Game completed: Generation Zero

So last night we finished Generation Zero (jokingly dubbed "the Sweden game" in one of my discord servers). All in all we had a good run. We both had fun playing the game, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the whole thing. We both agree that the devs had really succeeded in making the game feel like Sweden. 

For the first ten hours or so we had a lot of fun reading all the labels on everything and all the signs. It felt so bizarre to see and hear Swedish in a game. Being in a country where hardly anything gets dubbed/translated unless it's specifically for children it becomes pretty rare to see or hear your language in games. But there was soooo much Swedish and it was so weird and hilarious in the beginning. 

One of our few gripes with the game, though, is that you could have all the sound in Swedish, but you couldn't choose to have the subtitles or UI in Swedish, so before we got used to it it was pretty jarring to hear and read Swedish but everything around it was in English. 

The story is that you're a teenager who wakes up on a beach after a party on an island only to discover that everyone is gone. The world seems empty of people, and everywhere you go there are robots trying to murder you. You find a gun in the nearby police car and then you head out trying to find out where the robots came from and where all the people have gone. 

We have a few gripes with the story progression. While it all makes sense it got very repetitive very quickly. We both hated bunkers at the end, because there were so many of them and at least half of them were huge sprawling things leading down into the earth for what felt like miles with lots of corridors all looking the same so we got turned around and confused a lot. Another gripe is the sidequests. Basically all the sidequests are like "Find out what happened at this place" and you go there and the end result is "Oh, they died." For the duration of the base game you are the only survivor and from feeling kind of cool it soon becomes pretty incredulous. Like all these police and military have been killed by the robots, nobody survived... Except this teenager with a machine gun. Wtf. Third gripe is that the story made sense and worked out until the very end. The ending was very... "That's it? But, but, but... Now what? There's so much left unresolved!" But we figured that everything would be resolved by the end of the DLCs.

Alpine Unrest DLC was pretty cool, but we both got so sick of the Apocalypse class robots. Like telling the Hunters to "Stop BBQing me!! T_T" and everything was radioactive so everything hurt. Oof. The whole island was really cool and there were a lot of fun things to discover and explore (not so many bunkers) and we got some more backstory for the robots. And omg there are people here. Actual, real NPCs. Hooray! The story had a really sudden end though. To the point that none of us realized it was over at first. 

FNIX Rising DLC was probably my favourite. We found out exactly where the robots came from and who controls them and how that came to happen. The FNIX class robots were tough, but not annoyingly so like the Apocalypse ones. The whole DLC was action from start to finish. But once again the ending left too much unsaid and unresolved. These devs seem great at making stories, but not at finishing them. Maybe it's a way to leave people wanting more? But it's done wrong and it's mostly just frustrating than omg I need to know more.

Level is capped at 31, which seems a frustratingly odd number to cap it on. There was a point midway through levelling that things got really fricking hard. We were both left completely frustrated at how things were going for us. Then we got our first Experimental class weapon and suddenly we started to breeze through a lot of things. Some epic fights happened later, but they were epically awesome and not just awfully frustrating. There's an annoying amount of inventory management too, mostly because you kind of need to pick up everything so you can craft things, but everything has a weight and your character is just your average teenager so their carry ability isn't great. I absolutely hated that ammo was weighted. Especially since I favoured the Pvg sniper and its ammo weighs a shit ton. 

The lore in this game was great and I enjoyed discovering all the little bits and pieces from notes and photos and cassettes. The game takes place in the late 1980s so a lot of the technology and logos were very nostalgic for us. I didn't exist in the 80s, but a lot of those things stayed around for ten more years so I remember a lot of it. 

All in all it was a fun game, but it left a few things to be desired and many things were super repetitive. We still had fun with it, though, and I could imagine playing it again. 

Happy Back to Hogwarts day!

So it's September 1st and that means two things: 1). That summer is officially over, and 2). It's Back to Hogwarts day. 

This year it's 20 years since the first movie released and I can't believe it. I still remember going online and reading up on all the rumours of who was getting cast as which character and where they were going to film etc. It was insanely big already back then. Before the movies. Like imagine how big it got after the movies and then imagine that it was already huge before that. It's crazy. 

Unfortunately I don't remember when and where I watched the first movie. If it was at the cinema or on VHS at home. I think I saw it at the cinema and later I bought the dubbed version of the movie so my sister could watch it with me (back when the VHS tapes usually only had one version on each tape). Except she didn't care much xD 

I still remember the pre-movies Harry Potter merch we had and I kind of wish we didn't have to lose that in favour of WB merch. The original merch was quirky and magical and extremely book-literal. Or I may just be a Ravenclaw being salty over the fact that all my merch has the wrong animal on it.

