Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1269https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7988This was actually great! I was skeptical because I'd never heard of this random Epic freebie and because of low-ish reviews. It's like a spiritual successor to Road Rash, which I loved as a kid. It was nostalgic playing this, remembering being 10 years old, kicking other bikers and whipping them with a chain, that straightforward racing violence. Road Redemption channels the same energy. You play as a member of the Jackals biker gang, and the game is basically you progressing, in rogue-lite fashion (which was a surprise), through three other biker gangs' territories, racing them to kill an assassin with a huge bounty on their head. You get there first, your gang gets the cash. You choose a motorcycle and a rider. The default motorcycle is actually the best through the entire campaign, perhaps until you unlock some others late in the skill tree, but at that point I had beaten it already. Riders have different bonuses, penalties, and weapons. Once I unlocked the one that gives bonus money and experience and gives you a heavy melee weapon to start, at the cost of 50% health, I kept him the entire time. Once you learn how to play well, you won't miss the health. You have four weapon types: sword, other melee, gun, and explosive. Sword is a sword. There is only one, but it can be upgraded for more damage (as all weapons can). The point of the sword is to attack enemies who don't have a helmet. You decapitate them, which is endlessly entertaining. If you get a sword kill, you get double cash (and maybe double nitro). "Other melee" is a heavy weapon and a long-range weapon, which you can cycle between. Once I started using the rider who starts with a heavy weapon, I never used the long-range one again because, around then, I had learned how to avoid damage, so I didn't need the protective range; I could get up close with the wrench or the bat with spikes on it. Guns include a pistol, a shotgun, a grappling hook (slows enemies down?), and a machine gun (the best). Some levels feature a lot of ammo pickups. On those levels, you can go crazy with guns, which is fun. Then, explosives include mines that you drop in the road, C4 that you attach to enemies (endlessly entertaining watching them blow up), and like a grenade launcher or something that I never really used because you get access to it in the final area. The key to using all the weapons well is memorizing where they are on the D pad and learning to see which one you have equipped at any given time without ever looking at the weapon selector icons. There is a lot going on in Road Redemption, and if you are busy looking at the bottom lefthand corner of your screen choosing weapons, you will (a) get annihilated by other bikers, (b) get annihilated by oncoming traffic, or (c) otherwise run off the road. Enemies are no joke, especially later on. The first gang is easy. They are slow to attack and don't have special gear. Lop their heads off with the sword, or bash them with other melee weapons. By the end of the first area, I believe you also have a gun and some C4. In the second area, enemies are more aggressive and have more weapons. A slip-up here can end your run. By the third area, they are vicious, some have extra armor, and there are various types who come out in force to annoy you, such as the mine dropping guy and the "shield" guy who blocks all melee attacks. You have to shoot him, blow him up, or kick him (kick with B, endlessly entertaining) into oncoming traffic/into a light post/off a cliff/etc. Once you get good at dispatching enemies and avoiding damage, you will be golden. When you kill an enemy, you get cash, nitro, and health, so killing more enemies if you can is always a good thing. Each gang's area has maybe like 6 or 7 levels. Levels are randomly generated and can vary among objective type. In some, you have to place third or better. In some, you have to kill x targets. Some are a time trial. In some, you just have to survive till the finish. At the end of each gang's area is a "boss fight" where you have to kill one especially tough enemy, and then after that is a "rooftop escape" where you flee that gang's territory and go to the next gang's territory. The bosses are easy enough, usually just heavily armored. I fought the last boss two times. The first time I got to them was after like 3 or so hours of gameplay. I got my ass handed to me, then didn't see them again until nearly 5.5 hours, at which point I handed their ass to them. What happened between 3 and 5.5 hours that changed the last boss difficulty? I learned how to play better sure (Don't ride right next to enemies! Use "A" to block! Swerve to enemies and attack, swerve away, swerve back and attack, swerve away! Slow down or speed up [and save nitro to do this] if you get stuck in a pack! Or just put some C4 on someone and watch the pack explode!). But I also dumped tons of experience points into the persistent skill tree, so I had more health, more ammo, more damage resistance, more money (you can purchase items after every race), started with better weapons, etc., etc. After you beat the game, there is a campaign + mode and a campaign ++ mode, which I can only assume is horrifically difficult. This was definitely fun, a straightforward callback to Road Rash, and it scratched that Burnout itch too. I love vehicular destruction. And I got my completion in for March! Back to Divinity: Original Sin II, which I might be able to finish in April. