The Talos Principle. Quite a unique game, it combines puzzles with philosophy!

I have been playing Persona 5 Royal, I am around 30 hours in and I’m really enjoying it. I have played 3 and 4 before and I’m thinking that next time I have an itch for something like this I might go back and try 2: Innocent Sin at some point in the future.

Sinking my teeth into Hollow Knight, just “finished” Subnautica 2 in its current state

Managed to get another hidden achievement in Hitman this week, but that’s about it. Only got around 30 mins of gaming this week, but I’m slowly chipping away and the achievement list.

Fallout 4 again, again…this time Survival with no mods. Its masochistic fun 😀

Since I have trouble playing things I was planning to play I decided to go with something outside of my usual ball park: Syberia.

It’s my second or third attempt at the game and this time I was be able to actually finish it. I completely forgot that the main character is a lawyer trying to buy a small local company for a huge corporation so hearing it again made me want to stop playing right away to make sure she fails at her job.
Seriously though, game is good. It’s also not for me. While I can appreciate its quality, the whole thing failed to grab me on a fundamental level, leading to an enjoyable but somehow hollow experience.

Characters work well as, well, “characters” though I can’t say they are enjoyable as people. I especially couldn’t care less for Kate’s personal and professional drama. Story chapters felt less like a cohesive whole and more like a bunch of ideas devs thought would be cool. Not to mention the ending which came pretty much out of nowhere. It wasn’t terrible, no by a long shot but it never managed to get to a point where I cared about what’s going on in the story.

On a more positive note, both puzzles (for the most part) and graphics hold up really well. I was a bit worried about the former since I’m not too experienced with point and clicks but I managed to finish the whole thing with very few issues. On the other hand, Syberia’s graphical prowess wasn’t too surprising - both the beautifully animated backgrounds and pre-rendered cutscenes survived the test of time, resulting in a game that looks fantastic to this day.

As mentioned before, it might not rank among my favourites but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. That said, I don’t think I’ll be playing the sequel any time soon. I’ll get to it eventually, I already have it after all, but I’ll have to wait until I’m in a mood for another point and click adventure. I might even try something else before that happens, we’ll see how it goes.

Grid 2 - I played the first game a few months ago and came out of the experience happy but a little unsatisfied due to limited content. Decided to give this one ago as, like with Syberia games, I already have it in my library.

Long story short: I’m way more mixed on this one than I ever felt about the original. Probably won’t be staying with it for too long. Here are some initial thoughts:

• No access to option on launch ain’t great. For some reason one has to wait until the first race before being able to access them.
• No interior camera is also a big negative - it’s how I played vast majority of the original.
• Driving feels a bit weird, more… floaty? Not floaty, understeer heavy. Getting into a habit of drifting into (almost) every corner helped with that a bit but it’s still weird.
• Why did we replace car purchases with gifts and unlocks?
• On the same note: why did I get a bunch of free cars in the first place?! I had 8 after finishing 2 races.
• Why do you get access to sponsors right away?
• Car customisation is also not great. Camera is stuck pointing at the front at lights level and to see anything else you have to switch to the automatic display mode which blocks you from doing anything other than watching a set of slowly changing camera angles.
• I like that damage has noticeable effect on driving.
• There are no female names when creating your characters. It’s a much smaller issue than everything else but it’s a weird omission considering they were present in the first game.

As mentioned at the start, game didn’t leave too great of an impression on me so far. I’ll play a bit more to farm some steam cards to sell (and to give it another chance, I guess) but I won’t be playing it to completion like the first game.

Half Life Alyx replay with the Miku mod. I just got through Ch. 6 and I hope to find some cheese strategies for Ch. 7 before I do that one.

I wanted to take a break from grinding achievements on The Binding of Isaac, so I tried Nuclear Throne and I’m really enjoying it! Of course, I’m still ass at the game, but it doesn’t detract it from becoming addictive and the sound man, it’s so well done. Every weapon sounds like it makes you recoil when you fire them. The explosions are super loud and crispy. And the sounds of the characters and bosses are both funny and unhinged. Plus, it seems they’ve been improving the game with updates on the past 10 years or so which is amazing from the devs. Overall I’m very happy to have discovered this gem from the not so distant past.

Today: Balatro and Anno 117

Also this week: Stardew Valley. Started yet another new save, deleted all my others; this time I will take it from start to finish without starting any new saves. (I’ve reached perfection once already and gotten to ginger island half a dozen times)

SDV makes you feel so good.