Just finished up the Alan Wake 1 DLC, and the American Nightmare spinoff game. I really loved Control and had decided to go back and play the Alan Wake games. The base Alan Wake game had some good ideas, but the controls and balancing were clunky and the combat was tedious. The DLC’s got better, using the dark/light mechanics in much more interesting ways. American Nightmare had controls that felt much better and a neat structure of more open, less linear levels. Still nowhere near as great as Control was imo.
So now I’m playing Disco Elysium. I had tried to start it a few times and bounced off- it’s great, but a TON of heavy text and political theory. I managed to make some headway a couple months ago when I was traveling with my Steam Deck. Figured now is as good for a time as any to try to beat it at least once. It is truly great, and I think needs to be in the conversations for best game of all time. But it also takes a lot of energy and a specific mood to play.
Another game I tried to go back to was Hellblade. I’m, idk, about a third of the way through I guess? First started over a year ago. I love the initial concept of the character’s psychosis manifesting in-game, but it seems like 90% of the gimmick was done in the opening sequence and the game got incredibly repetitive after that. It’s so slow it’s hard to play. My hands hurt after a bit because I find myself pushing on the joysticks harder, pushing on the “jog” button harder, trying to make Senua move. It’s really frustrating to have a puzzle mentally solved but needing to spend 5 minutes moving her slow ass around to execute the solution. It’s a good thing exploration is pretty useless because it also takes forever. The combat is also boring and repetitive: the enemies take way too many hits and there are way too many of them. Even just starting the game, sitting through all the stupid splash screens and the same trigger warning is tedious and dumb. I feel like I’ve put dozens of hours banging my head against this game, but when I look at steam I’ve only put in a little over 5. I think I might retire the game and just watch a lore video of it instead.
Just finished up the Alan Wake 1 DLC, and the American Nightmare spinoff game. I really loved Control and had decided to go back and play the Alan Wake games. The base Alan Wake game had some good ideas, but the controls and balancing were clunky and the combat was tedious. The DLC’s got better, using the dark/light mechanics in much more interesting ways. American Nightmare had controls that felt much better and a neat structure of more open, less linear levels. Still nowhere near as great as Control was imo.
So now I’m playing Disco Elysium. I had tried to start it a few times and bounced off- it’s great, but a TON of heavy text and political theory. I managed to make some headway a couple months ago when I was traveling with my Steam Deck. Figured now is as good for a time as any to try to beat it at least once. It is truly great, and I think needs to be in the conversations for best game of all time. But it also takes a lot of energy and a specific mood to play.
Another game I tried to go back to was Hellblade. I’m, idk, about a third of the way through I guess? First started over a year ago. I love the initial concept of the character’s psychosis manifesting in-game, but it seems like 90% of the gimmick was done in the opening sequence and the game got incredibly repetitive after that. It’s so slow it’s hard to play. My hands hurt after a bit because I find myself pushing on the joysticks harder, pushing on the “jog” button harder, trying to make Senua move. It’s really frustrating to have a puzzle mentally solved but needing to spend 5 minutes moving her slow ass around to execute the solution. It’s a good thing exploration is pretty useless because it also takes forever. The combat is also boring and repetitive: the enemies take way too many hits and there are way too many of them. Even just starting the game, sitting through all the stupid splash screens and the same trigger warning is tedious and dumb. I feel like I’ve put dozens of hours banging my head against this game, but when I look at steam I’ve only put in a little over 5. I think I might retire the game and just watch a lore video of it instead.