[WEEKEND GAMING] Sneaking Through the Spirit World and Renaissance Point-and-clicks

Friday! Video games! Let’s talk!

Final Fantasy XIII will continue to be my long-term “chip away at” game for the next few weeks (or months), so I won’t be including it in my weekly wrap-ups unless something important happens. For now, I’m still somewhere in what the game considers “disc 1” farming Aegisols in the junkyard-looking area with Lightning and Hope.

The Medium

Back when Bloober Team’s The Medium released as an Xbox Series X exclusive I watched a Let’s Play of the first two hours since I couldn’t find a Series X at the time. I thought it was pretty boring to watch and never gave it another thought until earlier today. It’s October, Halloween is soon, and I was in the mood for something horror-ish, so here we are.

You play as Marianne, the titular medium, who has the unique ability to enter and simultaneously navigate the spirit world in order to help folks cross over. Before her father’s funeral she receives a panicked call from a stranger that claims to know her and is in dire need of her particular talents down at the Niwa Resort — the site of a horrific massacre in Poland.

I’m definitely more into the story this time around and I think, mechanically, The Medium does some interesting things that can only be appreciated first-hand. In the three hours I’ve played, I’ve explored the abandoned resort, met a mangled female spirit named Sadness, and honed into various objects that gave more backstory on the massacre victims. It’s neat.

The main gimmick that sets it apart from any other horror game is the ability to control Marianne in both versions of the hotel (current and spirit) simultaneously and how that plays into puzzle solving. You can trigger out-of-body experiences to fully control yourself inside the spirit world for a brief amount of time, usually to open up new pathways in the real world, which plays into The Medium’s core focus on offering a combat-free, atmospherically terrifying experience.

The Procession to Calvary

This genuinely hilarious point-and-click adventure game just landed on Game Pass last week and it’s so fucking good! The entire game is crafted as a massive collage of famous Renaissance paintings, always to the most absurd degree.

I mean…

You’re essentially obsessed with murdering people, but now that the war is over you’re no longer prohibited to do so. However, your king grants you permission (not really) to seek out and kill the opposing leader, Heavenly Peter. Then chaos ensues.

The writing is laugh-out-loud funny and my partner and I have had a blast with the game so far. If point-and-clicks are your jam, this should be at the top of your to-play list. Especially if you subscribe to Game Pass.

Apparently it’s only 2-ish hours long so we’ll definitely finish it before the weekend is up.

What about you, folks? What are you playing this weekend?