What we played: noiry crime scenes, clouds over the fields and scary cities

October 26

Hello! Welcome back to our regular article where we write about some of the games we’ve played over the last few days. This week we wonder if being a detective would have been a reasonable career choice, we embrace new technology to drive a car in space, and we enjoy watching a horror masterpiece play out for the first time with fresh eyes.

What have you played?

View older editions of this column in our What we played archive.

Nobody wants to die, Xbox Series

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I was in Lidl earlier this week and was surprised to see whipped yoghurts. I was so shocked by this sight that I took to the EG Slack to ask if anyone had actually tried these possible wonders. No one had, so that’s not a great story, sorry, but this curiosity made me think outside the box. Just like the yogurt people had tried something new, I took a chance and tried a game I wasn’t really into.

Step forward, no one wants to die. Eurogamer (that’s this website if you’re still thinking about the whipped yogurt) called it “a noiry cyberpunk story,” and that’s true. The problem is that this isn’t the kind of game I normally enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Bladerunner as much as any wannabe film critics on Twitter, but Nobody Wants to Die is a slow, dialogue-heavy, and clunky piece of storytelling that I can’t quite lose myself in.

I like a lot of what’s on offer. I’ve just watched the BBC smartarse show Ludwig, so I clearly see myself as a detective now, and Nobody Wants to Die delivers on that front. There’s a lot of piecing together and looking at evidence, plus some far-future technology, but I found myself wandering a bit as I looked at the crime scene and wondered what that whipped yogurt looks like.

-Tom O

Starfield, a nice comfortable bed

You may have noticed a lack of Yours Truly on the Eurogamer YouTube channel lately, as I’ve been cooped up in bed after an absolutely rotten reaction to this year’s seasonal jabs (at least I know they work: get those doses when offered , people!)

Fortunately, we live in an age where having to stay in bed for a few days is a situation that is well met with endless entertainment options like surfing eBay (Netflix for bargain hunters), Kindle Unlimited (Netflix for book lovers) and Netflix (Netflix for people who like their shows canceled after one season). And Xbox Cloud Gaming, Netflix for people who aren’t currently where their Xbox is. A recent upgrade to 1GB of internet and stealing my wife’s Steam Deck because I wasn’t feeling well set the stage for some serious testing of what cloud gaming is actually like: a controversial idea I’m working on ever since that legendary Eurogamer Expo where OnLive gave anyone with a blog one of their sleek micro-consoles and a press account. At the time, I managed to finish the first Space Marine over a 6MB ADSL line, playing in block-o-vision with a full second of controller delay. But it was the future and it was cool. And just a few lifetimes later, I’m happy to report that cloud gaming is… mostly okay now. Xbox Cloud Gaming, still in what seems like an endless public beta phase, is very good. Your stuff all syncs to your other Xbox platforms: I’ve now played the same seamlessly Starfield character on PC, console and Steam Deck, which semi-officially runs in the device’s built-in web browser. It takes some jiggery-pokery to get it working, but Microsoft itself has put together its own guide to doing this.

Over my lovely Virgin fiber optic connection and brand new Hub 5 with its snappy WiFi 6 protocol there is just the slightest hint of input lag, barely noticeable. Busy visuals can get a little muddy, with many of Starfield’s fine environmental details getting washed out in the real-time encoding, but on a screen as small as the Deck’s it doesn’t really matter that much. What it is is a perfectly playable, perfectly good representation of a big home console game that runs via the technological equivalent of two cans and a piece of string, on a device that shouldn’t actually carry it. I’m impressed, honestly. Cloud gaming has truly arrived, albeit as an additional service.

What else? Oh, uh, Starfield? Yes, it’s fine. I’m a big Bethesda sim, but Starfield really tested my resolve at launch. But after many updates and additions, I can confidently say that this is one of my favorite space games ever. For example, the addition of a rover didn’t turn a 7/10 into a 10, but it did solve my biggest problem with it being a game about discovery where exploration was bloody tedious. At least now you can zip around in a small motorcycle and cover the vast distances between those points of interest in a fraction of the time.

Starfield was bad as a walking game, but it turns out to be a lot less so as a racing game: it is yet another example of human civilization being vastly improved by the humble car.

-Jim

Silent Hill 2 remake, Twitch

Well, me participation I played Silent Hill 2 this week. What I have Actually that I’ve been playing – since finishing the Bloober remake myself last weekend – is my new favorite, slightly obsessive game where streamers who’ve never played Silent Hill 2 before run the emotional gauntlet of the final hour and then completely fall apart by then the credits roll in a blubbering mess’.

Silent Hill 2 has been one of my absolute favorite things since I first played it nearly a quarter of a century ago, when it confidently burst onto the scene and announced to the world that, actually, yes, video games can treat their audience like adults. The fact that 25 years later I am still thinking about what it all means and waking up at 2am with new theories, that Theme of Laura – the perfect encapsulation of Silent Hill 2’s desolate rawness – still gives me chills is a testament to the phenomenal work of Team Silent.

And the Bloober remake is equally phenomenal in its own way, a brilliant reinterpretation of a truly groundbreaking classic that evolves, expands and improves on the original in, mostly, all the right ways. It remains as chilling, gruesome and emotionally devastating as ever; perhaps even more so, given the excellent work of the stellar new cast and some clever upgrades to well-known moments, including that amazing new Abstract Daddy fight, and an ingeniously choreographed prison sequence that is easily one of the most relentlessly suffocating, gripping pieces of horror ever I’ve ever seen. have played.

It was a rare treat to be able to experience one of my all-time favorites again with fresh eyes and in such a beautifully thought out new release. But it also provides the perfect opportunity to watch a whole new generation (admittedly in a cross-section of blubbering streamers) discover its secrets for the very first time, and to see that almost a quarter of a century later, Silent Hill 2 has none of its incredible strength lost.

-Mat