🎮 First day of the season at our (rural) cottage. Trying to figure out if Geforce Now will surprise me even at low bandwidth with low expectations. Using the free tier for testing: “Gamers ahead of you: 186”. 🧘 Meanwhile my Steam Deck OLED fever is raging but I’m resisting (so far) 😅

🎮 Massive list of fixes with Starfield’s March update. Almost too long, makes me wonder why they didn’t release at least part of them in February. At least one bug I was suffering from frequently is gone. Good stuff.

🎮 Giving Starfield another go and it’s been growing on me. There is something about letting me ease in all its systems at my own pace. It has issues but at this point I can’t accept blatant thrashing of the game or Bethesda. Starfield gives you space to get into it and enjoy it. Pun intended. 🚀

🎮 Finished Disco Elysium as a confused superstar cop 😎 and a true blue moralist 🤷🏻‍♂️ Happy to have taken a bit different path as it was the second time I picked up the game. Surprisingly, the ZA/UM legal mess bugs me enough to affect how I feel about the game. Some sort of irrational guilt.

🎮 When I left the Xbox behind in favor of PC, I also lost a couple of games (and saves). Just had the urge to jump into Disco Elysium again but turns out I don’t have it in my PC library. I find this particularly frustrating with the Xbox/MS store as it’s supposed to be an ecosystem.

🎮 I am on a trip for 10 days which means I left my PC behind. Figured I’d try GeForce Now on a Samsung TV. It’s running Alan Wake II better than my home setup. 😐 Sure, the underlying cloud rig is better than what I have, 4080 vs 4070, but the quality still leaves me stunned.

🎮 Finished Alan Wake II last night 🔦 This is not a game, it’s a work of art. Last month my partner had to do a photo assignment for uni and I got an Alan Wake inspired portrait 📷 on the side. I’ve been waiting to celebrate beating the game by publishing it on the blog. ❤️🖤

🎮 Bought Hogwarts Legacy on sale. Only after that read reviews and remembered the controversy around the game. On one side people (and media) boycotting it due to J. K. Rowling’s bigoted views, on the other - criticisms of the game being too woke. I’m left… just deeply sad thinking about it all. 😞

🎮 BG3 patch notes read like Federal Bureau of Control documents. You wouldn’t like to know that ◼️happened to ◼️ as an unexpected spoiler. In other news progressing with Alan Wake II 🔦

🎮 Good morning, 2023-10-27! Alan Wake II downloading…

🎮 The plot lines in Baldur’s Gate 3 are so good! I’m genuinely curious what is going to happen and how it could have played out had I chosen differently. It’s so hard to discuss anything without risking spoilers - this says a lot!

🎮 I’ve been wondering if I could let go of my Xbox Series S in favor of my PC. It’s a tough call. PCs just tend to not just work. Currently, it seems I have an unstable bluetooth connection. ”Mostly works” is the worst! The Xbox is seamless.

🎮 Remote downloading Baldur’s Gate 3 on my way home 🧝‍♀️

🎮 The Best Games from GMTK Game Jam 2023 video is out! Mind-blown by the creativity of game devs under severe time pressure 🤯

🎮 Been playing TotK for about a week. Only now something in the back of my mind clicked. The construction mechanic reminds me of The Incredible Machine games of the past - the freedom, clunkiness and surprising effectiveness of weird contraptions 🤓

🎮 🍿 I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 recently and decided to give the Edgerunners anime a go. Super impressed, not only with the plot but how it represents the game world.

🎮 Finally getting a grip of Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus on the iPad so that Necrons don’t mop the floor with me on the easy missions… But damn does it crash, 20 min lost just before clearing a tomb 😖

🎮 Battleheart Legacy (2014)

Darn where did the last couple of hours vanish just now! Available on Apple Arcade, and to my surprise I could play it with the touchpad of my iPad’s Brydge.

🎮 Red Dead Redemption II (2018)

Finally picked this one up on sale. Seems I prefer only occasional gun fights to everything else. Especially enjoy riding and bonding with my horse 🐴

I had been eagerly waiting for the release of The Callisto Protocol in the end of 2022. From the minds of Dead Space creators, Callisto is a spiritual successor to this survival horror classic. I have to be honest - maybe too much so. After the first couple of hours, I felt that there wasn’t enough of a novelty to have justified my pre-order. Nor to back up claims such as bringing survival horror to the 2020s. This remains a fair warning.

That said, Callisto is an extremely well crafted and high quality cinematic experience. As I kept immersing myself in the world of the game, my initial sense of disappointment diminished. Still, I feel the development team overestimated the novelty of the close combat system. It is, however, really satisfying once you embrace its way of creating flow. If this was paired with a more captivating story, it would have taken the game to the next level. Alas, it is what it is.

Gameplay won’t appeal to many, but chances are if you are Dead Space fan - you’d be fulfilled. Progression is linear, encounters scripted with little left to chance. This is perfectly fine, I enjoyed pre-planning and experimenting with difficult encounters, alongside improving my command of controls. Speaking of controls, there are a few rough edges around weapon swapping but it really forces you to remain composed and intentional under pressure.

In the end, I’m very happy with The Callisto Protocol and can absolutely recommend it. Seeing the level of polish of its visuals and fusion of cinematics with combat, it’s frustrating the whole package has some flaws that keep the game in the “Great” and not “Hall of Fame” category.