Game 2 of 2025 - Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

Developer: MachineGames
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: PC
Genre: Action/Adventure

Difficulty: Moderate
Hours: 27

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9.999999999999/10

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I love Indiana Jones!

And this game feels like a decent Indiana Jones movie, in addition to a really fun game. It's even got a Funkstation! See?

I wish we had one of those where I live.

Is it perfect? No. Does stop at all the right stations to get to a good old fashioned Indy adventure? You betcha! 

One of several great recipes in the game.

If you aren't convinced yet, check this out:

You can brain a fascist with a guitar, just like Woody Guthrie would have done!

Game 1 of 2025 - The Crush House

The Crush House

Developer: Nerial
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platform: PC
Genre: Dating Sim/Mystery

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 6

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 6/10

The Crush House is ok. 

You work as a producer on a Real World-esque reality show. You choose four contestants to live in the house for a season (which is only a week) and if you are able to satisfy certain audiences, you get to keep your job. As you play, you discover that the Crush House has a dark secret.

The positives: The game is often very funny, and some of the audiences you have to satisfy are just hilarious. In addition to your drama queens, teenagers, and wine moms, you've also got plumbers, conspiracy theorists, spiral enthusiasts (never figured this one out) and lighthouse fans.

The negatives: The dialog is pretty much the same from season to season. You have the same pool of characters to choose from, which kinda makes the mystery of the game obvious from the start. Despite having unique personalities, they all kind of act the same. Also they're all crazy and their behavior from one scene to the next is completely inconsistent.

This is tough to recommend, but if you find it on sale, maybe give it a shot.

Game 20 of 2024 - Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PC
Genre: Action RPG

Difficulty: Moderate
Hours: 52

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8.3/10

DA:TV is fine. Sure, it's a pretty bog standard paint-by-numbers fantasy story, the dialogue ranges from mediocre to downright embarrassing, and none of the characters are all that interesting, but there is a lot of fun to be had.

Let's start with the positives, I guess. The world is beautiful. Every corner of every city and cave and forest seems to be carefully designed, and it shows. 

 

The battle set pieces are something else, as well. There's some great setups here that lead to some dramatic fights (some annoying ones, too, but we'll get to that later).

How am I supposed to fight that thing?

The combat is also a good bit of fun, if a bit weird. Gone is the grim, bloody combat of the original games; this is some full on comic book shit. I chose to play as a mage, and you might think of mages as squishy back line characters but nope. My Rook was mostly a melee mage, shooting lasers and magic daggers and all that shit. Teleporting all over the damn battlefield chucking fireballs and lightning storms was a good bit of fun. And it's not just the mages that get lasers, the rest of your party gets them, too! They are constantly shooting glowing arrows from midair, breathing fire, and summoning firebombing griffons or whatever the fuck was going on there.

Ok, so now some of the negatives. Exploration is mostly fun, but for some reason there are some jumping/platforming segments and they suck. Awkward as shit. Also, fast travel is prevalent in this game thanks to some magical mirrors. While that saves a lot of time and that's appreciated, it kinda makes the world feel, I don't know, small? 

Combat? Like I said before, it's pretty fun. However, enemy variety kinda suffers after midgame. You're encountering the same groups of guys over and over again, and when BioWare wants a particularly difficult battle, it just adds more monsters. It gets boring, especially when you're just trying to get from point A to B and you have to bring down the same old armored-up HP tanks over and over again.

Speaking of combat, let's talk about dragons. It's in the title, after all. The first dragon fight is kind of exciting and all that, but they quickly grow tedious. Dragons have huuuuuge health bars, as expected, so they are already a time-consuming fight. Remember when I said there are some impressive set pieces? Well, for dragons, they're pretty much all the same. Big open arenas. Kinda has to be, I guess.

Also, some of the dragon attacks are hilarious. In addition to it's breath weapon, dragons also kind of just face plant at you. I guess they don't like using their teeth and claws to fight close quarters?

Veilguard scratched that fantasy action itch for a time, at least for me. It's certainly got it's warts, but overall I had fun. 

