Key-Glyph wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 5:49 pm
Regarding horror games: Whatcha got for me, Ack? I might have to put 20 questions to you about the content in DMs to be sure the game is Key-friendly, but I'm open to suggestions! Also, what's Marathon?
The Wii had a surprising handful of horror games, depending on your tastes. Unfortunately, the big name Fatal Frame titles for the Wii did not get US release (though Fatal Frame IV did eventually get a rereleased version here a decade later). However, you still have some variety, from the low budget jump-scare heavy Ju-On: The Grudge, to the unarmed run simulator that is the reimagined Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, to the more action-focused survival horror Cursed Mountain, to on-rails light gun shooters Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Dead Space: Extraction, or The House of the Dead: Overkill.
As for Marathon, it was the major flagship FPS series for Mac. The PC had Doom, which got ported everywhere. But a little group called Bungie decided that the Mac needed some big FPS firepower of its own. They'd already done some FPS work with Pathways into Darkness, which was itself a sequel to an RPG called Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete. So they put together a trilogy of games that combined interstellar war, freeing enslaved alien races, narcissistic AI, and eventually alternate timelines from an ancient monstrous god stuck in a sun. But they do that in the third game. I'm still in the second, having previously played through the original for a different Summer Games Challenge. Marathon also had a recent revival as an extraction shooter, but I don't know if the plot actually ties back to the original trilogy.
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Speaking of which, I've continued on with
Marathon 2. I'm now on level 13, exploring the extreme underbelly of an ancient citadel for some kind of possible alien weapon that can save me and the crazed AI Durandal from a massive alien fleet. Things are going poorly in the plot. Not so much in the gameplay, which I'm enjoying a lot more than the original Marathon. This is in part because so far levels haven't had forced damage segments, and the nastiest fights at least spawn in some allied fodder or opposing alien forces to take the heat off me. Though it does love to start me in the middle of a fire fight. Levels are also varied, and while I have mental critiques of some level design, there are others I find extremely well designed, or at least segments that I think are brilliant.
I've also played through all the tutorials in
Commandos and started the game proper! And...I suck at it. Hey, it's real time tactics, so if I take too long with one character, another might get killed or screw up a mission. A lot of what I'm doing so far has been trial and error as well as getting the handle of the speed of gameplay. Like, ok, I need to run my Green Beret up to knife a guy, use my Sniper to take out a second, have the Green Beret grab the corpse of the guy he knifed and move it away before a squad of Nazis come around the corner, and...oh, my Frogman had his foot out slightly too far, they've now shot and killed him. Damn, reload my last save.
That said, the game also has multiple means to tackle almost any problem, so sometimes it's just about me rethinking how to handle something. Like, I got a guy on the other side of a river I need to deal with. I can snipe him from afar or send my Frogman over to knife him real quick and sneak back. Both offer upsides and downsides (limited sniper ammo vs the possibility of getting caught). But that's the beauty of it. Here's how things have progressed so far (minus the variety of ways I have screwed this up):
Mission 1: destroy a communications outpost. I use my Frogman to stab three Nazis patrolling around his boat. I use my Green Beret to stab a guy on patrol, then climb a wall and shank a sentry. I then hide his body so two patrolling troops are coming up. While they're coming up his way, my Driver comes up behind them with a stolen MP-40 and mows them down. I use the Frogman to pick up the Green Beret and Driver, then drop them off by the radio near some houses. The Frogman then goes and takes out a couple of sentries nearby who might get in the way. The Frogman then shoots an explosive barrel to kill a patrolling squad, and my Green Beret shanks a machinegunner. He sets down an exploding barrel and blasts the comms to hell.
Mission 2: destroy a fuel depot. I use my Frogman to shank one Nazi on patrol, then hide him behind a fence. When two other Nazis notice, he shoots them in quick order. The Green Beret hides the bodies before a Nazi patrol boat notices. Next, I dive across the river to kill a patrolling Nazi who might see my escape, while my Sniper takes out a guard on the depot's fortified walls. My Frogman gets back and ferries my troops across while avoiding the patrol boat. The Green Beret goes over the wall and lowers a ladder for my other soldiers. My Sniper kills the sentry, while my Green Beret stabs a patrolling soldier and quickly hides the corpses. My Driver grabs a truck and lines it up with the front gate, going ahead and smashing the barrier when no one is looking. Everybody gets into the truck except for my Sapper, who plants timed explosives by the depot. He boards the truck, and I drive out like nothing has happened as suddenly the explosion turns the depot into an inferno, ruining Nazi armor' fuel supplies in the Norwegian theater.
I'm now on mission 3. Good times.
) Longer post on that in the near future.
