieces (which honestly aren't very spectacular by the series' standards!) fail to change that. E.g. sometimes you have battles in a snow storm with huge icy pillars falling from the sky but that mechanic has almost zero effect on the gameplay and puts no pressure on you. And I think there's only one rail shooter sequence in the entire game and you don't actually have to shoot anything there, you will apparently always survive even if you don't fire a single shot. I find these two examples to be very representative of the campaign's general problems.

A big new thing are two (relatively) big chapters with a sandbox formula where you get to travel around an open environment on a sled but this was honestly about the most pointless thing I have ever seen. Excluding 2-3 brief rides through a storm there's practically no gameplay whatsoever during these sections. There's no combat, no platforming etc.. During those sections the game is basically a vehicular walking sim that makes up far too much of the game's total playtime. By exploring the map you can do "side quests" but of course those just involve entering an area where you engage in the standard Gears combat.

If I'm not mistaken a new feature is also that you can cast some active and passive skills during combat, e.g. blind an enemy, turn you invisible etc., and you actually get level up this stuff by gathering a collectable resource and doing the aforementioned side quests. But given that the combat is easy enough as it is I barely felt any need to use those and when I did, they often made the easy encounters downright trivial. Heck, for lulz I cleared an entire huge room with dozens of enemies by stealth killing every single enemy there without ever triggering combat, the only downside being that I regularly had to wait in cover for quite some time until the cooldown wears off and I can continue my killing spree.

Anyway, I suppose my biggest problem is that I rarely got emotionally invested in anything here, probably mostly because the game feels too much like a rehash. What I appreciated greatly about Gears 4 was its change in tone compared to the earlier games by letting us experience the Gears universe through the eyes of younger and more human characters in new kinds of situations and generally adding a bit of humanity. In this one I felt that things have basically gone full circle and all the benefits of this new generation of heroes have been wasted by putting them in the exact same context again as their predecessors. And I really mean the exact same context.

Without going into any details: in my mind all the events of this entry put the Gears universe in the exact same spot where it was back when the series started. And as far as I'm concerned that's about the stupidest way this new saga in the Gears universe could have possibly developed.

Of course it's still a good game and I did rather enjoy my time with it but I did find it very disappointing for a new mainline Gears title.

Also beat Gears 5: Hivebusters now, an approximately 3-hour singleplayer DLC campaign. Luckily it's currently on sale. At 3 hours its regular price of twenty bucks is in my opinion utterly ridiculous but 5 bucks are perfectly okay.

It's advertised as "the origin story of Scorpio squad" and it seemed like kind of a David Pumpkins situation to me as having beaten all Gears titles to date I had no idea who these people are supposed to be. Turns out that they are from Gears 5's Escape multiplayer mode. Oh okay.

But honestly, I've enjoyed this DLC more than pretty much any part of the base game's campaign and not knowing the characters beforehand probably made it only better. Prequels are in my opinion some of the most asinine shit that mankind has ever invented, almost always answering questions that nobody asked. But not knowing what the DLC leads up to actually made things interesting.

Initially I was admittedly confused since I had no idea who these three characters are and no matter how many times the dialogue says that this mission will save the world, obviously the stakes don't feel high in a side story that's *completely* detached from the main one. But after a while, as the characters started revealing a bit of their backgrounds and some development started happening in their relationships, I got genuinely more interested in the stuff that's going on here than was the case with anything in the base game. That's largely also thanks to the fact that the DLC actually expands the lore a bit instead of just digging up stuff that's been part of the series all along.

But also the overall quality of the DLC is just higher than in the base game in my opinion. It doesn't introduce anything to the formula but it uses everything in a very condensed, polished and intense way. Oh, and it actually has set pieces that are a lot more original and fun than anything in the base campaign. It has a few moments that I'm probably far more likely to remember in 5-10 years than anything from Gears 5's main campaign. And honestly, I wouldn't mind getting more singleplayer / coop content with these characters.

