The 2025 what are we playing thread

Adventure/Lucasfilm Games
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I finished Paper Perjury, about half in 2024, about half in 2025.

Below is what I wrote for Steam. I’ve been told reviews help smaller games like that.

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I like that the game doesn’t open with a murder, which immediately positively distinguishes it from its biggest inspiration. It’s a game made by people who clearly liked Ace Attorney for people who liked Ace Attorney, but if you’ve never played any of the games in that series this might actually be a better introduction to the genre.

You play as fledgling police clerk Justina Smith when in swerves manic pixie dream detective Ernest Hunt, asking you to interrogate a suspect, and much merriment ensues. All this in place populated by greater and lesser puns, Azure City.

The game is well executed in all ways that make it come together: the art, the music, and of course the puzzles. In short, characters tell you a little story (they “give testimony”) and you have to find the contradiction between what they’re saying and the evidence you have at your disposal. Sounds simple, right? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t, but the game always gives you a fair fighting chance.

My only complaint would be that somewhere in case 5 I was done investigating, but I didn’t realize it and I kept looking for issues with what people were saying for far too long.

So yeah, definitely recommended.

3 Likes
2

I finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I absolutely loved it! I took my time exploring, so according to my save slot, I had 66 hours of chronological gameplay before the end (and about 80 hours in total - although I can’t remember rewinding to an earlier savegame so much.) All in all a decent 70 hours. Then I spent another 10 hours solving one incredibly hard puzzle and collecting a few small items left and right that I missed - although I had already discovered the vast majority before. I can recommend playing the game like I did: take it slow and do the discoveries as you explore, rather than going back for the OCD completionist (I am not, honestly! I even didn’t bother getting the last achievement dodging a power attack) and am fine with a 97% score, which is about the same I feel about this game.)
The 3% off is for some glitches and the fact the game is over now.
It does not only rank my favorite Indiana Jones game, it even ranks in my new top 3 of IJ movies.

5 Likes
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Hi Sushi, I have played IJATGC too! Absolutely fantastic, and now I’m replaying it to discover what I have left unsolved.

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Another game i’m currently playing is COCOON. It’s a new idea and concept, clean animations, “…a breathtaking puzzle-platformer that borders on psychedelic.”
It’s available on many stores and platforms.
Here’s Steam’s:

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I recently finished 2021’s Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy - Being more passionate about 2D point & click adventure games, I hardly play such action-loaded games, but it looks impressive and it is a very story-focused (action-) adventure game with a lot of humor. After all, I enjoyed it well!

1 Like
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I returned to Cyberpunk 2077. I’m more or less alternating between stealthy and guns blazing. The end is near, or in any case the game advertised a point of no return, but I’m still doing a bunch of side missions.

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Not much to report which might be of interest here. Currently playing Station to Station , which is a puzzle game of sorts, with a Railroad Tycoon inspired theme. It’s the closest to a model train sim I could find.

I also took a look at Foundations, which gives off a vibe similar to The Settlers, though it’s a lot more elaborate (naturally) and my first attempt is not going as smooth as I hoped it would. Which means the game is complex enough to stay interesting. The other city builder I played more recently, Surviving Mars, didn’t feel as challenging and had a lot less aspects to balance against each other. Though I guess the game to look out for is Pioneers of Pagonia, from the guy who made the original Settlers.

2 Likes
8

I played Harold Halibut

The animation technique and look is very interesting, the story is interesting enough (if you like a bit of easy philosophy), the characters are varied and not perfect.

The major downside though is the incredible slow walking- even when running- and the lack of any puzzles. You just go from one place to another to click on the next object or person to advance the story. Although that sounds boring (and it is), they somehow made it part of conveying the unexciting repetitiveness of the protagonist’s own life. However, there is no excuse for setting up the chain of fetch quests that will see you passing through the same scenes over and over and over again. Sometimes simply looking for a character that moved to another location. No matter how beautiful the scenery looks, it just becomes a dull affair.

Couple that with the worst auto-save-only system. I replayed a part as in one of the few places you are given a dialog choice, I wanted to try another answer to see if it would yield a funny response.
I could only start at the start of the chapter subsection, since it autosaved right after the dialog I wanted to retry.
I spent 45 minutes to “speed-run” the 2 hour gap between the two save points.
And got the exact same response to my dialog choice.
The dialog was (minor spoiler) at a point where your character (Harold Halibut) is asked by a woman to name a scientific probe. On my first go I went with the third option “Probert” (as in Q-bert?). But then I realised the first one “Harold Proberbut” might trigger a rude joke if you say it out loud. Especially since the chapter is called “exploring the crack”, right?
The identical reply was OK, you… really? No that’s lovely!
Here is a video of the specific bit (takes around 20 seconds from where I put the time mark) https://youtube.com/watch?v=ftHIaeosKTA&t=25m30s

5 Likes
9

I played (and completed) The Bard’s Tale - remastered and resnarkled
The songs were the best part (next to the voice acting - with Cary Elwes as the Bard), which shouldn’t come as a surprise as they were done (and sung) by none other than Michael Land, Clint Bajakian and Peter McConnell.

