Steam Backlog: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Dark... Black

 Batman: Arkham Asylum, of which I played 9 hours, was fun.  It landed at a point in my life where I had just become a new father and I started spending more time in singleplayer offline games than I did in online multiplayer games.  I never beat the game, but do have fond memories of it.

 Like other games I did not choose to revisit Arkham so just going to share some thoughts (see past posts tagged Batman:AA).

 The first memory that jumps back to me is "dark... black".  The game hit the mark for the cliche Batman "black".  Everything is dark and brooding.  I don't think "daylight" or "bright light" exist in the Asylum.

 I also remember the combat and it was fun; albeit I do remember it being a little harder to master on keyboard/mouse than I expected.  That did push me away from finishing the game (as well as having a young kiddo taking up my free time).  With more time this is one I'd probably revisit to finish at some point.

This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).

Steam Backlog: Bastion

Narrator Narrates

 I played Bastion for six hours when it came out and I loved every minute of it.  It is not a game I chose to revisit and play as part of my Steam backlog journey but it brought back lots of fond memories (see all posts tagged Bastion).

 The most memorable aspect of Bastion was the narrator.  It narrates every action the player takes and makes it feel like it was designed commentary when it is actually dynamic; ever-changing based on what the player is doing.

 "The boy moves forward to smash the thing."

 "The boy smashes the thing."

 I didn't have to smash it.  Did it know I was going to smash it?  Was it leading me along?  The narration is phenomenal in that regard and I can still hear the voice in my head.  The game world, story, and combat itself was a ton of fun, but the narrator put it over the top.

 At one point the game had me thinking hard about MMOs as well.  Narration was a big idea; Bastion showed me that dynamic narration can work and that is exactly the type of narration an MMO would need.  Then more aspects of the game spilled out of my brain into that blog post and if you told me tomorrow that a Bastion MMORPG was being developed I would be the first person in line.  So much of Bastion make sense for an MMORPG.

 Now that I've written this post I think I may have to revisit this gem!

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).

Steam Backlog: Among Us

Sus

 I will admit that I joined the bandwagon when Among Us swung back around in popularity well after it's original launch.  I think it was AOC streaming it during the 2020 presidential run that really hooked me.  We play a lot of hidden role board and card games in our house and I played a bunch of Town of Salem so I felt right at home in Among Us.

 The initial run was great, but I never got anything going with any gamer groups which I think is why I didn't spend more than a couple hours stabbing/getting stabbed by random internet strangers.  Eventually I found it more entertaining to watch groups play than to play myself.

 Among Us.  Fun for a few, but otherwise a flash in my Steam backlog.

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).

Diablo 4 sounding good

On vacation but reading blurbs on Diablo 4 and seems the vibes are positive.  May check it out.

Diablo 4?

Should I Play Diablo 4?

 So Diablo 4 is coming out soon.  Should I play?  I honestly don't know much about the game.  If you have a thought leave a comment.