Tag: outer wilds

some good things

I’m OK. You OK? I mean, everything is nuts, yes, of course, but there’s also some good things, too. I’m holding onto the good things. Here are some of them.

Stranger Things – We binged Season 2 last week to get caught up for Season 3 and my god, this show is still amazing – if for no other reason than it’s one of the few shows (or, really, any media) where PEOPLE SAY THE THING THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID AT THE RIGHT TIME.

Fleabag – speaking of binge-ing, the wife and I watched this until 1 in the morning the other day, which is a thing we hadn’t done since before our kid was born. It’s one of the most extraordinary shows I’ve ever seen; perfectly cast, perfectly written, perfectly performed. I will basically now watch anything that Phoebe Waller-Bridges gets her hands on. And what a fantastic treat to get to see Andrew “Moriarity” Scott again! Hard to pick a favorite episode out of basically 12 perfect episodes but the dinner party that opens Season 2 is absolutely spectacular.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – I’m sure that everyone has at least one game that’s considered an all-time classic that they’ve never been able to get into. For me, the most notorious of these would almost certainly be Resident Evil 4, which for the rest of the world is one of the greatest games ever made. I couldn’t get more than 5 minutes into it without loathing it. (And it’s not for lack of effort – I’ve tried to get into it several times, on several different platforms, and each time I give up because I hate it.) Anyway, I bring this up because until last week, BotW was also in that category; I’m not sure I’d even beaten the first shrine before getting frustrated. (It’s entirely possible that the survival/crafting elements are what turned me off, not to mention the extreme fragility of every weapon; it also probably needs to be repeated (because I’m sure I’ve said this a million times) that while I had an Atari 2600 and my younger brother had a Sega Genesis, there was never a Nintendo console in my house until the Wii, so I don’t have any nostalgia to fall back on.) In any event, something finally clicked for me this week and now I’m hooked. I get it now; I understand the game’s rhythms. (And it’s also made stuff like Skyrim and the upcoming Witcher 3 port totally superfluous; if I need an amazing open-world game to take with me on the train, this is the one right here.)

The Outer Wilds – I’ve had to take some time away from this game recently, but that hasn’t stopped me from being in love with it. Here, read Kotaku’s Jason Schreier on it.

Forza Horizon 4 – I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: this game is pure joy. And the recently released Lego DLC is so much fun. If it’s been a while since you’ve fired it up, give it a spin. And if you’ve never played it, well, get on that shit. I’d call it my favorite driving game of all time, sure.

The Quartet

There’s been some remarkably good stuff happening in the indie scene, folks.

Observation. The elevator pitch for this game – think 2001, but you play as HAL – is fantastic, and the gameplay is wonderfully unique and refreshing (even as it seems directly inspired from the video camera hacking sequences in Watch Dogs). Two things hold this game back from being a true GOTY contender: (1) some of the puzzle solutions are woefully obtuse, and (2) at a certain point in the story, it stops making any coherent sense. I suppose a minor (3) would be that you, as the onboard HAL (in this case, your name is SAM), would appear to be dreadfully stupid, since finishing a relatively straightforward task can take lots and lots and lots of trial and error. But at the end of the day, I was too entranced by the idea and the vibe to be too bothered by these criticisms; playing as the AI of a space station is just a really cool concept, and for the most part it’s executed quite well.

Void Bastards. I’m not generally one for rogue-likes, and if a first-person shooter is gonna hook me it needs to have a really good hook. So let me cut to the chase: I’m COMPLETELY HOOKED on this game. Rock Paper Shotgun describes it as “What if Bioshock, but without story?” and that’s not necessarily that far off the mark; I’m not even particularly sure what the story is, but I do know what my motivation is as a player, and I love the short-and-sweet loop of looking at the star map, picking a ship to board, planning my route through the ship, and then looting the hell out of everything. Given that my attention span these days is relatively short, this game is perfect – I can be in and out of that loop in 20-30 minutes and I’ll have accomplished something worthwhile. I’m not one of those people who needs everything to be ported to the Switch, but if there was ever an ideal case for a Switch port, it’s this game right here.

Outer Wilds. I read a preview of this game a while ago and it sounded amazing; more specifically, it sounded like the exact sort of game that I want to play right now, which is to say it’s a No Man’s Sky sort of exploration game but with a very carefully crafted universe and a story you gradually uncover as you explore each planet, instead of just mindlessly traipsing through zillions of algorithmic ejaculations. And then I completely forgot the game’s title, and I worried that I’d either imagined the whole thing or that it was a very real thing that I would completely miss because I’d forgotten the damn name. Thankfully, the game was released yesterday and all the glowing reviews immediately reminded me that this was, in fact, the game I’d been looking for. I’ve only been able to spend about 30-40 minutes with it, so I’m still a ways off from being able to talk about it in detail. I’ll say this, though: it makes a remarkable first impression. I imagine I’ll be switching between this and Void Bastards for the foreseeable future.

A Plague Tale: Innocence. Of all the games in this foursome, this is the one that came out first, and which, sadly, I’ve spent the least amount of time with. What I’ve seen of it is really rather stunning – the comparisons to the companionship of The Last of Us seem right on the money – and I do want to get back to this when there’s nothing else on my plate.