4 Likes
10

Played Paper trail. It’s a pure puzzle game where the game world is made of sheets of paper and the main mechanic lies in folding those such that new paths open up and the next sheet can be reached. The art style and concept reminded me a bit of Carto, but I’d say Carto has the much more innovative gameplay (and a better narrative as well).

Thing is, the paper folding only provides so much challenge, so the game soon combines it with Sokoban-style elements, moving platforms, rotating platforms, light beams and mirrors, etc… making it somewhat less original than it’s made out to be.

Aside from reaching the exit of each level, there are collectibles to pick up along the way, usually requiring a different configuration of the world, and a bit more thought. Getting those often felt more satisfying than completing the level.

All in all a neat little game, with a wide variety of puzzle elements and pretty graphics. If only the writing wouldn’t feel like it’s aimed at 6 year olds …

3 Likes
11

I’m currently playing SpaceVenture.
At one point, this was one of my most anticipated releases, but my expectations have lowered considerably since then with all the delays.

Overall though, I’ve found it reasonably fun so far. I’ve played for a couple of hours and made it to the second main location of the game.
I think it’s worth giving it a go if you like comedy point-n-clicks.

Humour-wise it’s pretty decent. The narrator is doing a Gary Owens impression, which means I keep comparing how it would have sounded, in my head.
Though most of the time you’re hearing Ace talk and not the narrator, so it works out ok, even though it was mostly the narrator you heard in the Space Quest games.

Locations/artwork - I think they did a good job here, some great sci-fi settings. The style isn’t my ideal choice, but it’s well done.

The main issues I have with it are the types of puzzles:

  • Too many “slide/swipe” puzzles. These probably seemed like a great idea to capture the burgeoning tablet market in 2012.

  • Quite a few timer/movement puzzles, like a “run past the moving obstacles” bit, which is not helped by the clunky movement (though that’s very SQ4 - timing plus clunkiness).

  • Pixel-hunting for very small items/areas occasionally. I got stuck a couple of times so far and this was why.

  • “Turn levers to line things up” puzzles and similar “do something in the correct order” puzzles. They’re a bit like the swipe puzzles in the way they feel like a little mini-game.

In hindsight, they should have made this a 2D game in Adventure Game Studio. They began making the game in 2012 and AGS had already been used for a few popular Wadjet Eye games by then, so it would have been viable.
I think at the time though they wanted to make a “modern” updated PnC game in Unity.

4 Likes
12

Playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II for about a week now. I really loved the first part, and as this is a direct continuation of the story, with slightly more streamlined gameplay, it ought to be a blast.

Truth is, it took me until yesterday to finally ease into the game, and I have the impression that design-wise, KC:D2 is a step back from the first part. It starts with the obligatory tutorial, where you get to distribute some points into your character attributes to approximate your specialization from part 1, as directly importing your character isn’t possible. Not that it matters much, as you’ll end up drained of prestige, power and possessions for the start of the game proper anyway.

That’s when the world opens up to become your oyster, but make one false move and it will swallow you whole, miserable wretch you are. Figuring out where to go, where to get equipment, a horse, some coin and, most importantly, the alchemy ingredients required to save your game at will, can become an exercise in frustration. (My advice: take it slow! Follow the main quest for a bit. Also check the path from Bozhena’s hut to the right. Somebody collected plenty of useful herbs and left them sitting unattended in a wicker basket near the creek.)

Once appropriately equipped, the game becomes enjoyable at last. It’s not yet perfect, though. At least with the German language, subtitles and voice overs often do not match, some dialogues suffer from continuity errors, and at least one NPC accused me of things I did not do. Stealth seems also wonky, and lets you go unnoticed even when right next to a person or a wild animal. All in all, to me the game feels buggier than the first part ever was upon release, even though general consensus appears to be the opposite.

Those annoyances aside, KC:D2 has the same qualities as its predecessor: a living, breathing world with wonderful scenery, plenty of freedom on what to do and how to approach things (at least once sufficiently prepared to do so), and no unnecessary hand-holding. It comes pretty close to the experience I had with Ultima VII back in the day, and that can’t be said for very many games of the last 30 years.

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Is this the kind of game where later someone will be very angry that you stole that?

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I don’t hope so :slight_smile:. From what I’ve seen, if the option says Take instead of Steal, it’s safe to do so. And even stealing should be safe so long as there are no witnesses. I can’t recommend eating from someones pot while that someone is watching, though, or accidentally hitting the guy you try to safe from wolves …

1 Like