Starfish had an amazing moment on the Slime Climb, which you can see in the highlight, above, and there are three longer videos from the livestream that I edited and uploaded recently to my YouTube channel.
My family gave me WOLFENSTEIN II: THE NEW COLOSSUS in 2018 but due to some serious health crises and major life events, I didn’t get a chance to play until 2020. I knew you shot Nazis. That’s all I knew.
I’d played the original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple ][ computer with a green screen monitor way back in the early 1980s, but never played any other Wolfenstein games before.
I finished WOLFENSTEIN II recently and loved the characters, story, music and game mechanics. I had a challenging, emotional but enjoyable experience enhanced by smooth controls and superb design. It’s up there with God of War,Fallout 4, Skyrim, BioShock and Dishonored on my list of favorites.
I like stealth in video games (usually, not always) and the stealth in WOLFENSTEIN II is really good. Sound effects and audio balance are essential for good stealthing, especially since you can’t see through walls (like Dishonored), you can’t use VATS (like Fallout 3 or Fallout 4) and you don’t even get any little red dots on a compass. WOLFENSTEIN II relies entirely upon your powers of listening, observation and timing.
The AI is not perfect but its the best I’ve ever seen in a video game. NPC’s don’t just patrol in a set pattern or stay in one spot, their behavior changes in response to your actions. They WILL see, hear and search for you. It’s not easy to hide.
Levels are intense and stealth won’t work everywhere. I don’t usually play “run and gun” games or shooters like Doom or Call of Duty so I had to git gud to pass a few tough spots (like the courtroom escape).
My favorite weapon in WOLFENSTEIN II was probably the schockhammer, a triple-barreled fully automatic shotgun with real stopping power. But hatchets, grenades, lasers, rifles, pistols, flamethrower and machine guns all had their uses. Choosing and improving the right tools for the job reminded me a bit of the BioShock weapon wheel and upgrade system.
There are stealth, mayhem and tactical perks, earned by completing certain actions in the game. I went heavier on stealth and mayhem, getting a few tactical perks for headshots and setting things on fire.
I am in awe of the level design, because when you’re doing the main story, you go through the levels in one direction. But when you come back for side missions, like killing the ubercommanders, you start at the other end and go backwards. It blows my mind how they set things up to work in both directions, including special features of the environment for stealth, taking cover during combat, or using the Ramshackles, Battle Walker and Constrictor contraptions.
Cutscenes usually annoy me and bog down gameplay. But the cutscenes in WOLFENSTEIN II happened between levels and didn’t interrupt the action. I found myself looking forward to them and getting emotionally invested in William Joseph “B.J.” Blazkowicz and the crew of Eva’s Hammer.
Having recently played The Outer Worlds, I couldn’t help comparing the random encounters on board the Unreliable to those on board Eva’s Hammer. WOLFENSTEIN II did it right. Rather than telling me where to go and what to see every time I entered the ship and repeating the same encounters over and over, I witnessed unique crew interactions and found little side quests while wandering around on my own. It felt much more realistic and natural, and more personal, with much more depth to the writing and performances.
Every word of WOLFENSTEIN II felt real and believable, in spite of the crazy alternate-history science fiction setting and some of zany plot twists, because the writing and performances were so good. This was a case where a voiced protagonist was used to great effect, not just to offer in-game tutorial and bland observations, but to set the emotional tone of a given mission and to help me connect with the protagonist I inhabited. In this, I was reminded of how I felt playing Daud in the Dishonored DLC, Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches.
Perhaps it comes down to the talent of the voice actor, Brian Bloom. But I have to give credit to the other characters I loved, too, including Fergus Reid (Gideon Emery), Grace Walker (Debra Wilson), Horton Boone (Christopher Heyerdahl) and others. Even the smallest parts were delivered with sincerity, while so many other games sound like they grabbed someone off the street to read lines hastily scribbled on a white board.
