Playtime: 4 Hours (Did not complete)

I was really excited to play this one, but after a few hours it just wasn't for me really. This game had a lot of hype around it and got some really great reviews which made me interested in playing it, but it just didn't click with me.

The story was just hard to get into, as they don't present it in the way games normally present their stories. It's hard to explain. Some of the things like the choices of shots, and constant changing camera angles in cut scenes, even when two people are just sitting down and talking was very jarring and just put me off. It also plays Jesse, the main characters inner thoughts, but when they do it they always have to have these ultra closeups of her face, and it was just weird. Its weird things to complain about, but it just put me off.

Environments are also a bit dull. I get that its supposed to be a government building essentially, but it just felt dull and not fun to explore. They do warp the environments with this weird cube like architecture which is kind of cool, but it didn't really impress me, or make the locations any less dull. I'm coming fresh off of playing Prey (2017), and that game really made me appreciate level design and how you can make even a linear location interesting, with environmental storytelling and multiple routes to take. This game had none of that.

My other main issue was just the combat and the gameplay design choices in general. Control feels like a mix of different gameplay elements from different genres, but none of them feel truly fleshed out. Its part Gears of War 3rd Person shooting, part Infamous/superhero game with powers and part Soulslike/Metroidvania. All of this would be fine, if they picked one and stuck with it, but they try to mix it all together and it just doesn't work, They throw every annoying enemy type in video games at you constantly, and the game is constantly forcing you into combat. Instead of your guns having ammo types, they all run on a recharge bar which I honestly would have preferred proper ammo types, because you can't empty one gun and then switch to another while the other recharges because they all run on the same recharge bar. There are the powers but it doesn't always work when you have 2 RPG guys shooting rockets at you, and a dozen guys with machine guns. What this results in is you just running away a lot. After a few hours I just couldn't take the combat anymore.

This game was just a bad mixture of bad level design, half baked combat and a very weird story. I'm not going to say this is a bad game as It feels like a game that your either going to love or hate. Unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

Playtime: 23 Hours
Score: 10/10

Hot Take: Quake is the best franchise Id Software ever made, even more then Doom. Change my mind! All jokes aside, I have a lot of nostalgia for this game. It was my first "boomer shooter", my first Id Software game and the first FPS game I ever played. As a kid I used to play this game with my dad on his old PC, and it was one of my most fondest games from my childhood. So it was a great day for me when they released this remaster and because I owned the original game on Steam, I got it as a free upgrade!

I always loved the setting of this game with you fighting these half alien, half cyborg race known as the Strogg. Some of the enemies are just iconic like the tank commanders, who I remember being too scared to fight and my parents had to help me. There still my favorite enemy in the game. Some are still annoying like the gladiators with their rail guns which can mess you up if your not careful. Also the Berserkers got an upgrade, as there a lot more aggressive and powerful when they engage with you. The enemy AI in general has been improved to be more like the modern Id Software games, as you constantly have to be on the move and switching your weapons depending on what enemy your fighting. Overall, these are welcomed changes and it makes the game more challenging.

The weapon line up is awesome too with each of them feeling good to use. Guns like the super shotgun and machine gun are work horses and good for most enemies. I also found the rail gun to be my favorite once you get used to using it. It can one hit kill the weaker enemies which I enjoyed. And the BFG as always is awesome.

The music is iconic with its upbeat tracks and it really helps get you pumped to play. The locations can get repetitive visually, but I always like the grundy art style and its what made me love that PS1 era of graphics, even though the PC version looked the best. I also came to appreciate the hub based level design as you have connected areas that you need to explore to find items or flip switches to return to the main area, to progress. It was when Id was trying to progress pass the simple collect key cards then find the exit button, level design of their older games. I also appreciated one of the things they added was a directional compass, that you can use to see which direction you need to go in, similar to the ones in Bioshock Infinite and Dead Space. Its an optional feature, but I found it quite useful in the more confusing areas.

Your also just getting a wealth of content plus all the additional campaigns from the two original expansions, the new expansion by Machine Games and the N64 game even, which had its own unique campaign so has a single player game, this game offers a lot. Only thing I wish this remaster had was the PS1 port of Quake 2, since like the N64 game, it had its own unique story campaign and I've always been a PlayStation kid so it would have been nice.

Only real negative is the achievement list is very basic, with just simple complete all the different campaign achievements. It would have been nice to have some extra things to do like in the Quake 1 remaster. But overall, this is one of the best remasters I have ever seen and Nightdive Studios who made this port, did an outstanding job as they usually do! Here's to hoping we get a single player Quake reboot one day!