But I've done so much in the past 20+ years of being a Potterhead, and while I'm not obsessing (as much) anymore it's still deeply and intricately a part of me ♥ I've even read the first book in Japanese ^^;

• I've been to Platform 9 3/4 in London twice. (Post and post)
• I've been to the Studio Tour. (Post and picture post)
• I've been to The Exhibition. (Post)
• I've gone to two conventions. (Post and post)
• I've been to the Harry Potter part of the Guiness World Records museum in Copenhagen. (Post)
• I saw the last movie at the cinema twice. (Post and post)
• I've played the Harry Potter games (Post and post)
• I loved the Cursed Child. (Post)
• Fantastic Beasts is just an excuse to dress up and obsess (Post)
• I own the Wizards Collection. (Post)
• I have a lot of stuff (more now). (Post)
• Picture bomb.

Apart from all of that I also distinctly remember two other Harry Potter related events in my life. One was in 2002 when I celebrated my 12th birthday by inviting a few friends and then my parents took us all to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at the cinema. A movie I subsequently watched so much that my VHS tape became all scratchy and jumpy. And I remember queueing for the midnight release of the Deathly Hallows in 2007. It was the first time I had been able to do that and it was absolutely amazing.

Over 20 years of Harry Potter in my life and here's to 20 more!

Summer of Horror

It wasn't scary. We just watched a lot of horror movies. 

A little over three weeks ago my boyfriend broke his ankle. At this point I still had 1½ weeks left of my summer break. Ironically it happened on the one day I wasn't home because I was out getting my first covid vaccination shot. As luck would have it.

Anyway, during that last week we watched seven horror movies pretty much back to back. It all started with Fear Street of Netflix. All of the movies were on Netflix.

1. Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994. We both really, really liked this movie. It was really neat as a horror movie in that it didn't feel like it fed into all the tropes and yet it had the slasher like in Scream, and the unkillable killer like in Halloween, and the witch/ghost paranormal experience. The fact that it takes place in the mid-90s somehow made it even better as we just sat there and commented on the fashion and the technology and had a great time. The setup of the rivalry between Shadyside and Sunnydale was great, the buildup of the legend around Sarah Fier was amazing, and the reveal that this happens with a set amount of years ebtween each time felt very IT. All the little pieces fit together beautifully. It wasn't too gory (except that one part in the end where one person gets their head chopped to pieces in a fish-chopper), and the suspense was great without actually getting boring. 

2. Fear Street: Part 2 - 1978. This one was very much like a homage to Halloween. It felt like a classic despite being brand-new. There was a nice twist at the end that neither of us expected. Apart from the bits and pieces that continued to build the legend around Sarah Fier, this was a pure slasher movie. But there were several hints in this movie that something else was behind what was going on, and it was an awesome use of foreshadowing for the third movie. Just perfect storytelling.

3. The Bye Bye Man. While waiting for the third part of Fear Street to come out we turned to other horror movies. We had had our eyes on this one for a while and so finally decided to watch it. Loved the buildup of suspense throughout, but boyfriend pointed out that he missed having a background story for the villain (spoiled from Fear Street?) and I very much agreed. There wasn't enough legend surrounding the evil, it was just there doing its thing and people got caught up in it. Still it was a solid horror movie with an ending completely open for more. The internet doesn't agree with us that it was solid, but we both enjoyed watching it. Our only gripe was the lack of detail. 

4. The Ritual. I mean, this takes place in the wilderness of northern Sweden so of course it was a given that we would watch it at some point. Robert James-Collier is in it and I just keep thinking of him as Thomas. He will forever be Thomas. So we have four ridiculously British guys attempting to hike through the Swedish wilderness in Sarek National Park (according to their map), but one of them hurts his knee and can't stop bitching about it so they decide to take a shortcut through the woods instead of continuing along the hiking trail. Bad idea. In the woods they come across runes and wooden idols and a deer strung up on the trees. They spend the night in an abandoned cabin and all wake up from really weird nightmares. After that they all become increasingly aware that something is very, very wrong in the woods and that something is hunting them. Like most horror movies the setup is great, the suspense is amazing, and then comes the reveal and the conclusion and it all falls flat on its face. I really, really enjoyed this movie up until the last twenty minutes or so. But kudos to the film makers for doing a good job with the rendition of the folklore/legend/mythology. 

5. Army of the Dead. This was (for the most part) a pretty standard zombie movie tbh. What makes it stand out is how the infection got loose (an escaped military experiment), the fact that the alpha zombies are sentient and intelligent and basically leaders of a new civilization/race/nation, and that the entire movie takes place after the zombie threat has been contained. The opening credits show the beginning of the zombie threat and how the people fought against them etc etc. But when the movie starts that part is over. The zombies are contained in a sealed off Las Vegas which is set to be nuked. But before that a rich guy tasks one of the fighters from the opening credits to assemble a team to break into a vault inside Vegas and steal a bunch of money. He does and off they go. Inside the cordon the mostly usual stuff in zombie flicks happen; people start dying, there's a traitor, someone has wandered off chasing their own goals, the traitor keeps screwing people over and they don't realise it, and then there's the leader trying to keep the operation smooth despite it all slipping through his fingers. It was fun, fast-paced, neither scary nor especially gory, and a completely standard zombie movie. 

