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New Colossus is New Order with a lot more cutscenes, a bigger home base, districts you can revisit, side missions, more collectibles and a return of the dual Fergus/Wyatt timeline. Gunplay is awesome, guns all sound amazing, you can update your weapons, dual wield, perk up and so on, same as in New Order. Current technical issues include permanent freezing and occasional screen tearing, though I haven't fiddled much with the options. There are hotfixes and beta patches available for the more curious or unfortunate. I wouldn't rush to spend €60 on this until they've released a patch or two.

I can't fault MachineGames for not making another HL2, but ever since HL2, I want single player FPS games to be more like HL2, especially since Valve no longer makes single player games. Yes, I should get over myself, but I also know what I want. Granted, I don't want all FPS franchises to turn into formulaic open world games like Far Cry, even though I enjoy those games, but I do wish they were more open and would let you experience its story in-game. I don't understand why developers shy away from environmental storytelling. Excessive use of cutscenes is time spent away from actually playing your game. When you take the time to craft a world, let us be in it. I still have hundreds of films I want to see before I die, I don't need that same experience from my games as well.

I would've liked a mission set in a pine forest, where dozens of trees are blown to smithereens, harking back to the nightmares of WW2, or rather, a scene in Band of Brothers. There are open levels in New Colossus with multiple routes just like in New Order, but you spend a surprising amount of time in confined spaces, in giant vehicles both under water, under ground, in the air and two of the locations are used twice, mind you. There's also a level that's a conceptual copy of one in New Order.

When New Order took me roughly 20 hours to complete and 3 hours of that were cutscenes, I'm fine with that, but when 4 hours from a total of 15 hours are cutscenes, that I have a problem with. Some of these cutscenes are quite funny and intense though, both well directed and well acted, but there are also some that could've been cut entirely or written much shorter. The direction of NC is a commitment and they saw it through, but it's easier to cut scenes before you animate and render them than redoing entire areas to fit an in-game approach. What we have here is Doom meets The Man in the High Castle and it's weird when so much game is lost in the process. Thankfully NC's use of cutscenes isn't so intrusive to end up as Max Payne 3, which was an incredibly misguided attempt for a video game. That said, some of them are so long that your display will go to sleep, sometimes twice during the same scene, provided your sleep mode is set to 5 minutes.

New Colossus goes deep into the reasons why BJ became the man he is, but I'm not sure that's the level of depth I'm craving for, especially when there's a tonal shift halfway through the game that mostly abandons the first half for more tongue-in-cheek entertainment. I thought the BJ of New Order was often more morose than Max Payne, which is quite an achievement, so in a way it's good that those reasons are explored here, but tonally it's a mixed bag.

Cutscenes are so intertwined in NC's campaign that I had three occasions where I was thrown into a battle I wasn't ready for and yes, you're not always supposed to be ready, but watching a long cutscene set in a room you haven't had a chance to explore and then being ambushed in that same room isn't my idea of fun. Especially when I have to replay that part 10 times. In that same room I was then being shouted at for not jumping on a helicopter, when I simply wanted to restock and look for the collectibles.

The highlights for me were time spent in different parts of the US before I entered another compound or high security area. The nuclear wastelands or cities in ruins reminded me of the parts that mattered in RAGE, despite being a setting used in so many franchises. New Order had better variety, while New Colossus reuses some old ideas and in some case has you replaying locations. There are many heavy weapons this time, with their respective charging stations, which makes the game feel a bit ridiculous on Bring 'Em On, but will come more in handy in higher difficulty levels. Those weapons slow you down, but they make a quick end of big enemies who wield them. There are more surprises and upgrades, but I'll leave it at that. It's a good addition to the franchise, but after my first playthrough I prefer New Order.

