Going through and catching up on games I miss is nice since I can typically look at them in a less critical way and can breeze through them at my own pace. The point of Backlog Blues is to give some thoughts on the older titles I’ve gotten around or back to and why they might be worth a shot.
PAC-MAN: Championship Edition DX+
I was never a big PAC-MAN kid growing up. I got the appeal of it but it failed to hold my attention for terribly long since I preferred games that sucked all of the time out of my day so I could get through the boredom of Portlaoise suburbia. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate shorter games that don’t waste my time with a lot of filler and PAC-MAN: Champion Edition DX+ is now one of those games. It’s just PAC-MAN except it’s not in so many ways. Confusing? It is until you play it for yourself. You’re still PAC-MAN running around, eating pellets and running from ghosts but it introduces sleeping ghosts that stalk you once you glide by them, ghosts with power-pellets inside of them, fruit to rebuild one entire side of the screen with a new layout of pellets and a frightening sense of speed that builds to keep your hands fast and your nerves shot. This kind of madness coupled with a pumping EDM soundtrack and visual sensory overload of lights and different styles have forced me to openly admit: I am now a victim of PAC-MAN fever.
Of Orcs and Men
So this is a weird one. The premise of Of Orcs and Men is from the perspective of Orcs being persecuted and harassed by the human empire. As part of the Bloodjaws, a legion of war-hungry Orc soldiers, you’re tasked with infiltrating behind enemy lines to assassinate the emperor himself with the help of your guide, a Goblin named Styx. All in all, it plays like a much clunkier Knights of the Old Republic clone but there are different kinds of systems you have to manage that give it an interesting identity. For example the main character, Arkhail, is an Orc with a horrible violent temper; If hit too many times in fights his anger will get the better of him and he’ll enter a berzerker mode in which you lose control of him and he starts wildly flailing at anyone, including Styx. If you’re not careful in managing his anger and keeping him in control, his rage can end up getting him knocked out of a fight since he’ll do mainly physical attacks that are easy to dodge or parry for human opponents. You can couple moves with Styx to get him to higher ground where archers or other ranged enemies might roam as well as enter a stealth mode that lets you get the drop on unsuspecting foes and instantly execute them without alerting guards. It’s rather linear and the level design isn’t anything out of the ordinary for an RPG with basic dungeons and side quests but I think the perspective it takes is a cool twist on a fantasy story.
Pinball Arcade
Not really a backlog of sorts but I find myself revisiting and trying new tables the developer has released. Pinball Arcade is by Farsight Studios whom painstakingly recreate famous pinball tables in excruciating detail. If you can think of a great licensed pinball table, they may have it added to their seasons. Each table costs about €4.99 and range from the best tables of the past decades such as Black Knight and The Twilight Zone tables. It’s free to download on Steam right now if you’re curious and you’ll get the Tales of Arabian Nights table for free.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
I had picked this up on the Vita/PS4 during a sale so I figured I’d give Hotline Miami 2 another shot. I loved it on PC though it was not without flaw; Hotline Miami 2 trades the tight corridors and compressed encounters with enemies for bigger wider fights in more open environments and I think the drastic change was impossible to get used to the first time. There are still a lot of issues with being shot by someone off-screen, relying on the random elements to stack in your favour and a story that at parts feels snarky and unloving of the fans the original game garnered. Its story does however provide more context for the events of the first Hotline Miami, it’s different character abilities gave the game better depth and forced you to change how you would approach different enemies and use of weapons which I liked quite a bit.
