After a busy week at school, due to an exam, a term paper, and the start of a new accelerated class, I’m definitely ready to unwind with a good game or two. I just don’t know which one.
What are you folks getting in to this weekend?
I was originally going to play through the new release of Dear Esther: Landmark Edition, but I ended up playing through it the day it launched instead. It was a pretty depressing game, which seems to be one of my favorite things to experience, despite suffering from depression myself. Weird how that works, no?
I liked the narration, the setting, and piecing the story together, and I definitely feel it’s a better narrative experience than The Chinese Room’s newer offering Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
Although I still have reviews for Jotun: Valhalla Edition and Mount & Blade: Warband, I haven’t had enough time to dedicate to either game in order to give them a fair critique. Maybe this weekend, but I’ve been so involved in reviewing games lately that I kind of want to sit down and enjoy something for myself.
I never got around to Layers of Fear, so that’s always a possibility. It’s officially fall, it’s a horror game, so there’s never been a better time to dig in.
I’ve been wanting to start a beefy RPG, since fall break is coming up in November. That’d give me enough time to chip away at the (assumed) slow beginning moments and then spend my break muscling out as much as possible.
Or I could just finish up I am Setsuna, which I kind of forgot about. Or The Witness, which I also forgot about.
There’s a Flash Sale on PSN right now, but nothing is catching my eye. I was considering Day of the Tentacle Remastered, but I’m not in the mood for a point-and-click adventure game right now. This is the same reason I haven’t picked up Virginia or The Bunker yet, although both are high on my to-do list.
Then again, I did sell a few games on eBay in order to buy the BioShock Collection, which I still haven’t grabbed.
…I think I might be in a gaming funk.
What are you up to this weekend?
Cheap Boss Attack 
I tried out The Crew and 2 hours later uninstalled it from my PC. It’s a terrible game that I can’t see myself putting more time into. As far this weekend goes I have no idea what I’ll be getting into. I think I’m done with Total War: Warhammer. I didn’t enjoy it as much as previous Total War games, but it’s still great and I had a lot of fun with it.
The only thing I might consistently play is Warframe until I get the itch to play something else.
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My dad picked up The Crew before he passed, so I gave it a shot. Definitely not for me, lol. I played for maybe an hour before throwing in the towel.
Since I’m primarily a console guy, I have no idea what Total War is. Sounds like an RTS?
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I forget that you’re not a PC gamer some times. Total War has been around for a long time. It’s my favorite RTS series, but calling it a simple RTS isn’t fair though. It’s much more than that.
If you feel like watching a video check this out – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIrGBqA2Grk. He sticks to the point and shows off the game while reviewing it.
Total War has always been based off of real life wars. Samurai, Roman, etc. Warhammer is the first fantasy Total War so it’s a pretty big deal to us Total War fans :).
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Haha, yeah, I always had a shit PC until the early 2000’s, and even then I’ve only really used my PC for WoW and the random indie review game. RTS is sparse on consoles, so I was never exposed to them. I tried a friend’s copy of Starcraft 2 and I was just fucking AWFUL at all that management lol. My brain just takes a dump.
Thanks for the link. I’ll check out the video.
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Total War is a bit more relaxing to play than Starcraft 2 :]. You can even auto battle your way out of every battle if you’re not good at the RTS part of the game.
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Ah you played Dear Esther! I have monologues from that game memorized and I recite them quite often (I’m a weird one if you didn’t know that already).
It is a funny thing how depressing stories draw you when you have depression yourself. My favorite stories are the saddest (a major reason why VII is my favorite Final Fantasy), and I think it has to do with being able to relate A huge part of depression is crushing loneliness, but when you find a narrative that speaks to you from that darker place, you feel less alone, because someone out there gets it enough to make a relatable story.
