Space Marine 2

In the grim darkness of the future, there is only war... and grinding?

Thanks to its three player co-op mode my brothers and I were playing this as a Friday game for awhile now, where playing as Space Marines you fight armies of Tyranid and Chaos forces in glorious and bloody combat which focuses on key press timing to excel in. While the graphics and game play are certainly fun, there are some HUGE negatives. Firstly is that it takes 5 minutes for me to start the game, 5 more to join the lobby and 5 more to enter the mission. If there was an award for longest load times, this would certainly be winning it.

Secondly, improving your marine and weaponry is a severe and lengthy grind. You'll only gain XP for the marine class and weaponry you use, unlocking abilities necessary to do well in the higher difficulties. Then once you max out, you get to pick one ultimate bonus and... drop back down to level 1 to do it all again (up to four times if you want to max out fully). There's a small selection of maps to play on, but the designers thought of this and included a PvP mode to make players the content to save them some work. No comment on that part since it holds no interest for us.

So yeah. Despite that we still were putting up with it because it's just so freaking cool, and despite now taking a break to try other co-op games we'll probably end up playing it again sometime in the future. Where there is only war... and grinding...

Pathfinder: Feast at Ravenmoor

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The party continues North and after a brief stop at the "ex"-werewolf village of Wolf's Ear, which humorously still uses lycan related naming for their townsfolk and businesses, they go through a swampy marsh, slaying half a dozen gross giant ticks and capturing a tamed stirge whom they return to its owner, a child from Ravenmoor. 

A lady clerk of Magnimar they ran into at Galduria had previously asked them to look into a missing red-bearded tax collector whose last known stop was Ravenmoor so they let the kid lead them to the Ferry and into the squalid village filled with shifty villagers who don't like giving straight answers and effigies to an unknown deity which everyone assumes is Desna (fairy like patron of travelers).

As there is a monthly celebratory feast taking place that very day, the party takes the opportunity to skip it and snoop around while everyone else is busy - locating a rundown shack guarded by an angry scarecrow, which is destroyed by Valeros and Merisiel before it can do anything, and an easy slimemold that Valeros accidentally wakes within. 

Among the corpses buried in the basement is the tax collector and just as they are about to leave a great number of mosquito mask wearing cultists with rusty sickles arrive but they have no chance with all the archery and AoE spells (plus Kyra's celestial elephant) that obliterate them and a handful of mongrel men in their number. Ezren even disintegrated one mook just for fun while Daygrace and the Joe-gang also slay a spider lady "tertiary" boss.  

The hasted elephant stamps out a path through to the center of the nearby rotting corn field where a few more cultists are making a sacrifice so Kyra casts a holy smite to "let Sarenrae sort them out" which will only harm non-good entities. Thus there are no bad feelings when the sacrifice is killed by the spell and Valeros comes in to one hit slay the cult leading mayor, only for a giant mosquito to pop out of his gut (because they worshiped Ghlaunder the gross instead) and launches a malaria carrying mozzie swarm around which only manages to affect the elephant!

The big bug doesn't manage to land its hit and is then promptly slammed and gored by the elephant, shot by a lot of arrows and hacked to pieces by Valeros and the faceless that ambushed Ezren in the corn soon regrets that after eating a fatal lightning bolt to the face. Having killed a third of the town the team then destroy all of the evil god's effigies, loot the mayor's house and tell the remaining villagers who are not cultists or are scared cultists to change their ways. Or else!

Pathfinder: Vault No. 3

[Part of the Party Time journal]

After a rest stop in the fortified town of Galduria where Valeros also buys mammoth hide as part of a legerdemain ploy he's preparing to use on the giants, the team almost dies investigating a nearby barn with mutilated animals and facing six giant mastiffs and their six ogre masters (who happen to be rolling really well this fight). Lucky no one dies, and the team returns to town to rest up before heading out again, taking a small diversion to follow a map that was in Uwu's possession.

It leads them to some ruins in the forest where they easily beat three black skeletons and a skele champ. Valeros being generous with 6 platinum dropped into a magic fountain opens some stairs down into the darkness where Ezren quickly guesses that everyone needs to keep their eyes closed or be trapped in a forever loop. 

At the bottom, a statue of Death with the inscription of "play dead for me" is easily solved by Valeros on the nearby piano (technically Lyrielle had to do it since Valeros isn't musical), followed by a five tomb puzzle (which DL later revealed he pinched from Neverwinter Online, something I haven't played for awhile!) that was solved by Merisiel. A statue holding a bloody cup is the last "puzzle" which creates a clone of Valeros when he puts a drop of his blood in.

Kyra hits it with half a fireball and Ezren whacks it with magic missile (both harming Valeros directly) before Valeros can just sprint at his doppelganger to "rejoin" ala the original Prince of Persia game. The statue then moves aside to reveal an ancient "Vault No.3" with some really nice magic gear that the team happily plunders!

Pathfinder: Uwu and the Joe Gang

[Part of the Party Time journal]

When Stolas returns with the location of the fleeing raiders the heroes go on the pursuit, finding a giant and half a dozen sinspawn feasting on a smashed caravan on the road. Surviving bard, Lyrielle, joins the "Joe Gang" (Valeros' followers) to smash them and proceed to Ravenroost to regroup with Shay to take down four more giants, their three giant bears, and eight more sinspawn popping out of a sinwell (where Kyra's new celestial elephant stomps through the trees and tramples them). 

They rescue one of the captives who was "dancing" for her life and return her to Sandpoint and advise the priests to sanctify the sinwell they just cleared, then follow leads to find the other captives, passing by Thistletop and its new goblin colony led by ally King Fat Mouth. Alas they're not up for joining in a fight against the giants.

The next encounter takes place at the desecrated town of Sarenburg where the team demolishes 20 ghouls and six ghoulwolves despite their sniper boss "Uwu" (his elvish name was too long to remember, so Valeros shortened it) taking Ezren down with a drow sleep bolt for most of the fight. Luckily this team is ultra-geared for undead, and it is an easy fight which rewards Kyra with bonus magic to her scimitar (now +4) and a dire wolf mount (after being cured of ghoul disease) for Shay.

The Gentlemen and Countdown

Two wildly different TV shows.

The Gentlemen

When younger sibling Eddie (played by Theo James) surprisingly inherits the large family estate, he also inherits ties to an illegal business venture growing marijuana in a secret lair benath his farmland. He quickly becomes entangled with them despite trying to evict them (without getting himself or his family killed). It doesn't help that his brother is a self absorbed moron who has a gift for making everything worse! Excellently written and acted, this action comedy series definitely delivers an entertaining spectacle. Can't wait for season two and definitely recommended!

Countdown

This police crime drama follows a covert task force made up of individuals (less than ten) from various law enforcement agencies, the "star" of whom is played by Jensen Ackles. It has alright action scenes and story but it wastes a lot of time showing bad guy stuff, which eventually is covered again when the characters discover the information. More than that - it also has some really odd pacing where the main villain is beaten a number of episodes before the season even finishes. Plenty of room for improvement, if it gets a second season at all.

Figment 2: Creed Valley and Machinarium

A pair of puzzle games.

Figment 2: Creed Valley

This is a worthy sequel to the first game, continuing the child friendly theme of adventuring across the imaginary(?) landscape of the mind to once again thwart singing nightmares. Seriously, the musical numbers are fun. Easy controls and easy puzzles combined with a good story and good voice acting make for a game worthy of your time investment. Recommended, though I suggest playing the previous game first if you haven't already.

Machinarium

In this voiceless and hand drawn point and click adventure you play a trashed robot trying to make his way back into robot city. Each screen is a puzzle to solve and they quickly progress into somewhat technical trial and error guess work of finding out what combination of levers or knobs do the thing you need to advance through the scene. I didn't have the patience for this one.

Make Way and Road Redemption

A pair of racing games.

Make Way

This cartoony party racing game (with NPCs able to fill empty slots) is a pretty fun one with colorful and possibly armed vehicles on offer. The race itself is one of point accumulation across a number of segments. Each segment each racer picks a segment of track to attach to the course, effectively building what everyone is going to be racing on. Then the race and mayhem begin. Falling off the track or getting left behind (because the camera only follows the lead car) is instant death, but its ok because you'll respawn at the start of the next track segment. 

