Resident Evil 4 [Remake] – Welcome to Spanish Village Life

Welcome to the beautiful country of Spain. Here you will never go cold, as Spain is the country of the sun! To make sure your vacation here will be one to remember, don’t for any reason anger the locales. They do not like outsiders much. If by any chance this happens, be sure to keep a health-spray handy, and run like hell unless you want to get uncomfortable close to the Las Plagas. And you don’t want that!

Resident Evil 4 (remake) is one of the better remakes that has been made and does not feel like a pure cash grab on our dear nostalgia. However, even if I enjoyed it, I can’t help to feel that in the end, it’s just a huge waste of time narrative-wise – as the franchise treads water in the same old murky pool that we already have splashed around in for years. Regardless, it’s a fun well-made game, with a few niggling issues that stand out from the original. Let’s see what it is all about.

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Abscission – Deworming Time

Abscission is an atmospheric Lovecraftian murder mystery with the flavor of film noir detective elements sprinkled on top. Sounds good, right? Well, to a degree it is, at least in the beginning, but sadly the pacing of the game changes for the worse rather quickly. In its favor though, the mystery remains intriguing throughout. So, let’s get into it.

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Alan Wake 2 is… boring

This isn’t a review, and there won’t be one since I just can’t be bothered to play this slow-moving molasses for a game anymore. I did put in another 3-4 hours after my initial impression post, which means I did get to play as Alan finally – in a game named after him. His part is better, but that isn’t saying much as both characters suffer from the same sluggishness in both gameplay and story. I just can’t take it anymore, and I usually love slow-moving survival horror. Something is just way off with everything.

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Aliens: Dark Descent – The Lethe Bug Crisis

In space, nobody can fix your bugs. Besides the fairly buggy nature of Aliens: Dark Descent, it is somewhat of an unexpected sleeper hit of the year. The gameplay, and general mechanics work well, and are clearly thought-out, which together with the visuals and audio creates a very nice Aliens experience. It truly feels like the movie when you slowly skulk the poorly lit and narrow space colonial corridors – then for it to suddenly switch from tension to high-octane action when your badass Marines with their cool outfits and iconic weapons open up on the deadly and terrifying Xenomorphs. It actually resembles Aliens to a fault, as it becomes a little too much familiar in the narrative. Seemingly, there is only one way to write games based on the Alien franchise. 

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Stasis: Bone Totem – Atlantean Rumble

What do you get if combine meaty body horror, Lovecraft, and Atlantean mythology sprinkled with Blade RunnerThe Descent, and Alien? Well, you get Stasis: Bone Totem. This is the Brotherhood’s third game in the Stasis franchise – a point & click horror adventure series that doesn’t shy away from showing the macabre and the gruesome in all its glory. So far, so good, and you can read the thoughts of the developers in an interview I made with them here. However, it saddens me to say, that there are some problems with this title. While it maintains the horror in both atmosphere and story, the game falters and stumbles in the feature most critical to gaming: the gameplay.

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