Time for another rundown of what I’ve played over the last few weeks. By purest happenstance, a lot (though not all) of this has been games that are at least horror adjacent.

Path of Exile:

I did finally get around to finishing the story in Path of Exile. My final judgment is that playing PoE on ruthless mode felt about equal in difficulty to my first playthrough of Diablo III on normal difficulty. I only really struggled on the final bosses of acts five and ten, mirroring D3, where I only struggled with Belial and Diablo. I’ll also note again the act five boss was mostly so hard because it was bugged out when I did it. The statues I was supposed to hide behind never spawned.

I only briefly sampled PoE’s endgame offerings, doing one “map.” It was a complete faceroll until I got to the final boss, at which point I was one-shot halfway through the fight by I have no idea what. The whole thing felt like the perfect microcosm of the PoE experience, and I decided I’d had more than enough at that point.

Some will say I haven’t really experienced PoE without getting into its endgame properly, but if you think you can’t form a fair opinion of a game after finishing a fifty hour story campaign, I think you’re a silly person.

Scars Above:

This is a horrorish sci-fi shooter I picked up for 90% off on Steam. Scars Above is pretty much your standard 7/10 AA jankfest, and I do mean that as a compliment.

Pretty much every part of the game is rough to some degree or another, but overall I had a lot of fun with it. I quite enjoyed the main character, Kate, who felt like a great example of competence porn. She shows enough vulnerability to feel human while also meeting every challenge with courage and wit.

There’s an interesting combo system around elemental status effects that can be triggered by both your weapons and the environment. It’s simple, but satisfying, and it helps strengthen the fantasy of Kate as a character who fights smarter, not harder.

The game’s greatest flaw is probably its difficulty. I’d read in the Steam reviews it was a very hard game, so I played on easy, but even so I almost gave up in the first hour because it was such a slog. However, once I leveled up a few times and unlocked some perks, it became a pretty effortless journey.

I was also a bit disappointed the final boss is just a buffed up version of a standard mob you’ve been fighting throughout the game, but otherwise, Scars Above was a good time. Given its apparent lack of recognition, I doubt a sequel is forthcoming, but I’d probably buy one if it does get made.

The Chant:

Another low to mid budget horror title I got for 90% off, but a less impressive one. I found the character movement, animations, and combat all felt painfully sluggish. Maybe authentic to the classic Resident Evil style experience they were going for, but certainly not for me, and the story was also less compelling than I’d hoped, so I bounced off after about an hour.

Amsterdam 1666 and other Summer Game Fest news:

One of the previews that most impressed me during the Summer Game Fest show was Amsterdam 1666. When they said it already had a demo live, I downloaded it immediately.

Unfortunately the demo ratcheted down my hype for the game considerably. The camera and character movement felt extremely awkward. That might be fixed before launch, but even more concerningly, the story didn’t seem that good. I kind of checked out when the father’s letter to his daughter started waxing poetic about his weird freaky BDSM sexscapades. Awkward…

It’s also concerning how little actual gameplay was in the demo. From the trailers, there will be combat in the main game, but the demo had none, which feels like a bit of a red flag.

Aside from that, there were a few other trailers at SGF that caught my eye, but nothing that immediately blew me away, more just things that might be worth keeping an eye on. Crossfire, Last Harbor, Haex…

I thought that the trailer for the Stellar Blade sequel looked really cool until I realized it was a Stellar Blade sequel, and now I just feel deeply conflicted and slightly gross.

Aion 2 setting a Western release date was probably the biggest news for me. Given my long history of bouncing off Korean games, my expectations are fairly managed, but it’s still probably the game I’m most anticipating, at least in the near future.

While not part of the main SGF show, around this time we also got news of the next expansion for Age of Empires IV, Raiders of the North. I’m disappointed by campaigns being neglected once again, but the expanded Crucible mode at least means there’s something for single-player, and I do think both the new civilizations look fun. It’s frustrating they’re calling them “Vikings” instead of something more accurate, but otherwise what we’ve seen so far seems like a fairly accurate and historical depiction.

Overall I’m looking forward to the DLC. I’m definitely rioting if the next civilizations aren’t from Africa or America, though. Those are way overdue for more representation.

Tides of Tomorrow:

I’ve already covered this on Massively, so I’m just adding it for completionism’s sake. I mostly enjoyed Tides of Tomorrow, and I would recommend it, but it wasn’t as special as Road 96, and I did have an issue with the ending (spoiler-filled elaboration on reddit for those interested).