6. Wounds. This whole movie felt like a prelude to something that didn't happen. There was barely any suspense just a slight tickling feeling that something was wrong, but it didn't get to suspense level. I spent the whole movie waiting for something to happen, but the entire thing felt like a buildup until the thing that makes everything happen and then nothing did and the movie ended. Super disappointing. This is like one of those artsy movies that's strange just for the sake of being strange that doesn't really do anything. There was a part in the middle that seemed like the strating point for things to happen, but it just died instead.

7. Fear Street: Part Three - 1666. The end of the story! I loved seeing the pieces come together. The legend of Sarah Fier explored and explained. Everything we learned in the first two movies came to use in this final movie as the ultimate showdown happened in the mall of Shadyside. It was a perfect ending to a great trilogy. Can't really say more than that or I'll spoil the whole thing. Action from start to finish and it was so good. 

Dealing with backlog: We Happy Few

I was interested in this game from the moment it was announced several years ago. It sounded like something out of Bioshock and I love that series. I stayed away from it while it was in Early Access, though, since I've been burned a bit by Early Access before and only bought it once it was properly released. 

I'm being purposefully cryptic and avoid names as I discuss the game below. No spoilers.

The game takes a little while to get into and there's a lot of inventory management. It's like in Fallout 4 where you pick up all the crap you come across because it can be used for crafting. The story and gameplay doesn't pick up properly until you get inside the village. There are side quests in the garden district where you first end up, but the best thing you can do is just focus on the main quest until you get inside the village. You can go back and forth between districts (there are seven) as much as you want later. 

The game is divided into three acts. The first act is the longest and tbh the most tedious, but it introduces the world, the overarching story and the other characters pretty well. For each act you play as a different person, and they all have different reasons for getting out of Wellington Wells. 

Gameplay wise my favourite act was Act 2 because it's more of a puzzle. In the other two acts, if you want, you can just charge straight ahead and fight everything and everyone. In the second act, because you're playing a pretty small person, you have to rely more on wit and cleverness and contraptions to make your way around and it's a lot more fun. 

Storywise I love the third and last act because everything that started in the first act comes to a point and I just love seeing the delicate balance of things come apart at the seams. 

That said, nothing in the second or third acts would've happened if it wasn't for what you do in the first act. The small, seemingly inconsequential thing that happens in the prologue sets everything into motion.

I can understand why people drop the game halfway through the first act because the first character is pretty boring, both as a character and as for gameplay. He can be anything you want basically. Do you want a bull just charging through everything? Fine, you can do that. Do you want to be clever and sneak around and use contraptions? You can do that too. And if you're like me you end up doing a bit of both, which makes a lot of the situations a tad easy. Did the NPC turn around just as you were about to take them down? Fine, just throw a non-lethal shock grenade in their face and then pummel them with your fists. 

That said, if there are a lot of NPCs around when you get discovered for looting a body or punching somebody in the face then a situation can easily get out of hand. The best thing you can do in this game is to always remember where your closest safehouse is so that if you get overwhelmed by hostile NPCs you can just run as fast as you can to the nearest safehouse and jump in. That immediately gets them off your case and eliminates agro.

In the beginning a lot of things are hard. Like if a NPC sees you run or climb they'll get mad at you for not conforming, immediately assume you're a dreaded Downer and starts attacking you. In the village there's also a curfew which makes every police attack you on sight if they catch you outside between 9pm and 7am. And if you want to break into a house it makes a lot of noise to lockpick or to pry open windows so make sure to do it when nobody is around to hear. All of these things can be eliminated with perks as you progress through the game. So towards the end I could run around like a madman and break in everywhere and nobody ever caught me. The first guy has all the perks to make the game as easy as possible and it kind of ruins it tbh. The characters in Act 2 and 3 don't have all the same perks and so it takes a little more to get through those acts. They're definitely more fun. 

After the credits there's a cutscene that makes some pretty obvious and daunting hints towards the role of Wellington Wells, and it's pretty damning. 

As for the DLCs, there are three. The first, called They Came From Below, gave me strong Portal vibes. You don't run around with a portal gun, but you get two separate contraptions that work as guns and they'r eboth used to manipulate the environment to get you past traps and barriers and enemies. It was a lot of fun. Didn't hurt that the protagonists of this DLC were my new favourite gay couple. 

The second DLC, called The Lightbearer, stars our favourite rock star and deals with the aftermath of ending up in the bathtub while drugged out of your mind. I promise that sentence makes sense after having played the first two acts and this DLC. This DLC was outrageous and a lot of fun to play. The end gave me a omg holy shit moment as a piece of the story from the base game fell into place. It was glorious. 

