Phantasy Star Online 2 (PC) Review

Another game that has been a long time coming. In this case, however, the control of that time was not exactly in my hands. About eight and a half years ago, Phantasy Star Online 2 launched in Japan. Originally for PC, Sega promised it's Western audience the game was coming our way as well. We waited as it made its way to the Sony Playstation systems and even the Nintendo Switch, but only in Japan.

Some grew impatient and hacked their way in. In fact there is a fan-made launcher which will download, patch the translations in, and let English players play the Eastern version of the game that was made out of this need to play. But I held off. After all, I had plenty of other games to play that didn't require such measures. Still, that did not mean I had given up all hope, at least at first. But I couldn't have been happier when the game finally showed up at E3 in 2019. Now what was once just a pipe dream was finally making it's way over, and when it became available in May of 2020 on PC, I was playing literally day 1.

Now almost a year later and with just shy of 200 hours under my belt, Im hanging up my mouse on this game. And while I am annoyed with Microsoft for milking the end of the game's story (it's been done for a few years already in Japan, so releasing maybe an hour of content a month is kinda dumb), I also walked away happy with the game in total. I had a great time in general, playing tons of general content, all the story available at the time I started writing, and having seen the absolute end of the game. It's just a good time to move on.

Black Mesa (PC) Review

 

 

In 2004, Valve would release one of the biggest hits they every made: Half-Life 2. Not only was it the sequel to their first breakthrough title, but the engine behind it named "Source" was already doing things most modern games of the time could only dream of with muscle skeletons and light sources. But they also listened to a request of their fans to port the then 6 year old original game to this amazing new tech.... maybe just a bit too literally.

Valve's way to grant this wish was to take the maps, models, and graphics from the original game and just push them through the new engine with little effort to take advantage of what could be done, and the results were about as underwhelming as you would expect. But if you can count on the PC gaming community for one thing, it's to take what is and create what they wish out of it and to force a merge between Half-Life and Source to live up to the potential they saw would be no exception. Over the years, this game would be developed, releasing initially as an ever-developing mod for Half-Life 2. But eventually it would evolve into it's own complete remake. And now, after a decade and a half of the kind of love and passion only a fandom can produce, Black Mesa has been finished. And while some complain the game isn't true enough to the original level designs, it definitely hit the nostalgia mark as I played, nailing a lot of the set pieces I remembered playing through myself... maybe even some that would have been better left behind in the past. Step on inside.

DEX (PC) Review

I do not remember when I picked this game up. It was always a game that could easily grab my curiosity, but I honestly do not remember when I got my hands on it. Still when the dice called it up, I figured "why not?" and installed it to my media center machine. About a week later, I think I can see why. A real shame, too. There is a lot of love put into making this one making me wish I could be kinder to it. But a dud is still a dud. Enough of one that I did not finish the game, but merely gave it the 8 hours I warrant before calling it quits.

RiME (PC) Review

 

 

This game is a first. While I have yet to put a dime into the Epic Games Store, I have been watching and collecting from the games they give away for free for a while now, collecting about 40 free titles in the process. (No, before you ask, I do not have and refuse to get Fortnite.) But up till now, those freebies have basically been sitting in my backlog waiting to be played. This week, the dice called on this game, the first of those titles I would open up and seriously play. It only took a few days to finish, but needless to say if I wasn't able to get this free, I probably would have never tried it... and I would have definitely missed out.

Wolfenstien II: The New Colossus

This has been a few years coming. Originally when this one was coming out, I played the demo on my previous gaming rig, partly to confirm it would run well enough to play... and it wowed me to the point of buying it on the spot. But sadly, I had not reached a point of realizing if Im getting a game like that, I should just play and not let the dice decide what was next. I shouldn't have waited so long, as even now this one was an amazing ride. Step on inside.

Extra Life 2020 Recap

 Well, we did it. Another year for books, though perhaps the most tragically unique year we have had to date. With 2020 being hard on just about everyone, that was to be expected. If anything I was looking forward to this event this year even more then normal as it followed a Halloween no one was going out to celebrate and a night that still dominates our news cycle as I write this. Knowing these were coming, my focus over the past week was right: the one moment assured to be a positive one.

But how was the event itself? Well it spanned the expectation gambit. With everyone working at home, our star player was not able to make this year a record breaker like the last two. So we didn't break four digits this time, bringing in a total of $450. And while this is disappointing, I can't say the same about the total event. Once again in total we are just absolutely SMASHING records, hitting almost $12,500,000 before the big weekend ended. To put this into perspective, last year at this time we were just shy of $10,000,000 and we are right now easily in striking distance of the $15,000,000 total of last year. Everyone involved should  be proud of themselves. But if you read this far, you probably want to know the details. So, read on, my friend... read on.

Amnesia: Ribirth (PC) Review

 

Once in a while hype gets to all of us. It's part of being a gamer or really a fan of anything. Admittedly I've found it harder and harder these days to get hyped up for games "coming soon" between expected delays, development hell, and watching AAA publishers scrambling for the next alternative cash grab as the loot-box scandal exploded in their collective faces. But even now, there are a few names which will get me excited to see on a new game being released soon, none more so then Frictional Games. So knowing this game was going to be mine, I broke my personal rule and pre-ordered it, starting my play-through the night it became available to download. A week later, I had the game finished, and while I loved it for the most part (this isn't a spoiler, I knew I would likely enjoy this), not everything was perfect. I'm not sure what I think about how this adventure closed in on it's ending(s), but... well let's step inside.