I must admit it's a pretty clever way to avoid player elimination and at the same time rewards survivors by giving them a bigger share of the points to reach whatever the "total goal" selected was at the start. Pretty fun though I suspect it will get tiring quickly.

Road Redemption

This is a four player bike race (plus many NPCs) where riders are armed with pipes and machetes. There's a story of chasing an assassin but really you'll just be wanting to win each leg for bonus money to upgrade your bike or killing skills. Nice enough graphics but very basic racing and combat. Even for me, who doesn't like racing games to begin with, I can confidently say there are better racing games out there.

River City Girls, Keylocker, and Crypt of the Necrodancer

A trio of girl power games.

River City Girls

This side scrolling beat em up which plays a lot like the old Double Dragon game (complete with 2 player capability) has the best art, animation and music of this trio (despite the next two games supposedly having a "music" focus. You play as one of two female school students who set out to go on a quest to free their boyfriends. There is actually currency to collect and shops where you can spend it to upgrade skills or buy consumables. Unfortunately there is so much fighting due to the leave / return to area respawn that it gets tiring quickly. 
 
Keylocker

On a planet where music is banned, you must escape from prison for being a "musician". This is a really strange one with huge maps of its painful neon pixel art style to explore and then turn based combat with some guitar hero and timing elements - like pressing "Z" at the apex of your attack will do more damage, and perfect timing when an enemy attacks lets you evade completely. I just couldn't get into it.

Crypt of the Necrodancer

This dungeon crawler has you traversing through seizure inducing disco floors where you (and the enemies) move to the beat. Learning how the groovy bad guys "dance" is key to beating them without getting hurt and moving in time gives you some bonuses that you lose if you ignore the pulse. You also can't wait around too much as when the song ends, you drop down to the next level down where harder things await. To top it off, this is a Roguelike so expect to lose pretty much everything when you die, except for maybe the people that you can save to expand the services in your lobby. I am surprised that this turned out to be the weakest of this trio.

Miscellaneous Music Time

I haven't posted anything music related for awhile so lets remedy that now with some Eurovision 2025 stuff (which as always, I'm super late with). There were sirens, a sauna, a couple of ballads, a lot of techno music and numerous food related songs. As rare as it is, I agreed with the winner this time around as they were the best in the field.

If Eurovision isn't your thing maybe try instead these covers of Dancing in the Dark and We all Lift/for Narmer. Or if you want something with more class, the BBCs coverage of the 75th Military Tattoo is on youtube now and is very entertaining. Hope are all having a good day! :)

Kameru: A Frog Refuge and Strange Horticulture

Two games whose themes didn't hook me in.

Kameru: A Frog Refuge

In this management game you are making a frog refuge by putting frog furniture around to attract frogs which you can then tame with food and photograph. To get more food you also need to make the dry "wetlands" more wet to attract and capture all sorts of bugs. Yuck. Despite the cute art I really could not bring myself to like this one.

Strange Horticulture

This strange game has you inheriting an odd plant shop and selling/giving plants to people who wander in, but they're after specific ones and you start with nothing ID'ed - just a book of clues. Giving the wrong thing too many times will shatter your mind because... evil plants? Anyway, then you need to spend time doing the puzzle to put your mind back together to continue - all while the visitor patiently waits for their order. Super odd, and lots of reading. Not one for me.

Dodo

One for the kiddies. 

In this cooperative game there's a cardboard "mountain" atop of which a giant dodo lays an egg. Said egg (which is an interestingly constructed ball) slowly then makes its way down and its the players job to attach the ramps that will let it gently fall into a waiting boat below. Of course, you can't just attach the ramps...

On a players turn you roll the die which will show 1 of the 6 resources available on scattered face down tokens. If you flip up the correct token great, it goes towards building the next ramp piece and if all the "token spaces" on the ramp are filled then it can go onto the mountain and the used pieces discarded "into" the mountain. If you picked up a mismatching token, flip it back down and hopefully everyone remembers what it is. Then its the next players turn!

Very simple, very fast, and easily scalable where the ramps can need more resource slots to complete and the villager "wild card" resources are removed from the random pile to make it harder. Can get pretty exciting for such a simple little game. :)

Pilgrims, Hidden Folks, Totally Reliable Delivery Service

Three smaller Epic freebies.

Pilgrims

This funny and short point and click adventure puzzle is a pretty relaxing experience and given its lower difficulty and pretty short playtime you odds are high that you will be done with it in a single sitting. Enjoyable and recommended. :)

Hidden Folks

This is a finder ("where's wally") type game that features minor interactions with mouse clicks that can move some scenery because more than a few things are hiding behind or inside the decor. Despite the doodly type graphics (a lot of which is animated, already making it more complicated than 100 Hidden Frogs) the difficulty comes from the ever increasing map sizes which make me thankful that the list of things or people to find each come with a clue, like "this truffle is about to be found by some hogs" is a good indication of looking around areas with piggies. If that's your sort of thing its worth checking out.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service

My hard disk certainly didn't like loading this game with all the squeeking going on, and I didn't like the intentionally bad controls implemented (ie. left mouse button = left hand, right mouse button = right hand) but this along with the aesthetic is clearly going for the funny party game vibe where you cooperate or compete to deliver packages and are rated based on time taken and damage to product by delivery. There are vehicles included too just to up the mayhem even more but it's really not my sort of thing. I'd recommend Deliver at all Costs over this.

The Art Project

Stylish and colorful.

In this 1-5 player cooperative game you are trying to retrieve boxes stolen art across 6 different maps. Each round is pretty simple: everyone gets 2 cards and must play one which usually costs "something", puts bad guys in one or more cities, gains "something" and establishes a clue for one of the cities. Three matching clues spawns an art crate on the respective city (so 3 music clues makes it appear in "music" city) then going there (costs fuel currency), fighting the bad guys (dice roll supplemented by gun currency and radio currency). If the city has no baddies then you are free to collect the crate and get one step closer to victory (which in all maps is filling a line of crates)!

Of course its not that simple. There are only 6 of the fuel, gun and radio currency and you cannot gain more than there are available in the game. If you need to spend something you don't have it costs a heart, and if someone runs out of hearts its game over for everyone! Same if you run out of bad guy tokens or "lost city" tokens. The latter happens when 5 bad guys are in a city and survived the combat round. This seals off the city entirely and prevents movement through it which again can lose the game. 

That said its very simple once it gets going, and is fast to setup and take down and the artwork is pretty nifty too. Thumbs up!

Deathloop and 112 Operator

Games of repetition.

Deathloop

This stealth FPS (though not necessarily stealth later on) is set in a repeating day and your job is to break the loop while everyone else is out to kill you! Dying enough times or surviving the day simply resets it and with four locations to explore which change based on the four time slots, you'll be pretty familiar with the maps after a few go arounds as you slowly piece together the clues and knowledge to access "locked" zones, areas containers and shortcuts (a lot of which can be found just by exploration). Nice game play and an interesting story with an opt-in PvP mode of a slightly repetitive nature. Still worth checking out if you like first person stealthers though. 

112 Operator

In this emergency services management game you are given command of a number of units in a number of sectors on your map (based on the world map which is pretty cool so you can actually play in your own real life area) and must dictate which emergencies need attending to by the fire brigade, ambulance, police or any combination of the three. On top of this you are on the call center that needs to advise and assist people in trouble / or not so much trouble as there are some "waste of time" ones. This is in addition to managing the funds to maintain your emergency services staff and while the game is all about helping and saving people, the actual goal is to try get promoted to handle larger and large pieces of the map. Gets repetitive very fast. 

Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim and Devil May Cry (2025)

Anime set in other franchises.

Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim

Set 200 years before Bilbo finds the one ring, this extremely well animated story focuses on Hera, the heroic daughter of Helm Hammerhand the King of Rohan. An altercation with one of his vassals eventually leads to a war and its up to Hera to save the day (sort of). While the art is awesome and the action scenes sufficiently violent, there are more than a few crazy plot holes in this tale which is a shame. We enjoyed it but were quite amused by some of the narrative choices taken. 