The third DLC, called We All Fall Down, stars the general's daughter and this whole DLC shows the aftermath of what happened in Act 3 of the base game. The end of this DLC coincides with the end of the base game as you can hear the same thing over the speakers at the end of this DLC as you can at the end of Act 3. It's a fitting end to the story of Wellington Wells. I also really enjoyed flying around the roof tops in this DLC.

Gameplay wise this game is sometimes a buggy mess. There was one part of the main quest in the base game that I got stuck at for ages. The Extractor just wouldn't do its thing. The only thing I could find online was to reload the game from that point until it worked. And after a while it did. Another thing was during a side quest that I could've left well-enough alone without impacting the game itself, but I hate having unfinished things in my quest log. Same solution. Just reload until it worked. The last thing I can find from the devs for this game was in 2019, so it appears they have dropped this game altogether. 

Something I enjoyed was that the world and the map are procedurally generated. I only discovered this while I was running around looking for side quests in one district and decided to look up a map to see if I had missed something. And found that there are no maps, because nobody plays on the same map. That's really cool. Even with that knowledge I still didn't expect the map/world to be procedurally generated between acts. None of the three characters have the same map or buildings in the same place. But, when you think about it, it makes sense. Because they're all more or less on some kind of drug and all of their pasts are just half-remembered glimpses. So the maps are basically just how the characters find their way around, who can tell who's got the right of it? Probably, the middle act protag.

The story of this whole game is very clever and there are lots of little things that fit together to create the whole, not just the big, overarching story and seeing the whole story unfurl itself before you is definitely an experience. 

These two songs show the whole mood of the game. Eerie, somehow wrong and yet strangely cheerful. The first is a piece of soundtrack. The second is a fanmade song.

Story Trailer. Launch Trailer. Announce Trailer. 

London bridge has fallen down, fallen down, fallen down
London bridge has fallen down, my fair lady.
Take the keys and lock them up, lock them up, lock them up
Take the keys and lock them up, my fair lady.
Everything is quite alright, sleepy tight, nighty-night
Everything's tucked out of sight, my fair lady.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition

A couple of years ago I expressed interest in playing Gears 5 and that gave my boyfriend the idea that we should play Gears together on console so that we could be in the same room for once when playing something together. I was wary of the idea since I'm terrible with controllers. When I play on console I usually play QTEs, point-and-clicks and TBSs; things that don't move very quickly because I can't control the camera properly and I never remember where the buttons are and which button does what since the different brands put the buttons in different places and there seems to be no "standard" for button mapping on consoles. Not like on PC. For reference, the games I've played on console in recent years are Until Dawn on PS4, various Telltale games on Xbox 360 and PS4, and various Fire Emblem on DSi Lite, 3DS and Switch. And some of the QTEs in Telltale games and Until Dawn were too quick for me ^^;

But a few days ago we decided to try out the original Gears, but remastered. On Xbox. I've played the most on various Nintendo handheld consoles; DS, DSi Lite, 3DS and Switch, so if I can claim to be comfortable with any console it's Nintendo. Which had the unfortunate result that I pressed B when trying to press X a lot of the time when we played on Xbox :P

So we started the game in couch co-op and chose casual difficulty to make it easy on me. Except casual didn't seem casual at all. And we played through the tutorial hoping it would tell me things I needed to know to play. Except it didn't say shit. I learned what the different buttons do by clicking around on my own and boyfriend doing the same and telling me what he found. The tutorial in this game made me remember the very first time I tried to play Wolfenstein: The New Order back in 2016 or so and the game just kind of assumes you know what you're doing, even on the easiest difficulties, which just makes it a kind of uphill battle from the start for someone new. 

And then we got going. After 30-45 minutes my hands were aching. I have yet to find a controller that doesn't make my hands hurt after less than an hour of playing. The one controller that is the most comfortable for me is the original Switch controller. The one you can attach to the console to make it handheld. 

The first part of gameplay went pretty well. I didn't die as much as I thought I would (even on casual), but that could be because boyfriend usually shot all the enemies dead before I had even managed to aim properly at one. 

In any case I was kind of enjoying myself until we got to the first Berserker and things went downhill rapidly. I had trouble dodging her charges fast enough. It wouldn't have mattered if the game had had checkpoints after each door we got open, but no, if both of us died (or if one got knocked down and then got stomped on by the Berserker) we were forced to restart from the very start of the Berserker encounter. Which is just the kind of gameplay I dislike. I don't mind dying a lot if it feels like I make some progress throughout all the dying. But having to restart from the very beginning every single time just feels too much like banging my head against a brick wall. Not fun at all. Luckily, boyfriend was sympathetic towards my frustration. He had played the game before on 360 and remembered his own frustration at the Berserker encounter. 