Atari 50. I was holding off on this one because I figured GOG would get the DLC but that hasn't happened yet. Oh well. It goes over Atari's history and lets you play a whole bunch of games along the way. I would say it's basically successful in the sense that when you go through the timeline, you do get the sense of how things developed, starting with early innovation and success, the corporate buyout and then the big gaming crash, and then an increasing amount of flailing as the company can't really do anything effectively beside coast on past glories. It does end on an optimistic note to reflect the new ownership's attempts to rehab the company's image and refocus the brand.

Most of the material focuses on the Atari 2600, along with major focuses on the arcade games and the Atari 400/800, plus some 5200, 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar stuff.

What's missing: A lot of important things can't be included because of licensing issues. Space Invaders was the game that made the 2600 a mainstream success but it's not here because it's licensed from Taito's arcade game. Never mind that Atari's home versions are somewhat distinct...Taito probably doesn't want to admit it ever happened at all. ET isn't here even though it's sort of mentioned a couple of times and it was clearly important in some way. No Alien vs. Predator for the Jaguar. Battlezone isn't here because a prior dipshit regime sold it off to Rebellion to help keep the lights on one month. Is Rebellion even doing anything with it? There are NO Atari ST games at all. The ST itself gets some mention in the PC gaming section, but not too much at all. And of course there's nothing about the Atari Games arcade company that continued after the home division was split off and sold to the Tramiels. I guess the home division is supposed to be considered the "real" Atari, but to me the arcade company retained more of the original spirit, so it sucks that classics like Paperboy, Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters, APB, STUN Runner, Road Blasters, etc. can't be included or even talked about, never mind licensed games like Star Wars and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. For all the talk about Infogrames wearing Atari's skin, the company hasn't been whole for far longer than that.

Not a lot of third party stuff, although they did throw in the Bounty Bob games, which are great. David Crane and Garry Kitchen sort of quietly represent Activision, although most of their segments stick to their earlier work at Atari. Interesting to see Tim Schafer pop up. I've seen him participate in high score challenges on Facebook, but what homebrew games did he ever do?

I already know most of the games included, but there were definitely some that were new to me. Perhaps most surprising were RealSports Volleyball and Tennis, which I had no expectations about but I found myself really getting into them. They're very basic but they have a great flow. This collection also had a lot to do with the world finally getting good Jaguar emulation. Scrapyard Dog on the Lynx is fun, vastly better than the 7800 version. Club Drive for the Jaguar is fun in an oddly relaxing way. Not that quirky games were going to ever help that system. Ninja Golf for the 7800 is kind of amazing. It's actually fun, not just a meme game.

Of the new games included, I can't say I was really blown away by any of them. Haunted Houses isn't bad but I prefer the original. Neo Breakout was fine. Swordquest: Airworld is probably not something I'll complete any time soon, but I do think creating and including it is a great move. They should get someone like Phil Jimenez to draw a comic book
tie-in, too. VCTR-SCTR is kind of disappointing because it's just taking levels from other games and stitching them together, although I did appreciate them sneaking in the Battlezone tanks. The special enhanced version of Star Raiders is interesting but I found the overclocked version screws with the audio in a distracting way, so I switched off the overclocking feature.

Star Trucker (XSX Game Pass)

You drive a truck, in space. You also have to maintain your space truck, which mainly involves not crashing into debris and space junk- as well as occasionally replacing parts. There is a bit of a learning curve, as simple things like docking your truck and navigating the roads without hitting everything, takes some practice. There are no cheats like docking computers- you do it by reversing and watching your reversing monitor.

Initially it's a lot of fun, but eventually runs out of steam as you see all that there is to see- then it becomes much more of the same. You run freight jobs that you pick up from the job boards. From time to time, you also get story quests from the other members of your small trucking band. The story quests do take quite a lot of time, and it all ends in a final story job. The story missions are a bit annoying, as they don't pay you! You just do them for your friends because you're such a great person, even though it costs you fuel and wear and tear in helping them.

Considering this is only programmed by a team of two people with a few helpers, it is quite an achievement- despite the fact that it soon becomes repetitive. If I could just change one aspect only it would be the amount of debris and junk in some sectors that require you to crawl along at a tediously low speed so as to not risk hull damage. Otherwise, the game looks great and runs just as well. I also had no bugs or crashes at all.

