Beaten and completed

Haven’t updated in a long time but I have a few more games I’ve begun so I thought I might as well get it over with.

I played Abstractism before the news of it allegedly being a crypto miner broke out. Don’t know if it had the time to do any other damage but putting that aside, it’s safe to say that the game was really bad anyway. It could’ve been an all right platformer, but the controls were an absolute mess, it took me 6 minutes just to jump on a couple of ledges.

I now understand why people don’t really like YOU DON’T KNOW JACK Vol. 1 XL and all the other classic YDKJ games. As many others have mentioned, it’s US-centric so it’s pretty much impossible for non-americans to get a decent score. It’s also difficult for younger generations since the game is pretty old. While I was expecting it to be a little worse than the PS3 demo I played quite a few years ago (simply because of the time between releases), I wasn’t expecting it to be that bad. Played one full game just to be able to say I’m done with it.

Thankfully, I had good experiences in this batch too. I feel like this one is the first where I got to really enjoy a lot of good games one after another, rather than just going for whatever game is short just to have less to play. I had previously watched a full playthrough of SIMULACRA, but it was a year or two before I actually got to play it. I absolutely loved it and it’s definitely one of my favorite games, even though I always felt like I could never play anything remotely horror. I ended up trying a few more endings after playing the game naturally, but I reaaaaaaally didn’t feel like going for all the achievements. It wasn’t overly jumpscare-y and even though it made me curse out loud a few times, it never made me stop playing it. I love the whole snooping around for information in digital mediums (which is why I also loved games like Orwell and Replica), and I’d love to find more like these. It’s also making me search for more horror/horror-ish games that aren’t first-person “get out of the place” games because I find them ridiculously boring.

I also played SIMULACRA: Pipe Dreams but for some reason it’s not showing up in my BLAEO games list. I’m either unlucky or there’s an error somewhere with this game specifically, since I don’t remember having problems with any other free games showing up. But anyway, I’m too tired to check right now but I believe this was made by another team, not the original creators. While the whole interface and sounds are all exactly the same and happens in the same “universe”, it’s shorter and it takes a different approach to what’s discussed in the original. I felt like it was weaker than SIMULACRA and I tried to excuse it because I thought hey, the mechanics are the same, the environment is the same, I’m probably just bored of seeing the exact same thing, but after playing Orwell’s sequel, I realized that’s not an excuse. I appreciate the intent and I don’t think it’s an awful game, but I wouldn’t take the time to replay it and I would never recommend it over the original.

I’m pretty sure I had Oxenfree in my library for quite a while before I actually got to playing it. I even watched part of a gameplay a year or two ago and said I absolutely have to play this soon, but I was once again too lazy to actually do it. I think I got around to it when my internet stopped working properly and I couldn’t play League so I had to look for something offline. Anyway, again, this is officially one of my favorite games, even though it has its hiccups. I was pretty mad at the very beginning because walking just takes sooooooooo looooooong sometimes and the map is slightly confusing at first, and even later on if you’re in a rush it’s really easy to get places mixed up. But honestly, the story made it worth it. I loved the way it was presented and it had a few moments where just when I thought I figured out what was going on, there’d be an event or a wave of information that changed my perception completely, so it never got boring. The ending really got me, and I ended up starting a second playthrough. I love how the first playthrough brings changes to the second, and I really hope to be in the mood to finish it again in a different way.

Orwell: Ignorance is Strength was almost as great as its predecessor. Loved the old mechanics combined with the new, and the story was pretty great, but I just felt a bit more disconnected I guess? I didn’t feel like it had the same level of immersion as the first one, and I think it’s either because it might take less time to complete (not 100% sure, since I idle most of my games before playing them), or because everything in this one was connected to one person from start to finish, while in the other one I remember it being a bit more scattered. Still, a pretty great game.

SOLITUNE was more of a disappointment for me. I was already expecting it to be short and more of a narrative-based little game, but to be completely honest, it just fell flat. I really liked the art style but unfortunately I didn’t like much else.

Shame pile

Still clearing out the ones I uh… “played” a long time ago. Actually playing games takes waaay longer for me so I’ll still have them for at least 4-5 more posts, but I’m already halfway through my next update and I’m really excited because I feel like starting with this one I’m really, really enjoying what I’m playing most of the time.

I tried to set up a goal for myself to only play the games I currently have installed this year, at least until I free up some space. I failed instantly because of a couple of small games I had in a list (“Amazing games that I’m stupid for not playing yet”) and I couldn’t help myself when I remembered how bad I wanted to play them before I got them, but I also uninstalled a couple that I checked out and realized I don’t feel like playing so.. fair trade? I managed to buy way less games this year compared to the ones before - I don’t think I bought more than 5 bundles and the only individual games I bought were with steam wallet that I got from selling stuff on the market. I got GTA V on the last day of the winter sale, but I’m considering refunding it because it feels disappointing as hell, yet I’m conflicted ‘cause I kinda wanna keep it in my collection or try it some other time with a controller. I used to play exclusively on my PS3 before and had hundreds of hours in GTA IV, so I’m hoping for a similar experience to that.