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:00:19 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7988&iddiary=13497https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7987This is an aerial combat game. Admittedly not my favorite genre, but The Falconeer won a BAFTA, despite receiving lukewarm reviews, and I got it for free or in a Humble Bundle, so I decided to try it out. It apparently had a remaster, so I was hoping that whatever issues it previously had would be remedied. It nails a visual style and commits to political-military worldbuilding, which I respect. Unfortunately, that’s about all it nails. The amount of things the game doesn’t bother to explain to you is perplexing. It begins with a prologue and combat tutorial, the first and last thing the game explains. I appreciate figuring things out on my own, to an extent. When I decided to quit, I noticed some text on the menu screen that said I’d leveled up and saw that I was level 3. There are levels? Are there experience points, too? What do the levels do? Do they improve my stats? The stats are AG, SPD, ENG, HP, RGN, DMG, and ROF. What do these mean? Some I can interpret—SPD must be speed, for example—but others, I am at a loss. ENG? What is this? English? Engineering? What is AG? Agility? What does that do? There is no tutorial for this, no tooltips. I also discovered shops. What is the point of shops? I played an hour without buying anything and it didn’t hamper my mission success. Do I have to buy things? What are these different categories of things I can buy? I stumbled upon an inventory of sorts, I think. Do I equip things? Some things are damaged. Can I repair them? Speaking of the difficulty, it seems to be random. There are skull icons indicating difficulty of each mission. In the hour I played, these ranged from 1 skull to like 6 skulls (out of 10?). I didn’t notice a difference. It would go like 1, 2, 6, 1, 4, 2, 5, 1. What does the difficulty mean? Why was there a “6” difficulty mission 15 minutes into the game? And why was it easy? Why are enemy names re-used over and over? I killed the same named enemies, blew up their falcons, sank their ships, and yet they continued reappearing. What is the point of the shrines? Are a lot of the open world locations just places to discover, but you can’t interact with them? What’s the point? Related, the story is a dense political-military slog. There are a bunch of different factions, or countries, or organizations, and they are all fighting, allying, betraying. Some guy keeps barking orders at me to take main missions. I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t really care. It seems like the developers built a neat world here, but the narrative isn’t presented in an interesting way, and exploring the world on your falcon is boring, too. There’s a big map, but there’s nothing to do. The open world is empty, just an expanse of sea with islands and cities here and there, and various shrines and other “open world” boxes to tick off, but there isn’t much substance to any of it. The controls are a hot mess, too. You can fast-travel immediately, which begs the question of why there is an open world at all, especially since there is not much to do it in. Actually, fast travel only works sometimes, though I cannot discern when or why. Sometimes, you can press “A” to fast travel and sometimes it doesn’t work. Other times you press “A” to fast travel, and the fast travel indicator doesn’t appear, yet you will fast travel anyway. In missions, you press “A” to target enemies. Sometimes “A” will target them and other times it won’t. It was very irritating. Occasionally, in combat the camera swings up for no apparent reason or the bird ascends, which is disorienting. I gather I am not the only one turned off by all these issues. On Steam, 57.8% of players completed the prologue. Then just 10.6% completed the first chapter! That’s a huge attrition rate. Then nearly half of those bailed before completing the second chapter, which just 5.9% of players did! It looks like it’s not until the third chapter that players committed to finishing (4.7% in chapter 3, 4.3% in chapter 4, and 4.2% completed the epilogue). I was just trying to knock something out in the next week so I could have a completion for March (because I’m in the middle of two long games), but this ended up being a retirement. I’ll have to pick something else to beat this week.Sun, 22 Mar 2026 16:40:50 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7987&iddiary=13496https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7959Yeah, this was incredible, as expected. The story, the character development, the historical setting, all incredible. My brother and another friend (especially the friend) were highly invested in me playing the game, so I was keeping them updated while playing. Another friend was supposed to be playing it at the same time as me, but I paused a couple months ago and he defected to Mass Effect for a break and never returned. I need to be like, "Dude, I