Devil May Cry (2025)

Based on the action adventure game franchise of the same name, this is actually the second attempt at an anime for it but unlike the original Dante is not yet a mature and experienced demon hunter. Instead this protagonist is youthful, funny and foolish but also regularly gets beaten by high level humans. Not sure if that's what happens in the later games as well but he is a bit too immature compared to the Dante I remember. Still, good fight scenes and animation are basically what hold this generic demons invading from hell plot together. Maybe it will improve in season two.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Roll for initiative suckas!

This Borderlands off-shoot is all set in the in universe RPG world of Bunkers and Badasses, featuring Tiny Tina as your resident "Bunker Master" and all the humor and a few cameos from familiar faces from the original franchise. It's the most woke of the games (because its Tina's world after all) and got swords, magic and ... guns? Yep, looks like they kept that bit but added a touch of magic to them with my favorite firearms eventually being the ones that fired multiple enemy tracking magic missiles and "regained" ammo when not being fired.

While the voice acting and story is ok (don't expect it to advance any Borderlands related thing) it is certainly a smaller game. Major areas are still medium to large sized maps but everything else is set on the "Overworld" which is a much more convenient way to reach exploration sites (at which point you unlock the teleporters there and can fast"er" travel around). Getting ambushed or going into the mini dungeons there just puts you in a randomized map (maybe 12 variants at most) where you simply have to kill everything that spawns.

It feels a bit cheap but also very on brand. Other than the main quest there's lots of things to do on the side and things to collect for those with a knack for exploration. While it did get repetitive at times it was quite enjoyable. The ocean blessing song in particular was super effective!

Pathfinder: The Raiders of Sandpoint

[Part of the Party Time journal]    

Correspondence found on the defeated giant necromancer indicated a planned raid on Sandpoint sometime soon so the heroes send advance warning (via magical message) and sure enough giants attack the city before they arrive so this time DL has us playing the archers, guardsmen, and militia defending the town with new temporary roles of the resident sheriff and monk played by Juris, the berserker weapon smith lady played by Rose, local priest played by myself and bard Ameiko played by mom.

While the sheriff, monk, priest, and all guardsmen and militia were wiped out, they did kill six giant raiders, three giant bears and scared a red dragon away before the usual heroes arrive (Cleric Kyra [Rose], Wizard Ezren [Juris] and his owl familiar Stolas, Fighter Valeros [me], Ranger Shay [my NPC cohort - yay for leadership], and Elf Rogue Merisiel [mom] now mounted on a flying griffon [statuette pet we bought en route back]) to help take down the remaining three giant raiders and their boss who was after some rock at the possible ancient lighthouse called the "old light". 

We also manage to save a burning ships worth of badly timed reinforcements from five opportunistic reef claws and apart from a trio of spear men most are actually siege engineers that teach Kyra and Ezren siege machine building post-giant raid while Shay and Stolas track down the raiders that managed to kidnap people from the "noble" district which is quite out of town.

Said ballistas they create (and a celestial grizzly bear Kyra conjures) are super handy in gunning down a mercenary band of orcs and their undead fodder raised by the orc shamans who seemed to be paid to do a follow up attack. This time the heroes are aided by the halfling celestial (!?) "child" Daygrace who was kept hidden in the abbey and is functionally another cleric. When the coast is clear Valeros recruits her and the spear man trio into his service [because leadership is cool]. 

DL does a good job printing out all the maps and material that we all get to enjoy! :)

Ogu and the Secret Forest and Sable

A pair of exploration games!

Ogu and the Secret Forest 

In this silly and happy cartoonish game you play as the baby platypus Ogu who armed with a hat and butterfly net sets out on an adventure on a strange island which has lots of puzzles to solve, friends to make (who you can call to help pass obstacles) and enemies to beat up...? Yeah this turned out to be a much bigger game than I first thought with plenty of places to go and things to do. There's a bit of a clash between the cutesy animal art style and activities such as dancing, fishing and drawing versus beating up the dangerous enemies (you can turn on god mode as an option because they can get pretty mean) but its all rather fun with very simple controls. Will especially be of interest to explorers, collectors and those that enjoy RPG Maker type games. 

Sable

The visuals are so different, its great!

This is an amazingly drawn exploration and puzzle jumping game with a very simple story that actually has no bad guy. Indeed I don't think you can even die in it which makes it quite relaxing. Good controls and the ability to climb, glide and ride your customizable hover bike across the large map make it fun to explore, with very hard to find collectable stuff for those who seek to do so. The many optional side missions are quite cute and are the actual "meat" of the game. Apart from the optional fishing mini-game (which as usual I don't have the patience for) I really enjoyed this one. 

Two Point Hospital and Legion TD2

Games about managing currency.

Two Point Hospital

In this game you are a hospital administrator who has to look after building each hospital room, hiring staff (obviously more expensive people are more skilled) and... decorating the place? Yep. The tutorial is really good for this one, explaining how your build will need a reception area followed by a GP room to determine people's sicknesses, then a room to cure whatever each sickness is. What killed it for me is that you need to also put every minutiae of detail in, like vending machines, benches, toilets. And you can just build a "toilet". You build the room, put the porcelain throne, need to find a spot for the sink, hand dryer, blah blah blah. Waaaay too detailed for me, but others who like being precise in their positioning of fire extinguishers and bins might enjoy this one.

Legion TD2

This tower defense game has you purchasing units from your specific race to defend your "lanes" to prevent enemies from reaching your king, and also purchasing mercenaries (global list not tied to what you chose) to help attack enemy lanes and kings (NPC raiding units will always spawn and attack per wave, its still tower defense). Last king standing wins! While the game play is decent some of the units look very odd and having the kings side by side is ... different? Not that I play many lane defense games. Alas the loading time for this one is... not quick. Some of the tutorial missions play shorter than the time it takes to load them. If that doesn't bother you and you like tower defense (and PvP) then you might want to try this one out.

Arcadegeddon and Gigapocalypse

Games that drop you into the grind immediately.

Arcadegeddon

The main threat in Super City is a corporate gaming entity that is infection the local indie arcade leader board so you (and the random city "gangs" that overuse their assigned lingo) have to go in the game and... shoot... things? The combat kind of reminds me of Borderlands. This quickly gets off to a bad start as the characters aren't very nice to look at and you are stuck with pink dreads or being bald. Yes, you can unlock more drip by farming currency, along with weapons, skills and the like but its... super upfront about being a mega-grind. You know how most games have an "endgame" grind with repeatable quests/challenges? This is basically that from the get go. I did not enjoy it. 

Gigapocalypse

This is a super strange combo of a tamagochi "pet" thing where you must take care of your baby kaiju, patting it, feeding it, decorating its den and cleaning its poop in between sending it out to rampage on cities to cause as much death and destruction as possible. Unlike that old game "Rampage", your kaiju only walks one direction (and you can't stop it), with the speed increasing as it builds more rage which is also used to power its other attacks. How its setup it is guaranteed you will not win on your first run, instead having to farm currency to unlock or improve things once you return to the tamagochi segment. The grind will make you feel like you're getting nowhere.

Deliver at all Costs

A mismatch of tone. 

Set on the small island of St. Monique in 1959 you play a young man looking for work at a delivery company to get enough money to pay the rent, but in reality you'll probably be spending it on gadgets or gadget parts to make your cars perform better. Primarily a driving / exploration game that is in bulk made up of fetch quests this has some decent graphics and cut scenes with a good dose of humor due to the nature of the things you end up transporting on your vehicle that include active fireworks, loose fruit, and hungry fish. 

The destructible environment is fun, especially since your car is easily repaired and it seems no one can actually die. The locals do get very violent if you annoy them though, which leads to them attacking your car and yourself until they feel vindicated. You can't game over on that but will experience a much more difficult drive once they start latching on. My issue here is they really make it feel like work, which I guess is fine - but if you just want to have a joyride and go fast there are more than a few things to dampen the mood and that just kills the game for me. The seemingly mismatched tone of the game also doesn't help...

