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Rainbow Six Siege

I joked recently that I was Clancy’s bitch, and it really does feel like that. So yes, on top of recently revisiting Ghost Recon Wildlands, and then currently playing The Division, I’ve also started getting into Rainbow Six Siege. My history with the Rainbow games is that I was a huge fan of the two Vegas games — in fact, I considered them to be my favorite FPS games, as I loved the mixing in of tactics in a shooter (instead of straight run and gun). At the time, I was really into Clancy games (the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter games, and Splinter Cell too), but Vegas, especially the first one, was tops for me. I also loved the “Terrorist Hunt” mode, playing it with friends (in split-screen). So Siege comes out over two years ago, and I didn’t really bite because I didn’t think I’d be into a multiplayer-first Rainbow game. But as we all know, the popularity of the game has grown, and I figured it was about time I dipped my toes back in. What I’ve discovered is a game that still has the fun co-op terrorist hunts, and over the past week I’ve been having a blast playing  the new Oubreak mode, which reminds me so much of Left 4 Dead (another game I loved). I’ve even joined a team at work to play in the studio’s gaming league, and so yeah, I’m having a blast playing this. Interestingly, I think the other aspect I’m attracted to is that all of the operators (the character/class you pick when you play) are basically the equivalent of G.I. Joe characters, and G.I. Joe was my favorite toy as a kid (and the Larry Hama-written comic too, which I still read to this day).

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Tacoma

This was a game I’d been wanting to play ever since release, and was just waiting for the right time to get around to it — it also had to be something I play on my work PC, because I don’t have a PC at home, or an Xbox One. I finally grabbed it at the start of the year, and if I had played it last year, it definitely would have made my year-end favorites list. I quite liked Gone Home too, but this is definitely a better, and more interesting follow-up. The sci-fi setting is already a plus for me, and I really enjoyed how you go about taking in conversations, by moving around in recorded time and space. Can’t wait to see what they produce next.

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Ode

On top of the Fun House here at Montreal’s Ubisoft studio (where I work), the other Ubi studio making smaller games is Ubisoft Reflections, and they suddenly released a new game this week called Ode (only on PC). I’ve played through half of it (I don’t have a PC at home to play games, so do it at work at lunch time or sometimes after work) and this is by far my favorite game experience from them so far. I wasn’t hugely into Grow Home (and didn’t play its sequel), but this is just a joy to play through, rolling around the gorgeous levels, with explosions of lights and sounds accompanying your journey.

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Subsurface Circular

I knew nothing about this game — I think no one did — until I saw a tweet by its creator, Mike Bithell, and that’s all I needed. I loved his previous games, but this is completely different: a short (about two hours) text-based adventure game that tells a very intriguing story about a robot detective. I love the way it’s presented, and the story really was fantastic. Can’t recommend this enough. I really hope he keeps making short game experiments like this.

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Kentucky Route Zero (Act 2 & 3)

I continue to play through Kentucky Route Zero when I have a chance at lunch time, and wow, I’m still completely enchanted by this game. I played through most of Act 2 yesterday, and today was mesmerized by the bar performance in Act 3. If you like adventure games with a weird vibe, I can’t recommend this enough.

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Punch Wizard

Punch Wizard is a crazy little game you can play for free. It’s a short 2-level beat ’em up, with a really fun 80s aesthetic (like you’re watching an old VHS tape) with the characters presented stop-motion-like. And Cyber B.A.E. is awesome.

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Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Just like The Next Penelope, this is another gorgeous and colorful game that first drew me in on a superficial level. It really is beautiful to look at, with a fun design aesthetic throughout. The gameplay itself is fun at first – and a super neat idea – but playing alone I did start feeling a bit stressed when I was getting surrounded by a lot enemies, and was frantically trying to control both characters to the various stations on the ship. I’m sure this game is a million times better when you do play it co-op, but I do appreciate that they still included a way to play it solo. I’m not done with it yet, but we’ll see how long I last.

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The Next Penelope

I played a bit of this the other day on Steam, and really like a lot of it, although aspects of it make me feel like I won’t really have the patience to keep playing a lot. The overall look is fantastic, but the racing itself, done in the style of “track racers” where you just move your joystick left or write to change direction, can be fun at first, but when things get fast and you’re trying to shoot other racers at the same time, I find myself having a really hard time to stay in control – it’s the same reason I don’t tend to like combat driving games. But because I like the aesthetics so much, I do want to try and play it a bit more, see if I can somehow get better at it.

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Duelyst

I came across this for the first time when I was browsing through Glixel’s top 50 games of 2016 list. Since it’s free-to-play, I took it for a spin at lunch time, and had a pretty good time even just going through the tutorial fights (and then a few practice matches). It’s got a great look to it that mixes pixelized characters (all the creatures you summon when you play) with very slick interface and environments. It’s a turn-based battle game that plays like a card game (you draw a hand of creatures and spells, and cast them on the battlefield), with a tactical map overlay. I don’t know if it’s going to keep my interested for a long time, but I definitely want to play it a bit more.

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Kentucky Route Zero (Act 1)

I’ve been meaning to play this for what seems like forever (and have had it in my Steam library for a while now), and finally got around to it this week. I’ve played through Act 1 (there are 4 acts available so far, out of an eventual 5 I think), and OK, I definitely see why it gets so much praise – and this year’s Act 4 release has been on many a person’s year-end “best of” list. It’s a beautifully atmospheric point-and-click adventure game, with a haunting story (so far), and incredibly well executed animations. Such a fantastic game so far, and I already know that I’m going to love playing through the rest of it.