beat it. Hurry up so we can talk about it!" There are so many memorable missions, from the night out with Lenny (the game explores race and racism during this time and place, which was neat) to going to get the kid from the Italian guy to an epic train robbery to the final showdown, and even to the side missions, like collecting debts for Strauss (which seems so mundane), but realizing the damage that Strauss's money lending causes to individuals and families and then eventually kicking him out of camp. The characters are all flawed, and the main character arc of Arthur about made me cry throughout the last chapter (though I had a MAJOR plot point spoiled for me by a John Green book!). Truly, it is a story about redemption, with some characters growing and others succumbing to their flaws. Very human, very emotional. Two main activities in the game are riding your horse and shooting people. Riding your horse could have gotten boring fast, but you have good control over movement and how fast you go, and have to manage horse stamina. You also encounter things along the road, from Strangers (capital "S") to meet (aka side characters with their own story arcs), to strangers (small "s") whom I usually ignored (aka random events to random NPCs like passing someone calling for help because he's getting chased by bandits, passing a person begging for money, passing a hunter stuck in a bear trap [I felt bad that I never helped the hunter]), to ambushes, etc. There is a handy auto-ride system, where you can set a cinematic camera to take over as you go from one place to another. Arthur will actually ride the horse the whole way, but you can put the controller down and watch the beautiful landscape and bathe in the ambient music. You can also fast-travel using wagons or trains between towns, but I hardly ever did that. Shooting people is pretty basic. You have a weapon wheel and an inventory wheel, and during combat you basically duck behind cover (R1), pop out and target someone (L2), which uses handy aim assist, flick the left control stick up to the target's head (because aim assist always centers on their chest), and pull the trigger (R2) for a headshot. Duck again, line up your next headshot, kill. Move forward to the next cover. Repeat until mission cleared. This did get repetitive by the end. I hardly ever used "dead eye," a slow time ability that allows you to shoot multiple enemies at once, and I hardly ever used items, including healing items, because you just don't need them. Weapons are just regular pistols and rifles and knives, whatever they had in the late 1800s. Combat was spiced up by the various contexts in which you fight (e.g., raiding a mansion, robbing a train, shooting on horseback, etc.), and it was engaging, but like I said, it did get repetitive. Another thing that got repetitive, and that I quit doing after too long, was looting corpses and searching places for loot. Each "search" animation is way too long, and like I said, you don't end up needing health items, or any other items. You can always pick up new guns from the ground and ammo is plentiful. You can also buy guns and ammo too if you want. There is a "camp upgrade" element to the game in the earlier chapters, and I collected money and items to sell until I had upgraded everything, but that was a small portion of the game. Once I'd upgraded everything, first of all, the camp moves and you don't even have access to all the upgraded stuff for a chunk of the game (I don't think), and second of all, you don't need all the stuff anyway. So once camp was upgraded (by like chapter 2? of 6 + epilogues!), I basically had no use for money for the rest of the game. Sure, you can buy outfits and new guns and whatever, but none of that is necessary. This made me feel like I went pretty straight through the main game, plus most of the Stranger missions, but didn't touch much else. I didn't mess with mini games, I didn't spend time in towns going to the theaters and whatever, I didn't mess with cosmetic things like giving myself haircuts or trying on outfits, I didn't do optional legendary hunts (those wild animals will kill you so fast!) or search for special gear or do the treasure maps, etc. That all sounds nice if you want to spend more time in the game and do everything that the Wild West has to offer, but I didn't. The main story was fantastic, so that was my focus, and I've played so many open world games and MMOs that I felt no need to hunt extra legendary creatures or collect special item sets. Red Dead Redemption 2 was an epic tale. I can see why my brother and my friend were so excited for me to play it. Now I will be the one harassing other people: "Did you play RDR 2 yet?! Let me know when you start it! Keep me updated!" Next up from Rockstar later this year: GTA 6! Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:45:05 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7959&iddiary=13494https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7584I first played this a few years ago on Game Pass and loved it. I rebought it on Steam because there was so much extra content. (I have since learned to avoid long games, roguelikes, and stuff with tons of replayability on subscription services; buy those instead!). Last summer, I replayed the game and started to dig into the DLC. There is practically an infinite amount of stuff to do in Vampire Survivors. I still feel this after sinking another 30 hours into it. The achievements and unlocks are extremely compelling and I could chase them all day. But it has finally started to feel repetitive. Longer 30-minute runs that result in like one unlock or just some progress through a map feel more and more like a time sink, especially as I have other games to get to, including newer games in this genre. The DLCs (so many!!) have been interesting in that they alter the base game in interesting ways. The maps have rooms, islands, and more geographical features; they are not just massive plains with the occasional obstacle. Contra has a different kind of boss fight. They have new characters, weapons, evolutions, and secrets. The Ode to Castlevania DLC is massive, about the same size as the entire base game! It also has unique boss fights, and an even bigger map to explore, including different spawn points so you don't start over every time. I mean, really, I could just keep playing this forever...but I can't keep playing this forever! I must delete it. Maybe one day there will be another DLC that really piques my interest and the game will rise like a vampire from the coffin of my Steam library! I did see that they are releasing a first-person card battler roguelike, so I am sure I will get sucked into that too!Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:38:02 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7584&iddiary=13491https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7982Dang, another kickass random freebie from Epic sometime in the past year. I remember being drawn to it because it was published by Blumhouse, which has had some horror movie hits, and which is apparently getting into game publishing. This is like a PS1-style survival horror game, but without combat. Gameplay is straightforward. Without the combat, it is more linear, simple puzzles, play some hide-and-seek with the monster. It builds a great atmosphere though--still manages to be tense--and has a unique story. I think the narrative is where this really shines. It drip feeds you the story and peels back layer after layer. You think it's this straightforward high school romance drama, but then no. And then the second layer, the second thing you think is happening, but then no, another layer. And another layer. Some taboo shit that made my skin crawl. It was really good. And it was really...sweet. It's an atypical choice for a horror game, but it works. In the end, maybe it is a high school romance story after all. Definitely worth playing. Thu, 26 Feb 2026 17:49:42 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7982&iddiary=13489https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7981This game is SO COOL! Like, must play. It was a random freebie from Epic last summer that sounded interesting. I'd never heard of it. It's got a sort of Orwell feel, but is its own thing. You play as Evan Tanner, a new Operator at the FDI (basically the FBI). Operators have access to FDI databases and their job is to retrieve information for FDI agents in the field. So, an FDI agent will be working a case, find some evidence, call an Operator and ask them to ID someone, for example. It's basically a detective game. You respond to agent queries by going through text/audio/video files, puzzling out how to get information and how to solve various problems. But an intriguing mystery quickly emerges. A mysterious hacker contacts you. There is a mole in the FDI. There are interlocking cases with a few different field agents. An unidentified killer. A cover-up. You end up doing way more than just reading through files to find information, but you interact with agents over the phone helping them through dangerous situations like guiding them through defusing a bomb or helping them break into buildings. It's really exciting! The writing is solid. The voice acting can be a little corny, but it does the job. There are some really funny parts. In one part, you are trying to get an FDI employee away from their computer, so you call them and pretend to be IT. This is the kind of employee who would fall for a phishing attempt or have their identity stolen. You call and are like, "Hi I'm...Mike...Smith...from IT." She replies, "Hmm...I don't know a Mike Smith in IT. It says here on the caller ID that you're Evan Tanner, an Operator." "Well, I don't know about that. I'm Mike Smith." "Hmmm...then why does it say you're an Operator?" "Because...I'm...also an Operator! Yeah, that's it...Operators sometimes also help with IT." "Hmmmm. I thought Operators just worked with agents? I don't know about this. But...okay, what do you need me to do." "Just leave the room and I'll take care of it." "Hmmm...how long will this take?" "It shouldn't take but a few minutes!" "If it'll just take a few minutes, then I'll sit here and read my magazine." "Actually...It will take a long time." "But you just said it would take a few minutes. This is suspicious!" "No, yeah, it will definitely take like an hour." "Hmm....Okay, I'll leave, but I don't like this!" It was a really funny interaction and reminded me of those information security videos you have to watch for work. There