Battlefield: Hardline

A different take on the usual formula. 

The Battlefield franchise usually has players in the shoes of soldiers anywhere from world war I to future battles with robots but in this title the battle is simply the modern day war on drugs. Unfortunately there seemed to be no servers I could join to experience the multiplayer aspect of this one but it does come with a very solid single player campaign with a decent story where you play a cop. 

How it feels waiting for the server search which then returns with no results...

While you can still shoot people dead (and that will happen a lot) you gain more XP to unlock gear by arresting baddies, increasing the focus on stealth and getting up close to flash your badge which can "stun" up to 3 enemies to arrest them (but need to be fast and aim down sights at others to keep their hands up). Your load out options increase quickly with some very gamey items like grapple hook launchers becoming available but you also get to try out some of the vehicles the game has to offer. I quite enjoyed it, but only will recommend buying it when its on sale.

This War of Mine

Fighting despair... 

This is a super cool survival game where you attempt to guide your group of civilians to have enough resources and survive a modern civil war. At night you can send one person to try scavenge or trade stuff but getting killed is pretty easy to do if you aren't careful. More dangerous than bullets and raiders is the winter though, and simply getting sick due to the cold and not having enough medicines to stave of death is a tough one. Your people also have moral compasses so while you can go steal and kill others it almost always ends up breaking your morale towards uselessness and or suicide.  

It's a grim and bleak game but one done so very well. The lack of a tutorial works here, and the difficulty levels come from the groups of people you unlock per play through. My starting trio was pretty good as they all could contribute some special thing (though I think 2 out of 3 were suicidal towards the end) while I had a much harder time when I only had an elderly couple or a group with a pregnant lady (who can't run or leave the base). This might be the only survival type game I've played multiple times. Highly recommended.

Touch Type Tale and Super Space Club

Games that combine strange things.

Touch Type Tale

Playing as a boy who happens to find a wizard's magical typewriter this game is a blend of both a typing game and a fantasy RTS like the original Warcraft games, but instead of having a mouse to select anything - you have to use the randomly generated word provided! This is for EVERYTHING: selecting the mine, harvesting from the mine, select the town hall, hire peasants to collect mined stuff, build new structure, farm fields, train units, move units across the map, split units, cast spells etc. 

There's a LOT of typing, but that's not even the hard part. Most of the difficulty comes from the RTS side in getting units out fast enough to defend! Definitely a challenging game and a strange combo one at that. As such its audience might be a pretty small set of people.

Super Space Club

This is simply "Asteroids" set to some rap music tracks and waves of endless enemies. Sure you can grind points to unlock new weapons and other pilots (rather, their special abilities) but that doesn't really do it for me - especially as the music isn't really my cup of tea. That said maybe the newer generation haven't ever played asteroids and enjoy rap? For everyone else, not recommended. 

Happy Game and Botanicula

Point and click adventures of the WTF variety.

Happy Game

I laughed at the warning disclaimer that "Happy Game is not a Happy Game" and yes, in it you guide a child through a bloody and terrifying nightmare via point and clicking through worse and worse "puzzles" but given the nature of the setting you need a lot of trial and error to work things out. For instance you'll only learn by doing when you crank the hand of a giant bloody teady bear to slowly tear its head off and crank the other hand to make the cyclops skull creature inside come out to pull out its own eye. Blood aplenty ahoy! But boy does it make you work for it...

Botanicula

If the previous game was too dark for you, rejoice for this one is much lighter but still in the super strange variety where a bunch of happy tree friends are trying to take a seed and plant it in the floor below without getting caught by the black stick figure spider creature(s). Easier said than done as incredibly obtuse puzzles are both funny and difficult to work out with a fair bit of "find the pixel to click on" in play. I did enjoy the random creatures you keep running into but not enough to recommend this game. 

Sky Racket and Backpack Hero

Games that embrace the retro pixel art style.

Sky Racket

After randomly getting jet packs and the titular "sky rackets" a pair of kids take flight to fight the WTF enemies which include cat sandwiches and giant bananas in what feels very much like Breakout albeit with horizontal layout instead of vertical. The idea is that you can whack enemy fire (and a few other things) with your sky racket to destroy the blocks and enemies that get in your way. The problem is that after getting used to being able to whack back enemy bullets, you're introduced to enemy bullets that can't be whacked back and soon after get to your first bullet hell type boss, where only 1 out of every 10 of his shots are "returnable". Not recommended.

Backpack Hero

In this game you play as a pack rat going on adventures with a magic backpack that starts out in a 3x3 configuration and gains space as you level up fighting and looting your way through each map. Deciding what to bring with the limited space is only half the battle, as packing things properly gives lots of bonuses. Put this thing beside a weapon makes the weapon more do damage. This thing diagonally beside armor gives more armor. This other thing you want to keep away from weapons but on the top row of the pack for "reasons". Enemies can also "give" you things like goo or fire which will eat up space or disable your gear. 

Cool concept, but two things turned me off it: firstly there are many occasions where there's lots of loot and you have loads of space but you can ONLY pick up 2 things!? And secondly the pack and its contents return to level 1 on your next dungeon run which absolutely sucks. Not recommended.

Deadtime Defenders and The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Games with clichéd humor.

Deadtime Defenders

A crazy doctor has opened portals to hostile realms and its up to you to shoot your way through them in this 2D looter shooter to kill em all with your ever improving arsenal of weapons. The art style is very cartoony and they lean into the silly monsters a fair bit, especially since you can technically only shoot left and right making enemies "up and down" from your position safe from your attacks - but they're not super smart and won't exploit that fact. It's addictive enough to go through the very short story but has no real staying power there-after.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 

In this Diablo-esque action RPG you play a descendant of the famous hunter and you have a bound spirit to assist you in everything from telling jokes, carrying stuff, and eliminating the many baddies on the many maps. As the camera is fixed it is easier for range focused characters to start at the bottom of each map and make your way "upwards" as you can see more which is a bit annoying, but the rest of the game is quite solid with a big variety of foes to deal with and a surprise tower defense section in the middle which keeps it interesting. I did enjoy the humor in this one, especially on the various bulletin boards but the final bad guy is a bit over the top. 

Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter

Movies where death unlocks super powers?

Madame Web

When paramedic Cassandra Webb (played by Dakota Johnson) starts getting glimpses of the future (thanks to a bite from a magical spider), she ends up trying to save some future female spider women from an evil spider man. This is definitely a strange one with "girl power" motif plot holes, passing the stupid ball around aplenty while having decent action segments and showing that before Peter Parker was spider man, everyone else was spider man!

The amount of time it takes for our heroine to work out her own powers is hilarious which subsequently heads into the WTF territory when she becomes OP (girl power yo) and the bad guy becomes comic relief due to the amount of times he fails. I still found it entertaining, but maybe that's because I had set my expectations bar really low. :P  

Kraven the Hunter

This movie focuses on the bane of poachers and bad guys in general - Kraven the Hunter (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who is gifted (thanks to a bite from a magical lion) with super strength, super speed and super luck that all the gun toting enemies are terrible shots. 

As it is an origin story one fourth of the movie is spent in a flash back while the rest is so oddly paced and has scenes that have no purpose other than extending the run time. At least the action bits are pretty nice and the CGI animals are ok (but clearly a step down from the SFX of other Marvel movies) but some of the acting is... not great.  

Ultimately I think I enjoyed Madame Web more, which is not a good sign for this flick. 

The Faces of Harley Quinn

From the recent DC games I was playing.

She's got a lot of screentime. :)

How to Train your Dragon (2025)

Just like the original, but in live action.

The viking village of Berk suffers from constant attacks from dragons, and the chief's un-viking-like teenage son Hiccup (played by Mason Thames) in trying to please his dad ends up changing the relationship between two races. Right off the bat yes, this story is almost exactly the same as the original animated version: a well written heart warming fantasy adventure with good action sequences mixed in with funny segments. The awesome soundtrack makes a return here as well!

While some of the human cast doesn't quite match their animated counterparts in looks, they certainly do fit their roles nicely. Highly recommended if you haven't seen the original. And even if you have you'll still probably enjoy this like we did, which is great because if they want to continue the live action route there's certainly a lot of material already out there they can revisit. :) 

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Where bullets solve everything!

