From The Gaming Desk

Now the Gaming Desk wants you to know that it's finished playing Phantom Liberty, the Cyberpunk 2077 DLC, and has moved on to The Evil Within 2.

We've never played Evil Within 1, but stumbled across 2 as a free download on Epic, so why not? I have to admit, it's pretty confusing.  Don't really understand who my character is supposed to be or what exactly this alternate dimension I've become trapped in is all about. But the game's not that complex and it doesn't really matter - there are scary monsters that want to kill me, and until I can upgrade to better weapons, I need to hide from them or snipe at them from safe positions.

Evil Within 2 is classified as a "horror survival game" and I won't question that, but I find the mood and tone of the game somewhat monotonous. It's unrelentingly tense and one is almost never not in imminent danger.  After you've passed through some maze-like portal full of unexpected monsters and hidden dangers, you immediately come across a person or a note or something that requires you to go back in and run the gauntlet again.  And again. 

After I play for a little while, I notice that the old familiar tendency to keep playing "just one more mission" or get "one more kill" eventually sets in, but when I'm not playing, I have very little motivation to start the game up. I almost have to drag myself into it. 

I expect I'll eventually finish it.  Last month, I bought a ton of new games on a Steam sale and I'm looking forward to getting to them, so that's the carrot I'm dangling in front of me to grind my way through The Evil Within. It's not the highest praise for a game to think, "Can't wait until it's over."