Thanks for the long and interesting writeup! I’m still working through AC 1 and enjoying it, I’ll see if I stay on the train as long as you :).

I did play Ghost of Tsushima. One of the most beautiful looking games I’ve ever played with amazing combat and good characters. For me, it was just way to long and repetitive. I eventually found the solution, playing each of the three acts and the DLC with a long break in between each time, so it felt fresh again. In the end I even got the platinum trophy for it, but I still see it as a great 8/10 game that could have been an all time favorite if it was trimmed to about half its runtime. Here’s hoping that they don’t make the same mistakes for Ghost of Yotei. If they can keep the good and trim the bloat, this could be the game of a generation.

“based on news like this”

I think you’re spot on there. Not saying that the BBC is untrustworthy, but there is always a bias in every news source. Especially when it comes to criticizing foreign policy versus local policy.

I am not disputing that it is not going well there. I’m just saying that similar issues are present in a lot of western countries. I am of course only talking about the subject of this article. If you look at how authoritarian the gouvernement is, stuff does get clearly worse in China compared to most western countries.

Don’t the amount of available jobs scale too?

I feel like this problem would be the same if China was a tenth the size, same goes for US and other countries. It’s a systemic issue, where the ratios of workers and jobs are wrong and unsocial.

It’s hard to discuss such a massive series. It feels as if everything has been said about it and people have largely gotten tired of the formula, but hear me out.

I actually never played any of them, I recently started playing the first one (from 2007) on my Steam Deck and I am actually loving it. It’s such a simple, straightforward game, with a basic but engaging story and honestly gorgeous visuals for the time. The mechanics are delightfully limited, in a sense that it really helps me to turn of my brain and just enjoy myself. I really like the world and how dense it is: all objectives are reasonably close and movement is quick and agile. A real gem for the Steam Deck!

I most certainly will get the sequel trilogy, as that one seems to be loved by a lot of people.

You absolutely beautiful person! What a thoughtful and sincere reply, I cannot thank you enough.

You’re 100 percent right that those experiences will still be there for me in the future when I feel the space. For now I am limiting myself to your second group of suggestions (I’ve played the first Frog Detective and loved it), knowing that your first group is there when I feel like it.

I did already play Edith Finch though, a masterpiece in my opinion, but indeed quite heavy (but extremely hopeful too).

Seems right down my alley. Does it feature any triggering subjects? (Mainly severe mental health stuff and suicide is stuff I avoid for the time being)

Do you have recommendations for similar games?

I am not from the US but always felt the world would be so different if Bernie was up against Trump instead of Hilary.

Is there a younger member of the Democratic party with a similar vibe to Bernie?

I am am continuing to extend the life of my 6 years old laptop for as long as possible, hopefully I will be able to buy a framework when it does eventually die on me. (It’s a semi-shitty clevo model but I recently replaced the battery and it’s kind of decent again)

I looked it up, the horrible sub is TheLastOfUs2 (avoid!), the normal one is LastOfUsPart2

I completely agree with your last part, the story would have been perfect if it was switched.

To counter your other argument, the surrogate lesbian daughter is still more visually stereotypically attractive though. The number of hate posts for Abby that even go into transfobic territory and misgendering was massive. I made the mistake of wanting to read some discussion on part 2 after playing it on reddit: the whole sub is just hate (there probably is an alternative but I didn’t look further, I was to disgusted by it).

But your opinion on Joel vs Abby is valid, it’s actually annoying that actual discussion about storytelling gets overshadowed by bigots.

On a similar note, I had issues with the change in direction of Doctor Who which accidently coincided with the casting of the first female Doctor, and it was so hard to have genuinely critical discussions without misogynists taking over or being accused of being one myself.

I also cannot understand how you could play the Last of Us Part 1 and not realise how horrible Joel is.

Spoilers for both games ahead.

The ending of 1 was super difficult for me to play and super powerful in its delivery. It was horrible to decide to “save” Ellie by literally murdering everyone in the research station and destroying all hope for a cure. I was really impressed that they went there storywise, but then when in 2 Joel gets killed, all these so-called “fans” are angry because their lovely protagonist was killed. It’s like they willfully ignore the complicated morals that were already present in the first game. When Abby does horrible stuff, they hate her. When Joel does horrible stuff in 1, it’s fine. Part 2 had some problems, but I hugely respect what they were going for and how it polarised the community.

The bad reactions to this seemed minimal to me, but my god the woman in the Galactic trailer is driving them nuts.

Which I really don’t understand, because I find her look and vibe the good part of that trailer. The slurping drink and forced pop song on the other hand…

What are good starting points for the Deus ex series? I’ve got the original on Steam, but haven’t really gotten into it yet, feels very intimidating every time I start. Should I just push through or are there other entry points?

Btw, I loved dishonored 1 but somehow stopped playing, thanks for reminding me to get back to it :).

I think it will be Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

I think it should be Astro Bot or UFO 50.

While technically correct, they do have it in China itself, it’s a modified version called Douyin. It is more restricted, censored and tightly controlled.

I agree that it is a cyberweapon, but don’t think that it’s only used against foreigners, they use it just as much to observe and influence their own population.

Finally, I would like to point out that to a lesser extent this is also the case for a lot of USA owned social media and tech companies. Edward Snowden’s revelations for example indicate this. While the extent of government control and influence is much larger in China, I wouldn’t underestimate the influences of Meta, Google and Microsoft for example.

Journey of the Broken Circle! Played this on switch and it deserves more attention.

A short, side scrolling platformer about connection and love.

“but won’t trow me into a pit of emotional despair”

Your suggestions are both amazing games, but I would like to confirm to OP that these games are quite distopian and feature some body horror.

Could you elaborate? I have no idea what you are talking about.

I think that is a bit the conceit of the collection: classic games in looks / features, but taking into account the progress that has been made in game design and mechanics. I actually prefer it this way, like an alternate timeline in which computers didn’t get more powerful and people were forced to iterate on ideas within these constraints.

I’ve only just started today, so these are my first impressions of the initial 10 games:

• Barbuta: such a strange little game! First impression is very hostile and strange, but it keeps luring me in with it’s puzzle-like complexity. Discovering new stuff in this one is super satisfying.
• Bug Hunter: seems interesting, but did not want to hurt my brain with the strategy aspect, so on hold for now
• Ninpek: precision platformer auto-scroller, I am really bad at this so not really for me
• Paint Chase: amazing little game, really fun paint battler with cool powerups
• Magic Garden: this one got its hooks in me, a great twist on snake and pacman with a risk-reward mechanic. Highly recommend!
• Mortol: this is so creative! Still at the start, but using your own body as a tool to be used by your next “lives” is amazing.
• Velgress: made me think of playing Doodle Jump on my Nokia Slider phone, good times.
• Planet Zoldath: spend literally 1 minute in this, something on a planet, then my brain wanted another impulse :)
• Attactics: really cool, sort of real time strategy game. I really like it, but feel like I need to play it more to understand the strategies better.
• Devilition: chain reactions of blowing up demons! Quite a head-scratcher, but really satisfying when you start your demolition and everything goes as planned!

(edit: formatting)