I'm bouncing between Skul: The Hero Slayer (GREAT Roguelike) and Destiny 2 a lot lately.

Started Miasma Chronicles over the weekend. It's been quite fun, but now it's becoming a bit of a drag. Every map has to be patiently stalked to off any weak stragglers, then go into turn-based combat and hope all goes well. Really is only so much to do each round so it becomes stale quickly. Just spam strongest attacks over and over

Will probably go back to viking stabbing soon

Alone in the Dark (2024)

Not heard much regarding sales but this would have been perfect at the $40-ish dollar "AA" price point. As a reimagining of the original game in a traditional third-person/survival-horror format, it really nails the storytelling and atmosphere. Throwing money at two recognizable actors mostly pays off as frequent cutscenes and story beats push it forward.

In contrast, the gameplay is a mix of slow exploration and item gathering, a few decent puzzles, and perfunctory but janky combat that is never too hard when there are always environmental objects you can use to survive, The choice of two characters is also half-baked from a gameplay perspective as you follow a similar path for all but one chapter - though it's smart in how it changes up who each character meets and puts a different emphasis on the story. Edward discovers more about a potential cult and its manipulative leader, while Emily's story focuses on her supposed family curse and her missing uncle.

Here we go again...

Ryse: Son of Rome

Somehow this has sat in my backlog for almost a decade and, playing it in 2024, I realise just how much I miss games with campaigns you can complete in less than 10 hours that actually have a conclusion.

Sentiment must really have turned against Xbox after the Xbox One reveal given this was dismissed and forgotten so quickly. It's not exactly revolutionary, but it looks great for a title around launch - with impressive cinematics and scripted sequences - and it plays well with cool combat and QTE-style executions that feel way better than God of War-style button mashing.

130h into Elden Ring. Jeeebus, this game... Brutal in places. Just when you think you have the hang of it some rat slaps the snot out of you and you loose like 300K runes.
My Borther-in-law coined the saying : "My D**k was bigger than my health bar".
Anyway, finally made it to Mohg's palace. Will work my way through so that I klap him one as the DLC lands.

Just amazing how quick you can get stuck in a fight, die 20 times, and then go for a no-hit win while ugly crying. 12/10 would recommend

Let the pain continue!

Assassin's Creed Origins

After years of giving up on ACO after a few hours, something seems to have "clicked" this time and I'm determined to finally finish this game and its DLC's.

Truth be told, I'm enjoying switching my brain off and just getting lost in a big Ubisoft-made map. Bring on the map markers, I'm not scared!

Slightly better angle. This pic contains 3 things that tried to kill me

Make no mistake, the DLC starts of on the difficulty curve where the first game ended, with a jump, just to make you feel welcome

Your levels and +10 Hand of Malenia mean NOTHING

Really sitting on the fence over whether I should keep my dex/bleed build or move to a Strength/Faith build. Pity you have limited respec options

Graven (Xbox Series)

Playing the console port of the much-reviled PC version of Graven and I really wish I could recommend it without a ton of caveats. It doesn't help that it was marketed as inspired by Heretic and Hexen, when it takes a dozen hours before you get to the point you can hop and circle-strafe around enemies blasting them with magic and medieval weaponry.

Instead, it mixes retro-FPS mechanics with lots of exploration and puzzle-driven (almost immersive-sim like) progression and an inconsistent Souls-lite design when you die, lose gold needed for upgrades, and have some enemies and pick-ups respawn. The premise and opening act - which got a ton of feedback from early access - are solid, but the subsequent acts feel underdeveloped and increasingly buggy despite still looking really cool and atmospheric.

At least current-gen ports look good, run well, and I've not seen a crash in 15 hours of play. However, there's still so much entertaining and infuriating jank that it's only worth a look at a discount if you're a fan of the genre.

Shadow of the erdtree...
Ok , now the game is just getting ridiculous. Difficulty really ramps up to stupid levels
Some issues:
Summons do not seem to aggro bosses much anymore. About 4/5 the boss will just ignore your summon and come clobber you. Makes it very difficult to create space to do anything. Quite a few now have a little side-step move that lets them avoid your charge attacks to
A lot of bosses now insta-aggro when you enter the arena. Like you have 3 seconds to do anything and they are on top of you with a 7 hit combo. Summons take 4-5 seconds and some golden summons are now INSIDE the arena
You pretty much have to play each boss PERFECTLY. Some attacks you dodge into, some away, some sideways. Learning these takes time and frustration that can quickly sour you.
The bosses are not so much difficult as they simply hit way to hard. I am level 220 and most can 3 shot me. Skadushards are on 10 I think. There really isn't much skill or planning involved anymore you just hope you get lucky.

Ok, a lot of the bosses are optional, so I can go back and retry them later, but it really disturbs the FLOW of the game.

/rant end

It is simply stupid HOW MUCH YOU MISS IN THIS GAME. The sheer amount of times I have had to go back to places because I completely missed a door or a dungeon entrance is staggering! And I really tried to be thorough to!

Argh! love to hate this game but D@mn it is making me think bad thoughts

Assassin's Creed: Mirage

Have mixed feelings about this one.

It's leaning towards the "underwhelming" side of things, which might be because the map is quite sparse, and the voice acting is straight up just...not good. The flat performances make the cutscenes feel lifeless. Also, I'm not particularly invested in any of the characters. In terms of gameplay, the parkour is quite clunky and frustrating, though the combat's decent.

Apparently Mirage is not a big time investment, so I'll just stick with it.

Edit: my experience with it has gotten better. Decided to ditch the story and do more exploring, level up equipment, unlock some skills, etc. Gave it some time to cook and am enjoying it way more now.

Still getting whipped in Elden ring.
Me: Imma go through these woods and kills stuff!
Guide I'm reading "watch out for the flying scorpion spiders!"
Me:

Playing through a section, then having a guide to check what you missed helps. You can skip entire parts of the map if you make a wrong turn.

The DLC has a lot fewer WTF was that thing! moments. Still good though

Shenmue

Working on clearing out the backlog a bit.

I love older games, but damn this is gonna be rough. On the bright side, at least the terrible dialogue and horrific voice acting constantly makes me chuckle!

My body is one large callous after Elden Ring!!!!!!!!!!!

This game is super easy now. Well, not really, but I am def a better player. I remember hiding in corners and whimpering the first time.

This game is notably more Janky tho. Hitboxes are dummy bad, like they miss you by a good 2 meters and you still hurt.

Finishing a second playthrough - as Edward Carnby this time - of Alone in the Dark (2024)

While it's no Resident Evil 2-style remake, it's a great reimagining of the original that strikes a good balance between exploration, puzzling, and combat (even if the combat is a bit janky). It looks great, nails the atmosphere, and the voice acting is better than I realised once you have some context from late-game reveals. Such a shame the studio was shut down when they could have built on this for even better sequels.

More Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the sidelines. Call it heresy, but I find the high stakes combat, weapon durability system, and the survival-like grind for materials really drag down the joy of exploration and puzzling through shrines and the few main "dungeons". Gonna keep plodding on and then see if Tears of the Kingdom improved upon the formula,

Mafia: Definitive Edition

So good, and the graphics are just...wow.

W40K: Space Marine -

Figured I'd fire up the original on the Xbox 360 in preparation for the new one (I still have no idea why this was not made back-compat or got a simple remaster). At the time, you might have dismissed it as yet another Gears-clone, but it does a great job capturing the absurd scale of the W40K universe and the aggressive gameplay loop - with no cover system and the health-for-kills mechanic was and remains refreshingly simple.

IIRC there was a license expiry issue with THQ going under.

A PC anniversary edition was released a few years ago by Sega.