Book 11 of 2024: Black Pill

  Black Pill

Author: Elle Reeve

Genre: History/Politics

Pages: 304

Finished: Yes

Final Rating: 8.3/10

From Dungeon Crawler Carl to Black Pill; this was like getting pulled from the freezer and being thrown right into boiling water. Damn guys, at least let me get to room temperature first!

Elle Reeve accomplished something truly impressive here. Over the last several years, she collected multiple sources among the alt-right and even seemed to gain their trust and respect. She traces the rise of online fascism from places like 8chan to violent protests spilling into the streets.

I couldn't put this down. It's compelling, complex and nuanced, and it's clear the author takes this subject very seriously.

Great book!

Game 19 of 2024 - Not For Broadcast

Not For Broadcast

Developer: NotGames
Publisher: tinyBuild
Platform: PC
Genre: Adventure/FMV

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 8

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8/10

I forgot to get screenshots of this one, too :(

At the beginning of the game, Dave, the editor, runs off on holiday and pressures you, the janitor, into doing his job for him while he's gone.

Classic Dave.

Dave of course never comes back, so now you're thrown into the fire as a full time live news editor. Apparently the National Nightly News' bar for their editors is pretty low.

Not For Broadcast, which has a record-setting 42+ hours of full motion video, is something of a political satire. It's a bit... on the nose for my liking, but generally the writing is good and the actors are fantastic. Bonus points for Paul Baverstock (Jeremy Donaldson), Andrea Valls (Megan Wolfe), and Lucy Foley (Stacy). 

I found some of the mechanics annoying, but you can turn the ones you don't like off. There's a ton of little jokes and gags throughout the scenes, and while you might be too busy doing your job to notice them during the game, you can replay the footage to catch everything.

Overall, a fun game with some perhaps confusing political messaging, but that might be the point. 

Book 10 of 2024 - Dungeon Crawler Carl

 Dungeon Crawler Carl

Author: Matt Dinniman

Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi/LitRPG (whatever that is)

Pages: 464

Finished: Yes

Final Rating: 7.5/10

what the fuck is LitRPG

Meet Carl. Carl has had some pretty shit luck recently. His girlfriend was cheating on him, and aliens invaded Earth and flattened every building while he was chasing her cat outside in his boxers. 

Carl now needs to enter the dungeon, a live-action televised MMORPG type thing, in order to earn his freedom. His companion, Princess Donut (his ex-girlfriend's cat), gains human intelligence and the ability to cast spells.

Join Carl and Princess Donut as they gain experience and followers, defeat goofy monsters, and meet other survivors on their way to the bottom level of the dungeon. I really expected to hate this, but it was quite enjoyable. A friend of mine (appropriately named Karl) really pushed this on me, assuring me I'd enjoy it and he was right. Despite the ridiculous premise, Matt Kinniman doesn't forget to inject some humanity and wit in this example of uh, LitRPG. Apparently this is a series of like seven books, and I want to know how the story ends, so I guess I'm committed now. Luckily they're cheap on Kindle.

Game 18 of 2024: Darkside Detective

 Darkside Detective

Developer: Spooky Doorway
Publisher: Akupara Games
Platform: PC
Genre: Point and Click, Adventure

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 5

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8/10

Darkside Detective is a rather small adventure game filled with separate bite-sized cases to solve.

See? Cases.

You play as detective Francis McQueen, lead investigator of the Darkside Division. McQueen and his partner, Officer Dooley, take on the supernatural cases of Twin Lakes City, including gremlins, lake monsters, and poltergeists.

And toilet ghosts.

Darkside Detective plays like most point and click adventure games, but perhaps even simpler. Your inventory never grows too big and I didn't find any puzzles particularly difficult. It's a charming enough game that provides a chuckle here and there, and the low-res pixel art is particularly nice. 

I'd play that game

If you feel like playing something spooky (without actually being spooky) this time of year while waiting to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids, Darkside Detective might just scratch that itch.