I played Paraedolon (by Kira) from itchio, a short, indie, somewhat disturbing game. I guess its theme was drug abuse and the following hallucinations. Very short, but well made.
I also tried Adventures of Julia, again from itchio. A puzzle platformer game, with 9 areas. I reached until the 3rd, but I couldn't defeat these two opponents (in a fight having a Dark Souls feeling, but I don't know even if I was able to damage them!). So, I dropped it. I liked the (trolling) intro video, though!

Eastshade

Peaceful and wholesome little exploration adventure about an aspiring painter helping out antropomorphic people from Uncanny Valley on a beautiful island. Serviceable voice-acting, extraordinary good soundtrack. I wouldn't call this a walking simulator despite some players tagging it as one, because apart from the open world and adventure game style quests it also has actual puzzles and progress systems, things you can craft and things you can buy that both make getting around on the island more comfortable and open up new areas to explore. The economy could have been balanced a little better though; in the beginning you have to work hard to be able to afford what you want, and then when the money starts piling up, you've already bought everything of use. With some quests and situations the game was a bit too vague for my liking and could also have given better clues on how to progress. I had to google quite a few times, because erring around on the island, not knowing what to do wasn't that much fun. I also only found out at the end that you can actually recycle paintings that you've messed up. I wish I'd known / figured that out before. But still, quite a nice game, one of a kind, and the ending was cute.

Still Wakes the Deep, Oct 23 (Xbox Game Pass)-This is a solid game with suitably creepy atmosphere but I think I finished it wishing it was more. I really liked the blue collar working class nature of the characters, that and the fact it takes place in the 70s reminded me a lot of the movie Alien. The voice acting and visuals were generally good the monsters were revealed. The monsters were grotesque but kinda silly looking and you get a look at them very early in the game which makes it lose quiet a bit of the potential scare factor. I think my biggest issue with the game is that Caz has relationships with all his crewmates but the player never sees it so they're all pretty interchangeable NPCs and there are so many its hard to even keep track of their names. So when everyone starts dying Caz is affected but the player isn't. I think the developers needed to someone show or build those relationships for us for them to really matter as the crew was being stalked. Maybe if there was a small group of survivors that would meet in some hub area before sending you off to do various tasks and as you complete the tasks you find out that they are being picked off one by one. Also, I think I would have preferred a single unknown monster stalking the crew rather than what we actually got. That would have kept the mystery intact a bit longer. I had fun, it was a good game but I think it could have been a lot more.

Full List

and done with Broken Sword Reforged

great remaster, great release.

had lots of fun but was a little slow at some parts.

The Coma: Recut

A creepy side scroller game set somewhere in Korea, can you run/duck/hide/investigate well enough to end up with the bestest ending? I picked this game up for a pittance 6-9 months ago and then bought part 2 along with the deluxe addon content for a song 2 days back. Since I have been going through my backlog a bit more in earnest as of late and since it's close to All Hallows' Eve I gave it a whirl. Imagine Silent Hill meets the Ring meets Nightmare on Elm Street....i.e. not too shabby.

Pros
Interesting if small cast of characters
Discovering backstory through notes
Simple control scheme

Cons
A bit hectic at times, what with being chased by a stalker killer and all
Limited (healing/etc) inventory space
Can't rebind control keys
Quite short

Misc
Best friends can be jerks sometimes :D

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Overall Score: 7/10
Now onto the sequel for this game....in time anyways. Not too eager to replay it yet, but it was a fun little ride.

As a child, I never had any console, but some my friends had PlayStation. I always liked how Resident Evil 2 looked, but never had opportunity to play it since the beginning up to the end. When it came to GoG it become insta buy. My first gameplay was with Claire on easy, start was relatively tough, because default key bind is absolutely terrible and fixing it and accustom to it game was not hard, but it still present some tension as I had no idea what will be next and whether to save game or spare ink ribbon. At the end, game is great, still is easily playable and most important is that atmosphere is fantastic.

The Quarry. The most recent interactive horror movie by Supermassive. This one seems like it's going to be a slasher movie because it centers around summer camp counselors but it's actually a supernatural story. The little kids have all gone home and the counselors should be packing up and leaving, but they can't resist staying one more night and having a party, which of course goes horribly wrong when there turns out to be some kind of creature in the woods attacking them, and there also seems to be a ghost, and some scary hillbillies. So it's a mash-up and I think it could be argued that it's got a little too much going on.

