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Alan Wake 2: The Lake House This DLC is great. You're playing an FBC agent investigating an FBC facility that they've lost contact with, so it's basically a little mini-episode of Control, but with the Alan Wake 2 mechanics, just a flashlight and guns, no super powers or anything. The narrative is spot-on, as is the encounter design and everything, except for the final boss (which I feel like is a problem Remedy often has). I can't say much more without spoiling stuff, but if you like Control and Alan Wake then this is definitely for you. Grade: A

Silent Hill 2 Remake As someone who did play the original, I can say this is about as good of a remake as you could hope for of that game. The interface has been streamlined so you spend as little time in menus as possible. Swapping weapons is done on the fly now and James can dodge in combat, which makes encounters much more intense since monsters can also dodge and counter you, meaning you need to always be on your toes and you can't just mash your way through every encounter. Looking at the map is also done in real time now, which means you can be attacked while reading it if you are careless. Sadly, they did remove a couple of unlockable weapons (no Pyramid Head knife this time) but they make up for that by greatly improving the boss fights. In the original game you usually just had to run around the boss room with tank controls and turn around to take potshots whenever you had enough distance, but now they're much faster and more aggressive with their attacks, meaning you need to learn to dodge. One remade boss in particular doesn't really do anything more than charge you and try to grab you, but the new fight with it still has so much atmosphere and intensity that it's become one of my favorite survival horror boss fights ever. I bet anyone who has played this game will know which one I'm talking about. I really can't think of much to criticize about this game that didn't already apply to the original one. Not that many enemy types, limited weapon selection, easy to get lost if you aren't paying close attention. All that is just baked into the series, so if you already liked the original Silent Hill 2 then I see no reason you wouldn't like the remake. If you never played it, now's a great time to see what all the fuss is about.

Silent Hill 2 Remake I never played the original, so I went into this one completely blind. Well, almost completely. I had the big thing spoiled years ago but knew nothing about the game beyond that. Well, holy fuck, this game is incredible! It might actually be the scariest game I've ever played. This isn't Resident Evil fun time. The atmosphere in this game is so goddamned oppressive and tense that I couldn't take it for more than a couple hours at a time. Which is quite a feat for a game with only about half a dozen enemy types that aren't particularly difficult to deal with. The sound design and soundtrack in particular are god-tier. I was constantly dreading what would be around the next corner. I obviously can't compare it to the original but I have to assume it's up there with RE2 and RE4 as one of the best video game remakes ever. It modernizes the original game and expands on it where it makes sense to but also preserves what made it work in the first place. The voice acting still feel off and adds this eerie vibe to all the cutscenes. The combat works really well without making James feel like John Wick. The puzzles weren't particularly difficult but they were satisfying enough to solve and didn't involve bullshit leaps of logic. The original is one of those games that I had been meaning to play for years but never got around to. And now I'm kinda glad I never did because this was a hell of a way to experience it for the first time. I remember playing the first game on my PS3 years ago and it just didn't compare to this. I know there are some brand new games in development but I really hope Konami aren't done with the older ones. I'd love to see remakes of the first game, at least. Ideally, SH3 and 4 as well. Or at least some kind of proper collection like they did with Metal Gear Solid. So yeah, if you're in the mood for a spooky October game, this is the one to get.

No, we were only getting a car at all because we wanted electric. I had been looking into it and there are enough chargers around that even in Kansas it's very feasible now. It has a ~250 mile range, so like driving to visit my wife's family in South Dakota would take more planning than it would with a gas car to make sure we're recharging where we need to, but other than that it's far enough to easily go anywhere we might want to without risking being caught somewhere without a charger. We also have a whole home solar power system, so we'll be able to charge it off 100% clean power when we're at home, so I am very much looking forward to having a car that I don't have to feel guilty about driving.

