it's pretty dope. more of a shooter than ep 1.

i kind of love it as an artifact. the cliffhanger ending, still, infamously, unresolved. gaming's biggest mystery? not, imo. the third episode - or third game - it was setting up seemed pretty straightforward. instead it dovetails in its final moments with this shock event and just sort of... ends. that's it. cut to credits. i think to get any more would actually be harmful. it's like the sopranos of game endings, intentional or otherwise.

i was listening to someone talk about how war games are rarely if every about people but simply warfare. i think half-life with its scarily mute protagonist is almost incapable of seriously dealing with the aftermath of this ending without radically altering that and giving freeman a personality and some lines and maybe more importantly being a game about anything other than shooting faceless trooper goons. half-life feels like a game demo, set upon the world to test the limits of graphics and gameplay, its story almost seems improvisational and made up on the fly. half life 3 exits - i think it's kind of just the leftovers, with gordon and alyx reincarnated as kevin and nora.

idk i am very tired.

you're just some guy, some free man, if you will, who is trying to impress a hot chick by helping her save her dad, and by doing so you unknowingly become the face of a revolution.

feels less like a game and more like a collection of ideas for what games could be. very minimalist. credits are just white text. diegetic cutscenes. nice physics and graphics, mostly in service of a fairly generic story set in a barren fascist alien nightmare.

yeah it sucks to play as a mute in a game with side characters who are clearly forming bonds and attachments with said character but i kinda feel like that's supposed to be a bit of a joke.

game does feel at odds with itself in terms of being a shooter. i think portal (or at least portal 2, the one i played) feels closer to the kind of game this wants to be, which is basically what it becomes for its final two chapters. saying that, i really dug the shooting and the cold starkness of the level design. you can turn this into a doom-like where you're perpetually hunting down tight corridors with a shotgun blasting everything in sight, even with more unique tools and weapons at your disposal. there are some more open levels, a couple of needlessly long vehicle levels, for example. but i really dug this as a pure corridor shooter.

as an aside, i was surprised how many set pieces were in this game. maybe not a ton but enough to make me go wow this feels like every shooter i've played that has released in 17 years since.

shit feels timeless.

the design document was a napkin that simply read 'how about balls to the wall hollywood set-piece after set-piece?'

the escalation seen between drake's fortune and among thieves is quadrupled, and then doubled once or twice more for good measure here, until drake's deception finally winds up making among thieves look like a ken burns documentary in comparison.

the bond and indy jones influences are heavy. i think i called uncharted 2 the best james bond anything for reasons i can't quite remember. i think uncharted 3 excels so well at taking those influences and using them in ways that feel as fresh as the kind of big, expensive spectacle action you can only find in movies like fury road or the mcquarrie mission impossible movies (and to an extent the john wick sequels). to me uncharted 3 is a game that belongs in the same modern pantheon as those movies. i got just as much of a thrill from the convoy sequence as i did from fury road. just as excited to play the final confrontation between drake and talbot as i was to watch cruise and cavill square off on the cliff in mi fallout. i think it really is superb hollywood action all the way through. just fantastic work.

it's been over 30 hours since i finished the game, and i thought by now i'd have something substantial to say but for now the only words i can muster in my forlorn state are "good game. great game. fuck. go play this game."

utterly fulfilling. beautiful to look at. depressing as hell. one of the best written things i've ever experienced. if i never played another game again i'd be fine considering the emotional exercise i got out of this (i'd like to praise the intelectual elements too but i feel too stupid to say anything about that just that it felt super smart in a genuine way).

sweet, funny, and poignant all at the right moments. to me it captures the term visual novel beautifully. the visuals are more than words on a screen, rather they create a positive, relaxing atmosphere for what amounts to a small story to live beyond some pages or a computer app.

it's like textbook definition of what makes a game a game (and not a movie or a book).

also i cried at some nerd kid putting a stick away. gaming!

looks a million bucks for the most part, bar a few sections. the cyberpunk setting rules. very minority report with all the washed out milky lights. general direction feels a little lacking. there are some nice things it tries to do with scripted set-pieces that mostly involve fleeing office workers but none of it really comes together in any spectacular moment.

i kept thinking watching these civilian NPCs being mowed down, with your character free to shoot any of them as well, would come back in the story but it doesn't.

brian cox is in this game for some reason. the story itself... well, i can't speak to it because i didn't pay attention to almost anything anyone said. just seemed like gibberish to me.

