Tag Archives: Road 96

Gaming Round-Up: What I Played Over the Holidays

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Time for another recap of what I’ve been playing lately.

New World

My latest alt in New World.I played a bit more of New World, though I am starting to wind down. With most of my goals completed and no content on the horizon, I imagine it will become like The Secret World: a game I’ll always love but only revisit every now and then.

I did start that latest alt. Haven’t entirely locked down a build yet, but right now I’m using a musket coupled either a rapier or greatsword depending on my mood. Since I’ve been on a kick of learning about indigenous cultures lately, I decided his backstory is that he’s an Andean native who mugged a conquistador and hitched a ride to Aeternum.

I was a little sad he wound up in Windsward. Nothing against it; it’s a lovely zone. But my nostalgia for Monarch’s Bluffs is so much stronger. Might have to make another character to revisit Monarch’s Bluffs…

Overwatch

Played a lot of Stadium — maybe a bit too much — to get my free loot boxes from the winter event. I’m still holding strong on Brigitte, Juno, and Pharah as my top played characters, but I have tried (and re-tried) a few others on the side.

Mei's companion emote in Overwatch.I copied a build off reddit that uses De Kuiper’s Thesis to make Sigma (nearly) unkillable, and I’ve been having a lot of success with that. Bit worried this build is likely to be nerfed at some point, though. It’s a bit nutty.

After giving up on Mei early in my Stadium career, I’ve given her another shot and managed to claw my way above a 50% win rate, however tenuously. I do quite like the Coulder playstyle, though. Be the ball.

Also gave Freja another chance, with even more tepid results. She’s very hit and miss, quite literally. I’ve gotten some huge multi-kills with her bolas, but most of the time I just kind of flail around without accomplishing much. Not sure I actually enjoy playing her that much, either. She kind of feels like the answer to the question, “What if Pharah was super clunky?”

She does have a very satisfying ultimate line, though. NU VANKER DER.

NU VANKER DERI’ve also been playing a lot of Moira lately. I had trouble wrapping my head around her at first, but now that I’ve got the hang of it she’s very low stress. Hard to believe I ever struggled with her. A surprisingly high number of players don’t seem to bother getting out of the way of her damage orbs.

Part of the reason I’ve been revisiting older characters is I was pretty disappointed with the new offerings for Stadium this season. Only two characters is underwhelming to begin with, and I didn’t enjoy Doomfist or Wuyang at all. I’d heard there was evidence Illari and Symmetra were in production for Stadium, and I was really hoping to get one or both of them this season. They’re definitely my most wanted new characters for Stadium right now, Illari especially. Love her personality.

Road 96

Hot off the heels of my recent post waxing nostalgic about it, I decided it was time for my third (and final?) playthrough of Road 96.

Having already done the pro-democracy and apolitical routes, this time I went for the “burn it all down” approach. While my first two playthroughs yielded radically different endings, this one felt a bit like an awkward mash-up of the other two.

Preparing to cross the border with Zoe in Road 96.A little disappointing, but if there was ever a game that embodied the principle of the journey mattering more than the destination, it’s this one, and it was still lovely to revisit. Again, worth it for the music alone. Steam shows me with 23 hours logged in Road 96, and I’m pretty sure an hour or two of that is just sitting around vibing to the music.

Also, can we appreciate what a good dude John is? It really hit me on this playthrough how he really is the best person in the cast. Just a truly decent (fictional) human being.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

When I played Expedition 33, I skipped most of the act 3 side content because I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the story too much. However, since then I’ve popped back in here and there to slowly clean up the rest. I think I’ve now done pretty much everything, including the Verso’s Drafts zone recently added in their free “thank you” update.

When they announced a free DLC, I was hoping for something to further flesh out the lore of the wider setting. This was… very much not that, but still a mostly fun romp all the same. Can’t complain about the price, either.

Exploring Renoir's Drafts in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.The one notable thing I still haven’t done is kill Simon. I made one attempt and decided that life is too short to deal with that level of difficulty. Simon can keep on doing his thing; I’m not gonna hassle him any further.

WoW

I’ve just recently reactivated my World of Warcraft subscription, though I did play a bit of the free version in December to get a head start on Legion Remix (or Region Lemix, as I keep accidentally calling it).

I’m not as enthusiastic about Legion’s Remix as I was for Pandaria’s. Legion was a lot more recent, and I played a truly disgusting amount of it at the time, so my burnout never really fully wore off. I’m also not really on the “Legion was the best expansion” train that most people seem to be these days. It was a good one, to be sure, but I wouldn’t put it at the top.

I also don’t love that we’re back to gear drops instead of upgrading gear. Theoretically I can understand the logic that it might feel bad to choose between spending bronze on gear upgrades versus cosmetics, but in practice it was trivially easy to get enough bronze for both, so it doesn’t really feel like a problem that needed solving, and it was so nice not to have to constantly replace and re-transmog my gear in Pandaria Remix. Lemix’s QoL feels much lower, and in general the Remix specific progression systems don’t feel nearly as exciting this time around.