Lexica was fun for me up until Medium Pack 5, where my understanding of the English language slowed me down, though it is not my native language. I tried to fend off guides for as long as possible, checking a solution for a single word here and there, but also checking words in an online dictionary, up until I couldn't progress without a guide and without feeling frustrated. It became a chore due to my own limitations, not by a fault of the game, cos it's the same game from the first to the last puzzle, 288 in total. How hard the Hard Pack puzzles were I can't say, cos I was rushing to the end with guides at that point, just to be done with it.

I would've liked to see a more educational aspect to Lexica. For example, all the words in an alphabetical order at the end of the game or at the end of each puzzle, where I can go over the words that I didn't know, even if the definitions aren't provided by the game itself. As soon as you drop the last letter in its rightful place, the puzzle is locked and at that point you can't revisit a solved puzzle, it only gives you the completion time. At the very least I think they should've included a feature to revisit solved puzzles. There are Steam guides and video guides on Youtube (up to Medium Pack 7), but the point of any game is for you to play it, not continue it outside of the game. Hard to say if it's worth 5 euros, but it's good fun for the most part and it looks nice. It's also nice to have it in windowed mode, so you can place it right next to Youtube videos, while you watch 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, if that's your thing.

The stand alone Shadow Warrior expansion of Viscera Cleanup Detail was a fantastic idea in and of itself, raising the question what happens in the game world after you're done playing. So for example, if you leave a trail of bodies behind in an FPS game, who will then clean up the mess? Enter the Janitor. You are here to clean up the remains of a repulsed alien invasion. Get to work! Viscera Cleanup Detail includes 18 levels of various sizes that are full of trash, spent bullets, blood and body parts of humans and aliens, crates, barrels, tools, debris, secret items, collectibles and so on. It also includes three expansions, one of which is Shadow Warrior and an office where you collect your trophies, items and it's also a level you can clean, so all in all 22 levels of ultimate cleaning pleasure.

I'm not sure if I should say this, but this game is probably a better fit for introverts and/or for people who take at least some satisfaction in cleaning or putting things back where they belong. But that's my impression, I'm sure it has fans of every kind of variety, cos it's a great game to relax to and everybody needs to relax. If you're not making much progress in your professional or personal life, then cleaning a level in VCD will give you a sense of accomplishment, even if it is only an illusion or escapism. Your messy life will always be waiting for you once you exit the game.

A big part of VCD, for better or worse, are machines that create human body parts. The idea has puzzled me since playing the Shadow Warrior level, cos I got the main game a few years later. How or why does a bucket and a bin dispenser dispense body parts? Sure, it's more mess for you to clean up and I might've missed a bit of story that potentially explains this, but it's the one part of the cleaning process I find completely pointless and often annoying, cos at the end of the job you have to collect those body parts with multiple bins and get multiple buckets to clean up the rest. It's as if the game is not confident enough for you to simply clean up the remains of terrible incidents. Is it funny? Machines spewing out body parts? Maybe the first time around, but that's about it.

The music. How good is it? Hmmm. Let's just say VCD's soundtrack is different. It has heaps of character, which is more than you can say about soundtracks in much bigger and more expensive games, but I think you'll love it and hate it at the same time. You'll be turning off the Big Banger eventually, just to take a break from the songs, but you'll also turn it back on in the next level, cos you really like that heavier tune, but that's me.

I should say that Shadow Warrior is the only game-themed level in VCD. You won't be picking up headcrabs in City 17, as amazing as that would be, but you won't be disappointed by the selection, cos the locales are varied and it's not all about picking up body parts and mopping up the blood. Some of these levels are huge and you'll have your work cut out for you. Co-op is something I haven't tried, but Revolutionary Robotics, for example, is really a job for two people when I think back on it, but I enjoy the solitude and there's no need to complete a level in one sitting.

If you're an achievement person, I suggest researching levels before you tackle them, cos you're likely to miss items or tasks on the first try. At the beginning I was very confused about what I was supposed to burn and since there's a lot of stuff you can pick up and move around, you start overthinking it eventually. Supposedly there's no difference between stacking barrels and crates in the appropriate areas or simply burning them. While there's a certain set of rules that apply for all levels, the look of items will vary such as what constitutes a crate, but a barrel is always a barrel. I'm not complaining though, the levels are different, cos they tell different stories, so the items have to look different. You're not going to find "space crates" in Santa's workshop.

