Short Sessions, Part 3

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This is another post in my series about the games I only taste for an hour or even less. Originally it was meant for the odd games that I would normally discard anyway such as free games, games given to me by a friend that had several keys of the same game to give away, or games that for other reasons just kind of popped up in e.g. my Steam library without me knowing how they ever got there in the first place.

However, as I’ve grown even less enthusiastic about games, I’ve decided to expand this to whatever I just don’t feel like continuing, even if it’s a game I originally intended for a larger fate. The reasons may be many and perhaps sometimes even petty, but I’ve decided that I want the game to really grab me before I want to see the end of it. This also means that you may be seeing a lot more of these posts in the future.

Free Will

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One of the things I want to believe in is free will.

I understand the arguments by scientists claiming how everything could have evolved in a predictable manner since the big bang. It does make sense. Even down to the decision making processes in the brain and how we can’t see into the future, everything could still be set in stone. It’s a frightening thought, right? Even if you decided to test it knowing all this, that decision could still be set in stone too.

Among all the scientific books, articles and YouTube videos I’ve read and watched, there always seems to be a consensus that it’s either free will or determinism. It’s a little disappointing that some of my favorite scientists often vote for the latter, but as mentioned before – there are good arguments for it.

But what if it’s not as simple as a binary choice?

Sometimes I ponder the idea that epic proportions of complexity can somehow diminish determinism. After layers upon layers of complexity, the universe is so incredibly intricate that it doesn’t make any sense to think of determinism anymore. Although it’s still predictable, the information is so massive that you would not be able to predict all outcomes, even if you invented a computer the size of a galaxy.

RiME

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Developer: Tequila Works | Released: 2017 | Genre: Adventure, Puzzle

This charming third person adventure came very close to making me relive the pure fondness I had for PC games almost two decades ago. Now I understand why Nicouse found it so enchanting.

In fact, it was so beautiful and imaginative that I just can’t for the life of me understand why so many of the professional review sites mashed it down to typically a rating of 6-7. It’s a crime, plain and simple. A typical complaint is that the game feels too much like boring busywork solving puzzles barely challenging at all, but that’s not fair. Although it’s true that many of its puzzles were fairly pedestrian, the game really did its best to vary the rules and surroundings, and the level graphics were often epic and jaw dropping.

I wonder if some of those cynical game reviewers weren’t just worn down veterans?

The story was quite simple, almost non-existent, until the final hour of the 6+ hours it took me to complete it. A boy was washed ashore on a small island and I had to run around, shouting at figurines to make their energy empower an avatar in the middle. There was no dialog. It’s true what they said – the inspiration of games like Ico was quite apparent, and the climbing was virtually Tomb Raider.

Beyond Eyes

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Developer: Tiger & Squid | Released: 2015 | Genre: Adventure, Facile

Regarding brightness, this game was the polar opposite of Among the Sleep. Here white was consistently dominating the screen. It was short – about two hours, including one level restart because of a bug.

Rae, a little girl blind after an accident, had to go look for her friend, Nani – which was an orange cat. The game was quite unique in the way it used her blindness as a gimmick. I was walking her around removing white “fog of war” that was drawn depending on being in close vicinity. Sometimes, a noise in the distance could temporarily show a hotspot, like a woodpecker working a tree or a church bell. There were also permanent hotspots created by constant sounds such as a streaming river or a waterfall.

Most of the game was about finding my way through fields and a village, uncovering white fog. Sometimes she was smelling the cat thus showing where to go next, and there were very light tasks such as throwing bread for seagulls to get out of the way, or fetching a ball for another girl.

Among the Sleep

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Developer: Krillbite Studio | Released: 2014 | Genre: Adventure, Horror

This was a short first person horror adventure in control of a little toddler that could barely walk. After a birthday cake from mum and a later put to sleep, the majority of the game went through surrealistic set pieces with elements from the house itself. Most of the game was very dark with a lot of walking/crawling, sometimes with light puzzles like dragging a chair to climb on or finding “memories” for a portal.

I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it again – I’m not really fit for horror games or movies anymore. I’ve become completely numb. I really should stop touching this genre.

Nevertheless I bought the game and I am trying to work through my backlog.

But in spite of the absence of screaming in my apartment, the game did its best with a spooky atmosphere, it didn’t go crazy with cheap jump scares, and the ambient sounds were really good. Humans that can still experience the feeling of horror may find a lot to like here.

Playing PC Games

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Today I thought, why not let the first blog post of 2021 be sort of a rambling post. Some personal opinions, things going on in my life – you know, the purpose blogs actually served in the first place. In fact, I’ve been thinking about letting it become a regular series to take over the diminishing posts about PC games.

And then, what better place to start than with that – PC games.

Oh no, you might be thinking. This is going to be one of those blog posts where he denounces playing video games ever again. Well, not quite. Maybe. Sort of. It’s complicated.

The thing is, the past few couple of years it’s actually been a struggle for me to write these blog posts about PC games. Having to take abundant notes while playing, lots of screenshots, writing the blog post, inserting the right images. It’s not just playing a game as relaxation like watching a movie for me. I need to have this on the side to make PC games mean something special to me.

Recently, I’ve been asking myself a question. Have you actually enjoyed playing the latest five or ten games you played? I thought about that for a few days. At first I took a look at the blog posts I wrote about those games and admitted to myself that, why yes, I did get at least a little bit of joy out of playing these games. So, maybe it is still worth doing? Well, the problem is exactly the amount of work I just described in the previous paragraph. So what I needed to do was to ask myself the right question:

Does the joy I get out of a PC game match the work I have to prepare for its blog post?

The Demise of Skywalker

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Since I blogged about the first two movies in the new trilogy of Star Wars movies, I’ve felt kind of obligated to write about the third one too. It was delayed on my part because I only saw it on a streaming service at Disney+ which came to Denmark this summer.

Apart from The Mandalorian, Disney+ has really opened my eyes for both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels – quite late to the party – but that is, as they say, an entirely different story.

But even when it was available at Disney+ a few months ago, I kept postponing my first viewing of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker both because of the general lacklustre reviews and because of how I found the first two movies lacking in so many departments. I only got to finally watch it yesterday.

Maybe it was because I had lowered my expectations, but I actually thought it wasn’t that bad!

One of the criticisms I’ve heard is how the movie kind of hit the reset button, ignoring many events taking place in the second movie, but that’s not true. For example, Rey’s parents and her heritage are revealed and turns out that she did indeed have quite an interesting ancestor, yet Ren still insists that her own parents were still nothing special. That’s okay. I can live with that.

The movie was also more coherent that I expected, and it had epic set pieces. I was never bored.

One of the biggest points of critiscism I had about episode 7 was how much it had aped from episode 4. I thought that at least for the first two thirds of this movie, the writers tried to do mostly their own thing. Then in the end they sadly just had to go and repeat the end of episode 6 with barely a few surroundings and details conveniently switched around.

That was certainly disappointing, but at least is was so infused with epic that I almost bought it anyway.

Let’s move into more specific spoilers.