October 26
Hello! Welcome back to our regular section where we write a little about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week, we question whether being a detective would have been a reasonable career choice, embrace new technology for driving a car in space, and enjoy watching fresh eyes interpret a horror masterpiece for the first time.
What have you been playing?
Catch up on previous editions of this column in our What We've Been Playing archive.
Nobody wants to die, Xbox Series
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I was in Lidl earlier this week and was surprised to see whipped yoghurts. This sight surprised me so much that I took to EG Slack to ask if anyone had actually tried these potential wonders. No one had done it, so it's not a great story, sorry, but this curiosity made me think outside the box. Just like the yogurt people had tried something new, I was venturing out and trying a game I didn't really have much of an appetite for.
One step forward, Nobody wants to die. Eurogamer (that's this website if you're still thinking about whipped yogurts) called it “a cyberpunk noir story,” and that's accurate. The problem is that this is not the type of game I usually play. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Bladerunner as much as all the wannabe film critics on Twitter, but Nobody Wants to Die is a slow, dialogue-heavy, clunky narrative that I can't get lost in.
I love a lot of what is offered. I've just finished watching the Agency's clever show Ludwig, so I obviously consider myself a bit of a detective now, and Nobody Wants to Die delivers on that front. There's a lot of piecing together and looking at evidence, plus some far-future technology, but I fell a little asleep watching the crime scenes, wondering what those whipped yogurts are like.
-Took.
Starfield, a nice and comfortable bed
You may have noticed a lack of This Server on Eurogamer's YouTube channel lately, because I've been locked in bed after an absolutely unpleasant reaction to this year's seasonal bumps (although at least I know they're working: get those doses when offered, friends!)
Fortunately, we live in an age where having to stay in bed for a few days is a situation well served by endless entertainment options, such as browsing Ebay (Netflix for bargain hunters), Kindle Unlimited (Netflix for lovers of books) and Netflix (Netflix for people who like their shows to be canceled after one season). And Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is Netflix for people who are currently not where their Xbox is. A recent 1GB internet upgrade and theft of my wife's Steam Deck on the grounds that I'm not feeling well set the stage for some serious testing. of what cloud gaming is really like now: a controversial idea I've been dabbling with since that legendary Eurogamer Expo where OnLive gave anyone with a blog one of their fancy microconsoles and a press account. At that point, I managed to finish the first Space Marine over a 6MB ADSL line, playing in vision lock with a full second of controller lag. But it was the future and it was great. And just several lifetimes later, I'm happy to report that cloud gaming is… mostly fine now. Xbox Cloud Gaming, still in what seems like an endless public beta phase, is very good. All your stuff is synced across your other Xbox platforms: I've now played the same Starfield character without issue on PC, console, and Steam Deck, running it semi-officially in the device's built-in web browser. It takes some effort to get it working, but Microsoft itself has put together its own guide to doing so.
Through my good Virgin fiber connection and my new Hub 5 with its snappy WiFi 6 protocol, there is only a slight smell of input lag, barely noticeable. The busy visuals can get a little confusing, with a lot of fine details of Starfield's environment being washed out in the real-time encoding, but on a screen as small as the Deck's it doesn't really matter too much. What it is is a perfectly playable, perfectly good representation of a great home console game running through the technological equivalent of two cans and a piece of rope, on a device that's not actually supposed to carry it. I'm impressed, frankly. Cloud gaming has truly arrived, albeit as an add-on service.
What else? Ah, ahem, Starfield? Yes that's fine. I'm a big Bethesda simpleton, but Starfield tested my resolve a lot at launch. After many updates and additions, I can safely say that it is one of my favorite space games. The addition of a rover, for example, hasn't turned a 7/10 into a 10, but it has solved my biggest problem that it was an exploration game where exploring was very tedious. At least now you can drift with a small engine and travel the great distances between those points of interest in a fraction of the time.
Starfield sucks as a walking game, but it turns out it sucks a lot less as a driving game: it serves as yet another example of how human civilization has been vastly improved by the humble automobile.
-Jim
Silent Hill 2 Remake, Twitch
well i say I've been playing Silent Hill 2 this week. what i have in fact I've been playing (since completing the Bloober remake last weekend) it's my new favorite, slightly obsessive game of 'watching streamers who've never played Silent Hill 2 before run the emotional gauntlet of their final hour and disintegrate completely a tearful mess at the time.' the credits roll'.
Silent Hill 2 has been one of my favorite things since I first played it almost a quarter of a century ago, when it confidently burst onto the scene announcing to the world that, actually, yes, video games. can They treat their audiences like adults. The fact that 25 years later, I'm still Pondering what it all means and waking up at 2am with new theories, that Laura's Theme, the perfect encapsulation of the desolate rawness of Silent Hill 2, still gives me chills, it's a testament to the phenomenal work of Team Silent .
And Bloober's remake is equally phenomenal in its own way, a brilliant reinvention of a genuinely innovative classic that evolves, expands and improves on the original, mostly in the right way. It remains as chilling, horrifying and emotionally devastating as ever; Arguably even more so, given the excellent work of its new all-star cast and some sly improvements to familiar moments, including that surprising new Abstract Daddy fight and a cleverly choreographed prison sequence that's easily one of the most relentlessly horror bits. suffocating and heartbreaking that I have seen. I have played.
It's been a pleasure to be able to re-experience one of my all-time favorites with fresh eyes and in such a beautifully considered new release. But it's also provided the perfect opportunity to see a whole new generation (distilled in a cross-section of weepy streamers, admittedly) discover its secrets for the first time, and see that almost a quarter of a century later, Silent Hill 2 hasn't. lost none of its incredible power.
-Mate