I have eight more levels to complete, the office needs a bit more work and the House of Horror awaits, but I think I've done a pretty good job so far. I'm not sure what I've accomplished in the 47 hours I've put into this, but I've left some clean rooms behind, so there's that. It's not often you play a game from a South African indie studio, VCD is both funny and engaging in its mundane tasks. It's a parody on the violence of video games and how meaningless it often is when a game has no real story to tell. I'd say this is not for everybody, but Santa's Rampage is a cheaper entry point and if you own Shadow Warrior then you already have the VCD expansion of the same name. Both of those left me wanting for more, so hence the review.

Now here's a visual novel I can get behind. Minimalist in every way, influenced by film noir in the writing, aesthetics and music, levels are presented as beautiful dioramas. Takes no longer than 30 minutes to complete and it's free.

I've tried to finish this for months, but I'm put off by constant crashes that range from harvesting the "wrong" body or using the "wrong" vent to rescue a Little Sister. I've made a grave error in picking this version as my first experience with BioShock 2, cos the developers responsible for it have ruined that experience for me. Now I'm at a point in Persephone where I have to play that area all over again, cos I have a corrupt quick save.

If you decide to soldier on anyway, make master saves at the beginning of each level, otherwise you will eventually get locked out of the game. The biggest enemy in the game is the game itself, cos it obviously doesn't want you to play it. I chose this version because it doesn't have multiplayer achievements, but many of the offline achievements don't work here, so you're still stuck with a game you're unlikely to perfect.

I managed to play through BioShock Remastered without much issues back when it launched, but since then they've updated both games several times and clearly to worse results. I've no idea where the first game stands at this point, but right now BioShock 2 Remastered should be steered clear from if you intend to put money down. I do not like leaving games unfinished when they offer a great story, but the developers have made it close to impossible to enjoy it. I will attempt Persephone a second time and if I end up with another corrupt save, then I'll have to start the original BioShock 2 from scratch. Thanks for the free Remaster, I guess.

Doom 3 is not Doom and I've made my peace with it. The first two games encouraged you to speed up, while Doom 3 urges you to slow down in so many ways. Very narrow and dark levels, characters you meet, PDAs with emails and audio logs, video disks, etc. In the original Doom 3, the flashlight, which was another thing to slow you down, wasn't mounted on the armor like it is here and I was certainly not enjoying myself back then. In the BFG Edition I was able to, for the first time, take in the scenery at my own pace. Not having to deal with the flashlight makes a big difference. Once I got to "relax" with Doom 3, I really noticed a cool looking game, sterile and metallic in its environments, soon covered in nightmares and blood. The lighting, shadows, smoke and sound design bringing it all to life. I even grew a new appreciation for the soundtrack, some of it very reminiscent of the soundtrack of Full Metal Jacket. It feels like a cold place and the demons you encounter look like the stuff of nightmares.

Resurrection of Evil steps even further away from the roots of Doom, introducing a gravity gun and rechargeable Helltime with The Artifact, making it a pointless experience of throwing/catching stuff in narrow quarters and slowing the game down on top everything else I mentioned, sans the flashlight. I opted to use Doom 3's main arsenal to get my kicks, but the grabber comes handy in some situations and is sometimes even necessary. When you upgrade your artifact with rechargeable Berserk, it enables you to punch or shoot all non-boss enemies back to hell in slow motion and once you upgrade it with Invulnerability, there's no stopping you. Makes perfect sense then to have the final boss be a dragon-like demon. Resurrection of Evil adds plenty of projectile enemies on top of the Imp and others seen in Doom 3 and once you get sick of using the grabber with its incredibly narrow operational area only limited to its crosshair, you'll be using The Artifact a lot since there are plenty of glowing bodies around to feed it. If the game wants to be Max Payne, you might as well roll with it.