We decided to stop there. The entire session lasted around 1½ hours. I still wouldn't mind to give Gears another go, but on PC. I'm a PC gamer and always have been. I didn't grow up with consoles, but I've played games on PC since they were still DOS-based and back before there was a camera involved so no mouse control and the game was usually played with the arrow keys :P The switch to WASD was so strange in the beginning... 

But yeah, Gears was promising story with ridiculously macho characters (like laughably so) and mostly fun gameplay and nice environments. I just suck with the controller x''D

Dealing with backlog: Two indie games

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine 
I watched Dodger play this several years ago and thought it looked like a really cool, cozy game. I'm not sure how to categorize it tbh, but it's definitely a walking sim. I saw someone call it a hobo simulator, and that's very true. Basically you get tricked into betting your life in a card game against a stranger, who then turns out to be a supernatural being who tasks you to travel across the country and find stories, tell them, and watch them grow in the retelling. Going in I wasn't sure if I'd like this game, but it didn't take long before I was way more into it that I ever thought I would be. So you walk/train-hop/hitchhike/take a train like a normal person across continental USA, during the depression. I'd say the setting is thereabouts anyway, some stories and characters are from a much later time and some from an earlier time, and the Stranger (when you meet him again) tells you something about time not really being the way you thought it was. But from the player character's interactions with the environment I'd say it's mainly based in depression-era US, and I've seen more reviews confirming this. 

So your task is to collect stories wherever you go and then share them around a campfire with someone you meet along the way. The people you meet will ask for specific kinds of stories (happy, sad, scary etc) and you have to figure out which story in your inventory fits which category and pair them up correctly. The more correct stories you tell a person the more they will tell you about their stories and their lives. The game ends once you've heard all of these people's stories to the end. My favourites were Quinn, Cassady, Franklin and Jimmy. I really liked the graphics style of the game. Towards the middle of the map there were some lagging issues no matter which direction you came from or in what way you arrived, and I wish there was a way to make the character run and not just "walk faster", but both of those things are negligible to my experience. Strong recommend if you like story heavy games and don't mind casual play. Launch Trailer. Story Trailer. Characters Trailer.

West of Loathing
I watched Markiplier play this a few years ago and it seemed funny so I wishlisted it to play later. Later turned out to be this week. I went in not knowing what to expect. I knew it was funny, but was it my kind of funny and would I like the gameplay? Turns out I absolutely did. To the point where I replayed the game four times to get (almost) all of the achievements. I even did the hard mode. Lucky it's as short as it is... I started one character but then messed up in the prologue so I wouldn't get the one prologue specific achievement. So started over and that became my main playthrough and also my longest playthrough. That one lasted 15 hours instead of 6-7 hours. The style and graphics are stick figure drawings. Literally. The gameplay is semi open world RPG with turn based combat (think JRPG style) and the humour is on point. The world is wild west inspired, but twisted. There are no cowboys since The Cows Came Home. Meaning the cows are demons bent on destroying mankind for eating them for so many thousands of years. The story is that you are leaving home to go west either to "seek your fortune", "help people" or "just to get off this boring farm". After you leave the prologue town there are lots of opportunities to both help people and make a fortune. (The currency is meat btw).

There are several smaller towns where you can help out with smaller things, but there are several over-arching questlines to solve. One is the advanced technology left behind by a previous civilization, another is to find and usurp the Necromancer, a third is a treasure hunt across the entire map, a fourth is to clear the railroad and make it functional again, a fifth is to prevent the cows from destroying the West, and a sixth that has something to do with clowns (cryptic on purpose). It's possible to do all of them in one playthrough. Just don't do things in the wrong order or you may hinder yourself. There's no quest log, but instead you have your helpful "pardner" to remind you of what you have to do. (The quest items tab in your inventory is also very helpful). The puzzles are sometimes annoying and sometimes they make no sense until you finish it and you just sit there like "oooooh, I get it!" This game was so much more than I thought and definitely worth the time! Launch Trailer. Preview Trailer.

"If you don't think about it too much, a pistol is just a more effective syringe."

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids DLC

I played the base game at the end of last year, basically as soon as it dropped, and had a blast. So when the first story DLC released last week I had to play it. 

After not having played the game for months it was an adventure to just get back into the game.

"Where's my horse?"
"Alright, how do I get off my horse?"

"HELP HOW DO I DODGE?!!?!?"

There were a fair few trips into Options and Key Bindings in the beginning. (Maybe trying my hand at the free update Mastery Challenges right off the bat wasn't such a good idea?) But then off we went to Ireland.

It didn't take long to figure out that the DLC was pretty much just more of the same, and why should anyone expect otherwise. I kind of liked Bárid from the start, and everything Flann Sinna did exasperated me. I really did like Ciara, though, and it hurt me to watch the story hurt her. 

