How lockdown helped clear my backlog – Reader’s Feature

A reader looks at the Brightside of the pandemic and how it’s helped him to discover games like Control and Subnautica.

First, let me thank GC for their hard work over the last few years. It’s maybe not a big deal, but I really look forward every day to reading the Inbox while I eat my breakfast. It’s also my primary source for game reviews. For the games I intend to buy anyway, I will check GC’s review but also scope out other sites. However, GC is the only site that will inspire me to buy a game that I otherwise wouldn’t.

For all the bad stuff that’s gone on recently, my gaming life has certainly improved. In the last 18 months I’ve played loads of games, almost none of which I was particularly excited about but ended up enjoying. Most are relatively old and available cheaply, and I’m just catching up with them now.

Control – thoroughly enjoyed this, based almost exclusively on the combat. The way Jesse levels up to be a psychokinetic badarse is so fun, it really kept me engaged to the extent that I earned the platinum Trophy. I was really excited for the story initially – seemed like my preferred mix of mystery with supernatural undertones – but then it all exploded out a bit too much, with crazy stuff happening all over the place, which diluted the overall experience a bit. 7/10 for the combat alone.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake – was pleasantly surprised by this. I was worried about the way the characters would be updated – I tend to hate the hyperactive, gurning, shape-throwing characters in recent Final Fantasy games – but they were well handled here. Square did a great job of capturing the feel of the original and fleshing out some of the smaller characters. Perhaps a bit too much padding, and I would rather the ending have been subtler, but overall a great update to one of my favourite games. 8/10.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – I managed to complete this when EA ran an offer for on week of EA Play for a trivial amount. I remember GC not being overly keen, I believe criticising the bland characters, but I actually ended up really liking the characters and the world. One of those games that I enjoyed immersing myself in, looking for ways to extend my stay with collectibles, side quests, etc. The lightsaber combat is great and the final boss was utterly thrilling! 8/10.

Subnautica – What a game. I absolutely adored this. It was the first proper survival game I’ve played, and only did so because it’s in the PlayStation Plus collection. But it’s one of the best games I’ve played in years. The initial survival phase, where you’re just trying to feed yourself and build a base, is great fun. From there it almost becomes a different game as you start exploring deeper and deeper underwater and discovering weirder and weirder (and bigger and scarier) enemies.

Stumbling across my first Sea Dragon leviathan in the underwater lava area was truly wondrous, and truly terrifying. The underlying story is really good as well. Another platinum Trophy earned, and I enjoyed every minute. 9/10, easily. Holding off playing Below Zero for a while so I can come to it relatively fresh.

I actually have a few more but I’ll send them in another feature because this is getting a bit long!

By reader deckscrubber02

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.