My new dark ranger inspired death knight in World of Warcraft: Legion Remix.However, the flood of rewards is still nice, and I was eager to try the heroic world tier. So far I haven’t found it particularly game changing, but a little more challenge for a little more reward is a nice option to have.

I’m playing a death knight because I remember them having the best class hall campaign, and because I figured a DK’s survivability would help in heroic world tier. I made a Blood Elf; since I’m still not really enjoying playing my hunter, I decided to just cosplay a dark ranger on this death knight and get my Warcraft III nostalgia fix that way.

It’s certainly an odd relationship I have with the death knight class. Historically it’s been one of my less preferred options, but I definitely have more DKs than anything else on my account at this point. When the Lemix one is finished leveling, she’ll be the third DK on my account to ever reach a current level cap and the second just in War Within. To say nothing of the many other low level DKs sitting around near the bottom of my character list.

Despite my alt addiction, I almost never make multiple characters of the same class in the same game, and even more rarely fully level them. The only other examples I can think of are my two paladins and two shamans in WoW (though I’ve never played both of either in the same expansion), and that second Jedi consular that I leveled in SWTOR for reasons.

My new dark ranger inspired death knight in World of Warcraft: Legion Remix.I have always loved the flavour of death knights, and I’m gravitating toward them more simply because Frost DK is perhaps the only spec left in the game with a nice, simple builder/spender rotation. It scratches the itch rogues used to before Blizzard mangled them into their current cooldown-juggling mess.

I just wish I liked the aesthetics of Frost better. I’m admittedly not sure what exactly this would look like, but I’d prefer a “chill of the grave” vibe to “Frost mage but melee.” I prefer the more necromantic stylings of the other DK specs, but their gameplay isn’t nearly as smooth, so Frost it is. “Cold death” was one of the attack lines for dark rangers in WC3, I suppose.

Belated Road 96 Appreciation

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A few weeks ago, I played the demo for Tides of Tomorrow, the upcoming game from the team behind Road 96. Enjoyed it, will likely buy the full version at launch. That got me nostalgic over Road 96, so I went back to see what I’d said about it on the blog, and I found… nothing.

A screenshot from Road 96.I may not be as diligent about updating this blog as I used to be, and I know some stuff has fallen through the cracks, but this feels like an egregious oversight. Road 96 is one of my favourite games of the last five years.

So better late than never. Let’s talk about it.

Road 96 is an indie narrative game where you play as a series of nameless teenagers trying to escape a fictional country suffering under an authoritarian regime. Your journey plays out through a series of short story-driven vignettes. Some scenes will always occur at certain points, but mostly the order you encounter scenes is highly randomized, so you never really know what to expect.

Note I said “a series” of teenagers up there. The game doesn’t end when your journey does. You start over with a new kid and do it all over again.

This isn’t a rogue-like, though. Each run is entirely new content, the game’s timeline advancing all the while until you reach the story’s climax. You may also wish to replay the game in the traditional sense on top of that, as it’s unlikely (impossible?) to encounter every scene on one run, there’s new game plus that lets you keep your unlocks, and this is a game where your choices can alter the trajectory of the story, so you may wish to results of other choices.

Zoe in Road 96.In terms of gameplay, it’s basically a walking simulator, with light survival mechanics and some very simple mini-games in some scenes. Ironically there’s no driving mechanics, which could be good or bad depending on how good you are at driving in games (I was relieved).

Each time you run to the border, you’ll bump into the same characters again and again, and even if it’s the first time meeting them for each of your nameless avatars, we as players of course remember them and can watch their stories evolve over time.

The characters are one of the many strengths of the game, but I don’t want to say too much about them, or the plot. While there aren’t necessarily any big twists per se, I think this a game that really benefits from going in fresh, with a minimum of expectation. I will say two things, though: STAN AND MIIIIITCH!!!!!!!!!!!

No road trip would be complete without music, and Road 96 understood the assignment. The soundtrack is absolutely killer, with banger after banger track. Styles range from folk to synth and more, perfectly capturing the eclectic mix of cozy comfort, eerie loneliness, and tense anxiety that defines the game. Truly one of the best game soundtracks I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear.

My one complaint is that the random nature of its layout can give you some serious tonal whiplash. You can go from an incredibly light and silly scene straight into something absolutely harrowing, or vice versa. But then the unpredictability is part of the charm, so it’s hard to say if that’s even entirely a negative.

There’s also some odd and forced product placement, but I guess indie teams have to get their funding somehow.

Road 96 is also incredibly blunt and unsubtle with its political messaging, but I don’t see that as a negative, especially in the current climate. “Fascism is bad” shouldn’t be a controversial statement.

This is one of those games where nothing I say is really going to do it justice. It’s got a very special mix of quirky charm and haunting poignancy that you just have to experience for yourself.

There was also a prequel, Road 96: Mile 0. While I didn’t dislike it by any stretch, like Oxenfree 2 it did feel a bit unnecessary. The original earns my unvarnished recommendation, though. It’s a must-play for any fan of story-driven games, road trips, or good music.

The bright sun of Petria in Road 96.While writing this, I fell down the rabbit hole of listening to the soundtrack on YouTube, and the top comment on video read, “The worst part about this game is I’ll never be able to play it for the first time ever again.” So true.