In this game you play as one of the criminals recruited into the expendable Task Force X to retake Metropolis from Braniac's invasion - and he just so happens to be controlling the Justice League! While Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and King Shark have slightly varying modes of speedy and vertical transportation all of them heavily employ firearms to deal most of their damage: especially in boss fights where you don't want to or simply can't be next to your target.

The game play is quite fun and the animations are fantastic, but they really shot themselves in the foot by making the "after the main game chapters" which continues the story (albeit lacking cut scenes now - replaced instead with comic strips), adds new squad members, and pretty much makes you fight the same bosses with slight twists but in exchange for a huge amount of grinding. I only did the easier / faster half of those chapters before calling it quits. While I did enjoy this, I can't really recommend it because of that. 

Stranger Things experience at Luna Park

I was fortunate enough for my wife to take me to this live action experience in the Stranger Things world which is both hilarious and very well done, mainly involving us guests as people signing up for a "sleep study" at Hawkins Lab (where of course, things go wrong). 

Excellent live actors do the heavy lifting to get us into each scene and special effects and set crafting make for a fun experience throughout. Of course your mileage may vary on how much you like Stranger Things in general (yes the heroes of the show make appearances), and how into it you can get. Audience participation helps get other audience members into it! Definitely recommended. And the pizza (not free) we got at the end of it was pretty good too! :)

While this attraction is closing soon, it definitely encourages us to check out more of these sorts of things. I believe their next thing is Squid Game?

28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later

Movies about those infected... with rage!

28 Days Later 

Due to the actions of some eco-terrorists a lab grown and highly infectious "rage" virus is set loose. By the time comatose protagonist Jim (played by Cillian Murphy who also doubles as the eye candy for female viewers) wakes he finds a very different London waiting for him: one now home to zombies infected. It's funny that the start is very similar to The Walking Dead series but as the "monsters" here aren't undead the story can go in a different tangent. While this 2002 horror flick is showing its age, its still a decent watch that tells a complete story.

28 Weeks Later

The rage virus from the previous film has mostly subsided now and a US led NATO force (Jeremy Renner portrays one of their snipers) is resettling refugees into a heavily guarded safe zone. Of course, due to the total selfishness of two brats and the initial hesitation to use lethal force everything goes to hell when the virus re-emerges (and its up to a whole new cast to get through it). All up this is a much tighter film than the previous one and it also has a bigger budget, better effects, and more action pieces while continuing the theme of good intentions executed poorly always leads to someone dying. If you liked the first one or just enjoy zombie-esque type flicks in general, you'll like this one. 

Injustice 1 & 2

Its DC fighting time!

This fighting game is like Street Fighter, except with characters from the DC roster such as Superman, who has become a ruthless dictator, and Batman who is running the insurgency against the Kryptonian. In the second game, Braniac comes along to mess with things but in both cases the stories start and end strong but have lots of "filler" in the middle, looking for any excuse to fit as many one on one fights as they can. 

Right on target!

The graphics and controls are ok (though both are improved in the second game) but some of the fighting stances are strange and the power hits make for hilarious moments where someone like Catwoman can single kick an opponent like Doomsday UP and THROUGH multiple floors of a building! Or even, Catwoman can just face tank punches from Superman. Things like that.

Outside the story the first game has an interesting STAR Labs trial mode which challenges you with various game play modes and/or outright unfair situations. The second game drops this in exchange for a leveling and loot end game system which is basically a stock standard series of fights. That's maybe the only part the first game did better for me. Anyway, if you like DC characters and want to watch them pummel each other silly then these games are right up your alley. 

Ranking of Kings

An anime with excellent characters.

This currently two season anime adventure series follows the little prince Bojji who dreams to become a great king like his heroic father, but has some huge obstacles in his way the least of which being that he is small, weak and deaf. The art style is a simple one which lends itself to the child's tale but there are a number of great action sequences and even more great emotional moments in this fantastic story which gives even the side characters little arcs and goes to great lengths to show that no one is one hundred percent bad... or good. Absolutely fantastic series and one I highly, highly recommend!

Alas the second season, titled "The Treasure Chest of Courage" is a collection of short stories that take place in between various episodes of the first season. While it is very fun to have more screen time with these characters, it's structure alone makes it difficult for it to compete with the excellence of season one. Still worth a try if you get into it. 

Gris

Unlocking the rainbow. 

In this beautiful puzzle platformer game you play a woman going through some severe sadness, and while I'm not too keen on the art for the main character herself - the rest of the game is super beautiful and gets more so as you progress through it. This is because her world starts out very empty and as you progress you unlock more and more colors to fill the palette fully. 

Awesome art.

It helps that there's some good music too and that the actual game itself isn't in the "too hard" category with simple controls and a gradual unlocking of movement abilities. It's actually easier than (non-challenge mode) Celeste especially as you can't actually die. Thumbs up!

Day of the Jackal

This currently one season series follows a professional assassin "aka the Jackal" (played by Eddie Redmayne) and the law enforcement personnel out to get him. There's a good amount of killing here and an OK story to boot. I especially enjoy the "random NPCs" (or small part characters) being so on the ball for a change, keeping the Jackal constantly off balance.

In this telling the Jackal is also not "flawless" (in this version) as he gets caught up in day dreams, worrying about his family and the like which is fine as it puts him in action sequences more frequently. I did not like the main cop pursuer though. Not sure if it was the acting or if they part should have been written better, but I was backing the Jackal the whole way. I'm looking forward to what season two has to offer!

Heads of State and The Accountant 2

A pair of action flicks!

Heads of State

When arms dealing bad guys try to attack a NATO summit its up to the new(ish) POTUS (played by John Cena) and a grizzled UK PM (played by Idris Elba) to save the day. Luckily they are also both fit dudes because this show is definitely an action comedy one with some good hits of laughs as the two leaders don't really like each other. Big props to the very succinct flash back sequences used and to Priyanka Chopra who actually carries the harder action segments in this film wonderfully. Definitely a silly movie and one you don't want to turn your brain on for. If that sounds like your cup of tea then you will certainly enjoy this!  

The Accountant 2

The autistic accountant/hitman (again played by Ben Affleck) is back and roped into a tricky missings persons case which warrants the involvement of his also hitman/but not accountant brother (played by Jon Bernthal) in a pretty humorous and violent outing with decent action scenes and character growth. While there are still some plot holes I actually prefer this one to the first as the blend between nerdity and violence is much better from the get go. Thumbs up!

Guest Board Game Ranking

I had five extra people in my house for just around three weeks and we played games on every night except four. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to list how I feel they ranked the games they played (they didn't get through my whole collection) just based on engagement and enjoyment (I didn't ask them to fill out a survey) as to compare with how I've ranked things previously. 

From worst to best:

Pandemic - too slow at 7 players and virus cube thing not just cutting it. Loss.

Kiri-ai: The Duel - seats only 2. too obtuse and hard to compete with other games that seat more.

Police Precinct - slow at 6 player and too easy. Win.

Operation Flash Point - 3 player. Was OK but too simple. Win.

Squid Game - 3 player. Better recieved than I thought, but too luck based.

Forbidden Desert - 4 player. Another mostly luck based game. Loss. My components here are getting frayed from years of play. :P

Ra - 5 player. Just "ok". Hasn't been rating high for any of my groups compared to the online accolades.

Horrified - 5 player. Fun and funny but still too slow for some.

Atlantis Rising - 8 player. Seats many is a plus but goes a bit long. 

Magic Maze - 8 player giggle fest, but got old after 2 games.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea - 4 player mind wreck. Good but headaches occur over time.

Jaws - 4 player might have rated higher if the shark didn't win, but I'm a pretty good shark. :P

The Grizzled - 4 player multi victory. It was easy mode though as I forgot that multi supports cancel out

Lord of the Rings Duel - rated high with the visiting chess player even though he lost to his mom

Mikado "Pickup Sticks" / Jack stone / Tortoise Tumble - physical games enjoyed by many

Mancala - since its much like Sungka it was enjoyed by the visiting Sungka champ who won a lot

El Grande - 4 players. By the time they were working out the strategy it was too late to catch the run away victor (me) 

Black Orchestra - 4 players. Chess player killed Hitler hitting 4 out of 4 dice. OMG.

