Here are a few more computer games I’ve played over the last 6 months…
Skyrim: 80 hours of my life gone to the famous open-world RPG - I completed the main story, but waaayyy less the half the entire game content. This game is huge, and a player can have a second job wandering around the chilly land murdering dragons, vampires and other assorted fantasy creatures with an array of weapons and magic. Despite heading towards a decade old this game still looks great thanks to constant support. Story is ok, gameplay is ok, open-world is fantastic! Like GTA4 the pleasure in this game is just wandering around and being amazed at the the world and the immense amount of effort required to create it.
Sexy Brutale: Interesting detective game with a cool graphics style. Wander around an evil mansion saving masked party goers from murder. The hook is you only have a few hours of in-game time (about 20min of real time) before the world resets and everything starts again from the beginning. I got about halfway through, stopping once I understood the mechanics.
Hidden Folks: Kind of like an interactive “where’s wally”, this game has the player searching for items in slightly animated line drawings. Charming, but slight, it kept my attention for an hour.
Assassins Creed: Odyssey: I really wanted to like this open world RPG set in classical Greece. Friends loved it, and the graphics are beautiful. However, my review is the same as for Brotherhood - great setting that makes just wandering around a joy, but I found the gameplay annoying and tedious. Wander around the beautiful scenery and fight huge numbers of people - block, slash, block, slash. Not my sort of game, although I am probably in a tiny minority. On the other hand, discovery mode is awesome.
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt: A medieval city builder in a cartoonish and casual style. Spent a few hours playing, but nothing really grabbed me as particularly interesting.
A Case of Distrust: Noir’ish interactive fiction where you are a private investigator in 1930’s San Francisco solving a murder case. Has an interesting flat colour style and a decent story (although fairly linear). Only takes few hours to finish.
Port Royale 3: Old (and it looks it) trader/pirate sim. Had trouble working out what was happening as the tutorial was poor. Lost interest quickly.
Overland: A procedurally generated, turn-based tactics game on tiny maps where you hunt for resources to survive a cross country journey in a post alien invasion US. This reminded me strongly of Into The Breach and Bad North, but I found those games more fun. This game feels dark, claustrophic and as if the player grinding out towards inevitable failure. Thematic yes, enjoyable no (for me). So it reminds me more of Tharsis in that regard. A well-made game, but not my style.