Astor: Blade of the Monolith

Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a third person action-adventure game by a Colombian developer, C2 Game Studio. The game is colorful and straightforward simple fun -- as I expected/hoped it would be. The only truly negative aspect that hampered my enjoyment was how 100% completion involves a collectible hunt, with very little aid provided by the game.

Dead Island 2

Dead Island made an impression back in the day with its 2006 E3 trailer. The game itself, released in 2011, wasn't as well received. It nor its 2013 standalone continuation, Dead Island: Riptide, never piqued my interest. Especially after having played 2015's Dying Light, going to a more co-op focused zombie whacker without parkour didn't seem all that exciting. All these mentioned games were developed by Techland, though I think the Dead Island IP was always Deep Silver's.

Bone Silence

Bone Silence is the finisher for Alastair Reynolds's Revenger trilogy. The young adult fiction aspect really started to be a thing in this one. The novel feels way too long with its nearly 700 pages (in the Finnish translation). Quite early on I was already wishing the story would just skip to the part where the mystery of the setting would finally be explained.

Marooned in Realtime

Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge is a loose sequel to The Peace War. The novel takes place millions of years after the events of the previous one: now few-hundred-strong remnants of humankind are on the brink of extinction. The novel's carrying narrative is a murder mystery but the science fiction was far more interesting. The genre's typically weak characterization leaves the investigation lukewarm.

The Club Dumas

I'm unsure what led me to read The Club Dumas (El Club Dumas in Spanish) by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. I was most likely -- for some reason -- reading the Wikipedia article on the 1999 Roman Polanski film, The Ninth Gate, and discovered that it was based on a novel. I probably thought it odd that the film had a completely different name and that made me think the novel worth checking out.

Clive Barker's Undying

Clive Barker's Undying was pretty much a pure impulse purchase for me. I saw it on sale on GOG and thought: "Why not play another early Unreal Engine first person shooter." I suppose the writer / film maker Clive Barker might have been on my mind due to the upcoming Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival. Barker's name on Undying (at least) is more than just him signing off a paper for the right to use his name because he's credited as the writer for the title. The game was developed by now-defunct EA Los Angeles (formerly DreamWorks Interactive before EA acquired them). In the last years before their closure, the studio was known as Danger Close Games (whose Medal of Honor (2010) single-player campaign I played through many years ago).

Claire de Lune

I suppose Claire de Lune was another lesson on to maybe consider twice or thrice before buying little known games. The game is (largely) functional but by no means great. All its short-comings compound the frustration of wanting to 100% the game for my average completion rate on Steam. That happening is currently looking improbable due to how sweaty the endeavor is.

Conan Exiles (Enhanced)

I don't generally yearn for the resource-gathering involving gameplay of open world survival crafting games but Conan Exiles eventually got onto my wishlist because I wanted to play a game set in the Hyborian Age created by Robert E. Howard. There are not many of those around. Conan Exiles doesn't provide a narrative experience: its focus is on online multiplayer sandbox on persistent servers. But it does have the setting's lore and in many ways absolutely nails the atmosphere. Conan Exiles can be played solo and smaller scale co-op, too. In solo you will miss out on the good and bad things that come with random players, as well as the possible issues that would come from playing a game that runs on someone else's computer you have no control over.

Exit Strategy

The Murderbot Diaries continue with Exit Strategy. I don't have a lot say about it; it's quite like the previous ones. The Murderbot reunites with characters of the first novella and continues its fight against the evil corporation(s).

The Citadel of the Autarch

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun ends with The Citadel of the Autarch. Or least does so for me because The Urth of the New Sun is not available in libraries here -- for some reason it hasn't gotten a Finnish translation unlike the previous four books. But the story does end in some manner in Citadel with our protagonist Severian becoming the Autarch like he has mentioned to happen as he's been telling the story.

