What we played – dark crime scenes, clouds over fields and scary cities

October 26

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about some of the games we’ve been playing over the past few days. This week, we wonder if being a detective would have been a reasonable career choice, embrace the new technologies to drive a car in space, and enjoy seeing fresh eyes play a horror masterpiece for the first time.

what did you play

Catch up on older editions of this column on our page What we played our archive.

Nobody wants to die, Xbox Series X

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I went to Lidl earlier this week and was amazed to see whipped yogurts. 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 has, so it’s not a great story, sorry, but this curiosity made me think outside the box. Just as the yogurt people had tried something new, I would venture out and try a game I didn’t really feel like playing.

Step forward, nobody wants to die. Eurogamer (that’s the website if you’re still thinking about whipped yogurt) called it “a cyberpunk noir story,” and that’s about right. The problem is, that’s not the kind of game I’m usually into. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bladerunner as much as every wannabe film critic on Twitter, but Nobody Wants to Die is a slow, dialogue-heavy, heavy story that I just can’t get lost in.

I like a lot of what’s on offer. I’ve just finished watching the BBC show Smartarse, Ludwig, so now I obviously think I’m a bit of a detective, and Nobody Wants to Die delivers on that. There’s a lot of piecing things together and searching for evidence, plus some far-off future technology, but I found myself drifting a bit while looking over crime scenes, wondering what those whipped yogurts are like.

– Tom O

Starfield, a beautiful and comfortable bed

You may have noticed a lack of Yours Truly over on Eurogamer’s YouTube channel lately, because I’ve been bedridden with an absolutely rotten reaction to this year’s seasonal hits (at least I know it works, though: those doses when are offered, folks!)

Fortunately, we live in an age where staying in bed for a few days is a situation well covered with endless entertainment options such as browsing Ebay (Netflix for bargain hunters), Kindle Unlimited (Netflix for book lovers), and Netflix (Netflix for people who like their shows canceled after a season). And Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is Netflix for people who aren’t currently where their Xbox is. A recent 1GB internet upgrade and a theft of my wife’s Steam Deck on the grounds that I’m unwell set the stage for some serious testing. about what cloud gaming is actually like now: a controversial idea I’ve been fighting since the legendary Eurogamer Expo where OnLive gave anyone with a blog one of their fancy micro consoles and a press account. At the time, I was able to finish the first Space Marine on a 6MB ADSL line, playing in block-o-vision with a full second of controller lag. 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 OK now. Xbox Cloud Gaming, still in what seems like an endless public beta phase, is very good. Your stuff is all synced across the other xbox platforms: now I’ve been playing smoothly as well Starfield character on PC, console and Steam Deck, running semi-officially on the device’s built-in web browser. It takes some jiggery-pokery to make it work, but Microsoft themselves have developed their own guide to doing this.

Over my beautiful Virgin fiber connection and the new Hub 5 with its speedy WiFi 6 protocol, there is only the faintest, barely perceptible whiff of input lag. Crowded visuals can get a little muddy, with a lot of the fine details of the Starfield environment being smeared in the real-time encoding, but on a screen as small as the Deck it doesn’t matter much. What it is is a perfectly playable, perfectly good representation of a great home console game running through the technological equivalent of two tin cans and a bit of string, on a device that shouldn’t carry it. I’m impressed, honestly. Cloud gaming has truly arrived, albeit as an add-on service.

What else? Oh, uh, Starfield? Yes, that’s good. I’m a huge Bethesda simplist, but Starfield really tested my resolve at launch. After tons of updates and additions, though, I can confidently say it’s one of my favorite space games ever. Adding a rover, for example, didn’t turn a 7/10 into a 10, but it did solve my main problem with it, as it was a game about exploration where exploration was boring. At least now you can skid with a small motor and clear the long distances between those points of interest in a fraction of the time.

Starfield was lousy as a walking game, but as it turns out, it’s a hell of a lot less of a driving game: it serves as yet another example of human civilization vastly improved by the humble automobile.

-Jim

Silent Hill 2 Remake, Twitch

Well, me word I played Silent Hill 2 this week. what i have actually I’ve been playing – ever since I finished Bloober’s remake myself last weekend – it’s my new favorite slightly obsessive “watch streamers who have never played Silent Hill 2 before running the emotional gauntlet of the last hour and disintegrating completely a battered mess. credits roll’.

Silent Hill 2 has been one of my favorite things since I first played it almost a quarter of a century ago, when it confidently stepped onto the stage to announce to the world that, in fact, yes, video games maybe treat your 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 Laura’s Theme – the perfect encapsulation of Silent Hill 2’s disgusting rawness – still gives me chills, it’s a testament to the phenomenal work of Team Silent.

And Bloober’s remake is just as phenomenal in its own distinct way, a brilliant reimagining of a truly ground-breaking classic that evolves, expands and improves on the original in mostly all the right ways. It remains as scary, creepy and emotionally devastating as ever; probably more, given the great work of its stellar new cast and some clever upgrades to familiar moments, including that amazing new fight with Abstract Daddy and an ingeniously choreographed prison sequence that’s easily one of the most suffocating and horrible pieces of horror in me. i played

It was a rare treat to be able to re-experience one of my all-time favorites with fresh eyes and in such a beautifully considered new release. But it also provided the perfect opportunity to watch a whole new generation (distilled into a cross-section of slimming streamers, of course) discover its secrets for the first time, and to see that nearly a quarter of a century later, Silent Hill 2 has lost none of its incredible power.

-Mt