What I Played in February 2024
Rhianne Ward
Note: this post has been transferred over from my old Wordpress blog. I could go through the trouble of reformatting everything with supporting images and italicisation and whatever else, but I don't really have time to do all that unfortunately, and I'd prefer to spend my time writing new things than labouring over the old. So, if anything looks a little weird or messy, that's why. I hope you enjoy it regardless!
Video games! You love em, I love em, let’s not beat around the bush here, bestie. Let’s go!
What I Finished
Much of what I finished this month was stuff I started last month, unsurprisingly! The first game I beat in February was Atlas Wept, a lovely little RPG that I took my sweet time with, and didn’t regret a second of it. I wrote a review for my blog which you can read here, but if you just want the sum-up, it’s a game I hadn’t expected to affect me as much as it did, and yet it undoubtedly did. It’s a game of surprising narrative scale that juggles its dual storylines with care to deliver one gut-punch after another. It’s uncompromising in its vision, in ways that only a solo developed game can be, and I love it for that. In some ways, I wish I had more time with it, but Atlas Wept does everything it needs to in the time that it has and I wouldn’t change anything about it.
It is wonderful, and it scares me that I would have completely missed it, had I not been browsing the most obscure new Steam releases. For such a gorgeous game to be swallowed up into the PC marketplace, sandwiched between porn games and gacha fluff is so disheartening, but it does make me more keen to actively seek out these new, weird experiences. In the spirit of this, I also picked up and finished Lil Guardsman, another indie title from a relatively small team. Again, I won’t go into too much detail about it as I have already written an extensive review on it which I’m quite happy with, so if you want to learn more then I suggest you check that out instead. To summarise, the game is essentially a marriage of Papers Please and Monkey Island where to play as Lil, a child tasked with deciding who can or cannot enter her city. Shenanigans ensue and she’s left basically responsible for the fate of the world, depending on what choices you decide to make over the course of the story. It’s funny, weird, sweet, and ambitious, and I liked it a whole lot!
However, I’ll admit that I’m not suddenly above the call of big budget action, because I also finally finished Halo 2 after starting it a while ago. I’ve been gradually playing through the Halo series with my brother over the past half a year or so, and it’s been a pleasantly surprising experience. I played through the first Halo ages ago and for a game that I thought wouldn’t be my bag, it was actually really fun! It’s aged shockingly well given that it released in 2001, and has such a wonderful confidence you only really see from developers with unhindered creativity caught in an all-or-nothing position. I’m pretty sure Halo was expected to tank on arrival, and it speaks to Bungie’s unbelievable talent that the game basically only succeeded because it was just that good, and set the bar for console shooters going forward.
Next, I finished Reach last year and it genuinely blew me away. It has this profound sense of melancholy to it that permeates every fibre of its being. If you know the lore regarding the fall of Reach, as I did, then perhaps the way this story turns out will be unsurprising to you, but I genuinely didn’t think an instalment in what was the biggest gaming franchise of its time would have the guts to tell a tale so uncompromisingly bleak. I wrote a piece about my many feelings coming out of this game a while ago, but I never quite finished it. I might release it someday. We’ll see.
And now we reach Halo 2 and, in a shock twist, it rules. The obvious standout here is the game’s commitment to expanding its universe with the inclusion of the Arbiter, a new playable Covenant soldier who you inhabit for half of the game. You become familiar with the inner workings of the Covenant, a hyper-religious society helmed by priests who claim their rule is ordained by the gods themselves. The deities they speak of (and allegedly for) are the same ancient race who built the halo rings, weapons of mass destruction designed to wipe out almost all life in the universe to prevent the spread of the parasitic Flood. It’s all really cool shit, and depicting the Covenant, or at least the individuals fighting for it, in a sympathetic light was a brave choice that really paid off. This is a multifaceted narrative spanning a grander scale than its predecessor, and I respect the ambition a lot for a game that was somehow supposed to run on the original Xbox.
Ambition is the word of the day with Halo 2, because this game is also, hilariously, not finished. The development cycle was notoriously disastrous, and has Bungie working around the clock for years to get their project out the door. The mess came down to a combination of factors – Microsoft’s laissez-faire attitude to Bungie’s goals, Bungie’s inability to shoot for any lower than the moon, Microsoft’s subsequent hard deadlines due to the mismanagement and the fast-approaching release of the XBOX 360 – but amidst all of this, I find myself respecting the audacity of this game, if nothing else. I respect it deeply for trying so many new things, not knowing if they’d pan out, simply because Bungie believed in the story they were telling. Sure, it ends on a cliffhanger that would later never really be resolved, but what’s present in the game is a monumental achievement, and it gets two plasma swords up from me.
