Tomb Raider: Underworld

Tomb Raider: Underworld was apparently developed concurrently with Anniversary, which led to the team on Underworld being understaffed. I don't think it shows too much in the game. Gameplay has few quirks but also advancements. And there is a good finale to the game.

Annihilation

I was interested to see if Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer was as much nonsense as its film adaptation. I've occasionally seen people mentioning they liked the movie even though it was a box office bomb. I suppose it was easier to start watching on Netflix than go to a theater to specifically see it. I found the movie pointless -- much like the novel now. They got that right.

Oathbringer

Like the second novel in The Stormlight Archive, took the third one too an enormously long time for me to get through. It didn't help that, unlike with the previous two, there was no 2-volume print of Oathbringer available: just holding a nearly 1300-page hardcover brick is unpleasant every time. It was mainly the content that made the book a struggle to read though.

Pushing Ice

Alastair Reynolds appears to be a fairly read author here based on the availability of his bibliography in the local libraries. And now looking at how many of his novels have been translated into Finnish -- it's about all of them! I thought that maybe I too should read more of his works (in addition to House of Suns) and picked off another of his standalone novels, Pushing Ice, which I read in English. I realized that Reynolds (being Welsh) writes in British English when a spacesuit's "torch" was used to light the way.

The Quantum Thief

In a chase for science fiction literature similar to the greatness of Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, Hannu Rajaniemi was one of the authors I have seen being recommended. I don't remember if that recommendation was in relation to hard scifi -- if so, I was misled. I could have possibly made that assumption myself to based on Rajaniemi's background in math and physics. I wouldn't classify The Quantum Thief as hard scifi: the technology in it is sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic, too far on the hypothetical spectrum.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a remake of the original, a decade older Tomb Raider (1996). Essentially, Anniversary recreates the original in a newer engine with expanded environments and tells its story in a more comprehensible manner that was also altered to fit the following events of Tomb Raider: Legend. In Anniversary, Lara is hired by a rich businesswoman Jacqueline Natla to find an artifact called Scion of Atlantis.

Tomb Raider: Legend

The classic Tomb Raider games made by Core Design between 1996 and 2003 are too old for me to play now. They look terribly blocky and are no doubt extremely clunky to play: unapproachable for someone who didn't experience them back in the day. But I was interested to play the subsequent Legend trilogy (2006 -- 2008) which was developed the same Crystal Dynamics as most of the newest reboot ones.

Metro 2033

After reading Metro 2033 (Метро 2033) by Dmitry Glukhovsky, it should come as no surprise that it has a video game adaptation. The novel's post-apocalyptic world is practically created for it: the remnants of Moscow's population surviving in the city's Metro network, away from the surface's post-war toxicity and other -- sometimes supernatural -- dangers that tend to seep into the underground too. Of course, the dark Metro also holds the usual hell: other people.

Redfall

At the end of my Dishonored: Death of the Outsider post 4 years ago, I was speculating the direction Arkane Studios would be going. Arkane Lyon's Deathloop was still an unknown at that time and I was afraid that it would be some easy-to-monetize multiplayer cash grab. While that game turned out to have a player-invasion mechanic, it is still very much a singleplayer title. Deathloop had been in development way before Prey's sales were realized; it probably wasn't pressured by the latter's reception. Instead, I should have been worried about the next title from Arkane Austin. I wonder if Arkane's parent company Zenimax Media had laid down the terms after Prey: the next title would need to make more money -- all the money. Raphaël Colantonio probably said no thanks and peaced out to found Wolfeye Studios (he also worked briefly on Ken Levine's upcoming Judas) and Harvey Smith came from Lyon to take control of Austin's reins.

Everspace 2

Everspace 2 (or EVERSPACE 2 as it's stylized) was on my list of most anticipated game releases of this year. I loved the first game: space combat is not a genre I usually play nor like but Everspace was a big exception. And so I hoped this second one would be more of that. Many rejoiced when Rockfish Games decided to abandon the roguelike structure of the first game and make this sequel to have more usual, static locations. I wasn't so sure that would be for the better, and as it turned out, it and other design decisions resulted in Everspace 2 being a stretched and tedious, 100-hour treasure hunt for a completionist like me.