All Games Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

Quake II is fast, gory, and a step up mechanically when compared to its predecessors. It splits its single-player mode into units, which are composed of connected levels. It feels like you're exploring a larger world in this game; a very different experience from the portal-connected worlds of the original Quake. Combine those elements with a Doom-like militaristic sci-fi setting and a shredding metal soundtrack, and you've got yourself a pretty solid id Software title.

Unfortunately, Quake II frequently suffers from truly convoluted level design. Like with previous games, you're sometimes required to backtrack with newfound key items, and it's significantly easier to become lost. If you thought The Pain Maze was too obtuse, just wait until you have to backtrack through multiple stitched-together and labyrinthine levels. The level objectives are also frustrating, especially if you pick up a save file after not playing for a while. Your primary objective at one point is, and I quote, "Establish communication link to command ship." Sure, whatever that means, man. I'm not even incompetent at these games, it's just that the monotony of running back and forth through samey sci-fi base levels really gnawed at me during this second playthrough. Everything blends together, and only a couple of memorable "units" stick out.

Thankfully, Nightdive comes to the rescue. Like with all of their other classic FPS ports as of late, the 2023 version of Quake II has everything you could ask for in a remaster. There's all the bells and whistles that Nightdive worked into the original Quake and then some, along with unique additions like hit markers, reworked enemy AI, new enemy attacks, and a brand new bonus campaign developed by MachineGames. They've even added a compass item that points you to your next objective, going as far as to create a breadcrumb trail that further nudges you towards it—convoluted levels be damned. Like with their Quake remaster, Nightdive has delivered the definitive version of Quake II, and it's available on all major platforms, warts and all.

After 103 hours of playtime I have finally finished my first playthrough. I played it with two of my friends @Ruffy300 and @djoni1999 and only at the weekend that also explains why it took us 3 almost 4 freaking month to beat it. All of us have never play a CRPG before and even though we always wanted to play DnD we never did. One of the reason why I didn't buy it during early access was that I was really unsure if I would like this kind of game.

But oh boy did I enjoy it. To be honest I noticed that my concerns were pretty much unfounded after the character editor. The editor already demonstrated how many choices you have and me and my friends spend over 2h creating our characters. Even your race and background influences the world around you and how they react to you. One race may has an advantage in one of the goblin camps because this race in particular is seen as strong and the other doesn't has this advantage so you will be attacked immediately. Or you may decide to pick a jewelry because you like shiny objects. But it turns out that this jewelry is dedicated to a specific god and when you talk to Shadowheart about that she will tell you that she is mad/offended because she believes in a different god. These are just small examples of many big and small choices that will influences your game and these decision really make a difference, you feel and see that in the world around you and when you interact with certain characters. But unfortunately that doesn't apply for every race or class. I noticed quickly that some get left in the dirt while other are really strong. I love that all of the NPC's have voices and I know that this is not normal in this genre because it is a lot of work and money for the developers. As someone who hates reading long texts in games, I can say enough how much I appreciate that. It does so much for the immersion but also makes the NPC's feel more real. Shadowheart, for example, is such a well-written character with a fantastic backstory and the relationship which you can develop to here feels natural. Yes I romanced her and probably will always do that in every playthrough and the other which I liked a lot was Astarion even though he was in our party. The only reason why he wasn't is because you only have 4 slots. But I do have to say that once you have finished romancing a character or just finished their quest that character gets pretty lifeless. This means that my interactions with Shadowheart went from very frequent and almost after every battle or quest to almost never. The ending in particular was kinda disappointing, you get maybe one or sentences with the character you've just spent over 100 hours with and then it's over. I know that it would be almost impossible to include so many fleshed out endings for some many characters. But I still think that there could have been a better way to conclude the story with certain characters or give the characters more dialogue options with their favorite characters once they have completed the character specific quest. The thing that I made me laugh the most were the many hilarious moments which I and my friends had with Baldur's Gate 3. Doesn't matter if it's an enemy that my friend used as a weapon, throwing children at enemies or the one barn scene in act 1 (you know which one if you have seen it) which will probably haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. There were still many more moments and overall was the CO-OP fantastic with a few exceptions and I'm glad that it exists. For example sometimes we couldn't switch between party members or it was delayed, often one of us was stuck before or after a cut scene or the fact that the performance of the game wasn't the best while playing with friends. But these were just small details that rarely affected the overall gaming experience. Gameplay mechanics that seem unimportant or small often had an even greater impact on my experience, ice melts and turns into water, armor and your whole body gets bloody after a fight. For me these small details are very important for a great game. A game can be great without them but it often elevates a great game to a masterpiece and yes Baldur's Gate 3 is a Masterpiece and a miracle that it exists like this. The enemy design is also fantastic, one example is the Apostle of Myrkul and the world design in general is very detailed and you have a lot of places to explore, many of which I will probably be explore in my next playthroughs. The fights were a lot of fun once you found out which class you want to play but there are also a few fights which got really annoying due to the fact that the enemies decided to spam certain attacks like Cloud of darkness. The third act seems like them most unfinished act, the performance is bad due to the big city and the loading time is quit long, sometimes the sound was buggy during dialogues and the characters were silent, assets wouldn't load especially in the last big fights or the game decided to place the camera in some strange angles. Even with all of these technical problems and the lack of dialogue options for characters which quest you have finished, I still think that Baldur's Gate 3 is a masterpiece of game and it deserves every praise that it gets. The characters and questlines are fantastic and incredibly well written. There are some many ways of playing the game and you can do almost anything you could think of. This is a game an anomaly, simply because how much content you get,it's just an example of a top tier RPG and one of my favorite games of recent years. I even bought the game twice now, the PC version and the PS5 Deluxe Edition and I can't wait to discover more if this game in my next playthroughs. I can't thank you enough Larian Studios, thank you for creating this game, I will go back and play Divinity: Original Sin 1-2 now. Last but not least thanks to my two friends for playing this masterpiece for over 100 hours with me. I know I was a real pain in the ass every time I pushed you off a cliff or simply hit your summons because I was too stupid to notice who is my ally. It was an honor to experience this game together, THANK YOU