It only makes sense that I round out the original trilogy, so I also started and finished Halo 3, and I have some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s probably the most fun game in the series. Bungie was at a point with this game that they had basically mastered this style of play, so in that sense it’s pretty perfect. It exemplifies all the best aspects of playing a Halo game. The level design is layered and complex, compact as to never feel lost or exposed, but wide enough to evoke that signature sandbox vibe that makes these games so fun. The guns feel and sound amazing, and the new additions to the arsenal like the brute gun and the new grenade type add yet another layer to an already incredibly deep gameplay experience. It’s a true sequel in all respects, expanding on the originals while supplying something a little different so as not to let the experience become stale.
However, I think out of the original trilogy, it might be my least favourite. It feels wrong to say that, given all the praise I’ve just thrust upon it. Make no mistake, it’s a fantastic video game and I’d quite happily return to it if I’m looking for a fix of Halo, but in many ways it feels like Bungie’s safest work to date. There are slight differences to what came before, but “slight” is the operative word there, and the story lacks a lot of the wild ambition of Halo 2. All the actors in this narrative are known, and it’s wrapping up a tale that’s six years in the making so I can understand that approach, but that comes at the cost of any truly fresh experiences. It’s all a bit too familiar for my liking.
That being said, though, I adore it. Nobody does action set pieces quite like mid-2000s Bungie, and I fear we won’t see a game that reaches those heights again. Finishing that fucker of a (really fun) driving sequence at the end of the game and seeing the Master Chief’s labours for six years of games finally pay off, I can’t help but get emotional. Seeing John enter cryosleep, only to wake when he’s next needed most, can’t help but feel like a sombre but hopeful goodbye from Bungie. Their time with the big green boy is over, and it’s time for them to move on to new, unknown horizons. There’s always been beauty present in the Halo series, and this moment felt no different; a quiet, intimate end to a bombastic trilogy.
And that’s all the games I finished this month! Only four completed unfortunately, partly because there were less days, but also because Persona 3 Reload occupied the majority of my free time (what a segue!).
What I Started
I want to be brief here because I plan on doing a full write-up for the game once I’m finished. However, I can comfortably say that this remake has cemented Persona 3 as my favourite one, and one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s a weird spot because I guess that also makes Reload one of my favourite games ever by extension, given that to me it is the definitive Persona 3 experience (even if the exclusion of FeMC makes me want to commit several violent crimes).
However, I can’t help but feel my time with Reload has been a little more…forgettable than I’d like? Again, that isn’t to say the game isn’t good by any means – it’s kinda phenomenal – but I think this is merely a symptom of it being a pretty straightforward retelling of a story I’ve already experienced before, with minor changes or additions. In fact, those additions have often been the standout moments of this playthrough, not just because they’re really well written and gorgeous in their own right, but also simply because they are new.
Playing a remake to a game you already know is very strange because, much like watching an adaptation of a book you’ve read, you spend your whole time with it waiting for certain beats to be hit, curious as to how they will be interpreted by this new work. However, in doing so, a disconnect arises where I unintentionally fail to engage with the material as much as I’d like. It’s a weird, kinda meta experience, and I often find it a little frustrating, especially since it’s basically impossible to ignore.
So is Reload good? Yes, of course. After all, it’s Persona 3, one of the most beautiful meditations on death and loss ever written. Does it stand on its own? Also yes. If anything, it thoroughly outshines the original in all aspects. Do I like it more? That remains to be seen. I think I’d need to sit with it a while after playing it. Although, one thing I can say confidently is Reload is really fun, and has successfully held my free time hostage all month, so that’s something at least.
There’s a couple other new releases I dipped a few toes in this month too. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a spooky new release from Life Is Strange and – perhaps more relevant to this game – Vampyr developer Dontnod Entertainment. Their latest title is about exorcists (known in this game as Banishers) in 17th century America, during the early years of British colonisers setting up new lives in New England. Most of the game involves you, as Red or Antea, traversing the area of New Eden, helping people out where you can and seeking to end the curse set upon this land. In practice, it’s reminiscent in game feel to the new God of War games, with its over-shoulder camera and very similar combat design. While the mechanic of switching between characters is fun, mechanically it operates like you’re switching weapons so it doesn’t deviate too far from familiar territory.
