What Have You Been Playing... IN FEBRUARY 2025?

I like February. It's not just the cold and snow (though that's been
missing mostly) but because it's the anniversary of this thread! Yup,
we're starting a new year of "What Have You Been Playing" threads...
the 19th* in the series! Let's see if we can't keep it going for
another 19!



The Games
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* Red Dead Redemption
* Ori and the Blind Forest
* The Surge
* Ghostwire Tokyo
* Damnation



The Games, But More
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* Red Dead Redemption
This isn't the first time I played "Red Dead Redemption", although in
many ways it feels like it is. I originally played the game on the
XBox, but I recall very little of that experience. Mostly, I remember
wishing I could play it on a PC, with a proper mouse and keyboard
setup (I really dislike playing with controllers). Beyond that, my
memories of the game are scant, so my incursion into the Red Dead
universe this time are fresh and unencumbered my nostalgia for my
previous playthrough.

My immediate reaction was, "Wow, I CAN play with a mouse this time!"
and, yes, it makes the game a lot more enjoyable. A lot easier too,
since now I can drop the targeting cursor directly on the heads of all
those bandits and snipe them from afar. That said, the controls are
not the smoothest (why are there three different "use" buttons?) and
the horse-riding mechanics never felt smooth or natural.

Unfortunately, that was the most positive thing I can say about this
re-release. It's not that the rest of the game is terrible, but it
feels very much like a slightly-above-average game from 2010. Now,
there are games from that era which are still a blast to play and
remain an incredibly impressive experience... but "Red Dead
Redemption" isn't one of those. It was a game that was okay for its
time, but hasn't aged well.

Its visuals, for instance, are a depressing reminder of the "grey is
real" desaturated era of gaming. Despite all the detail the developers
put into the landscapes and textures, the end result is fairly bland
and unappetizing. The textures are extremely low-res, and the lighting
feels flat. There's no _atmosphere_ to this game, and that's something
a game set in the Wild West desperately needs. The various biomes all
look too much alike. While I'm sure its scale and scope would have
been mildly impressive fifteen years ago, even then it wouldn't have
stood out as a great-looking game. In 2025, lacking any updates, it
borders on butt-ugly.

I wish I could be more positive about the game. The soundtrack is
incredibly blah, and often sounds too much like something from "Grand
Theft Auto 4"; some fine music in that GTS4, sure, but incredibly out
of place in this "Read Dead Redemption". It feels tonally uncertain as
to its message; half the time its celebrating the mystique of the
wild-west, other times its a scathing, satirical critique as found in
the GTA games. The story is fairly predictable, without any really
interesting (or likable) characters. Far too much of the gameplay is
invested in slowly riding back and forth the landscape, visiting and
revisiting areas I've seen dozens of times before. At least half of
the gameplay is invested in 'ambient quests' which largely consist of
find six of this flower' or 'kill ten of this animal' (both located
only in the furthest corners of the map, of course) in order to win
new cosmetics which -ever so slightly- boost your abilities. So much
of this game is just tedious make-work.

It's not that the end result is bad... but it's uninspired. There's
not very much that is interesting to do in the game, whether it's the
side-quests or the main story. The world feels flat and cardboard, and
even though I wanted to explore its various nooks and crannies, I was
rarely rewarded for my efforts. There were no jaw-dropping set-pieces
or exciting twists (with the possible exception to how the game
resolved the post-end-game gameplay, given the final resolution of the
protagonist's story). None of the interactions were spectacular. It
was pabulum; filling but not really tasty.

In 2010, when this game came out, it probably was different. It
probably wasn't, even then, a /great/ game but the scope of its
gameworld was still impressive, its tone still felt fresh. But in the
intervening fifteen years, we've come to expect a lot more from our
games --helped, not the least, by "Red Dead Redemption's" own sequel--
and the unstimulating gameplay of the first compares extremely poorly.
It's just not a fun game anymore, and with so many other, better games
available it's impossible to overlook this fatal flaw. "Red Dead
Redemption" had its moment in the sun, but in 2025 it's way past the
time for it to be put to pasture.



