September 19, 2025: Outer Wilds

For everyone who hasn't played this game yet, please do so now. I don't know why it took me so long for me to actually play this. I have tried on 2 seperate attempts, and both times I have only played for the first session, or loop if you will, then put it down for seemingly months or even years. The problem with that is I was missing out on possibly some of the greatest sense of discovery and reward in gaming.

It's hard to describe the feeling you get when discovering in Outer Wilds. Slowly unraveling a story when you start bright eyed and bushy tailed, knowing nothing about the world and universe you are in. Piecing together through cryptic messages, field notes, black boxes, and ultimately on your first run seeing the sun go supernova and having to restart at square one. Perhaps that what made me quit originally. Having to restart every run at the very beginning, with no combat or other mechanics to master felt bad to my brain, but that is the beauty of Outer Wilds. You dont lose everything on death, what you gain is knowledge. Knowledge to carry you to continue discovering! There are sequences in the game that are impossible to figure out without knowing more first, and the game implements the classic metroidvania trope of - "If youre stuck here, come back later" - and in doing so, you uncover so much more and are able to keep progressing. At times, you feel so insignifigant against the philosophical questions the game prompts. "Why are we here?", "What if all of this is pointless if we know the end?", "Why bother learning more?". And that's part of what makes the game great.

The drive to discover more held me captive for the play time of this game, literally leaving me incapable of thinking of anything else because I was so engrossed in finding the next piece. You start so small, "visit the moon", where your journey begins and where you first learn of what is out there. Just barely getting your toes wet you venture to other planets, find that they are all hostile in their own unique way, die or wait for the supernova to come and start it all again. The game leads you with a web of discovery, telling you locations you visit and whether or not there is more to discover at each location. It is a really clever way of using the classic crazy guy red lines to unravel a mystery, and to figure out that all those red lines point back to one large item right in the center was some of the best discovery I've had in gaming. Okay major spoilers ahead because I have to talk about it, then I'll wrap up. When I learned about the Nomai, knowing that this precursor race is dead and has been gone for a long long time, I was so interested to find out why it happened. Naturally over many loops I was lead to the comet, just to discover what they were looking for on there. Lo and behold, my greatest AHA moment, and a moment in my gaming history I don't think I would every forget. The commet that slowly orbits the sun contained a unstable compound what we knew in the game as ghost matter, when the commet approached the sun, BAM! Ghost matter spreads across the solar system killing all Nomai in its tracks. Your species in game was too early, living in water pools on the planet, and was unimpacted. Thousands of years later, here you are discovering what came before you. Again, once you reach the commet you slowly realize, wait a minute this commet must be orbiting for a while, why does it always dissapear from the game at the end of the loop? Wow, the same commet that ended the Nomai, is ending you! The Ash Twin projected needed a super nova, and the commet once again is supplying the end of the solar system! Except this time, YOU activated the project, thus saving yourself every 22 minutes! Wow!

Outer Wilds is an amazing experience, and one I hold in very high regard despite not playing it through originally. I think this is a game that does storytelling in a very unique and interesting way, and it's something I think every gamer should experience themselves. Despite some frustration with a lack of direction at times (I was stumped for a while on what to do, and ended up going to get some hints from the subreddit - those people do a great job at giving hints without spoilers), Outer Wilds is a game that I'm so happy to have played, and is an experience I will not ever forget.

A+

Early September, 2025: Quake 2 + Quake 2 64

My brother and I played through Quake 2 and most of Quake 2 64 as a random game to play while in between some more multiplayer games coming in October. I remember when I originally played through Quake 2 and some expansions around a year or two ago I thought it was a solid B tier game, and while not as good as its predecessor, still scratched that boomer shooter itch in a way only Quake can. I still love the movement, and the weapons still feel very good even nearly 30 years later, which really is a testament to Id's talent back in the day.

While I dont really like the shift from random dude kinda killing weird aliens in a hodge podge set of worlds to a clearly defined enemy with clearly defined level design and art style, I understand it completely. Id wanted to have a world they could build on for the Quake universe where the first game did not have that. For me though, the variety and fun to be had with the first Quake still trumps the more clear direction of the sequals 2 and 4, and something in me just wishes we could just have more of that random level mindset from Quake 1 (yes I know there are lots of mods out there, I did that the same when I played Duke Nukem 3D lol). Beside that, I do have one more gripe about Quake 2, but actually fixes itself in the 64 version - allow me to explain.

Quake 2 goes for a much more bombastic approach to the formula, taking a little bit of the success of Doom and adding a totally rockin' out soundtrack dude to this newwer version of Quake. For me, that completely falls flat. I feel like quake is the darker more sinister version of Doom, and the vibe that Quake 1 establishes is completely thrown out the window in 2. It's just weird to have this chugging metal sountrack playing over and over again when I'm having to backtrack to find where that CD needs to go and I personally think it makes me review Quake 2 lower. However, the 64 version had way less music, and instead some droning ambience in the levels, which I thought made the Strogg much more sinister in tone, which I appreciated much more. There also was a nice bop at the end of each level signifying you completed your main objective, if only the main version of Quake 2 went with this approach like 64 did.

All that said, Quake 2 is not a bad game by any extent and what for me was a solid B tier on original play through, was raised to a slightly higher tier just for the existance of the DLC and 64, which proves that the ideas of Quake 2 are strong, but perhaps the execution of the original campaign was just not as. It was a fun run through regardless, and some much needing gaming time for me and brother to spend together.

B+