Of Orcs And Men

There was still one more older Spiders game I was slightly interested in: Of Orcs And Men (2012) that Spiders co-developed with Cyanide Studio. The latter went on to make two prequels to it later on -- the Styx stealth games I have already played.

The Technomancer

I suppose there's no reason to play The Technomancer if you want to just play the best game (so far) by Spiders; GreedFall is better in about every way. The only thing that The Technomancer has going for it over the latter game is perhaps its scifi setting over fantasy but even that's not that interesting. The coolest part was left for the ending to raise questions that then never get answers.

Mars: War Logs

I was pretty much out of new games to play outside game pass and thought that I should buy The Technomancer, the Spiders game I had skipped. However, before getting to play it, I read that another, even earlier game by the developers was set it in the same universe. The story of Mars: War Logs is not directly related to The Technomancer, but I reckoned I might as well pick it up too since it was cheap and going back to an older game after playing a later entry in a series is rarely pleasant.

The Council

Developed by a French studio called Big Bad Wolf, The Council is a 5-episode third person mystery adventure game set in 1793. You play as Louis de Richet, a member of the Golden Order, a secret organization interested in the occult and such. You have been invited to the private island of enigmatic Lord Mortimer somewhere off the coast of England: your mother Sarah de Richet -- also a member of the Order -- has gone missing.

GreedFall

I guess it was for the better that EA Play being included on the PC Game Pass was postponed (on the supposed launch day of all days) because I wouldn't have had the time to play STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order after all. DOOM Eternal took longer than expected and then GreedFall was a proper-length RPG. I managed to beat the latter on the day before I would've needed to renew the subscription at a 15 times higher price.

The Surge 2

As far as video game sequels go, The Surge 2 is a fairly good one. It has the familiar gameplay of the previous title but also introduces new features and improvements. I even liked the game enough to immediately replay it. New game plus mostly offered just bigger numbers though: I had been so thorough on my first playthrough that an alternative final boss armor set was pretty much the only thing I was missing.

A Plague Tale: Innocence

It was again time to knock few games off my wishlist by playing through them on the game pass. The first one was A Plague Tale: Innocence, a third person stealth adventure game from Asobo Studio. They're a French developer whose name I don't remember seeing before but they have been in the business for some time now. Currently they're working on Microsoft Flight Simulator which should increase their renown.

The Surge

Here's another of them methodical third person action roleplaying games. I actually played The Surge a bit last fall already during my second month of Game Pass but then ragequit and uninstalled after dying and dropping a considerable amount of scrap which is the game's main resource. I had just spawned the first boss who appears between you and the level's medbay which is your respawn point. I thought there was no way to get to the scrap in time with how I would need to beat the boss first. I now know it would've in fact been quite simple to go around, although I don't remember if I had unlocked a particular shortcut then.

Vampyr

Microsoft announced and launched Xbox Game Pass for PC at this year's E3. For a monthly fee you get access to a selection of games on the Microsoft Store. The initially available ones included three titles from my wishlist so I thought I might as well spend the 1€ for the first month to try and maybe even play through them.

Bound By Flame

Bound By Flame is a third person action roleplaying game developed by a French studio called Spiders and published by Focus Home Interactive in 2014. It didn't look like the most expensive production but I hoped it would still be able to provide entertainment.

Styx: Shards of Darkness

I suppose it isn't that surprising that Styx: Shards of Darkness is so much like Styx: Master of Shadows. Why try to fix something that isn't broken. Still, I wasn't expecting it to follow the same formula to this degree and to retain so many of the old features -- some of which I'm not that fond of. There are few improvements and some whole new things too, though.

Magrunner: Dark Pulse

Playing The Turing Test reminded me that GOG had at some point in the past given away for free a similar, Portal-like puzzle platformer, and that I had meant to maybe play it once I had run out of game backlog.

Styx: Master of Shadows

I had been aware of Styx: Master of Shadows for quite some time before purchasing it. For some reason I had been put off by the protagonist's looks; I did not want to play an ugly goblin. But people do recommend it as a good stealth game. It is also a prequel to one of Cyanide Studio's previous titles, Of Orcs And Men, which seems to feature the very same creature as this one although the game is of different genre.