Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Fred Dean of the San Francisco 49ers won two Super Bowls (1981, 1984) with the San Francisco 49ers. One year ago today, Dean died from the covids while being airlifted from a hospital in West Monroe, Louisiana to Jackson, Mississippi. Impermanence is swift.
It's been a while since the Gaming Desk reported on video game progress, even though I spend a few hours almost every day playing. I think the last time the Gaming Desk reported in, I had just finished the David Cage game Heavy Rain. After that, I downloaded the game Outer Wilds but decided I didn't like it after playing for a mere six hours (which felt like 60). The game seemed to me pointless and uncompelling, vaguely juvenile, and tedious. It received great reviews, including some Game of the Year nominations, but it just didn't appeal to me. To each their own, I guess. I might return to it someday if I'm really, really bored, but I somehow doubt it. BTW, Outer Wilds is not to be confused with The Outer Worlds, a game I did enjoy playing very much.
After abandoning The Outer Wilds, I started on Hitman 3. The game is almost indistinguishable from Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2 in feel and style, which is exactly as one would want it to be. In fact, the game allows you to reload Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2 into Hitman 3 to create one, very large but seamless game. Since August 17, I've played some 195 hours of the combined Hitman games.
But too much of even a good thing can be tiring, so on September 25 I downloaded another David Cage game, Beyond: Two Souls. Like most Cage games (Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain), the game has a very cinematic look and feel to it, and is more linear and story-driven than most other video games. The game stars Elliot Page and Willem Dafoe and was actually shown as a movie at the Tribeca Film Festival one year.
The game is divided up into distinct and separate chapters, and played non-linearly, that is, out of chronological sequence. As the game tracks Page's character from early childhood through teenage years to young adulthood as a CIA operative and as a fugitive, the mixed-up sequencing adds a sense of mystery (What was she a fugitive from? How did she become a CIA agent?) on top of the central, supernatural mystery, involving her psychic connection to an entity from an alternate universe. In some respects, the game reminded me of the supernatural mystery in the game Control, although game play and style were completely different.
So ever since download on September 25, I've spent some time each day, about an hour, playing a chapter of Beyond, and later that day, about an equal amount of time playing through an assignment or two of Hitman. Big fun, and by playing two games in parallel, the shortcomings of either game didn't bother me (ever game has some shortcoming).
I finished playing Beyond last night after 27 hours of gameplay, and got the "good" ending on my first playthrough. I'm not 100% sure at this moment, but mostly likely I'll play through the game again to revisit some of the sequences, correct some errors I made the first time through, and observe some plot points I probably missed my first time through. I'll probably play through the chapters in chronological order now that the narrative mystery has revealed itself.
I've also very nearly exhausted the Hitman games, too. I can probably keep going until I finish my second playthrough of Beyond: Two Souls, but after that, I'll probably need a new game or games to play.
Far Cry 6? Back 4 Blood? Life Is Strange?
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