With three posts in a row, it’s official. As always, I appreciate people reading my longer reviews on Steam, so take a look if any game this month catches your eye!

September 2024

Fables from the Den

Fables from the Den

0.2 hours

no achievements

Is this a game? No. It’s more like a digital book with ~15 minutes of content. I won it as a GA that I joined because the artstyle looked nice, and then did everything I could with this piece of software in a quarter of an hour. I don’t know how I feel about this, but satisfied is not the word. Anyway, I’m already spending longer writing this blurb than I spent “playing” it.
My Review

Screenshots:

Police Stories

Police Stories: The Academy

0.4 hours

no achievements

Police Stories

4.9 hours

23 of 39 achievements

Police Stories was a game I had won in my first few months on SteamGifts and never got around to it. Well, now I have as part of PAGYWOSG. I’ve tried playing the Prologue first, but it doesn’t accept a gamepad, so I booted the main game instead. Turns out the game was not designed for gamepad, and it’s really clunky to play. So after a frustrating 30 minutes, I went back to the Prologue with K+M and things started to click. On the main game, I hit a skill check around a quarter of the way into the story, and had to check some tips and guides online, which gave me all the tools I needed to blast through the rest of the game after that.

It turns out the gameplay is a structured loop - your goal is to clear a venue room-by-room, trying to avoid shoot-outs (keep it quiet and you’ll attract less attention), leveraging most of your tactical gear, and using your AI partner as another tool, but keeping him in check (as he’s very trigger-happy). It’s an addictive loop that requires fast reflexes, as the levels are all set on a fixed map, but with proc-gen enemy and hostage location. It’s a super fun loop that is not super complex, and once you’re comfortable with it you can turn your brain off and still have fun. I wasn’t tired of playing it by the time I reached the ending.

The Zombie DLC throws your loop in disarray as many of the tactics you grew used to cannot be effectively used. For instance, the main game rewards you for getting up close to enemies and punching them, but the DLC punishes that since close contact means you’ll be bitten and turned into a zombie. It was a nice set of missions that forced me to re-adjust my playstyle.

Plot is nothing to write home about, but serviceable. The cutscenes are all really nice, with a distinctive artstyle. The game is great at building atmosphere, and I’d certainly recommend it to anyone.

My Review - Prologue
My Review - Full Game

Screenshots:

Frog Fractions

Frog Fractions: Game of the Decade Edition

0.9 hours

2 of 30 achievements

Hmmm, I don’t know. I keep hearing people talking about Frog Fractions and how you need to play it, so I gave it a go. It reminded me a lot of Henry Stickmin, a game I heard similar things about. It definitely encapsulates a moment in gaming, specifically the Flash-era of webgaming, but did I have a good time or huge revelations playing it? No. It’s hard to recommend, as I don’t think it’s that fun or meta or whatever. Daniel Mullins took the concept and ran with it, leaving Frog Fractions behind as a curiosity, not necessarily a good piece of entertainment in itself. But it’s free and it’s short, so take a look and decide for yourself?

My Review

Screenshots:

Red Dead Redemption 2

109.5 hours

16 of 51 achievements

Still going on. I played almost 50 hours in August, and added 40 hours in September. Was supposed to be more but I was traveling for a week so here we are.
I feel that I’ve done most of what I wanted in the open world, so free-form exploration took a back seat and I focused more on the main story. While I spent roughly a month on Chapter 2 and another month on Chapter 3, I was able to finish Chapter 4 in a week and Chapter 5 in almost a day. Even when focused on the story, the game is still very long. But it’s undeniably fun regardless of what you are doing.

The whole story feels like it’s on a crescendo, and I can’t wait to actually beat it beat it. Also it’s a bit crazy for me that I am still not able to explore a big chunk of the map (New Austin), damn haha
My Review: Still playing the game!

Screenshots: (it’s impossible to pick only four, damnit haha)

New Games

Yes, I played a lot of games in September, but my backlog still grew. A good mix of purchases, wins, F2P and Discord keys. Since RDR2 is almost over, I feel confident I can try to tackle two or three medium-size wins this month, fingers crossed!