Edit by future me : I do appreciate it a lot that they also added a playable Epilogues.


Games I finished in 2023 Ranked

#2 in my List of Top 5 Games of 2023

I have put maybe an hour or two into Silent Hill 2, and I know it's a game that I need to finish at some point. I know the great twist, I've had that spoiled for me god knows how many times. I honestly put it into the same camp that I have movies like Alien in: even if there's something in there that surprises me, having the big moments ripped off like a band-aid purely through pop culture osmosis dampers my curiosity somewhat. All of this is to say, while you may not personally be excited for new Silent Hill games, I'm just curious to see something new. Since I was only really around for P.T. once that was spoiled for me, too, I'm not counting it—which leaves me with the newly released The Short Message.

I did not get the hate that this got over its leaks, and having finally played it, I still don't. Having seen those leaks, I actually have more of an appreciation for this; I know now that this was pretty cohesive in its themes and intention when it needed it to be and never deviated from that. I don't mind a lack of subtlety, as long as the bluntness of what you're working on is there for a good reason, and I found the reasoning for it here to be acceptable. It's laser-focused on what it wants and needs to say from beginning to end, and this focus is echoed throughout the spaces you explore. Although I can see someone being a little irritated that this is linear to the point where doors don't unlock unless you read certain notes, most of those notes serve the story and not the lore. There are notes that serve the lore, but they all feed you the right amount of information while giving you space to think. What impressed me on an immediate level were the cinematics. I genuinely can't tell if they were live-action or rendered, although I know that they were likely rendered. It's uncanny as hell, but it's equally impressive. What impressed me throughout, however, is how well this serves as a mood piece. Each and every location, whether it was important or minor, made me feel something. This is more of a vibes game than something substantive or scary, and while that might be disappointing if you're going in expecting serious scares, it kept me hooked. One concern I do have, if this is the playable teaser many are making it out to be, is that the only area where I noticed evident performance issues was when I was near fog. If the new Silent Hill games are all going to lack the fog or run like shit because of it, we might be in for a doozy. But regardless of that one scene, the rest of this was pretty solid! ...for the most part.

Yeah, those chase scenes, man. I'm a little biased because I already don't like chase scenes, but something about them here felt either like filler or downright infuriating to deal with. If it weren't for the last chase sequence, my rating for this would absolutely be three-and-a-half stars because the vibes were just that immaculate for me. But no, god, no. I don't know if I ever want to go through that again. Put it this way: the game doesn't make a big deal about which rooms you go into because of its linear trajectory until the final chase sequence, where it expects you to remember the layout of the map like the back of your hand while elements of it feel completely different. It expects you to find five photographs in this mess without giving you a map or checkpoints. At a certain point, the stress I was intended to feel gave way to frustration. The only reason I didn't stop playing there was because I wanted to see the ending. That was it. The ending was nice, and there was a cute little tune that played over the credits (way more people worked on this than any other free game I've ever played), but I don't think that forgives it. It was that bad. At least the creature design was cool, though—although I found it to be scarier in the leaked concept art than I did in the final product. Consequences of having that kind of stuff leak, I guess. Whoops! Feel bad for the developers on that front, because I'm probably not alone in that.

