Deus Ex: Icarus Effect by James Swallow [Book Review]

Deus Ex: Icarus Effect is a book that has been haunting my reading dreams for years. But finally, I found it for a reasonable price in a second-hand store. It’s a prequel to the excellent game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, that takes place before, and during the events of the game. So, was it worth the wait? Yes, absolutely, seeing as the story from a stand-alone viewpoint is already good with interesting characters and plot. However, the main pull is the world-building and additional lore to the Deus Ex franchise. On that note, it’s excellent, and I would almost consider it a mandatory read, if you, like me, love the mythos of the series and want to know more about the mysterious men and women in it. 

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Hydrophobia: Prophecy – Wet wet wet

In Hydrophobia: Prophecy, the world as we know it is just a shadow of what once was. In this futuristic dystopian tale of blasting end-of-days cultists, you will be jumping, swimming and diving in ice-cold seawater all day long. Hydrophobia: Prophecy‘s water physics is very impressive, and still not surpassed to this day, thirteen years later. However, physics alone does not make a game, so let’s find out if this semi-forgotten title is worth playing in 2024.

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Close Encounters

I played some more Xenonauts 2, even though I have said to myself that I won’t touch it until milestone 5. It’s just too much fun when you are in the mood for some X-com-like action, but don’t want to go full autism mode. Anyway, I decided to try the zoom function a bit, and boy. There are so many details that go missing when you play at the default perspective. The models of the units, and the environment are very elaborate with markings of uniforms, detailed faces of humans, and alien features that you otherwise wouldn’t see, or take notice of. Here is an example of the fine texture work:

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