Risk: Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim - 4 player. Wifey won on victory points followed by chess man. My heroes were super short lived. :P

Darts - 3 players, round the world. My wife is too good at this. :P

The Mind - 8 players. Hilarious and always a good party game.

Klask - fast paced "air hockey" with magnets is always a winner. Seating only 2 is its downside.

Chess - well. When there's a chess player in the house, of course this ranks high. Been awhile since the board got this much use. I lost one blitz as white and won one long game as black using the Caro-Kann.

Escape from Colditz - 6 players. POWs escaped the German guards (played by me) and good fun was had by all. Being too long is its down side.

Lords of Waterdeep - 4 player. Awesome, and my wife still rules this game. 

Crokinole - Fun, fast and seats four. There's a reason its my most played game. 

Sequence - 6 players. The game they liked the best is something I didn't really rate as being that great.

Just goes to show that different games appeal to different people!

Echoes of Exile: The Prince's Pursuit

It's spruiking time as guildie Malkhia has released his fantasy novel Echoes of Exile: The Prince's Pursuit! If you're an avid reader please give it a try. Maybe you'll also enjoy Juris' The Golem City while you're at it. 

While we're doing all things guildie, I may as well up the link to Lyv's music youtube channel and the Dragonarm website where DL does monthly gaming posts or videos.

Sully, A Working Man

Two movies I watched with my guests!

Sully

After performing an emergency water landing of a passenger plane in the Hudson River, Captain Sully (played by Tom Hanks) faces the aviation review board who question if that was the correct course of action after simulations project his damaged flight being able to make it to two airports all while most of the public treats him as a hero. This "based on true events" film is a mostly talking one with heavy use of flash backs, but it is still pretty cool all up.

A Working Man

A retired soldier who now works in construction (played by Jason Statham) tries his best [not very hard at all] to leave his life of killing behind but when ridiculously over the top bad guys show up to mess with his place of business, what else can a guy do but blow them all away with high powered weaponry? Yep, this flick is one of pure "Statham taking out the bad guys" action with very little plot and set dressing to go with it. An easy one to turn off your brain and enjoy. :P

Risk: Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim

Here's a cut throat competitive game for 2-5 players that I originally just got awhile ago because I like all things "Skyrim" but haven't had a group to play it with until now. So, first of all it is RISK. A game of putting little figures on a map and then moving said little figures into territories of your frenemies to do some dice battle in a bid for map-wide domination.

Dice determines a lot of things here like who goes first and who survives combat. After "spawning" the map with your little dudes each player can then invade sending up to three of them into neighboring hostile territory (and some neighbors are connected by daedric portals). Attackers roll a dice per dude they sent while the defenders can defend with up to two. Compare the highest die pairs with defenders winning ties and remove the losing pieces. Then if there are still defenders, continue the dice rolling fest!

So far that's just regular Risk on a Skyrim map. What makes it more Skyrim though is that each faction has a hero and each turn other than gaining reinforcements you gain magicka which lets you buy and cast spells (all one shot) or buy important objective cards. You start with two of these and at the end of your turn if you've completed one you announce it and gain the indicated victory points. First to 10 wins, which is a lot faster than map-wide domination. For ridiculous hi jinks you can also shuffle in the "End of Game" card in the reward pile that people draw from if they won any territory on their turn.

Heroes are pretty tough with 10 HP each but they can only move where you have a little dude, and while enemy little dudes can attack them they can only defend against the little dudes (even if they were invading). Attack or defend, heroes always use max dice. Wait, if heroes can only defend against little dudes what do they attack? Other heroes (and heroes slain by other heroes get all their gear [you can buy armor and weapons too] taken by the victor).

Heroes can also fight dragons. There are four that randomly spawn at the start of the game and no little dudes can enter their territory without a hero to try slay the dragon. Dragons also have 10 HP and will only ever defend. Killing one grants the victorious hero a powerful dragon shout that they can use once per turn like, convince enemy little guy to become your little guy or Fus Ro Dah all enemy little guys out of a territory! 

Alas the rules need some interpretation and I house ruled only three invasions per turn to keep turns shorter and have each player engaged (which also invalidated at least two objective cards as they needed 4 and 6 successful invasions respectively). The VP win condition thankfully makes the game more manageable but it still took 4 of us maybe three and a half hours to finish. 

Better than I thought it would be, but it still doesn't beat El Grande or the always excellent and fast paced Lords of Waterdeep. 

Bracket City

Sorry I've been quiet for awhile. I've had some guests over for a number of weeks which has kept us quite entertained and busy! Here's some entertainment for you while I write up future posts... Bracket City!

(GR) Wildlands: Pardon

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

Despite the recent set backs with my squad the cartel must really be hurting on other fronts with full on aerial assaults happening on their production lines as the cartel leader calls in to meet. After killing who knows how many people he has managed to negotiate his way to a Presidential Pardon and extraction to turn in other nearby cartels, but this doesn't sit well with the CIA handler assigned to this task force and she shoots him dead before fleeing the scene. Maybe there's some truth to Walker's intuition?

Nevertheless, we're sent to support an elite Splinter Cell operative Sam Fisher in catching her - at a Unidad base no less, where she's selling secrets to try make a deal to escape. She's already KIA by Fisher when we arrive, but he has to hack the database to purge the Unidad server of its intel (in the center of the base we just stealthed through, with a strict "drop no bodies" requirement) while we mount a defense at all costs (and kill everyone anyway - wtf) as the entire army is alerted and tries to get to us. 

Under barrel grenade launchers are great for helicopters and many Unidad soldiers go down for each Ghost Recon soldier that does the same. Eventually its just Sam and myself left as the wipe completes. We jump out a back window and run for the nearest car when an explosion erupts behind me, throwing me forward and into a wall. Everything goes black. [Seriously, I can't win this mission...]

(GR) Wildlands: Punisher

[Part of the Wasted Land story]  

The general is very forthcoming in his intel in regards to weapons Unidad has gotten their hands on, and so while other ghost teams are sent to steal their nuke chopper and disarm a dirty bomb, my squad is sent to a bunker black site hidden next to an abandoned train line to retrieve a captured engineer being used against his will to develop some new weapon.

Interestingly what we find within is a trail of dead bodies. Another operative: Walker "the Punisher", is already here and questioning the engineer we're meant to retrieve. The high tech drones the engineer was developing killed the rest of Walker's squad and he believes it was a government CIA spook that leaked intel that led to the hit. 

Didn't expect to run into this guy!

We manage to talk him out of executing the techie and giving us custody but sure enough the supposedly "under duress" engineer shows his true colors by calling for Unidad backup. Walker then shoots the engineer in the face and we fight our way out of there through a small army of soldiers to escape, splitting up with the disgruntled soldier who we learn later also survived but quit the military. Ultimately that's still a mission fail in my book. 

(GR) Wildlands: Private

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

As the stew maker has cartel radio on 24/7 we go after its DJ next who isn't so hard to find - the downsides of broadcasting right? He spills the beans on a rockstar musician hired by the cartel to perform at a private and secret concert which is decently guarded in the mountains. Good thing this guy is a coward, as all it takes is a little gun fire to make him run to his car and flee out the only road to that place - away from the people defending him! 

We nab him after shooting his tires out and learn a little about who financed him. As expected the cartel financiers don't really trust each other so we lean on that, stealing one of their armored cash delivery trucks and delivering it instead to the garage of another cartel accountant. Soon enough this guy is getting death threats from his own organization and comes forward on his own to snitch on his superiors.

Assassin's Creed: Bolivia

Of interest is the cartel's contact in the Unidad military, an untouchable general based in one of the largest military installations in the country. His previous aide who he recently imprisoned is easier to reach though, and from him we learn about the general's private life including his weakness: his daughter. Getting her and then setting an ambush for her papa is a piece of cake.