Exploration offered a host of many more collectables, I was so sad to realise that both flying papers and cairns had made it into the DLC. I liked chasing after most of the wealth and artifact collectables in this DLC, though. And raiding was just as fun as I remembered. I really enjoyed the addition of trading posts to be claimed and restored. I brought all of them up to max and finished all of Azar's trading deliveries. 

I don't know much about Celtic mythology/history so can't really say how accurate they're being, but judging from how they've handled the Viking aspect then maybe I can be somewhat reassured that they've handled it (mostly) well. 

I wish the game had given a way to remove the druids' poisonous fog somehow. Maybe the same way as removing cursed symbols? It was somewhat annoying to keep running through areas covered in green fog long after I had cleared it of enemies. 

I enjoyed going through another Order tree; this time the Children of Danu, and trying to figure out where the members were and get clues to the next one. Halfway through the story/the tree I had already figured out who the mastermind was, though. 

The DLC took me around 13 hours to complete, and I had a lot of fun, so well worth it :)

While playing through the base game I had this song stuck in my head. Playing through the DLC this song (and this particular version of it) was stuck in my head to the point where I turned off the in-game music and just had this song on repeat. 

Game completed: Mass Effect Legendary Edition (+ Andromeda)

Thanks, EA. I've been needing an excuse to replay this masterpiece. 

For the past month I've been living and breathing Mass Effect. Almost every waking moment has been spent either playing the games or discussing them over three (out of five) different Discord servers (and none of them are technically dedicated to Mass Effect). It's been absolutely amazing. 

Apart from being excited to play through the story again and make the same choices again, I was also really looking forward to seeing how they changed things with the remastering. Turns out, not a lot. The graphics are improved but the animations still show their age, especially in Mass Effect 1. 

It was a whole new experience to play the games so close to one another. Even if I first played through the trilogy after all the games and DLCs were already released there was still gaps between the playthroughs, even if just for buying, downloading and installing the next game. Now it was just straight going from one game to the next and so many more details stayed in my mind from one game to the next. Small things that would've been lost in the "downtime" otherwise. 

I played through Mass Effect 1 twice before (once for Liara and once for Kaidan) and I was surprised by how much I didn't remember and how much of what I did remember was wrong. I had absolutely no recollection of Feros or the Thorian until I was there and that mission started. None. I remembered hating Noveria from those two playthroughs, but this time around I kind of liked it. The Mako wasn't as bad as I remembered it, but maybe I've just gotten better at driving since then. As much as landing on uncharted worlds is time-consuming it's also a fun way of exploring and still keeping the game semi-linear, but with an open world feel. I liked the planet exploring a lot more this time around. I romanced Kaidan. A Team = Kaidan and Tali.

I was looking forward to Mass Effect 2 the least. I played that twice before also (once for Garrus and once for Thane). Back when I played the game before I remember not liking the story or the new exploration thing. Scanning and probing takes up way too much time and it's too tedious. Yet the completionist in me must scan every single planet to depletion. There's no other way. Next time I play I'll be getting the mod that scans to depletion instantaneously. Thane and Legion are the only new companions that I liked in ME2, the other new ones only grew on me in ME3. I messed up the narrative by completing everything but Firewalker DLC before I went and got Legion. Apparently Firewalker counts as missions you have to bring Legion to to unlock his loyalty mission, but not as missions that grant you a grace period before the Collector attack on the Normandy. So to do Legion's loyalty mission I had to sacrifice half the crew. But Legion is worth half the crew. Priorities. The gameplay is definitely tighter and smoother in ME2 than in ME1, but the half-assed story, the meh companions and the absolutely ridiculous final boss all contribute to making ME2 my least favourite Mass Effect game. And those things held true even in the Legendary Edition. To get the absolute best heartbreaking moments in ME3 I decided to romance Thane. As much as I love Garrus I feel like he's more BFF material than boyfriend material. A Team = Garrus and Thane.

And then there was Mass Effect 3. From my three previous playthroughs (once for Garrus, once for Liara and once for Kaidan) I knew this was my favourite Mass Effect. It's epic, the story is tight, the whole gang is there, I get to tell Cerberus to fuck off multiple times... I love everything about Mass Effect 3. The story, the exploration (even though it can get a bit annoying to run from the Reapers all the time), the gameplay, the companions and the DLCs are all amazing.  Thane's story was absolutely heartbreaking this time too even though I knew it was coming, and Kaidan is exactly the kind of sweetness Shepard needs after going through that. Both Mordin and Legion's sacrifices made my heart ache. All of the ME2 companions grow on me in ME3, but not enough in ME2. In ME2 they are forgettable. The Citadel DLC is still the best thing to ever happen to a game and it made me laugh out loud so many times. Javik's day out is absolutely hilarious. 

One thing I love about ME3 is actually the endings. How all of them appeal to different people for different reasons. I had a big discussion about the endings on one Discord server and I can see the point of choosing each of the different endings. But in the end I'll always choose red. Even though I go through all the work to get the geth and the quarians to make peace and live together, and even though I love Edi to bits, I'll still choose red. A Team = Kaidan and Garrus.