New World:

I dipped back into New World a little bit. I made yet another alt, as I wanted to replay Monarch’s Bluffs (thankfully the game cooperated and landed me there). Since I feel like my time in New World has contributed to my success with Brigitte in Overwatch, I decided to make a character modeled after her. Made her look as similar as I could and gave her a flail/lifestaff build.

Funny thing: New World’s character limit for names isn’t big enough to fit  “Brigitte Lindholm.” It cut me off at “Brigitte Lindho.”

WELCOME
LINDHO

I ended up going with “Brigitte Lind.”

Had a lot of fun revisiting Monarch’s Bluffs, but wasn’t sure what to do after that. I do want to play more New World while I still can, but I’ve always struggled to motivate myself in games without clear goals to chase. I’ve already done all the stories in the game, often at least twice, and I don’t really need better gear on my high level characters, especially with the shut down looming.

The Secret World:

My returns to TSW are becoming ever shorter and less frequent, but I did pop in for a couple hours recently. The Dragon alt I have been very slowly leveling since the maintenance mode announcement is closing in on the end of Transylvania. She’s already super OP from all my GM perks, so I’ve started skipping most missions outside the main story.

I did have to do Last Dance of the Padurii. Wasting a gear manager slot on a hinder build you literally only use for one mission is an essential part of the TSW experience.

When the maintenance mode news first came down, I thought the servers would be shuttered before too long, and for whatever reason one of the things that made me saddest was the thought this character would never see Tokyo. I’m now within striking distance of achieving that goal at long last, which feels kind of surreal. There’s still a decent chunk of Transylvania left, but maybe one day soon.

World of Warcraft:

I wasn’t planning to be back in WoW until the next major content patch, but I really wanted the May and June Trading Post stuff, so I ended up burning a WoW Token. I’m not treating it as my main game, though. As this post attests, I’m still playing lots of other things.

There just isn’t much for me to do in WoW right now. I’ve done all current content, and I don’t like most of the tier sets this time around, so there’s not much transmog to chase. I am still enjoying my characters at least. Rogue, monk, and paladin all feel great right now.

Once again I lament WoW’s forced subscription. I honestly quite like having it as a background game I can just pop into now and then, but with the sub it’s just not financially justifiable long term.

Overwatch:

I continue my love/hate relationship with Overwatch. My problem is I really do love the setting and the character design (in all respects — lore, visuals, gameplay), but I’m just not much for competitive games. I don’t really mind losing as long as I don’t feel like I’m the main cause of the loss… but I very often am.

It’s especially frustrating that most of my favourite characters are the ones I’m bad at. After a strong start, Ramattra seems to have turned out to be another character I’m no good with, with my win rate on him having fallen below 50%.

The weird thing is unlike other characters I’ve struggled with, I don’t feel like I’m doing badly when I play Ram. I get lots of kills, don’t die that much, am frequently the MVP by Stadium cash, and get PotG often. The other day I hit 80K cash by round five, which is by far the best I’ve ever done with any character and near double what most of my teammates had (we still lost). By every metric other than the win rate, I’m doing great with Ram, but I guess the win rate is all that matters.

Weirdly I have the opposite issue with Vendetta. I feel like I do nothing but flail and die when I play her, but I have a win rate well above 50% with her… though admittedly I haven’t played her enough to have a strong sample size of matches.

I may still try a few more matches with Ram to see if I can turn things around, but I’m not optimistic.

I’m still over 65% win rate with Brigitte after around 150 games, which seems absolutely insane to me. I never had anywhere near a win rate that high after so many games on any character in Heroes of the Storm. I usually settled around 52-55% for my mains.

As much as I like Brig, though, I don’t want to be stuck just playing her. I do have good win rates on a few others, but they’re usually characters I’m just not super passionate about. It’s fun playing Sigma now and then, but I’d much rather be D.Va or Ramattra if I’m going to tank. Doesn’t seem fair to my teammates, though, when I have win rates around 48% with those two but over 60% with Sigma.

Het universum zingt voor mij, I guess.

You’d think after a year I’d be getting better at this game, but no. It’s hard to get excited about new characters when it’s so unlikely I’ll be any good at them. Shion looks awesome, but gods know when she’ll make it to Stadium, and when she does I’ll probably just suck at her, too.

At least I’ve still got faithful Brigitte. If no one got me, I know mace to the face got me.