I connected with WOLFENSTEIN II more than I ever expected I would, from its gameplay elements to its story to its deep emotional beats. It wasn’t just a shooter – though that part was a blast – it was so much more.
~ J.L. Hilton
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I played Glass Masquerade in January 2020, but the sequel and DLC weren’t available for PlayStation 4, at that time. So, I ended up buying the game again for PC, along with all of the add-ons, the free Lunar Year and Christmas Day puzzles, and the sequel GLASS MASQUERADE 2: ILLUSIONS.
I loved the first Glass Masquerade, which had a “world’s fair” theme featuring Art Deco style stained-glass clock puzzles in various shapes, with artwork inspired by several different countries and cultures. The DLC packs, Inceptions and Heritages, expanded on that theme.
GLASS MASQUERADE 2: ILLUSIONS is a kind of nightmare mash-up of H.P. Lovecraft and Lewis Carroll. Which sounds good, but didn’t end up being as charming or engaging as the original.
Some of the puzzles were lovely but most were strange to the point of being confusing, indiscernible, and unrelated to anything I knew about mythology, monsters, folklore or literature. Many didn’t look like stained glass, either, more like watercolors or magic marker.
The text attempted to be mysterious and intriguing, I guess, but either bad translation (developer Onyx Lute is in Russia) or bad writing made it sound like pretentious nonsense. I’d hoped for a story of some kind, explaining how I ended up in the dream world and what was happening in each picture.
You get better explanations with the DLC, particularly the Temptations expansion, which at least names the various characters – harpy, gorgon, succubus, vampiress, etc.
I’ve seen GLASS MASQUERADE 2: ILLUSIONS rated “E” for everyone online, but based on the difficulty, sexual suggestiveness and dark themes of the puzzles in this sequel and its DLC, I would put it at “T” for teens.
In spite of my criticisms, GLASS MASQUERADE 2: ILLUSIONS is still a decent game for the price, if you enjoy jigsaw puzzles. It’s only $4.99 on Steam (last I checked) and the Temptations and Revelations expansion puzzle packs are $1.99 each.
~ J.L. Hilton
aka “Jewelsmith”
Posted inSupernatural, Video games|Comments Off on GLASS MASQUERADE 2 Illusions, Temptations & Revelations
For Halloween, IceStella and I discussed customs in the UK and US, horror movies, books, video games, recipes, Frankenstein, Stephen King, 90s goth, Doctor Who, Gary Oldman, and more. Just a couple of geeky gamer moms hanging out.
Several of my regular YouTube and Twitch viewers seem to enjoy the chatting as much or more than the gaming, so we thought we’d try out this sort of podcast or radio talk show format.
Recorded October 25, 2020, using PlayStation chat while I ran Fallout 4, and my sole survivor Fiona stood staring at a window in Sanctuary Hills (thus the occasional radstorm or strange noises in the background).
I broke the session up into three episodes for YouTube. Here are parts 2 and 3, below.
The bonus puzzles and sequel, Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions, were not available for PlayStation 4, so I bought the game again on PC and played through the beautiful Halloween DLC, with stained glass puzzles for Ireland (Halloween jack-o-lantern pumpkins), Poland (Witch), Romania (Vampire), Japan (Obon) and Mexico (Dia de Muertos).
The entire Halloween expansion is only 99 cents if you own the main game, which is currently $4.99 on Steam.
I made these Halloween-themed printable inserts for my kids’ Guess Who? game back in 2014. They work with the kind of game that has a 4×6 grid of little windows that open and close.
This set features jack-o-lanterns and nothing scary (no witches, vampires, zombies, ghosts, etc).
* * * SPOILER ALERT * * * I mention a few plot points but try to be vague and speak in general terms.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of my favorite games of all time, so THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT is often recommended. I prefer first-person games and creating my own protagonist, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying God of War. And I don’t want to devote hundreds of hours of my life to a game, but ended up doing that with Fallout 4, anyway.