* Ori and the Blind Forest
"Ori and the Blind Forest" is one of those games I could have sworn I
played before, but upon launching it I recognize nothing, so I guess I
haven't? In fairness, so much of this game is typical Indie-platformer
that it's easy for me to confuse it with games like "Inside" or
"Little Nightmares" or "Never Alone"; a well-animated naïf-protagonist
bouncing across artistically-rendered backgrounds and facing off
against disturbing and unspeakable evil monstrosities. These games are
all too much the same and all tend to blend into one another in my
memories.

I suppose "Ori" is a good game. I'll be honest; I didn't give it that
much of a chance. It's just too trite and saccharine for my taste;
it's "My Neighbor Totoro" with 20% more horror and 100% less
character. It's just a bit too child-friendly for my taste, from the
ootsy-cutesy character designs to the simlish babble of the main
characters. Too, at heart it's a Metroidvania, and I just didn't have
the patience for wandering back and forth across the levels,
repeatedly jumping from platform to platform to earn the skills and
items I needed to unlock some door all the way back on the other side
of the level. Then, when I fell down some deep well that I was
ill-prepared to survive (or escape), /and/ the game autosaved me there
and I realized I'd no way to get back up, I just gave up. I could have
restarted (I was only an hour or so into the game)... but why bother?
I wasn't having fun.

Again, it's not that I think this is a bad game, but it's not at all
to my taste. It felt like too much make-work and not enough reward for
all the effort. Others will doubtlessly adore the setting and the
character; I won't disagree that a lot of work has gone into making
the characters palatable and the gameplay (aside from that unfortunate
'autosave-you-in-a-place-you-can't-escape', which I think was a
glitch) seemed solid. But it's just not for me.



* The Surge
I like "The Surge", but I'd be loathe to say it's a great game. It's
really got two things going for it: okay gameplay, and some very
pretty level design. But beyond that, it's a pretty average
experience.

It's the level design that stands out most for me. It's not that the
layout is particularly good --it's okay, but it's just a little too
mazelike and there's just a bit too little signposting for me to
really enjoy navigating the maps-- but boy do they LOOK good. The
general aesthetic is the usual sci-fi industrial grunge (you know the
type, lots of panels, pipes and electrical junctions) that have
dominated futuristic developments since 'Alien'. It's not in any way
original, but the sheer amount of detail makes for an awesome
spectacle. You don't know what any of the machinery surrounding you
actually does, but it sure looks like it has a reason to be there.

The gameplay is fine too; again, this isn't a game that takes any
chances --it's a Souls-game, and not a bad one, so you know what to
expect-- but neither does it do anything really wrong with its
mechanics either. Run around, jump, block, swing; it's all the usual.
There is, perhaps, a dearth of interesting bosses and a lot of the
ordinary monsters do veer into the 'more of the same' melee-focused
humanoid soldiery. The combat itself is... well, I'd hardly call it
forgiving but it lacks the ruthless 'git gud, scrub' nastiness of a
true Souls game; it can be challenging, but its difficulty curve isn't
quite as harsh. It's biggest gimmick is that you can only find
upgrades for your gear by first slicing it off your foes with a
special move, but that's not too hard and by the end of the game
you'll likely have acquired all the schematics for all the goodies (I
could have done without the crafting mechanics to build said upgrades,
though).

Other than that, the game feels pretty average. It's not that it makes
any major missteps; it just fails to stand out. Your armory isn't that
exciting; the story lacks any compelling beats, the characters
--especially the protagonist-- aren't interesting, the soundtrack is
almost non-existent. There wasn't anything I really disliked about any
of it; it's just none of it was very memorable.

In the end, "The Surge" is an okay game. It was entertaining, I was
engaged enough to want to get to the end, and --as evidenced by this
latest playthrough-- even come back for seconds, having finished it
several years ago. "The Surge" isn't a game that will wow you, but you
can have fun with it; it's a solid B-tier game and that's not a bad
thing for a game to be.



* Ghostwire Tokyo
My favorite part of "Ghostwire Tokyo" is its introductory logo. It
features a little snail-like mascot and every time the game starts, it
plays a different animation. It's cute and, if you have to force
players to watch your logo every time, it was nice of the developers
to add some fun and variety.