(GR) Wildlands: Pozolero

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

I'm soon recruited and deployed with the Ghost Recon team in Bolivia who have been busy taking down the Santa Blanca cartel in the region [we were playing it coop until it started crashing on us], but the mission is a fail as our first capture target had already hung himself up in his own luxury house. 

With no intel about the people who have gone missing in the province to be found here, we team up with Rainbow 6 operatives Twitch and Caveira who are working another lead and use their breaching skills to defeat a group of barricaded suspects with some anti-cartel hostages at a factory. The freed hostages reveal that bunches of them had already been taken via "death trucks" away somewhere so while Rainbow 6 secures them our Ghost Recon four man team go intercept the truck and force the driver to tell us where he takes his passengers: a chemical plant out in the styx.

That's some scary face paint.

We quietly take out the guards while infiltrating and capture the man-child "El Pozolero" (the stew maker) who dissolves the corpses in acid. He claims he's never killed anyone himself and is just doing his job but that doesn't stop him from getting multiple life sentences (as per his real life counterpart).

(DE) Mankind Divided: Protection

[Part of the Wasted Land story]       

Intel found on site as well as what Miller discovered during his recon at Tarvos gives a solid indication of what Marchenko intends to hit next, a sort of peace summit that somehow hired Tarvos guards for protection - the same guys who are actually out to kill them!

Miller and I enter the event and have to dispatch the guards quietly as to not alarm the civilian guests but the heat turns up when Miller discovers Marchenko and his goons have poisoned the wine right about the same time Marchenko broadcasts live that he is about to detonate bombs in the residential apartments nearby.

Now going loud with shotguns Miller and I split up. He goes to warn the assembly about the poison but takes a bullet to the head for his efforts while I hunt down Marchenko while eluding his robot and drone guardians. He is very confused when his bombs don't detonate thanks to Chang's signal interference, and a shotgun blast to his face is all it takes to end the madman, live on television.

Due to the public nature of these events my unit was soon disbanded. Sometime later I heard Chang went on to do some Ripper / Hacking work the Breach movement and got himself arrested, but that line of work isn't for me [Breach mode sucks].

(DE) Mankind Divided: Prophet

[Part of the Wasted Land story]      

A gas bomb trap is what I find in the watch maker's apartment, but I also deduce she's joined some sort of machine cult in a tenement nearby. These nerds and their security cams are simple enough to sneak past them only to learn this woman also happens to be some high prophet and is about to "ascend" the cult members by putting their consciousness together like a new C-Consciousness and abandoning their physical bodies. 

She discloses that she made many bombs for her brother Marchenko right before stabbing me with the same poison that killed the ARC leader. Lucky I called for backup as the local cops arrest everyone and Chang manages to test out his synthesized poison cure which saves my life. 

There is evidence that Marchenko is paying the local Dvali crime gang for smuggling services so I visit them next in their domain of the red light district. These scum trade in everything including drugs and women so while I knock out the exterior guards once I sneak into their theater base of operations I hack their patrolling guard robots to join my side and then assist my new robotic friends in killing all the gang members within, including the bosses downstairs who get some surprise grenades for dinner.

(DE) Mankind Divided: Poison

[Part of the Wasted Land story]     

Tibor is grateful for the assist and takes me to the elevator straight to the edges of ARC territory. While he goes on ahead I'm temporarily detained by a big bruiser mechanic named Marchenko who warns that I don't belong there, before heading off to tinker with a downed police drone. 

Sure enough, just around the corner Tibor is warning his ARC buddies about my arrival and my intent to arrest their leader. Using the ladders to the maintenance ways and the tranq rifle gets me to my quarry with no one the wiser, but upon confronting the man he is adamant his group is being setup by someone else before suddenly convulsing and dying on the floor. Poison. 

I quickly take what evidence I can including a sample of this poison before the ARC guards come knocking with a blow torch. My exfiltration is anything but sneaky, and the bolt action tranq rifle really is really a disadvantage against opponents with machine pistols and combat rifles. Still, my opponents end up unconscious instead of dead. 

I make it back to the office later that evening and find Miller away, looking into some a potential link to the Tarvos mercenary security force, but Chang gives me a lead for the bomb maker from evidence Miller had "borrowed" from the police investigation team that points to a local watch maker.

(DE) Mankind Divided: Prague

[Part of the Wasted Land story]    

It's a beautiful city, albeit now one with a heavy police presence due to all the recent terrorist attacks. This doesn't seem to dissuade the Dvali crime gang from throwing their weight around though as, to get a certified clean bill of health from the local doctor after my previous gallivanting, I'm forced to sneak around a bunch of them shooting up a store. 

With that in hand it's time to head in to work. The storage and shipping shop front serves as cover for the hidden offices below where I meet colleagues Chang, a fidgety IT guy and boss man Miller, who is happy that I'm ready to be sent back into the field - specifically to some slums where the ARC activist group is based. I'm to take their leader in for questioning in relation to the bombings and all I'm taking with me is a tranq rifle, just to emphasize the no kill order given by Miller.

It takes some time to get to the cramped alleys where the homeless sleep beside the dead and of course Tibor, the contact I'm supposed to meet to gain access to ARCs HQ, has been imprisoned by the local police - and these guys don't play nice with other badges. Using vents and timing is enough to sneak in to find Tibor being worked over in interrogation so I knock the cops out, saving the guy in the exo suit armor for last as that involves throwing an EMP grenade at him to "double disable" the poor sod. 

Stalker 2: Scar

[Part of the Wasted Land story]   

My first stop in Pripyat is to assist the vanguard (another faction) defend their base from monolithians. Despite this their leader is very anti-ward and refuses to provide info, so Colonel K gets me to snoop around the vanguard's past operations and I find and report in details to an underground passage taken from a crashed helicopter (which I have to steal from a chimera who has made it his home).

There must be a leak though, because I soon come across hostile Spark forces vying for that same maintenance passage, led by Richter who meets his end in the gunfight. Colonel K and a squad of Ward arrive soon after, advising the now late Dr. Dalin was the traitorous snake. The next segment to get to the C-Consciousness requires lots running between bunkers between emissions, monolith defenders and two surprise bosses who get in the way as neither wants Ward to succeed:

Strelok himself, now wielding a powerful artifact is much like a wizard now - zipping around the chamber and throwing lightning anomalies left and right which really batters my gear. I end him from afar. And Scar, who has gone crazy after realizing his shining zone is not real, needs to be TV migraine induced to die just like Strelok did with Dark previously. With that Colonel K sacrifices himself to eliminate the C-Consciousness program, and I'm free to leave with a pretty decent report on what transpired within.

Duty above all.

Stalker 2: Surprise

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

Apparently "FIBER" is the pass code that translates to "please kill me" or something, because all the Ward guards at the base immediately attack and I'm forced to murder them in self defense! Colonel K soon arrives to sort things out, explaining they are protecting the FIBER program (which implants missions like Dark's one) from those who would abuse it until they can work out how to track the affected people (some having already escaped the zone) and to shut it down afterwards.

With that regretful misunderstanding out of the way I'm next tasked to get through Yaniv station and on to Pripyat in the North but due to the increased monolith threat they won't just let anyone through, as the monolith themselves find out when they attempt to take Yaniv station and fail miserably (without any participation from me).

Richter is here too, upset with my Ward allegiance and voicing how he should have left me in that anomaly field all those weeks ago (because Ward wants to "kill the zone"). He still helps get the border open though by suggesting I trade passage for a special detector that only needs leg work (in the Red Forest) to retrieve. As a bonus, I also finally find an Exo-Suit of my size and can get it and my more advanced firearms upgraded with the Yaniv technician, Harpy. I believe she is the best in the zone, and she definitely invoices like it!

Stalker 2: Strelok

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

The Doctor turns out to be a pacifist who lives on a small island in a highly radioactive lake and is horrified to learn the C-Consciousness project is still running so he reveals Strelok is somewhere at the Cordon, an area near where I first entered the zone! The boss of the rookie village there (who is also feared by the local bandits) partners me up with a capable stalker named Dark who is already on Strelok's trail, which leads to another abandoned underground lab full of anomalies and mutants, including a pseudogiant we manage to slay!

