To me it always felt like AC2 is the true start of the franchise. The first game was cool in many ways, but overall felt almost more like a tech demo or proof-of-concept. I like the more serious vibe of it, but it gets very repetitive.

To be honest, I find DLAA to be quite a good form of anti-aliasing, almost as good as DLDSR. I don’t have much personal experience with FSR though as I have an Nvidia card.

I guess that screen tearing is a result of CRT and being locked into Vsync? I used G-Sync and never had any screen tearing issues.

Shame about your monitor, HDR is addictive when you get used to it.

Yeah, Cronos is a survival horror that emphasises survival over horror in my opinion. It isn’t really too scary, just atmospheric and with cool lore and story. It’s more about scraping by on the edge of resources and ammo than it is scaring the shit out of you.

I’m confused by the claim that FSR is mandatory in Alan Wake 2. I played with DLSS but you can play in native if you want unless a recent patch changed it. What platform are you on? It is a very demanding game though, although funny enough I found the forest to be more demanding than Bright Falls. It does look amazing though, especially in HDR and with ray tracing.

You have also read wrong about the protagonist split, it’s more or less an even 50/50.

I’m curious to hear what you think of the double barreled shotgun in Cronos. I actually preferred the first shotgun that you can charge. Also, how intense was that hospital level? The morgue was such a tough fight, at least for me.

I’m in between games. I finished Road 96, and was somewhat disappointed in it. It is occasionally funny, it has a charm and has its moments, but is mostly let down by too much subpar writing and too much terrible voice acting. Nice art, good music and some good ideas and concepts that fall flat of delivering the great experience it could have been. The political angle and story takes too much of center stage, especially in the second half, but the writers don’t have the chops to deliver anything other than a very superficial plot overall. It’s also just very uneven. If every character was written and acted as well as John, this could have been something great. In the end I don’t regret spending €4 on it, but I was expecting more based on the reviews and past recommendations.

I was planning on The Drifter next, but I might need something more action packed first so I’m also considering Wanted: Dead.

Yeah, interestingly enough we are so reliant on cheap entertainment for presumably mental health reasons that we tend to make other cuts instead. That’s why for example the Men’s Underwear Index is actually a pretty good indicator of recession.

I can relate to that. It’s not great. I hope your brain relents soon, then, and starts being cooperative again.

Sorry to hear things are rough. I know there isn’t anything I can do, but I hope things change for the better soon.

G.A.M.M.A. is the most popular and most supported (their Discord has like 700 000 members). It does have a somewhat specific playstyle though, mostly focused on scavenging and a slow gear progression that many love but not everyone.

I recommend watching Cheeki Breeki’s two-part video from last year, where he goes over some of the most popular and notable ones.

Part one

Part two

I’m playing Road 96 this week, which is on sale for cheap currently and I’ve been curious about for a while.

I should save the full review for after I’ve seen the ending, but it’s definitely an interesting game. The perspective of how the story is told is very unique - there is no protagonist or main character. In fact, it’s almost like a “story roguelite”. You play in multiple individual “runs”, where in each run you play as a nameless and faceless teenager trying to get to the border of the fictional dictatorship Petria and escape the country through Road 96. You even unlock abilities during some events that you can use in any future run, to further the whole roguelite feel.

During each of the runs, you come across a set of characters, and a large part of the story is their stories, told through the eyes of all these nameless teens you play as as you continuously come across these same characters at random points during your journeys.

The other story is the fate of the nation, and this is where the Telltale-style choices-matter stuff comes in. There are three types of dialogue you can pick, either promoting revolution, peaceful change through voting or just ignoring everything and fleeing the country. I’m assuming the ending you get will be influenced by which of these you pick the most times. I’m interested to see what the endings are like, especially regarding how they’re handling revolution/voting.

Overall it’s a bit of a weird one because I like some of the things it’s doing and it has a charm to it, but I also a lot of the time can’t help but think “man, I wish this game was just a little better”. Like, the story concept seems fine but the writing isn’t great. The voice acting is pretty poor, and it’s not that well recorded either. Some of the political stuff and the story looks like it lacks nuance. It seems like the product of a team with a lot of interesting ideas, but not necessarily the skill or budget to execute them.

But eh, for a couple of dollars I am not going to complain too much. And it does have a charm to it.

You should definitely play Alan Wake 2, especially after having done the homework of playing all their earlier games. It is in my opinion Remedy’s best game and a phenomenal game in general, I had it as my GOTY 2023 over BG3. Great story, beautiful presentation and cinematography and very tight gameplay.

I can’t say I have had any experience even close to that to be honest, but I would never advise anyone to play vanilla Anomaly. It’s meant as a stable and unified platform for mods, and it does that exceptionally well compared to previous Call Of Chernobyl-based soups.

What I would recommend is installing one of the numerous pre-built modpacks that are one-click downloads and probably address all your issues and more.

I’m deliberately excluding free titles as that would be technically infinite. Otherwise it would be Dota+Dota2 combined, even accounting for the last few years of playing Dota2 not exactly counting as “enjoyment”.

Most enjoyment is tough, but it’s probably either Diablo 2 or Warcraft 3. I played both fervently throughout my childhood, but considering Dota 1 technically counts as WC3 I think that is probably the one. I played a whole ton of WC3 custom maps, even apart from Dota. It was the unifying game me and my childhood best friend bonded over.