That being said, what I love about this game is its story and its characters. It’s a melancholic tale of letting go and how scary that transition can be, made all the more heartbreaking by the beautiful chemistry between Red, the living, and Antea, the ghost who will pass on once the main story concludes. The main decision driving the heart of the campaign is if Red chooses to let Antea pass into the afterlife, or instead resurrect her, which would require a handful of human sacrifices.
It’s a seemingly straightforward good-and-evil dichotomy, made more complicated by a variety of factors, not least of which the sense that these two clearly love each other a lot and, most painful of all, still have so much more to learn about each other. It’s a tale told with such sensitivity, with some beautiful vocal performances by Russ Bain and Amaka Okafor, and some drop dead gorgeous visuals and cinematics. Even when characters look a little stiff, they are elevated by an amazing melding of great acting and thoughtful direction. I’m really enjoying my time with Banishers at the moment, and I’d like to do a full review of it at some point once I finish it.
Another new release I’ve eagerly anticipated up till now has been Pacific Drive, a survival horror driving game set in a Stalker-esque Zone, with strange threats and even stranger friends. The central loop of this game is driving from place to place, collecting materials to improve your car and equipment, while simultaneously pursuing the main objective of escaping this weird new place you’ve stumbled into. In many ways, this game is quite familiar, especially since I’ve also been playing Subnautica this month and the similarities stand out like a sore flipper. That being said, the magic of Pacific Drive is entirely in the execution of its controls and presentation.
The vibes here are mind-meltingly good. The experience I get turning up the radio in my makeshift garage and tapping my foot to some bangers while I upgrade and maintain my vehicle has me going from someone who actively does not care about cars to being one step removed from becoming a card-carrying, certified grease monkey. There’s a mesmerising feeling that inhabits me when I’m chilling in the borderline apocalypse fixing up a rig that I simply haven’t had before with a game, even car-specific games like F1 which I used to be obsessed with. My car is basically a person to me – a statement which might be more true than I realise depending on where the story goes – and I look out for it like a true companion.
In the lonely world of Pacific Drive where the universe feels out to get you specifically at all times, finding comfort in inanimate things is a sensation very few games have achieved successfully for me. It’s similar to playing Red Dead Redemption 2 and getting really attached to your starting horse like I did. Video game car, I will protect you with my life. Full review coming at some point as well, though I’m still getting through a sizable backlog right now so bear with me please and thank you.
I jumped into some golden oldies this month, and with a setup like that I might as well start with Persona 4 Golden. I’ve not played a lot but I have finished it before and Reload got me in the mood. I have a lot of feelings about P4G, most good but plenty of bad. In many ways, like all Persona games, it’s the best one, but I also hate it sometimes. I only played the first couple hours so my lips are sealed until I start hating it again at which point I’ll stop. Great game, but Hashino’s days are numbered, mark my words.
I also played a bit of Death Stranding after that new sequel trailer dropped and got me all the way back into the mood, and yeah, it’s still wonderful. One of my favourite games ever made unfortunately also decided to release in 2019, one of my favourite years for gaming, so I don’t think I’ve talked about it enough in my time writing online. With that said, it’s brilliant, and I couldn’t be more excited for the sequel.
I decided to try my hand at a now decade-old game since it was cheap on Steam: Sleeping Dogs. I like it! I get a sense that while Grand Theft Auto is clearly its biggest influence, I think there’s a fair amount of Yakuza DNA in here too. The streets of Hong Kong are bursting with life, and the story at the core of the game is a compelling one of corruption, betrayal and revenge. That being said, I found it a bit boring to actually play, so even though I actually quite like it, this game is getting shelved for the time being.
Finally, I spent a lot of time replaying Elden Ring in anticipation of the upcoming DLC release, Shadow of the Erdtree, in June. I kinda made the dumb decision to soft lock my completed game file by respeccing my character, hitting New Game +, then realising that my build is awful and kills basically nothing. So, with a heavy heart, I decided to try and beat it again, this time the way the Golden Order intended: levelling in DEX and bleed weapons. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. I’m having a lot of fun with it! Who knew that Elden Ring is actually really good? Gonna keep chipping away at that one, most likely until June.
And that’s about it! Sorry this one was quite late to finish; I wanted to get the Atlas Wept and Lil Guardsman reviews done, then I went on holiday, so I’ve spent a lot of time playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth instead of doing anything productive with my time. Just kidding, getting Aerith to date me is more productive than any hobby and I refuse to apologise for that. And hey, maybe I’ll have a review out for Rebirth by the end of this month? Don’t hold your breath though…I’m a slow worker.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you in a month’s time! Byeeeeeeeeeeee ❤️❤️❤️