Halfway through ME3 a friend on Discord pointed out that EA's website has a thing where you can design the official Legendary Edition logo to show your favourite companions, place and playstyle. So I've had that as my desktop background for the past few weeks. 

When I finished with the Legendary Edition I decided that it was time for a replay of Andromeda. I played it back when it was new, but I still had a crappy old GPU back then that forced me to play the game on low graphics settings. So already back then I promised myself I'd replay it at some point when I had a better GPU so that I could experience it in its proper beauty. I had forgotten so much. Most of what I remembered from my first playthrough was tied (either directly or indirectly) to Liam or Jaal. Just as the last time I played through it, it really struck me how Andromeda is so full of potential it can hardly contain it. There's so much promise in the story and in the new galaxy and it makes me so angry/frustrated that they just dropped it after its rocky launch. This game was worthy of love. Still is. I love the semi open world and all the exploration to be done. Apart from Cora I love every single companion. First time I played this I romanced Jaal and it was very hard to not fall back into that because Jaal is so goddamn adorable. Liam is too and I don't regret choosing him this time. I'm considering Reyes for the next time. Because there will be a next time. I did every single thing this time around, including every side quest without map markers on every planet. Every bug that had prevented me from completing side quests last time around was gone. It was great. I loved my gang. Even Peebee grew on me this time around. Which proves my theory that Peebee is the Sera of Andromeda. The story in Andromeda is obviously a preparation for something else, something spanning several games and DLCs, and none of that came to fruition so as a stand-alone it leaves a lot to wish for. But as the start of a new trilogy? It was amazing. I kind of equal the kett in Andromeda to the geth in ME1. Everyone is so focused on this one tangible enemy that they don't see that there's something bigger on the horizon. Can't see the forest for the trees? They hint towards something bigger out there several times at the end of the story. And I'm just gaaaaaaaah that we're not getting it.  I love how every single planet feels disctinct from each other. They all have their own "personalities" which makes each of them their own separate adventures. This game made me laugh out loud so many times. There's a lot of humour in it and this game's sense of humour is exactly like Citadel DLC. And I love it! A Team = Liam and Jaal. 

I love my Shepard and I love my Ryder. 

And for some reason, this four game playthrough made me really love all the krogan. 

Lots of love all around.

Now I feel sad and empty that it's over.

Fate: The Winx Saga

This was Toni's pick for dinner show after I Am Not Okay With This. He chose it mainly because the trailer looked cool and he had no idea it was based on a kids show. I was over the age of the intended audience when the cartoon was on TV, but iirc my sister watched it sometimes. When I showed him all the pink and cutesy pictures from Winx Club he seemed to first think he made a mistake picking this show, but we started watching it anyway and in the end we both liked it. 

The story is very straight-forward and sometimes extremely obvious. We saw most of the twists coming before they happened. But even so the action and interaction were well done and we both enjoyed watching the show. The next season promises to be interesting. 

Robert James-Collier plays Saul in this show but all I could think whenever he showed up was Thomas. I've been watching too much Downton Abbey. 

And Lesley Sharp, who was brilliant in one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes (Midnight) plays the "evil genius" in this show and I'm so for it. She absolutely knows how to give off creepy vibes. 

Pretty good show, all in all.

Dealing with backlog: The Wolfenstein reboot

So I played The New Order back in 2018 and got Old Blood pretty soon after that, but didn't get around to playing it until now. But  I figured, since I have the whole series, why not do them all in one go? Like I did with Xcom. So let's go :D

The Old Blood: This is a prequel to The New Order and it's pretty short. This game felt more like Uncharted than Wolfenstein, because of the whole archeaology thing. It was pretty cool to see the whole story evolve from two agents on a secret infiltration mission; to fugitive kills everyone in sight; to zombie shooter; to delving deep into ancient ruins to find out what's at the bottom of it. All the while killing Nazis. But there was a lot more focus on the historical and archeaological aspects in this game, and a lot less mechanized supersoldiers and dogs. Which I kind of preferred. Just as with the last game I had a lot of fun with all the nightmare sequences when you get to play levels of the old Wolfenstein games. Poor B.J. has very weird dreams. Not a lot of characters to get attached to in this game, since I knew what would happen to most of them in The New Order if they even survived that long. But did I like it? Yes, very much. And with the way things turned out at the end I really find the old school horror movie-ish logo appropriate. 