Which isn't to say I didn't like anything else in the game; it's just
that I thought the logo was the most memorable part. But even that may
not be entirely true, because if there's something else I really
liked, it was how quintessentially Japanese it's virtual-Tokyo felt.
From the huge variety of foods, to the detailed flats you get to
explore, to the little bits of trivia and mythology the game
constantly feeds the player. "This is what makes Japan great,"
"Ghostwire Tokyo" says. "Love it like we love it."

It's a gorgeous game too (especially with the ray-tracing enabled).
It's not quite photo-realistic, but it's close and there's just such a
surplus of little details in every part of the map that you just want
to sit and stare. The monsters are all very original --at least to an
Occidental's eye-- and add an extra level of mystery to the game.

Less enthralling is the game-play. It's not outright bad, but it
borrows too heavily from the Ubisoft Open-World playbook: you wander
around a giant world stuffed full of collectibles and random
encounters, and occasionally a story-mission. I'd wager that 90% of my
time in the game was scurry to-and-fro across the map searching out
all the little artifacts and toys. It's not so much that I didn't
enjoy it --the items are all cleverly hidden, and the movement
mechanics are strong enough that I had fun with all the climbing,
gliding and running. But the overall experience wasn't very
fulfilling.

Worst, sadly, was the story and characters. Whether this is because of
bad writing or because there's something missing from the translation
--some underlying assumptions that the Japanese take for granted but
I, as a Westerner, am missing out on-- the narrative feels incomplete
and unsatisfying. It comes across as hackneyed, with no real emotional
weight to any of it. This lack makes the climax of the game feel
clunky and sophomoric, and weakens the game as a whole.

But even if the gameplay wasn't strong, the visuals almost made up for
it. It's just a joy to wander the narrow streets of this imagined,
haunted Tokyo. I suspect that I'll be returning again and again in
years to come.



* Damnation
I didn't play "Damnation", a rather forgettable first-person shooter
from 2009, because it was a good game. I played "Damnation" because
I'd bought it on Steam, and damn if I wasn't going to get SOME value
for my money.

I certainly didn't buy "Damnation" on Steam because it was a good
game. Even in 2009, it was a tolerably below-average production, with
dated visuals, clunky controls, annoying animations and just a general
lack of polish all around. I bought the game on Steam because I owned
it on CD-ROM, and it's been a long-term goal of mine to get
digital-download back-ups of all my optical-media games. I don't even
own a CD-ROM on my current computer, and even if I did, swapping disks
is just too annoying. I wanted a click-n-play experience.

But I did keep playing "Damnation" because --despite all its many,
many problems-- it's not without a few high-points. It's setting is
definitely imaginative; a Steampunk-crossed-with-a-Weird-West setting
that has cowboys and magical Native Americans fighting off against
serum-addled super-soldiers in power armor or racing across canyon
walls in steam-powered motorcycles. Its level design is impressive;
each map is incredibly large, and the verticality of the maps is
tremendous. It mixed platforming and shooting, similar to "Uncharted"
or "Tomb Raider" and that --combined with the massive scale of the
levels-- made for some interesting exploration. It didn't do any of
these things well; the AI was braindead, the combat utterly
unsatisfying, the weapons under-powered, every map long overstayed its
welcome, the story poorly told, etc. In many ways, the game felt old
even on release in 2009. But there was an undefinable creativeness to
the experience that made you wish that all that passion had been
backed up with more skill in game development. "Damnation" wasn't in
the least bit fun to play... but it was memorable.

Memorable enough that, even though I constantly griped 'this is a
_bad_ game' while playing it again, I don't really regret buying it a
second time. It's not a game I can recommend to other gamers but maybe
developers should take a look at it. Not to crib ideas off the game,
but both as inspiration and as warning that not every great idea
becomes a good game, and not every terrible game is worthless if
there's a spark of brilliance buried beneath the cruft.


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Back in February 2006, when we started, I played 14 games (and
completed 9 of them). Now I struggle to get through 5. I wonder if
that says more about the games... or me. Oh well. I do my best.
What about you? Forget the last 19 years;

What Have You Been Playing... IN FEBRUARY 2025?





* technically, the thread had a start a year prior, but it sputtered
out after a few months. And I took a sabbatical in 2020, and I've no
idea if y'all continued the thread during that absence. But it's
'more-or-less' 19 years, if you squint.