What I liked about this, I really liked. If a new Silent Hill game is made from this mold, I wouldn't mind, actually. The Silent Hill 2 remake being a horror game that needs to have a trailer dedicated to its combat should say something about how skeptical I am of that, but I might also check it out when it's on sale. If this and that trailer is Konami's way of getting people back on the Silent Hill hype train... I mean, I wouldn't call this embarrassing. This was cool. But, 7/10.

Horay a new Silent Hill game which is obviously inspired by P.T. and it has been leaked years ago and its free but it's not. Wait what? Yes, Sony marketed this as a F2P game but decided to hide it behind a PS+ subscription paywall, at least in Germany they did. It's like saying "You can watch Stranger Things for free on Netflix" without mentioning the fact that you need a subscription for it. Or saying the stuff in the game pass is free, no it's not. 'Cause you are paying for the subscription.

I have started playing the SH games just a few years simply because you can't just buy them on Steam or PS4/5. What I liked about Silent Hill The Short Message are the set pieces which we're very beautiful and interesting. The design of the Cherry Blossom Monster from Masahiro Ito was awesome and hearing the score from Akira Yamaoka in the background was also great. Good to have them both back. But that's about it tbh. The storytelling mostly through notes which I'm not a fan of because it's the laziest way of storytelling. Dubbing in the live action scenes was also not the best and why including them in the first place ? The gameplay is pretty much none existing, you walk through a building collect notes and there is a chase sequence after every 20-30ish minutes. These chase sequences are just trial and error until you find the right order in which you have to go through the doors. Sadly the Facial expressions are pretty bad and the performance is terrible.
Overall this game did absolutely nothing for me, the storytelling is too much into your face for a SH Game and on top of that the monster was more annonying than scary not. Also how is this set in Germany? This looks nothing like Germany, it's just America but not Germany. But I can see why some people like it. I'm still really excited for SH2 Remake.

Games I finished in 2024 ranked

Playtime: 18 Hours
Score: 8/10

A really excellent game! Obsidian will always be my favorite game studio and this game reminds me why that is. I remember watching various podcast interviews with Josh Sawyer when this game came out and to see his passion for the game got me excited to play it. It is a very different type of RPG from Obsidian but it still has that charm and ultimately plays like a passion project. But what did I think overall?

The roleplaying mechanics are dialed back a bit from other Obsidian games but its still pretty effective here. You can pick things like where Andreas (the main characer) studied and what he studied. I picked Law and Occult studies, and it made for an interesting combination. Both skills came up quite often in conversation and were very handy when I was investigating leads. When talking to characters sometimes when you make dialogue choices the game will pop up a "This will be remembered" message like in a Telltale game, and this basically comes up later when trying to perusade someone, as it will list a bunch of options you picked before and whether or not that person agreed with you which leads to either a successful or unsuccessful persuasion. Simple but it gets the job done. Its funny how I was just reviewing and complaining about Starfield's skill checks being meaningless and yet this game does it so much better imo. Overall, I liked the roleplaying aspects of this game which is what I play RPGs for.

The comparisons to Disco Elysium are fair in some cases but a bit off base in others. It definitely has that similar detective vibe of you trying to solve a murder, but otherwise its quite different. DE has a lot more systems at play and the skill checks are based on dice rolls, where as this is just a simple you either have the skill or you don't system, which I ultimately prefer. I do wish there was a leveling system similar to DE's but otherwise theres not much to complain about.

The story overall I thought was very good and well told. The first two acts had me hooked as to who the killer was and I kept feeling like I was making the wrong decisions, but in a good way. There's plenty of choice and consequence here and I love to see that in RPGs. Act 3 did drop off a bit for me in terms of my interest in the story, as your not really solving a murder but rather learning the history of the town, which I didn't find as interesting. However it does pick up towards the end and I found the twist to be very unexpected. And I thought the story wraps up nicely by the end of the game.

Otherwise I don't have many complaints. The OST is very good but it only plays during certain key story moments and I would have liked it to be used more. Even just a simple town theme that would play when your running around the town would have been appreciated. But overall, I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes RPGs or history and with it being on game pass which is how I played it, its worth your time!

All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/