August 27, 2023August 27, 2023Diary Games PC Games

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The First Three Hitman Games

As preparation for playing a couple of modern Hitman games in the near future, I’ve decided to transfer my diary sessions of the three first Hitman games which I completed about 20 years ago. This is part of a nostalgic series of the games I played many years ago, but this time it will be adaptations rather than direct transcriptions.

There will be spoilers in these diary sessions.

Hitman: Codename 47

Developer: Io-Interactive | Released: 2000 | Genre: 3PS, Stealth

I completed this game in February 2002. I hesitated before starting it as I had heard it was supposedly very hard, and it was true. The game often had long and complicated missions with no in-game saving of any kind, and it was generally merciless. One mistake and all hell could break lose.

The game was quite original at the time. I had not seen anything quite like it before. Instead of going in guns blazing or just camping with a sniper rifle, I had to research the surroundings of the levels, learn some of the hints for bypassing security and preparing the assassination, then orchestrate an ingenious way of killing the target. And preferably without being detected.

It was a great idea in theory and the game series have always had its stalwart fans. I was never one of them. I quickly disliked the way these games required me to constantly restart and research the same missions over and over, until it was possible to complete it with as little commotion as possible. I never liked having to repeatedly sit through the same sequence in a game, and this game did that in abundance.

Nevertheless, I just had to try out the game. It was the first really big game produced in Denmark, my home country, and it had music by Jesper Kyd, whom I had briefly met at an Amiga demo party. His music was often a bit too minimalistic for my taste, but it was good in this game. It fit nicely.

August 19, 2023September 1, 2024PC Games

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Adventure Games

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Moebius: Empire Rising

7/10Developer: Pinkerton Road Studio | Released: 2014 | Genre: Adventure, Point & Click

I’ve completed the three Gabriel Knight games many years ago and gained a solid respect for Jane Jensen’s writing. That’s also why I backed the Kickstarter campaign for it in 2013. However, since its release it has received a mixed bag of reviews and it always had me avoid it in the Steam backlog.

Until now. And I confess that once again, it was originally my intention to play it for an hour or so and then dump it into my series about Short Sessions. The 3D models was not exactly doing it any favors.

But in spite of the mediocre walking animation, lip sync and those crazy eyeballs of persons trying to look behind their own ears, the story and the analyzing puzzles quickly grabbed me.

The protagonist, Malachi Rector, was a Sherlock Holmes kind of guy with a very high IQ. As an expert in antiquities with a photographic memory, he was sometimes hired to evaluate new antique findings, which he then ruthlessly declared to be trash. In spite of his elegant demeanor, he was sometimes belittling requests and sarcastically denounced objects around him. And he was regularly taking pills.

I immediately liked him.

August 5, 2023September 1, 2024PC Games

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Platform Puzzle

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Perspective

8/10Developer: Widdershins | Released: 2012 | Genre: Platform, Puzzle

Cute little puzzle platformer that only took me 1½ hours to get through. It’s free on Steam. User reviewers there claim it took them an hour or less to get through it. I also admit I was almost stuck a few times, but eventually I always figured it out. But take heed – this is no walk in the park.

The gimmick in this one was controlling the perspective for a 2D space guy. I switched between 3D mode for adjusting the perspective in first person, like lining up platforms close to each other, then switched back to controlling the space guy for jumping across. There were blue graphics for walking and jumping on, while all orange graphics killed the space guy if touched.

July 30, 2023August 12, 2023PC Games

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RPG

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Legend of Grimrock

Developer: Almost Human | Released: 2012 | Genre: RPG, First Person

Legend of Grimrock was another one of those that I kept postponing for years because of the majority of reviews claiming that it was very difficult. It did have a difficulty selector though, and I made sure to choose the easiest one as I usually do anyway, when this is available. Fearing a level of ruthlessness I try not to allow myself these days, my plan was for an hour of gameplay for Short Sessions.

But damn, this game was fun! I ended up playing it for almost 5 hours.

This first person RPG is supposedly a modern take on Dungeon Master, which I wouldn’t know since I never played that. However, I did know a lot more about the another inspiration, Eye of the Beholder, both from seeing the game on the Amiga back in the day, but also because an awesome version of it was recently ported to the Commodore 64. I’ve watched a lot of development videos of this.

If you’re still tinkering with the C64 today, go check it out. It’s fantastic.

Going back to Legend of Grimrock, the game moved in grid steps like on a chess board. I could move in all four directions and also rotate. Mouselook was there, but I rarely used it. I selected a premade party of four that was thrown almost naked into a mountain dungeon for crimes I could only guess at. Time to walk around in the dark dungeon and pick up armor, weapons, solve puzzles, and fight monsters.

July 29, 2023September 17, 2023PC Games

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3PS

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Short Sessions, Part 13

This is another post in my series about the odd games that I have decided not to complete, although I will at least try them out for up to an hour or two.

July 23, 2023September 1, 2024PC Games

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BABBDI

8/10Developer: The Lemaitre Brothers | Released: 2022 | Genre: Adventure, Facile

In case you’re wondering – yes, I discovered this game in Jacob Geller’s YouTube video.

This was a free game on Steam. At first it seemed obvious why it was free – the textures were low res and the buildings very simple – often just blocks with a few ledges. Find a train ticket and escape the city. There were few persons to meet, and most didn’t have much to say.