The New Colossus: Second main game in the rebooted series. I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed New order and Old Blood, even though it had its moments. I really enjoyed the fight through New Orleans when BJ was riding a Panzerhund, just roasting everything. And the fight atop the Ausmerzer in the end with three of those really big Supersoldiers. But even if I played FPSes like this I'm mostly still a RPG girl and my favourite moments in the game turned out to be the moments where the characters in the Kreisau Circle interact with each other. BJ's birthday party was amazingly fun to watch and I loved the scene where Anya just goes completely wild at the end. The second Act was better than the first, mainly because BJ was so frickin depressed (by all rights) in the first Act, and then he gets his shit together in the second Act after the execution. The second Act feels more Wolfenstein than the first despite all he does is shooting Nazis in both. Seeing Hitler was an experience in itself and the way they portrayed him made sense (but not very flattering). This is the 1960s and he's in his 70s, clearly not ageing well. I played through the Wyatt timeline and after seeing the differences between Wyatt's and Fergus's timelines, I think I'm happy with my choice. I had no patience for Wyatt's shit in the game, but I'd dislike Fergus's anger even more. There were parts I really liked about this game, but they were spread over so many things that were just average. It's fun to shoot Nazis, I guess? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Youngblood: Set in the 80s we play as one of B.J.´s twin daughters as they shoot Nazis throughout Paris to find B.J. who has disappeared. Anya, Grace and B.J. make brief appearances but this game is mostly all about Jess, Soph and Abby (Grace's daughter - the baby in The New Colossus). I know this game got a lot of complaints over the girls. Complaints that they were loud and annoying and not at all relatable. I guess that's because the main audience for Wolfenstein games are adult males? Because I found them to be cute, fun, slightly childish (but they're teenagers, hello) and completely 100% relatable. But I have been a teenage girl, something most adult males can't claim. I enjoyed this game a lot more than The New Colossus tbh. The story was as solid as any Wolfenstein game, while also serving as a coming-of-age story for the girls. I enjoyed the quests and I enjoyed exploring every zone. I went back several times for side quests and to collect all the collectibles. The last free update to the game that added the Da'at Yichud artifacts also addes some annoying new enemies that I didn't like, but they were only there for that one mission. I really don't need laser shooting robot dogs with turrets on their backs, ok; or electrocuting drones in environments full of water, ok? Every single loading screen showing the twins' antics with each other and with that 80s music on top... I just really enjoyed it. I enjoyed every part of this game. 

The first game was the best one, but I liked both Old Blood and Youngblood a lot more than I liked The New Colossus. 

I Am Not Okay With This

My pick for dinner show after Tribes of Europa. It's a dark comedy and exactly my sense of humour as it's dark and cynical and sarcastic and I love it. I laughed out loud so many times while we watched this. Toni thought it was cringey though, but comedy shows that he likes I usually find cringey so... He also found it a little bit too girly, but I really liked it. 

However, we were both very disappointed to find out that it got cancelled due to Covid hardships with production. I really liked the show and Toni got pretty into it in the last two episodes. So we really would've liked a continuation. 

The show is about high school girl Sydney Novak whose father has recently died and she is discovering that she has telekinetic powers. She's not exactly bullied, but she's not very popular at school either. She has a few friends and that's about it. She's also trying to figure out her sexuality, which might be gay, might be something else, but she doesn't know and so neither do we. It's a slice-of-life/growing up show with added powers and how things kind of just escalate and end up outside of her control. 

The episodes are sitcom length, so around 20 minutes, so we finished this show in two days. I really want more, though.

Tribes of Europa

This show was Toni's pick for dinner show after Shadow and Bone. It's a German post-apoc show and the story follows three siblings from the Origine tribe. The setup is that one December about 45 years past all technology suddenly stopped working. Everything just went dark and after that society as we know it collapsed. In the show's present day Europe no longer has countries, but is divided between different tribes of people. 

The story starts off by a jet crashing in the woods where the Origine tribe lives. The youngest of the siblings finds a control cube and takes it with him. A pretty savage tribe called the Crows were the ones to shoot down the jet and they are also looking for the cube. Looking for it the annihilate the monk settlement called Little Praha, with whom the Origines trade, and then they turn their eye on the Origines themselves. The tribe is massacred with only a few survivors. 

The oldest brother, Kiano, ends up being taken by the Crows where he struggles to find a path forward and to freedom. 

The sister Liv gets taken in by the militaristic Crimsons where she plots to free her people from the Crows.

The youngest brother Elja runs off on his own, but soon finds a companion in the vagabond Moses (same actor as Ulrich in Dark so we keep calling him Ulrich). Elja sets himself on a quest to return the cube to where it came from - a mysterious and technologically advanced tribe called the Atlantians. 

The show is German in origin and so they mainly speak German, but there's also a lot of English involved as all the tribes don't speak German and some of them have travelled a long way and have territories stretching over Europe. It's a neat feature that not everybody speaks German, which wouldn't have been the case if the show was British or American in origin. And everybody who speaks English in this show does it with an accent, which also wouldn't have been the case if the show was British or American. I really appreciate that addition. 

The show starts out kind of meh, but around halfway because really frickin interesting and I hope it will get another season :3 None of us speak German, but get some subs on there and it's no issue :)