DE is so haunting and empty, but the eeriness doesn’t hit you until later. You wonder if you (the player) were following a ghost along who was just repeating the motions that led to his demise, and you wonder how often he’s done so. I still need to write a review of that game. So good, and I’m glad you liked it. I read some less than stellar reviews from people on Grouvee who thought the narrator was presumptuous. Maybe because I’m an anglophile, but I didn’t get that from him at all.
Ah the sequel isn’t as good? I’ll check it out anyway. Final note, I love how the company is called The Chinese Room, since the name itself refers to a thought experiment, and Dear Esther is a bit of an experimental game.
This is the weekend I finally beat FFIV. It’s going to happen. I’m right there at the last save point so it’s down into the crystal core I go.
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I did enjoy Dear Esther, but even though it was only 2 hours long I do wish the movement speed wasn’t so sluggish for the entire duration. I get wanting to take things slow, savor the experience, soak in the atmosphere, but when you take a wrong turn and have to backtrack it just felt a little off. At least Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture had a run button, but even then it was still incredibly slow going.
I liked the narration and how I never felt sure of what, exactly, was going on. Was I already dead, since I was stumbling across a bunch of different items within the dialogue (like the wrecked car parts, for instance), or was the player character drifting through a fever dream while dying somewhere else… really interesting stuff.
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So many interpretations. I’m still trying to figure out if the narrator was Paul, Jakobson, Donnelly, the hermit, or a combination. At one point he calls Esther “Esther Donnelly,” which throws everything into suspect. I also wonder if the narrator was Paul, then he’s the one who caused the accident. We assume the narrator is Esther’s husband. One theory I have is the accident/her death was so devastating to him that his mentally fractured, created these other personas, moved to this island, wrote her the 21 letters that he then cast into the sea, then jumped from the aerial tower itself. But that’s just one of many.
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My interpretation is that he gradually loses his mind the further you progress in the game, as seen in the dialogue. But, then again, the chemistry paintings and biblical references all of the walls lead me to believe he’s been mad for a long time. It could also be his broken leg having an infection, which could have caused a fever dream of sort and why, in his final moments, his memory flubs and combines the names of the different characters. But with him morphing in to a bird and meeting up with two other birds, which I assume are either Esther and their unborn child, or Esther and Paul, along with the hidden four urns, it kind of feels like the entire game is a fever dream and he’s just somewhere else dying full of regret. There’s just too many physical nods to his narrative strewn about the island for me to think any of it is real.
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…
So I completely missed the unborn child part of it in my watches. I do remember a monologue that mentions children, but that adds a whole new angle to the tragedy. Geez, it just gets deeper and deeper.
I can see the fever dream, but I can also see it the memories of a ghost of sorts. Like you (the player) are following this person around in his last days, and it’s just something that repeats over and over again, which is horrifying. Is this poor man forced to relive all of his guilt and darkness for eternity because he either caused the accident or takes responsibility for it?
There are definite suicide motifs in the story, but the broken leg and infection really make me wonder how the hell he would be walking around, which lends credence to your fever dream philosophy.
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The Landmark Edition has a new commentary track option that plays during the game, so I’ll have to go through it again with that on to see if it gives any definitive answers.
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I am definitely interested in playing or watching the Landmark version of it now. I think the one I saw was older.
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Yeah, the commentary is exclusive to the new Landmark Edition that came out on Tuesday.
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Day of the Tentacle is awesome. Even if you aren’t in the mood to play it now there is nothing wrong picking it up at a discount and playing it in the future.
I downloaded Criminal Girls 2 for the Vita yesterday, so I will probably play that at some point today or tomorrow.
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I really liked the combat system and idea of the original Criminal Girls, so I look forward to playing through the sequel eventually.
I suppose you’re right with Day of the Tentacle. I’ve spent $6 on a McDonald’s meal that lasted all of 10 minutes, so I might as well grab the game while it’s on sale and just put it in the back burner.
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Took your advice and picked up Day of the Tentacle. Also grabbed Sword Art Online: Lost Song, Omega Quintet, and Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed. Thank you eBay sales.
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