The Last of Us 2 – Retcon Central

Like many others, I consider The Last of Us a true gaming classic. It was a fine blend of survival horror, and excellent story-telling with captivating characters you learned to care for. So, the wait for the sequel was not without hype, but unfortunately, the story leaks would crush any longing to once again take the helm of Joel & Ellie. Two years after release, I would get the chance of playing the game through a rental service at my local library. I’m not sure what overcame me since I knew the sequel would butcher the characters I once liked, but I guess I wanted to see the disaster for myself. PS. The references to P. D. James and Philip K. Dick were not lost on me!

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[Arma 3 mod] Lands Divided

Lands Divided is another single-player campaign made by Apollyon, and from what I understand it’s set in the same universe as The Bay Of Hugeris. This campaign takes place in the fictional country of Locombia, a typical third-world despot state, filled with crime, corrupt officials, and murdering rebels. Things are not all bad, though – now, with the country of Vespaccia taking interest in the stability of Locombia, helping it regain its footing. You play (at first at least) as a squad leader, part of an expeditionary peacekeeping force sent to the country to help the president and the local forces to retain control of the country. Things are going well at first, but as is common in these regions, rebels will show their discontent in the form of extreme violence.

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Weird West – First Impressions

I didn’t have any plans on playing Weird West, but I noticed that it was out on Microsoft Game Pass, besides being released on the usual digital stores. So I thought, why not give it a go? This is not a review, it’s just my impressions from a few hours into the game. Anyway. Weird West is an action RPG set in the wild west (that is weird, as the title implies) with a focus on “immersive sim” features. And for you that don’t know, it’s when a game has many systems in place that interact with each other – like weather with fire for example.

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Hell Let Loose – What could have been?

German combined attack! Shame, everybody died though

While Hell Let Loose is not a bad game per se, I can’t help to think – what could have been? Going way back to their Kickstarter, and pre-early access release on Steam, this game showed so much promise! It was going to be the ultimate WW2 tactical multiplayer shooter, taking notes from all other similar games before them, and expanding on it. It was going to be huge, with you, and your team required to work together, securing zones for precious resources to be able to call in the heavy stuff – like tanks, and artillery. Some of this remains in the game to this day, of course, but it’s just a shadow of what was proposed. 90% of the players don’t care and don’t know about this function, and to be fair it usually doesn’t really affect the game in public matches since in the end it’s not required to win.

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Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – Parkour Bore

I remember playing the first Mirror’s Edge many years ago on the Xbox 360. It wasn’t my favorite game or anything, but I did like the system of movement, and the general atmosphere of the city in which the game takes place. It had this cold, minimalist stylistic corporate vibe to it, that for some reason left a mark on me. So when I saw Mirror’s Edge Catalyst for sale on Steam for 2 euros the other day, I couldn’t help to dive in – I mean, what is 2 bucks even if it sucks?

The first thing that hit me going in is that I don’t remember being thrown in prison from the first game, and apparently I needed to read some kind of comic to understand why I was. A huge negative stain on the game already, and I’m about 5 minutes into it. I hate when games do this, movies too for that matter. Expecting you to find/buy, and read media outside the game to understand the plot. Another thing that messed up my understanding of the story whilst it was ongoing, was that I had no idea that Catalyst is a reboot, and not a sequel, which I thought it was. I didn’t know this until after I finished the game. I discovered it when I was searching for answers to some questions I had about the plot. Apparently, it wasn’t a retcon or two, in the story, the whole thing had been retconned, huh!

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