It’s the Freakin’ Weekend! So What are You Playing?

Friday! Video games! Let’s talk!

Not a lot of gaming time for me this week, but I did manage to click my way through the first chapter of the PC adventure game The Journey Down and even got a review up. Since last week’s wrap-up post, I also finished up Thimbleweed Park on PS4 (which was excellent) and jumped into The Coma: Recut (which hasn’t grabbed me yet).

The Coma: Recut is a 2D horror game similar to Claire: Extended Cut (review). The hand-drawn art style and animations are pretty well done, but the gameplay hook is doing nothing for me. Like I explained last week, you play as a Korean high school student who falls asleep during finals and wakes up to a dark, empty version of his school. There’s blood everywhere, mysterious notes that recount explosions and other odd events he doesn’t remember, and the only other person he can find is the teacher he has a massive crush on. Of course, she’s possessed now and wants to shove a butcher knife between his ribs.

In typical survival horror fashion, you have to explore every nook and cranny of the school in order to find key items and unlock the path forward. The teacher serves as a constant annoyance who shows up at random and chases you around until you either break her line-of-sight by hiding in lockers or she successfully brings your insides outside. If the encounters were planned I think I’d like it a bit more, but so far it’s been a mildly uninteresting game of “one step forward, three steps back.” This isn’t my kind of horror game at all. Either way, I’ll see it through to the end and get a review up as soon as possible. I highly doubt the stalker aspect of the game changes during its back half.

With The Journey Down being a trio of shorter episodes, I do plan on dipping into chapter two over the weekend. If you read my review of chapter one, you’ll know that it abruptly ended and soon as the actual adventure began (but it’s still a good time), so I look forward to seeing where the adventure goes from here.

The game I’ve been spending most of my erratic free time with is Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online on PS4, which releases on October 10th. I was hoping to have a review up on launch day, but its run-time is estimated around 20 hours so I’m not entirely sure that’s doable anymore. I have an essay due on Sunday, two exams, and three other assignments due over the weekend, so unless next week is a bit more relaxed I highly doubt I’ll finish the game in time. Perhaps that’s for the best since the game does have an online co-op mode that I can’t truly test until it’s in the hands of the public. I’m going to avoid getting into the meat of the game here since a review is definitely in the works, but it’s essentially a Sword Art Online game with Neptunia characters and humor — for better or worse.

As for what else is in the works, a close friend of mine will be guest-reviewing Mary Skelter: Nightmares on Vita and Rock of Ages 2: Bigger and Boulder on PS4 here at Cheap Boss Attack. I was asked to review both games but I had already bitten off more than I could chew. Rather than outright decline the reviews, I wanted to ask around and see if anyone else would be interested in taking them on as a guest contributor and luckily found someone I knew I could rely on. These two reviews will actually be the first posts to go up here not written by me since 2011, so that’s kind of exciting.

Outside of playing games, I’m currently watching a few Let’s Plays over on the ol’ YouTube.

I started watching FightinCowboy play through the newest DLC for Nioh, Bloodshed’s End, before I remembered I never finished his LP of the core game, so I started that one over. It’s quite long. My girlfriend and I started watching Cryaotic’s new LP for Little Nightmares, which is up to episode 3 as of today.

GG Gab also uploaded two massive episodes for her new horror LPs. The first is a Thai horror game called Home Sweet Home, which shares gameplay elements with The Coma: Recut. You play as a guy navigating a nightmarish world inspired by Thai mythology, where a creepy girl with a box cutter melts out of bloody walls. The sound of her box cutter clicking whenever she’s nearby is unsettling and the atmosphere looks great for being crafted by such a small team. The other game is a first-person Lovecraftian horror title called The Land of Pain, which I know nothing about.

With October rounding the corner on Sunday and my girlfriend and I being massive horror nerds that love Halloween more than anything, we plan to watch one horror film per night throughout Halloween Month™. This gave me an idea for two different articles.

First, I wanted to go through Netflix and comprise a list of horror film recommendations, but I have to wait until October 1st to see what else is being added to the streaming service. If anyone reading this is remotely interested in the idea and also/only has a Hulu subscription, let me know. I don’t mind adding a few extras to the list for you fellow Hulu folks. Then, I wanted to play around with some of the rad, free games on Itch.io and provide a similar list of short, interesting, and unique horror games to check out to help get everyone into the Halloween spirit. I’ve downloaded about twenty-ish games on my Itch.io app and I’ll be jumping in and out of them sporadically over the next 48-hours to see what’s worth recommending.

What about you, folks? Got any gaming plans this weekend?