Luna Abyss

My latest Game Pass plans went kind of belly up for a couple of reasons and it was looking like I was beating only one title for the 13€/month the service is currently (on PC). That's not an amazing value proposition for a singular game you even lose access to. But then, like a week before its release, Luna Abyss was announced to be on Game Pass on day one and I got more worth out of my month.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Yet another video game took me to the New England region of North America, this time to the end of the 17th century. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a third person action RPG from Don't Nod. The game is quite similar to the studio's 6 years older title Vampyr. The games are even set in the same universe, albeit the actual connections are almost nonexistent: one collectible note confirming the fact, one piece of gear called "Red Goddess" -- and maybe one of the protagonists saying once: "It's locked, alright", like Dr. Jonathan Reid in Vampyr stated every damn time upon encountering a locked door.

The Pathless

The Pathless is yet another title published by Annapurna Interactive with these simplified, stylized visuals. This one was developed by Giant Squid who are also known for Abzû and last year's Sword of the Sea. The studio was founded by a few former people of Thatgamecompany, known for Flow and the 2012 hit Journey.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong

I reckon video games utilizing the Vampire: The Masquerade and the other long-name World of Darkness RPG licenses should emphasize the franchise title on their cover art less and maybe otherwise, too, mention that the first part is just the licensed IP, the actual name of the video game being at the end. It annoys me quite a bit when at least half the comments I read anywhere are by tourists who think VTM is originally a video game franchise born with VTM Bloodlines and keep repeating the full title litany every time (even developers themselves in marketing videos)  -- or giving up halfway through and calling any of the video games just Vampire: (The) Masquerade (or simply Vampire) which to someone in the know looks like they're talking about the tabletop RPG.

Shadow Captain

Shadow Captain is the second book in Alastair Reynolds's Revenger trilogy. I didn't find is as entertaining as the first novel because the plot early on promises a predictable and very annoying predicament and then moves toward it ever so slowly. I had hard time resisting the urge to skip to a part where the annoyance had been resolved.

Dungeon Lords - Steam Edition

Last year when playing Outward, I started reminiscing about Dungeon Lords: another third person action RPG -- little known and one of extremely janky nature. The game was originally released in 2005 with a lot of stuff missing. In 2006, when I beat it, the game was rereleased as more complete Dungeon Lords Collector's Edition. After the game's publisher Dreamcatcher Interactive's remains were acquired by Nordic Games (now THQ Nordic), the game got yet another rerelease: Dungeon Lords MMXII (2012). And finally, in 2015, the game's latest version Dungeon Lords Steam Edition came out.

The Peace War

The Peace War by Vernor Vinge is a science fiction novel in which wars on Earth are over. A faction called Peace Authority has taken over the world thanks to a device called Bobbler that creates spherical, mirror-surfaced force fields that are seemingly affected only by gravity. By trapping military units, missiles in the air, even whole cities, permanently in bobbles, the Peace Authority is able to defeat everyone opposing them.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands brought the series back to The Sands of Time continuity (with Yuri Lowenthal as the Prince once more). There's not that much of a narrative tie-in; I wasn't even sure at what point it was set chronologically -- apparently between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within, according to Wikipedia. I also read The Forgotten Sands was originally going to be a tie-in with the film adaptation of The Sands of Time but because the movie was delayed, the game was pivoted into its own thing. (They were both released in 2010 in the end, though.)

Prince of Persia (2008)

My 5-game Prince of Persia franchise run finally exited the janky PlayStation 2 era of gaming and entered the more civilized Xbox 360 one. Prince of Persia (2008) is the second reboot of the series -- and remains to this day as the sole mainline entry in its continuity. I greatly appreciated the so-much smoother gameplay but the experience was also conflicting due to the game feeling like a spinoff: whereas the previous games were divided pretty evenly between combat and platforming, was this one 90% of the latter.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones finishes the PlayStation 2 trilogy of the series. It was co-developed by Ubisoft Montreal and now-defunct Ubisoft Casablanca. The game returns in many ways to The Sands of Time -- like with Yuri Lowenthal reprising his Sands role out of fan demand -- yet it does retain Warrior Within narrative elements that make it darker than the first game.