Metaphor: ReFantazio I suppose there's some irony in finishing the game this week in particular. Having the selection of a leader end well is a nice escape from reality right now... Overall, this is a pretty solid offering from Atlus. While it is basically Fantasy Persona (to a shocking degree, honestly), I found that its main differences from Persona were its biggest strengths. The story doesn't quite reaches the same heights as P5R but the press-turn combat system and the Archetypes job system both felt like a huge improvement over the more repetitive and limited One More combat from Persona. Press-turn felt way more strategic to me. If you play your cards right, you can dispatch enemies without taking any damage and get a boost to your combat rewards. If you don't, an encounter that could've been trivial can end up kicking your ass. The way archetypes work together also adds another neat strategic layer. It clicked for me early on in the first real dungeon. I unlocked a new archetype and equipped it on a character immediately. Then I proceeded to get my ass kicked the very next fight. I thought about it for a bit and considered how my current archetypes could work together and came up with a strategy that carried me through the rest of the dungeon. That was way more satisfying than I ever found the combat in Persona to be. Being able to use every archetype with any character is also great. Need a second healer? Just level up the Healer tree on any character you like. Want that character to still keep its original role? No problem, switch back and use skill inheritance to re-equip the healing spells you want. It's a level of freedom and customization that just isn't present in Persona/Demon fusion. I know I always end up feeling like I have to compromise and lose useful abilities. Here, though, you can build your party members pretty much exactly how you want them. It's great! So yeah, while the game feels very similar to Persona in terms of structure, the combat is the one thing I felt was an upgrade. The story, not so much. it's fine, really, and there's a few cool twists along the way but ultimately it felt pretty basic. It's the one aspect of the game that made me feel like it could benefit from a Royal-style rerelease with added content. Oh and the game is way less strict than Persona as far as time management goes. I didn't quite manage to do everything because I'm dumb and suck at time management but the last month gives you enough free time that I still managed to complete all the requests and max out all the followers' ranks. And that's despite me wasting a bunch of days traveling to places I wasn't ready to tackle on more than one occasion... If you plan things out a little better, there's a ton of breathing room here. So yeah, overall this was pretty damn good. The fantasy setting was a nice change from the usual Atlus fare although I wouldn't necessarily say i preferred it. It was just a nice change of pace. But now that this and P3R are out of the way, I really need you to reveal Persona 6 already, Atlus! And don't you fucking dare go back to launching as a timed PlayStation exclusive, I swear to God...

Forgive Me Father This is a retro FPS based on the Cthulhu mythos. I'm no expert in it so I couldn't tell you how faithful it is, but what I do know is that this is a pretty underrated game. While it has the usual retro FPS formula you would expect, complete with colored keys to find in every level, they still added in some other things to give this game more of its own identity. For starters, there are two different characters to play as, each of them getting access to different eldritch spells over the course of the game. I played as the priest, who is more about healing and buffs. The other character is a journalist who gets access to offensive spells, though I haven't tried her yet. In addition to that, there is also an upgrade tree for your spells and weapons. Upgrade trees are nothing new, but what I found interesting is that you can choose whether you want your weapon to be upgraded with human technology or eldritch powers. Both paths are valid, although in my personal opinion some variants are just straight up better (the eldritch dagger is an enemy garbage disposal and way more useful than the throwing knives). If you decide you don't like the path you chose and want to try something else, you get one reset point for every boss you kill. Gunplay is pretty good and every weapon feels useful. Even the basic pistol also functions as your medium-range sniper weapon and will never become obsolete. Enemies burst apart into satisfying showers of gore and there's a decent variety of monsters to kill, although it can take a while for that variety to really start showing itself in the early stages. Racking up kill combos builds up madness, which is actually a good thing in this game because it not only fuels your spells but also makes you deal more damage while taking less until the meter drains. It's pretty easy at first, with basic zombies shuffling en masse right into your knife swings, but later enemy types can become so dangerous that they almost feel like mini-bosses. You will absolutely need to use your spells to survive. There's no in-game map, but the levels are fairly well-designed and easy to navigate so I found myself not really needing one. I only got lost maybe twice during the whole game, and those levels were intentionally designed as mazes. Oh yeah, and the soundtrack is full of absolute bangers. I would listen to it on Spotify if it was on there. I've never heard of the composer, Tim Fialka before, but in my opinion he deserves to sit at the cool kids table with Mick Gordon and Andrew Hulshult. Just listen to this:

cool if it goes the other way too so on easy mode they stand around taking anti-emetics.