Surprise!

Soon after, Strelok gets the drop on us and kills Dark with a TV induced migraine - revealing Dark was an unwitting C-Consciousness assassin sent to kill him. As we're on the same side about "killing" this C-Consciousness he sends me to turn on another installation nearby, this one with ghostly type poltergeists in the way and a trio of burers down below. These mutant dwarves have powerful telekinesis and can use scattered weapons to fire or throw at their prey meaning it pays to fight them in "clean" areas.

After turning on the power I'm jumped by Scar and his Spark fanatics, who question my allegiance with Ward. I basically tell them what they want to hear, that I support their vision of a "shining land" to make the zone paradise for all to trick them into letting me go without harm. To help me see the "truth" about Ward I'm told to go to one of their bunkers and ask about "FIBER", which seems like a reasonable request.

Stalker 2: Subliminal

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

After finally getting the helm (it's actually a helmet upgrade that can be installed in any armor) I regroup with Ward forces about to stage a second attack on Duga, with plans to blow up the base of the radio wall. Led by Faust, the monolithians put up a decent defense but the helmet is effective and after a decent fight with his illusory tricks he falls to my shotgun.

Dr. Dalin is interested in Faust's pendant so I deliver it to him at STC Malachite just in time to witness Colonel K, now in exo-suit armor to compensate for his helicopter crash injuries, execute Professor Ozersky who actually sided with monolith and activated the Duga radio wall from here to begin with! Using the pendant, a shaken Dalin puts us in contact with C-Consciousness : the minds of seven merged scientists uploaded to a server hoping for people to join them in immorality. No wonder Faust was a nutcase if this is who he spent all his time talking to.

It's decided that these creeps need to be turned off, but to do that means having to find the one man who has navigated the dark valley in the past: Strelok. After running down a bunch of false leads I finally get one that pans out for winning 5 rounds at the Rostok arena (head shot vs humans and jump up on crates vs mutants). "The Doctor", an associate of Strelok's apparently frequents the Red Forest, a place high in psi-radiation. Gotta pack those Psi-block meds since this helmet won't be enough.

Stalker 2: Science

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

A monolith emitter is what I recover from the psi site and I'm tasked with lugging it across to the chemical plant where Ward has their main base. En route I stop by Zalissya to save (a handful of) them against a heavy monolith attack before completing the delivery and Dr. Dalin quickly works out that Faust is going to try use the Duga radio wall to brainscorch everyone into serving the Monolith. Not if Ward can help it!

I participate in the assault, complete with Col. K's helicopter support which goes very well until Faust shows up with his doppelgangers and activates the radio wall, causing Col. K to crash somewhere over the horizon and many Ward troops to succumb and die on the spot. I make it out alone and report in to Dr. Dalin who suggests a Professor Ozersky at the nearby STC Malachite might hold the key to overcoming Faust's powers.

The scientist asks me to do something for him first which is to reactivate the abandoned Mirror facility and connect it's systems to Malachite. This involves a trip through some zombies and their controller and then clearing radar tracks of any obstruction... which happens to be a chimera!  As the door has locked behind me at this point I'm forced to use a narrow door (cheat) to slowly whittle down the great beast until it is slain. For this Ozersky tells me of some special psi-resistant helmet hidden in an old lab, no doubt teeming with mutants.

Stalker 2: SIRCAA

[Part of the Wasted Land story]   

I'm welcomed with open arms at the SIRCAA research institute by Dr Dalin who is happy the device has finally made it to him in one piece. Colonel K and Ward soldiers are present too so I warn them about the impending Spark assault so we setup an ambush for the raiders and kill a lot of them, but are blind sided by additional Noontider troops now somehow fully back under the thrall of the Monolith who perform a secondary attack and throwing SIRCAA into disarray.

The retreat order is issued and while Colonel K and Dr Dalin manage to get to the evac chopper it leaves me and the remaining Ward soldiers behind as a pseudogiant joins the fray! The Colonel tells me there's another way out via some tunnels so I rush to that, leaving the pseudogiant battle to instead fight through an array of other previously caged mutants underground, like snorks who happen to be scary and hilarious at the same time.

The danger continues once I exit the tunnel as I happen to wander next to a chimera den, angering the two headed inhabitant which forces me to tumble down some cliffs to escape. While getting my bearings down at the riverbank Colonel K radios in saying massive psi-spikes were detected near my position and I am to check it out. It's a bit of a trek and the four blood suckers who ambush me on the road are more of a surprise than the Monolith troops now guarding my target location.

Stalker 2: Swamp

[Part of the Wasted Land story]  

On the hunt for the Clear Sky base I run into Richter again at the Sultansk loner base (and bar) who provides directions to get through the swamp to the distant village but warns about the defenses setup to protect it from outsiders. Sure enough, a number of psi-emitting towers need to be disabled before I can proceed - one guarded by a mutant cat in a dark church!

Even without them the swamp is a hellish place to traverse with all sorts of anomalies, mutants, and hyper radioactive water - but I make it to the ruined and empty village and find the scanner in a basement, but no Faust. Now of course I have to make the trip back and running face to face into a pseudogiant was not on my bingo card. I fight for a bit until it's apparent that I don't have the ammo to take this monster down so I jump a broken bridge and flee through a bubble anomaly field which seems to make it lose interest.

Exhausted, I try to rest up at the nearest ranger station but instead encounter the Sparker faction and their leader Scar, who know I'm on the way to SIRCAA with the device. They don't want to stop me, they just want me to open a door in an underground tunnel while I'm there. Before I can give a proper response, Ward troops arrive and begin a gunfight so I dash out the backdoor to let them sort it out while continuing to jog to the SIRCAA research facility. Good thing I'm loaded up with energy drinks!

Stalker 2: Sabotage

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

The Ward badge grants me easy access to the Noontider base where they are having some leadership dispute due to recent sabotage. Luckily I can dodge that problem and just talk to one of their egg heads who claims he might be able to track down the SIRCAA device if he could get his hands on an inductor from the nearby Waste Processing Facility... which is now home to a controller mutant who uses mind controlled "zombies" as guards. This bastard is a tough cookie, more resilient than the kangaroo rat, blind dog and flesh packs I've been encountering so far but not as scary as those damned cloaking bloodsuckers (who for some reason look like Cthulhu).

With the inductor in hand I'm directed to install it at the Ward controlled Azimuth station and find the defenders all slain by traitorous Noontiders! A number of head shots and jammed weapons later I finally have the place to myself and use the plot device to boost the antennas strength, letting me eavesdrop on a conversation between Noontider Faust and a mole he has in Ward.

As Ward Camp Icarus was mentioned and is nearby I go there next and stop a sabotage attempt (by diffusing a psi emitter - with bullets) just in time before it can fry anyone's brains, then taking out the Ward traitor as he's on a call with Faust. Faust is crazy enough to then chat with me briefly, inviting me to find him and that scanner I've been trying to get back at the old Clear Sky base - if I can. Challenge accepted.

Stalker 2: Sheriff

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Using advice from the local one legged technician I activate a number of radio towers to triangulate Squint's position (the idiot left his PDA tracking beacon on) and reclaim the Ward device he stole but not my own as he no longer has it, claiming he sent in on to his boss whom I learn (from Ward, in exchange for returning their doohickey) is some crime lord based in a depot at Garbage.

By the time I get there the depot has been wiped out by Ward soldiers led by a Colonel with a really long name so I'll just call him Colonel K, but the bandit boss man isn't among them. I offer to help track him down as it might be easier as someone without their badge and the Colonel accepts, suggesting I ask around at the neutral tenements of Slag Heap on his whereabouts.

Turns out he was captured by a rival crime lord so I end up fighting this batch of bandits to free the bozo, only to discover he has already expired in his cell. A hidden note on his person leaves a clue that he was dealing with someone from the Monolith faction and upon hearing this Colonel K deputizes me with a borrowed badge and sends me off to Wild Island, to get more information from the Noontiders... who are all ex-Monolith. This is because he is actually working with SIRCAA, and the scanner I was bringing was ultimately meant to get to them.