the gameplay is where this shines, even it seems kind of 3/4ths completed. you have the ability to hack enemies but it's never used to a really interesting effect. 99% of encounters are just waves of goons. you can hack turrets but only in a few moments does it apply. at one point you get a drone pal but it's for one section at the end. feels like movement should be prioritised more than it is because the cover system is non-existent and you have no shield powers. so you're kind of straight shooting everyone in the face and trying not to get hit too much, which when you're out in the open is hard.

i did say it shines, though and that's because the guns are wicked cool. you've got a smart gun that can shoot around obstacles, and a scoped rifle that blasts through cover. at one point you get a flamethrower and a sweet laser canon type thing. shame you can't choose your loadout and you're limited to what you can pick up off the ground. but i love the look and feel of the gunplay here. i love the hologram ammo counter. the way they moved in your guy's hand.

at the end of the day this mostly feels like a missed opportunity. a lot of swell moving pieces but a little spice and game magic kind of missing and it ultimately fails to congeal into a meaningful experience of any kind.

kind of makes me want to play cyberpunk 2077 or a deus ex game again. there should be more awesome AAA first person cyberpunk shooters.

it's like, i was depressed last year when i played doom eternal, and doom eternal kicked my fucking ass.

a year later, i feel even more depressed as the residual effects of 2020 ripple out and catch up, and here comes the ancient gods, with even less of a fuck given to my ability to deal with waves of demonic hordes.

the gaming equivalent of the psyche-out handshake, except instead of simply pulling back and saying "ooh, too slow" it then also punches you repeatedly in the jaw for good measure and then kind of kicks you a little when you crumple to the floor (just like evolution of my depression this year versus last year).

sick game

it's like dirtbag james bond. you start every level in stealth mode and get a few free passes to eliminate your enemies quietly. but in rogue warrior stealth kills mean stabbing a man in the head or spine while mickey rourke calls them a cocksucker or something.

it's very short. profane in a way that's more depressing than amusing. i bought it on a whim and as a joke, but i kind of dug it? the narrow level design, the minimalist art direction coupled with the very basic aim and shoot gameplay reminded me a lot of universal soldier day of reckoning. it's nowhere near as artistically ambitious or stunning. but i don't know, it worked for me in a weird way.

mickey rourke raps (or his voice dialogue is remixed into a rap) over the end credits too. wicked game.

red dead redemption 2: russian DLC

this may be more of a semi open world immersive sim with heavy stealth elements. but it's telling a lot of the same story as RDR2 and in very similiar ways.

both feature trains, coughing fits, and some fine natural day/night lighting. both are very slow, heavy, tactile games (in very different ways, RDR2 is more realistic but metro exodus is the game with an in-game map and a first-person camera that shows off some of gaming's most extremely textured gloves).

both are about desperate people suffering a bleak existence and attempting to survive harsh environments while clinging to dreams of a brighter future.

both take serious time out and go out of their way to explore their side characters in more depth than most games typically offer their main characters.

the best moments in both games are the quiet ones. like just the pleasure of exploring the world and taking in the atmosphere. or just listening to conversations, that either include you or don't. i think in that way both games aren't just about companionship but the importance of empathy.

both are about the consequences of your actions too. although in red dead 2 those actions are scripted. the game is third-person. you play a scripted character with a preset fate. metro exodus on the other hand, while featuring a scripted character, is in first person and has how play as someone who only ever speaks during loading screens when they're writing in their diary (another connection to rdr2 re: the diary). it ultimately tests your character's morality through your actions as a player. maybe those actions too subtle. maybe they're too dense to grasp. all i know this game left me in the same space as red dead 2 but i had to face that the bitter taste in my mouth was not the author's doing but my own, and when i realised i had to reap what i sowed, all i could say was "damn, you got me".

cool game. glad i played it. and even on a launch ps4 this thing sparkled. will play the DLC eventually.

himbo: the game

pretty, dumb, thoughtless. has some great pieces to be special, something that's carried over as a series staple, i guess, which is that it's a game about linebacker sized men who pound aliens into the dirt with equally absurdly macho weaponry. presentation is polished to an inch of its life. plays super tight. looks like the real deal. but narratively kind of dead. could have tried to inject some personality somewhere along the line. it's an oddly dour game whose biggest personality and redemptive figure is still a fascist who shot a bunch of protestors (either off screen or in another game, i don't know).

it's good. it's fine. the lightning desert storms are sick. i'll always remember it for where it fits into the timeline of my depression (i would have finished it two weeks sooner if i didn't fall into an unrelated tailspin while playing). but it's ultimately kind of too generic for its own good. it's the first gears game i played. i'll no doubt play some more though.