Least enjoyment per dollar is unquestionably STALKER 2. I pre-ordered the €100 deluxe edition because I love the franchise, I loved the GSC studio and I wanted to support them through being struck by the Ukraine war. I ended up doing a single playthrough and then shelving it, waiting for patches. But do I regret my purchase? Not necessarily. I knew it was an emotional purchase, I know it was a show of support. And I knew it was an investment for the future. GSC have still not given up on the game, they’ve slowly been fixing it and the first DLC is coming. And mods are being developed. Do I think it will supplant Anomaly? No. But it still has the chance to pay off.

With your tastes (impeccable btw) you might enjoy HYPER DEMON. I think it’s a little too fast and overstimulating for me but it’s still on my to-do list. I’ve had it heavily recommended.

Hummmmm. Hard one, this. I think this is my final 10, after some consideration. I break it down to three categories:

Forever games

• Civilization V: Was a comfort game for years, could probably play it forever as a type of Solitaire. Several thousand hours of content still remain with learning the Vox Populi mod and modded extra civilizations.
• Football Manager: I would try to argue I’m allowed to buy each year’s edition for the data update but if I must choose one it’s 2024. Digital crack that I have lost months at a time to before.
• Magic The Gathering: Arena I would want a card game on the list, and even though I quit playing Magic a long time ago this would be the one with the most limitless content.
• Noita: I’ve never played it, but I’ve been told this game has potentially thousands of hours of content so it sounds like a perfect time to get started with it.

Evergreen action games

• Ninja Gaiden 2: I could probably spend a thousand hours just trying to beat my own high scores in Survival mode. The combat in this game just never gets old.
• Elden Ring: May be a surprising pick to some since this isn’t even my favourite Fromsoft game and I’ve only played through it once and currently don’t plan to come back. But I do enjoy a Soulslike every now and then and if we’re being economical in terms of content this has to be the smartest pick.

Modding games with infinite content

• STALKER Anomaly: One of my favourite games, an open sandbox with potentially infinite content and a modding scene that could keep it fresh forever.
• Fallout New Vegas: Same reasoning as above. I also love the story and a lot of the writing and I could rotate different styles of roleplay to keep it fresh.
• Skyrim: I’ve never actually played Skyrim, so this would be a perfect reason to. All the mods could probably keep me entertained forever.
• Baldur’s Gate 3: I’m not actually super high on this game, but it’s an investment for the future. If I could choose Pathfinder Kingmaker+Wrath of the Righteous as a combo instead I probably would as I prefer that rules framework. But BG3 is unbelievably popular and has a modding kit that will let fans make custom campaigns, and so I pretty much am just banking on that to keep me going with this one.

EDIT: I might be persuaded to replace Fallout: New Vegas with Pokémon SoulSilver as there is some overlap between it and STALKER Anomaly/Skyrim and a Pokémon game might be worthwhile to have. Or I might replace it with a full simracing rig and iRacing. I don’t own one at the moment as it’s expensive as hell and I don’t simrace but this sounds like a decent reason to start and probably worth the investment (I’d eat the upfront payment for the rig with the knowledge that I’d not buy any more games for the rest of my life).

It still absolutely holds up. You will be amazed. Phenomenal shooter.

Please let me know what you think when you’ve finished it! I haven’t really been able to discuss it with a lot of people despite trying to push it onto as many others as I can hah.

It had a big buzz around it during the next fest this spring and also some around when it launched. It’s not going to be for everyone, but you’ll probably know if you vibe with it within the Steam refund window. It’s one of the hardest games to describe I’ve ever played, especially since you really want to play it completely blind. It’s a little like if David Foster Wallace made a modern interpretation of A Midsummer Nights Dream as a pseudo match-3 game? It’s a little like Undertale but for adults?

I don’t know, I recommend just giving it a shot.

Solo dev game, yeah. Also his debut game! Wild. They actually revised the plan. It was supposed to enter Early Access in May, and then have NG+ added later on. Instead they pushed it to September but supposedly feature complete. We’ll see if it’s a wise choice - September is a rough month to compete in.

But yeah, absolutely agreed on how good the game is. Good balance, nice build variety, the systems all work so well, the NG+ implementation is super cool and the game just has so many little surprises to throw at you. And it’s much bigger than you might think at first.

I still think Titanium Court edges it for me in terms of my number one favourite game I’ve played this year, but those are the top two for sure. And they’re both solo dev games! Madness.

One of the downvotes I’m happiest about getting ever, I think. I’m glad this gem isn’t completely unknown!

Withering Realms looks incredible but I might wait until full release, which is hopefully next year. September is so stacked. That being said, I’m not sure there are any of the other upcoming games I look forward to as much as this anyway…

I’ll throw in another one, why not. Withering Rooms is one of my absolute favorite games I’ve played this year. It’s an action/light horror roguelike that ends up being a very unique experience despite clear inspiration from games like Silent Hill and Dark Souls. For a solo developer game (who even wrote the wonderful music himself) it’s a seriously impressive game, especially with the amount of small QOL touches. I thought the puzzles were intuitive personally, but I loved and appreciated that there is both an in-game “Puzzle Oracle” consumable if you are stuck, and a tiered hint section on the website if you need a nudge.

There’s a ton of builds you can do, from various magic builds to melee and ranged and traps and more. The story is also very interesting, the world building is excellent and I enjoyed the writing. It really nails a certain vibe that very few games get right. For me, exploring this unique and interesting but dangerous world filled with a cast of weird and strange characters gave me similar emotions as playing Dark Souls 1 the first time. And it’s hard to give higher marks than that.

Amazing game.