Batman: Arkham Shadow Hot damn, this game rocks. Before I go any further I will address the elephant in the room. A lot of people are upset that this game is VR exclusive but I have two things to say to that: 1) This game, while still huge for a VR title, is smaller in scope than a mainline Arkham game. If this were a flatscreen title it'd be nothing special, but as a VR experience it's amazing. 2) Meta funded this game. If not for that, it wouldn't exist. That's just how it is. This has all the staples of the Arkham series you would want, that being combat, predator sequences, and clever puzzles to solve for collectibles. I don't really like to use the cliche "it makes you FEEL like Batman" but they implemented the controls in such an immersive and engaging way that it's hard to think of a more appropriate phrase. Knocking out guards from behind is done by yanking them back with your arms and then wrestling with them from side to side until they pass out. Gliding with your cape is done by grabbing the cape at both sides and spreading your arms. Knife slashes are dodged by ducking and weaving. It all just feels so natural and right. The real star, however, has got to be the hand-to-hand combat. If you wondered how Arkham's iconic combat system could be translated into VR, I'm here to tell you that they passed the test with flying colors. Batman will lunge toward whatever enemy you're facing when you punch forward, and then combos are performed by a blend of jabbing at targets and swinging either your left or right fist, depending on which direction the arrow is pointing. You can also grab people when prompted to perform finishers or jump on them while they're on the ground and punch the crap out of them to knock them out. In a way it's kind of like a rhythm game, except you're being attacked on all sides the whole time. Even when you're being attacked offscreen, I never felt like I was taking cheap hits because the game very clearly warns you which direction you're being attacked from and gives you the means to do a side counter to stop them. Enemies can and will attack you in huge groups and taking them down is a balance of getting in your hits where you can while also defending yourself from the sucker punches other goons will try to get in while you're focusing on the guy directly in front of you. You can, of course, also use your gadgets during fights like any other Arkham game and they also throw special enemies at you like shield or stun baton users that require specific maneuvers to take down. It doesn't feel dumbed down at all and I dare say it might be the most fun I've ever had with the Arkham combat system. Just be forewarned that it's extremely strenuous and unless you're already jacked you will probably end up sore as hell after punching criminals for several hours. The story takes place after Origins and took me a little over 15 hours to beat without getting all the collectibles, and I have to say it kept me invested to the end. Unlike Arkham Knight, where it was insultingly obvious who the Arkham Knight was from the beginning, I really had no idea who the Rat King was until the climax. There are some big reveals here, as well as appearances from villains who have never been in an Arkham game before. This was far from a throwaway plot or "good for a VR game." I don't really have much to criticize. I did run into a few game breaking bugs but it worked fine after I reloaded the checkpoint. The game is fairly generous with them too so I never lost more than a minute or two of progress. It looks really good inside the headset as well. $49.99 might feel steep for a VR title to some people, but I absolutely feel like I got my money's worth, especially considering I haven't even done the challenge maps yet and the devs already promised to add more for free. This is the Quest 3's killer app, full stop.

Didn't think to post it at the time but a friend gifted it to me on Steam for my birthday a couple weeks ago. Looking forward to blasting some heretics! I even reinstalled the first game to replay it first. Just not sure when I'll get to it yet. I'm still not done with Metaphor and Ys X comes out on friday, so that's probably my next game.

Bought myself this little beauty (except with a rubber strap instead of leather, don't need animals to die for a watch). Ordered it November last year, but it only turned up a few weeks ago:

The Evil Within Several years late to the party, but I finally beat this one. A real rollercoaster, where the highest highs are excellent but the lowest lows made me question why would anyone play this. The atmosphere, music, and monster designs are top tier, super creepy and scary with a nice mix of combat and horror. The story was cool, it really puts the psychological in psychological horror. Can't wait to start 2, see where this goes. Starting around chapter 9 however, there's some serious issues, it really likes to throw insta-death stuff at you, one of the more annoying ones being capable of teleporting and appearing right in front of you, combine this with enemies and traps around the area and it ended up being a really frustrating encounter, specially since the best way I found to deal with that was to just run around in circles until it went away lol, that kinda kills the atmosphere. There's also this room in one of the later chapters that was a nightmare to deal with, all the traps in the universe gathered in a single room. Overall, it was a really good survival horror, though I don't know if I'd recommend it, it does require some patience, both to deal with some technical issues and to make it through some of the more annoying sections. If you do have that kind of patience, then yeah, definitively worth it. Also if you link your Bethesda account, you get access to a bunch of extra stuff including infinite ammo mode. Might be a fun way to do a NG+ run, specially with some of the stuff you get for beating the game once. Grade: B+

The VR version specifically.

There's also this really important scene you can get if you backtrack all the way to the beginning.

The Evil Within 2 Brief but accurate summary: This one definitively felt better to play, it is overall the better game, but the first one is the better survival horror. Not to say this one isn't scary, it does have some really creepy parts, but the general atmosphere and feel of this one doesn't quite reach the same heights. The story was pretty cool Overall, this is a game I would totally recommend to anyone interested in the series, there's plenty of QoL and gameplay improvements, although at the cost of some of the horror, still pretty creepy though. Grade: A

Preordered all of these a few weeks ago.

Enemies getting new attacks on harder difficulties. I went into a Silent Hill 2 run on hard mode and quickly discovered to my surprise that the starter enemies who spent the entirety of normal difficulty shambling slowly and vomiting in an arc were now charging me headfirst and vomiting in a direct line straight at my position. As you can imagine it has completely changed how I engage with them. I'm looking forward to seeing what tricks the other enemies have up their sleeves now.

Was going to wait to get one of these until either Ghost of Tsushima 2 or Death Stranding 2 came out, but then Trump won and his tariffs are expected to make electronics increase in price by like 40%, so I figured I'd snag one now while I can get one for MSRP.

Control multiplayer game, 3 player co-op, looks like it could be fun.