were a few other parts that made me laugh too. Also, a nod to the minimalist visuals outside the Operator screen. The sound design is great, too. I was able to guess a solution to one puzzle immediately because I had heard what the inside of a particular apartment sounded like a few times. That was cool. The downsides I can think of are: (1) the bomb puzzle had some confusing terminology; (2) the part where you guide someone through a floor of a building was silly, as if someone couldn't walk through a small office floor and find the stairs on their own (there would be signs!); (3) I'm not sure your choices really matter. So yeah, this surprised me. I loved it. There is a sequel in development! Hopefully it's longer and more involved, perhaps with some branching narrative (this game was just a few hours). (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:35:29.)Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:33:01 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7981&iddiary=13488https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7980I gave up on this one. The puzzles become really obtuse. There is a hint system, which helped me get through a couple tough ones. In the end, I either came up against a puzzle that stumped me or my game has a bug. The internet suggests it is the latter, but you never know. The puzzle in question is about 2/3 through the game and it is plant-related. You acquire three different types of flowers and have to cross-pollinate them to breed different types, eventually spawning a mandrake. I combined flowers in various ways as I experimented, but reached a genetic dead end and needed to get the original flowers again to start over. The problem is that I could not get flowers to regrow. I was actually able to do this once, but the second time, I could not. I turned the game on and off, as per the internet's suggestion, reloaded, and so on. Nothing. No available flowers and I couldn't "undo" what I had done. Frustrating! Aside from the obtuse puzzles and likely bug, I was enjoying Samorost 3. It is an Amanita Design game through and through, although I found that it lacked the charm of some of their other games. It wasn't as funny as Chuchel or as disturbing as Happy Game or as whimsical as some of the others. Perhaps it's because this is an older one (2016) and the third in a series of still older ones. Nevertheless, it had that great Amanita Design art and sound design, and there was joy in poking and prodding at things in the environment to see what they did. You play as a little alien guy who gets a space ship and flies around to different planets, solving puzzles. I think in the end you are defeating some big evil baddie that is wrecking all the planets. Not quite sure because I didn't get there, but there was some exposition in the beginning that suggests this is where it's headed. I'll just assume that the little alien guy (is its name Samorost?) saves the day. Hooray! We did it! Wed, 25 Feb 2026 15:23:45 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7980&iddiary=13487https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7978Ranking the three short games about mental health I played this afternoon, this is the bottom. It started off interesting, trying to get out of a room with tons of keys but only one works, figuring out how to progress through a room with a birthday party. But you realize that the solutions are all trial-and-error and that it doesn't have anything too deep to say about mental health / depression / anxiety. It's basically a little PSA. Other games tackle this theme far better. Also I got nausea while playing, so add this to the list with Ghostrunner, Far Cry...3?...and a few others! I feel like I'm going to barf...ugh. Mon, 23 Feb 2026 16:49:37 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7978&iddiary=13485https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7977Played just after the first one. This one adds a little bit of production value. Now we get some animated scenes, some clearer visuals, some more variety in the music and sound effects, and it's about 4 times as long. Story continues where the first one leaves off. It's still weird, more surreal, more horror-ish, and more to the point about taking anti-psychotics (or not). You play, again, as the character's inner voice, which can be rational, empathetic, and/or cruel to her. She can't sleep, she hallucinates, she goes on and off her meds. She's lonely. Her mom is perhaps violent toward her. Unclear, as she is obviously an unreliable narrator. She also exhibits symptoms of OCD, and is perhaps on the spectrum. It gives a glimpse inside the mind of someone with a variety of disordered thoughts. Not sure exactly what it's trying to "say," but it was interesting to play through.Mon, 23 Feb 2026 16:16:25 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7977&iddiary=13484https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7976This is a very short little horror/visual novel about mental illness. You go to the store to get a bag of milk, but it takes 20 minutes and you spiral while doing so. Interesting little snippet of a game. I played the sequel immediately afterward...Mon, 23 Feb 2026 16:05:23 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7976&iddiary=13483