So, after watching The Witcher on Netflix, I bought WITCHER 3 on sale and finally gave it a try, despite the lack of a character creator and an immense amount of content.
The above video is from my first Try-It Tuesday livestream of WITCHER 3 on Twitch. After that, I streamed about half the main game on Twitch and edited some highlight videos for my YouTube channel.
WITCHER 3 is a very rich, impressive game and I can see why people love it. There’s a massive amount of content and exploration. Much of the game is very well-written, with depth, detail and emotion.
I appreciate that the protagonist isn’t a savior. He’s not The One. He’s not the Dragonborn or the Sole Survivor. Geralt is just one of several exterminators who specialize in supernatural pests. Sort of a medieval fantasy Ghostbuster.
But the gameplay loop of fight, loot, repair, repeat, got me thinking I would make a lot more money, with a lot less effort, if Geralt gave up witchering and became a florist or an herbalist. I could gather flowers and herbs, and sell them, without the expense of constantly repairing Geralt’s weapons and armor.
After all, as a witcher, I wasn’t earning goodwill and I wasn’t getting rich. Everyone I tried to help seemed to be doomed, anyway. So what was the point? I didn’t feel very invested in Geralt or what was going on around him.
Skyrim has its dark corners and twisted tales, too, but it also had opportunities to make meaningful choices, have fun, enjoy the scenery and do some good in the world. Try to do the right thing in WITCHER 3, and it’s always fucked up. You are always damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The roads are lined with hanged bodies. Every field contains a fiend.
There were parts of the game I enjoyed, but plague, war, rape, misogyny, suicide, domestic violence, miscarriage, injustice, oppression, kidnapping, slavery, cannibalism and torture aren’t my ideas of fun. The excessive violence against women in WITCHER 3 made me uncomfortable. Women killed by lovers, husbands, angry mobs.
The suicide of a major character was the last straw for me, making it too emotionally overwhelming to enjoy. I’m almost 50 years old, I’ve seen a lot of shit, and I was diagnosed with PTSD in my 30s. I play video games to forget about that bullshit for a little while or to enjoy the fantasy of kicking its ass.
After all the hype I’d heard about WITCHER 3 being “perfect,” I was also surprised to encounter a number of glitches, such as quests that wouldn’t progress or didn’t make sense, confusing dialog, characters sinking into the ground, messed up merchants, and rewards not received.
Many choices seemed to provide only the illusion of choice. For example, I disliked one of the characters in the game and tried to avoid her, but the game seemed designed to make Geralt fall for her charms, regardless.
Clunky controls felt like they were designed for PC and later mapped to a console controller, but not very well. God of War was not an easy game, but I never felt like the game itself got in my way. In WITCHER 3, I fought with the game controls not just the enemies.
Despite these criticisms, however, I would’ve continued playing if it wasn’t such an emotional slog. WITCHER 3 seemed to wallow in misery and I couldn’t take any more. Maybe there will come a day when I’ve had just too many unicorns and rainbows and I need to do something tedious, miserable and depressing, but it’s not this day.
May 10, 2020, was my last livestream of this game, and I won’t be going back. “Tragic End” (above) is the final highlight video from that stream.
THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT is rated “M” for mature audiences, ages 17+, due to blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content and use of alcohol. It’s available for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
~ J.L. Hilton
Connect, support, comment or contact the author here
This week’s Twitch Try-It Tuesday stream will be FALLOUT 3, a game I’ve never been able to play before!
My oldest daughter got it working for me on my new Windows 10 laptop. There may be quirks, crashes and bugs but let’s see how far we get into the Capital Wasteland!
Join me on this new adventure at 3pm EST on Tuesday, September 15, 2020, at Twitch.tv/jewelsmith
~ J.L. Hilton
Connect, support, comment or contact the author here
I made these Halloween-themed printable inserts for my kids’ Guess Who? game back in 2014. They work with the kind of game that has a 4×6 grid of little windows that open and close.