But the more I explored the city almost entirely made out of cement, there was something about it that fascinated me more. It didn’t make all paths easy to find, especially not upwards. In the beginning I found a barking dog (with a high resolution mouth) and a few motorcycles for traversing faster. A few secret items for a collection quest. A torch. A trumpet that could have its scales rotated.

I even found three persons dancing to a silly tune on the radio in a sewer section.

July 16, 2023July 22, 2023Diary Games PC Games

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3PS

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Just Cause 2

Developer: Avalanche Studios | Released: 2010 | Genre: 3PS, Sandbox

This is a post in a nostalgic series with transcriptions of my diary sessions of the games I played many years ago, translated and adapted from Danish. There will be spoilers in these diary sessions.

February 22, 2013

I finally started the sequel to the Swedish open world agent-style game – now from 2010. I ended up playing three hours over two turns. Although the game was basically just a strong embellishment of the same game rules as in the first one, the gameplay, the graphics and the atmosphere were still improved so much that I thought significantly better of it and even seriously considered playing it through properly.

The 3D engine in particular was unparalleled. It had a totally unobstructed view to all horizons and no immediate corner cut to achieve this. Huge mountains and volumetric clouds with beautiful sunsets, foaming waves on the beaches, detailed forests and palm trees, large cities with skyscrapers but also small villages with huts on stilts. Cars and people were finely detailed, and textures were of a reasonable high quality. There was a world of difference since the first game from 2006. The music was also of a more symphonic and professional quality – although I still missed the furious Spanish guitar a bit.

July 15, 2023Diary Games PC Games

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3PS

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Just Cause

Developer: Avalanche Studios | Released: 2006 | Genre: 3PS, Sandbox

This is about the first game in the series.

February 10, 2013

It actually surprised me a bit when I discovered that the game developers were Swedish, as the game was set in some fictive Spanish/Mexican/Colombian republic and had a lot of furious Spanish guitar mixed with modern rhythms. The description of the game made it sound like the bright green islands from Far Cry meets the typical game rules from the Grand Theft Auto series.

You get missions and side missions to kill targets or to dust something important, targets in the form of icons on the mini map and the larger map, and you can steal cars, motorcycles, jeeps, trucks, speedboats, police cars, even later helicopters and airplanes. There was a solid road network on the islands – more than I had thought, complete with quite a bit of traffic on the roads. As an added spice of its own, Just Cause and its sequel were notorious for the many stunts you could do. Jumping from car to car, throwing a grappling hook at other cars and helicopters, hang gliding with a parachute, even throwing yourself off high cliffs and popping an always available parachute. And there is probably much more still possible.

However, the game turned out to be too similar to the Grand Theft Auto series for my taste. No saves anywhere but only checkpoint saves at the end of a mission or in a hideout. The latter was much like in Far Cry 2, with the possibility to renew weapons, ammunition, heal, and obtain a new vessel.

July 9, 2023September 1, 2024PC Games

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Platform Puzzle

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Trine 2

7/10Developer: Frozenbyte | Released: 2011 | Genre: Platform, Puzzle

I started this sequel shortly after adding a diary blog post about the first Trine, which I completed back in 2012. That was of course the reason I transferred that, so I could refer back to that blog post.

The sequel was basically more of the same, with only a few tweaks. It had the same trio that I could freely switch between – the wizard Amadeus, the knight Pontius, and the thief Zoya.

Again the wizard could conjure metallic crates out of thin air and also levitate the things the developers allowed me to move. The knight could smash through certain barriers, fight with a sword or a hammer, and protect himself with a shield that could have its direction adjusted with the mouse. The thief could shoot arrows with various strengths, and also shoot a grappling hook for swinging to the other side.

And again the graphics was total eyegasm, with lots of exquisitely animating details. It was brighter and more saturated – perhaps too much for some, but I didn’t mind that. It looked great to me.

The wizard could now both levitate certain objects and also rotate them with left/right hotkeys. There were puzzles with air blown out of pipes where I could levitate a bent piece of pipe, rotate it to fit properly, then attach it to blow wind in another direction. This could then lift a character upwards. This was a cute idea that made good use of the levitation ability. Later the pipes could also be used for fire.

July 2, 2023August 13, 2023Movies

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Journey’s End

I watched the WWI movie, Journey’s End, for the first time the other day, on a Danish streaming service for my broadband internet. The movie was released in 2017, so sure – I’m late to the party.

The movie was basically about a small group of people dealing with the stress of past and upcoming battles in the muddy trenches of Aisne, 1918. There are in particular three officers that we follow, one of which is a captain that’s losing his mind to PTSD. As such the drama and the acting is absolutely top notch.

Yet, the movie didn’t quite work for me.

The problem is that 99% of the movie takes place in the officers quarters and the trench, with people worrying and talking. The actual war action is very limited, and even when it does happen, not much is seen apart from a few bombs going off. No doubt budget reasons played a role, and I also understand that the story was originally a theater play.

But the way the movie starts with the captain already starting to lose his marbles, right after the young second lieutenant Raleigh joins, shows that they have already been through a lot of hell at this point. But we don’t really know what that is.

Sure, we already know about how the trench warfare in the first world war was absolutely excruciating. We have seen the footage. However, a bad design in movies is where there’s too much telling and not showing. This movie doesn’t even bother to do that. It merely trusts that you’re already aware of this.

It’s not because I love war action and people dying all over the place. I despise war as much as anyone. But I still believe a rough and loud scene of war to begin the movie would have made the captain’s worries so much more impactful. It would have brought me a lot more under the skin of him and his comrades.

It would have made for a much better movie to me.