I had bought this years ago because I could tell it was extremely my shit, I think I had performance issues or something but I only ever finished the very first chapter. With all the talk of Alan Wake 2 and me having watched the X-Files in the time since the release of this game I thought it was a perfect time to jump back in. I'm so glad I did, one of my favourite games in recent years easily. Perfect length, perfect atmosphere, perfect level of storytelling and lore.

This is the only game where I have ever found myself seeking out the little text logs every game seems to have in them for some reason. Usually an indulgent waste of time, but here they are an essential part of the experience. The tone toes the line perfectly between goofy and genuinely mysterious, one that sticks out to me is the notes from an interview with Jesse about the AWE she experienced. It's this fascinating and detailed insight into the event that started the events of the game in motion and then at the bottom has "Unconfirmed existence of paranatrual entity, designation: "Dog Neil". It's so fucking good man I love that shit.

One or 2 times the combat gets in the way of it just being a good sci fi story, but mostly it's extremely fun hoying literally everything at enemies. I put literally all my points in to the Launch function, the canon way to play the game imo.

I've downloaded the DLC to play tomorrow and also Alan Wake 1.

There were a couple of times I got genuinely excited at clinging on and putting an extra hook in to save some stamina and then panned up and there was a safe spot right above me. It gets really close to having an incredibly fun and engaging climbing system, not to say it isn't fun, but the lack of any real peril holds it back slightly. I also wish they'd just not had any logs to read at all, the environmental storytelling is good enough that the text dumps get in the way of a coherent story without a single word.

That said lovely little game and the perfect length, more games should be able to be completed in one sitting.

What grinding is everyone on about? You literally do a job and a fight or two and then you're back in to one of the main missions. I did a few of the targets in my first session and then after that I would do one target per play session, I think the game is a lot of fun to play like that. You come on, mow some grass, cut a few heads off and then into one of the target missions and then log off. It's perfect played this way and to be honest I really enjoy the mundane contrast to the extremely exciting target missions (which are constantly impressive in how varied and interesting they are to play), it's meant to make you feel like a chump to an extent bc that's what Travis is.

There's obvious issues with how women are presented at times, but that's my only issue with the game and I think the overall portrayal of Travis as an absolutely pathetic piece of shit loser makes me more willing to accept some of those choices.

I went in expecting to be like "oh ye this is fun for a bit" and then drop off but I came out loving it and I'm excited to play more Suda directed games.

The concept of the depths were very exciting to me but once I explored it and realised there is nothing there all of the charm and magic of the game disappeared. The building mechanics are cool and exciting at first too, thinking of all the stuff you could do with them until you realise the game never challenges you to think outside the box with anything. An empty canvas is boring and bland , back me into a corner and make me think and something interesting might happen. I hated the Divine Beast dungeons in BotW and the dungeons in this one are as bad/worse, an exercise in tedium.