They do manage to hold the main parts together well enough, but the downside is that the ending is pretty underwhelming. You spend the whole game observing the cast members developing their relationships while they deal with the threat but there's absolutely no payoff to anything at the end. You just get some ending slides telling you who survived and who didn't, but nothing on how they stood with each other after. That's pretty bad.

Although I didn't get the absolute tippy-top best ending, I did manage to get all counselors surviving on my first try. From what I've played of these games, the best way to play if you want people to make it is to simply avoid doing the type of stupid crap horror movie protagonists always do. Don't needlessly antagonize people and pick the most sensible/practical of whatever action options you're given and you'll probably do okay. There is an adventure-game puzzle late in the game that will get someone killed if you fail it - that one sort of came out of nowhere. Otherwise, you're just choosing options and occasionally exploring the environment to find collectibles and push the narrative along.

The game mostly just tests you by making most of the cast as obnoxious and shallow-minded as possible. The cast is pretty good, though. David Arquette, Lance Henriksen, and Lin Shaye are probably the most recognizable names, but I also recognized a few of the counselors. Kind of funny to see Halston Sage playing a character very unlike her old Orville character.

The graphics are mostly quite good. They obviously concentrate the most on the people and they do a reasonably good job aside from some Uncanny Valley moments. Some of the actors take well to the motion capture, but a couple of come off looking slightly distorted at times. The game engine struggles with teeth for some reason. The environments look quite good until they require something to move. Seeing people fall into water, for instance, looks distractingly unnatural.

Prey, Oct 27 (GOG)-I loved this game. It is the System Shock 3 that I wish Bioshock was. I enjoyed everything about this game with the exception of the very long load times, the difficulty spike as soon as Dahl shows up, and the twist ending. Also, had a couple crashes and several times the game wouldn't start at all. I'll wait on playing Mooncrash.

Full List

After finishing Claire A approach in Resident Evil 2 I continued with Leon B. I read, that it is same story from second character perspective, what is true only partially. You can definitely see, that there is somebody doing something what you already done with Claire, but some parts are same for both what is not always logical. Considering, that RE is best in B class presentation, it is not a problem. Moreover there are some new locations. I was wondering, that without playing both parts game is not finished as story continue when first walkthrough ended. Overall Leon B was significantly harder, but still very atmospheric a fantastic. Now I must find out, whether it makes sense later try Leon A and Claire B.

Black Mesa

"Gordon, you're needed in the tessssst chambuuuur"

You play one Gordon Freeman, recent hire to the Black Mesa facility, as they go about their first day of work. Push carts, push buttons, whack monsters over the head with blunt objects. Can you survive long enough to clock out and go home? Only time will tell!

You can tell the devs really put their hearts into this...new areas have been added and old ones have been (for the most part) improved, and there are a few secrets to find along the way.

Pros
Added new areas and improved old areas
Awesome soundtrack
Improved Xen chapters
Fun little pizza based secrets
Vent crawling and headcrab bashing

Cons
A few old areas and scenes were removed or trimmed down
(like some parts of 'On a Rail' and the scene with the one scientist in the underwater room next to the dam)

Misc
Some bugs, like an "out of texture memory" error if one loads and saves too much while using higher settings.

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Overall Score: 8/10
Job Offer Accepted - In Stasis Until Half Life 2

PowerSlave
(og version)

Be soldier dude, be dropped into Egypt to face some as of yet unknown foe. Fight (spoopy) mummies and (annoying) spiders, then aliens and alien creations, and then save the world. What could go wrong?

While I love ancient egyptian stuff somewhat and had a bit of fun with this game, I don't see myself going back to play this for awhile. Wanna know why? Read the cons list below and find out!

Pros
Nice egyptian themed soundtrack
Some fun early levels
Ebil mummies to fight!
Ladies ladies ladies :)

Cons
Some bullet spongey/fast moving enemy types (see the flying bugs and spiders)
Final Level seems to be timed (timer on walls in alien language)

Misc
Lovin them secret areas :D

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Overall Score: 7/10
Once more into the breach?!?