Enemy AI is not Doom 3's best feature, to say the least. Jump scares only make you hate the game more, not offering a genuinely scary experience. Enemies will jump at you from every possible angle, behind corners, doors, panels, floors, ceiling, etc. They disorient you by beating the hell out of you, jumping in your face, scratching your face and technically it should be scary but I just find it incredibly annoying. Better to kill them before they get anywhere near you. Worst of all, some triggers enable Imps to do 180 degree jumps around corners or even through office cubicles. Enemies wait for you in dark corners until they can jump out like a clown or a sexual predator. A zombie walking out of darkness is way more effective.

Weirdly enough The Lost Mission is the most Doomy of the Doom 3 experience, released here in the BFG Edition, roughly 7 years after Resurrection of Evil. But since most enemies still announce their arrival well in advance, you can run up to their spawn animations and shoot them in the face at point blank. Doom 3 is a bizarre collection of design choices, that's for sure. One mistake I did was not using the double-barreled shotgun in Resurrection of Evil in this playthrough, yet it was my primary weapon in The Lost Mission. It's incredibly powerful at close range and very fun to use. You can take down a Hell Knight with 3 shots, for example.

This version is the only version to enjoy Doom 3, as far as I'm concerned, despite its many flaws. The pacing makes you appreciate the care put into the design of the environments, the monsters, the sounds and the lighting. It genuinely looks like a place you can't wait to leave, it is both a depressing and lethal work environment. The BFG Edition also includes Ultimate Doom and Doom II, along with achievements for every game included, making this the most comprehensive Doom experience for newcomers. Playing on Veteran gave me a good 30 hours across 3 games, I'll leave the classics and Nightmare for another time.

If you had one of those circle maze toys as a kid then you remember you got tired of it eventually, cos it was only that one maze you could solve. I bought this on impulse, cos I was reminded of that toy. aMaze 2 has more than one maze to solve, so that's an immediate plus right there, but don't have high expectations for a game that costs 1 euro. The menu and the look of the game is very modest and that's fine, but a single piano tune on repeat will make you turn off the sound in the menu. There are 20 puzzles per 3 different types of mazes and I enjoyed the circle mazes the most, but you'll plow through 60 puzzles in about 2 hours. The second to last maze was the only one that frustrated me, but it's a nice and short game if you like a distraction and achievements, most of which are pointless, but there you go. I noticed there's a 3D sequel as well, I might try that one as well.

Intrude is very similar to Wolfenstein 3D, a game that hasn't aged well, so I picked this up with the hopes of enjoying a very old experience that's freshened up a bit. On the surface it's lovely, but once you die you start that level again. Your health, armor and ammo carry over from the previous level. So far so good? Not for me. Right now I'm in a level with not much ammo to start with and there are lots of robots in the only corridor I can take. I welcome a challenge, but I'm not having fun anymore. How many times are you willing to play the same level in order to progress? 10? 20? 30 times?

Wolfenstein 3D, released in 1992, had a quick save option and 10 slots to save your game. Intrude, released 24 years later, doesn't have anything of the sort and no level select either. If you're fine with all of that, then have fun, cos it's a very cheap game that can only get cheaper during sales.

Inside is the Half-Life 2 of puzzle-platformers, where smart design meets accessibility. Playdead continues to explore some seriously dark themes with their second game, released 6 years after Limbo, but it's so brilliantly designed that I was laughing during almost every level. I was constantly surprised and despite the 4-5 hour playthrough, I am still thinking about it, I want to play it again for its sheer brilliance and to see the alternate ending. Inside is hands down my favorite game of 2016 and has every right to be called a work of art. Last night it won 4 BAFTAs for Artistic Achievement, Game Design, Narrative and Original Property. Not a single word is spoken in the game and yet, the BAFTA for Narrative is more than deserved.

Server Maintenance: The Game

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