newtmonkey wrote on 2026-03-22, 17:09:

System Shock
I've been slowly exploring the second level, Engineering. It's definitely much tougher than the first level, and it just reinforces how this game is less a shooter and more a stealth or survival horror game. I've got to mention this game's dynamic soundtrack. It's not as good as the best iMUSE stuff, but it's pretty good. The melody and instrumentation change based on the particular subarea of the level, but unfortunately do not change based on your current situation (combat vs. exploring for instance). Still, it's nice and sounds awesome on a Sound Canvas.

Here's a tip for free: Abuse the leaning, kneeling and prone mechanics as much as possible. Also abuse the fact that because you are aiming your gun independently of your view, try to angle your attack so you hit the absolute edge of someones hit box without fully exposing yourself. You'll find a lot of combat situations are rendered VERY trivial by playing tactically like this.

I looked up the 2025 Game Awards to check all the categories that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was nominated for, and noticed that it somehow lost in "Audio Design", despite sweeping pretty much everything else.

This truly baffles me, as this game has an incredibly beautiful soundtrack and some top notch voice acting. I mean, just listen to its main theme which is also used during certain cutscenes. Once again, kudos to the composer!

DracoNihil wrote on 2026-03-23, 15:27:

Here's a tip for free: Abuse the leaning, kneeling and prone mechanics as much as possible. Also abuse the fact that because you are aiming your gun independently of your view, try to angle your attack so you hit the absolute edge of someones hit box without fully exposing yourself. You'll find a lot of combat situations are rendered VERY trivial by playing tactically like this.

I've been doing this! It's what I love about the interface; it's so satisfying to side-step to the edge of a wall, slowly lean over, and then aim and shoot independently of your viewpoint. It's why the mouselook option just doesn't feel right for this game. I feel like every serious FPS with stealth or immersive sim elements should at least have dedicated lean left/right buttons.

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What I've been playing:

Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer
This thing is hilarious, and I love the title (typo included). It's a modern game, but the conceit is that it was a game some guy "designed" in a notebook when he was a kid in the 90s, and then finally made it into an actual game in 2023, without varying from his original design document at all. It's crude, dumb, and sometimes gross. What makes it work, though, is that the level design is pretty interesting and the shooting and movement feel great; although the game was made in Unity, it feels 100% like a game made in the Build engine. It really feels like playing some impressive but dumb total conversion for Duke 3D off some BBS back in the day.

Total War: Warhammer
I've had this in my library for many years, but never was able to get into it. It seemed unbelievably complex, but I decided to sit down and play it for a bit. I was surprised to find that, although the battles are all in real time, the pace of the game is actually pretty manageable; I was expecting a Command & Conquer type of game, but it's actually more like turn-based strategy game where the battles are fought using a a real-time-with-pause system. Pretty interesting so far.

Avowed
I've settled on a gun-mage character after finding an arquebus (such a satisfying weapon to use!), and I'm really getting into this now! I complained earlier about the weird washed-out look of the game, but I enabled HDR and now it looks great. The world is not as massive as an Elder Scrolls game, but it feels much more interesting to explore, and combat, while not anything amazing, is much more interesting (and initially harder) than in Oblivion or Skyrim. My major complaint with this one is the dialogue. It's not as terrible as The Outer Worlds, but it's bad. No one is ever serious about anything, it's all quips and snark. It's like the writers were embarrassed to write dialogue for the game. Give me the boring but earnest stuff from Skyrim any day.

I finished Robocop Rogue City, Its a great game and feels like Robocop should feel . The writing is good, the actions is great and the story was good too.

I've been having incredible fun playing Goat Simulator 3. Truly GOAT.

Was too curious about Tomb Raider 3 so gave it a go straight away... and noped out on level 3.

First the things I liked: visually it looks better than the previous games, lighting has been greatly improved. Colors can be quite vibrant, so things like torches and stuff are much moodier. Audio has also been improved, sounds are crispier. As for enemies at least the first two levels were like in TR1, only animals with much better pacing than in TR2, but I remember there being plenty of humans on later levels so it could stoop back to TR2 style. Didn't bode well when I found a bazooka round...

But there's two reason why I quit. First something I didn't mention while writing about TR2, the amount of traps was far greater than in TR1. This wasn't too terrible since even the PS1 version had free saving this time, but on my playthrough DuckStation emulator clocked 25h total playtime while the game itself clocked 17h. Meaning there was 8 hours worth of reloads and retries. Not all of that was because of traps of course, reloading a save on the PS1 version alone takes a moment, but it did have more trial and error than I cared for.

The second level of TR3 already was full of traps. Many of them the kind that have a good chance of killing you on your first time unless you get lucky. To make it even better the PS1 version kinda still has free saving, but this time each save costs a save crystal, which are something you need to find and collect in the levels and there's not that many of them around. Which is to say the amount of trial and error goes through the roof, and I already got my fill of that during TR2.

Then there's the second thing, while the lighting has been improved the darkness it creates gets annoying. Items are harder to notice and you constantly have to use flares to check you don't miss anything. And those flares last pitifully short time. Even when it's not dark items on the ground are harder to notice than in the previous two, right on the first level I ran straight past an important key without noticing it. Stuff on the ground just doesn't pop out as clearly as before, I would have had to increase brightness on my TV if I would have continued.

Also the framerate of the PS1 version isn't great, improved lighting clearly took a toll. In the end I can see why I completed this one only once back in the day. But I'm not ready to call it a bad game, the PS1 version just isn't ideal. The PC version still has those save crystals but apparently they got changed to healing items, saving is free and can still be done at any time. I don't have the PC version but if I ever end up with one I think I'll give that a try.

Signalis

Discovered this game recently when searching for sci-fi survival horror games like Alien: Isolation and Dead Space. This game is a retro-inspired survival-horror title similar to the first Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, but with a sci-fi / retro-futurism setting.

It was apparently made my an indie team of two, yet is highly polished with a late 90s pixel-art retro aesthetic. Gameplay is standard 3rd person survival horror of basic combat, inventory management, finding keycards and solving simple puzzles to progress.

Best thing about the game is the atmosphere which is wonderfully moody thanks to great art and sound design.

Steam reviews are quite high for this game at 96% positive. It also made PC Gamer's 2024 top 100 PC games of all time list.

newtmonkey wrote on Yesterday, 19:21:

I've been doing this! It's what I love about the interface; it's so satisfying to side-step to the edge of a wall, slowly lean over, and then aim and shoot independently of your viewpoint. It's why the mouselook option just doesn't feel right for this game. I feel like every serious FPS with stealth or immersive sim elements should at least have dedicated lean left/right buttons.

Good to hear, and here's another valuable tip: Practice and get used to SKATE. You might be wondering why it completely hoses your ability to strafe; think of it like grinding to a halt on actual ice skates / skateboards. When you get used to that, you'll find it VERY useful to basically SKATE almost everywhere just be mindful of your rotation rate, when you need to come to a dead halt hold down your strafe key as you approach a corner you need to go around, then immediately sprint forward to go back up to full momentum again.