Watch Out for Fireballs!

What makes for the perfect final exam level or boss in a game? Is it a grand tour of mechanics and enemies? Is it a boss rush meant to demonstrate how powerful you’ve become? Or is it a test of your understanding of how the game works, with some new intuitive leaps thrown in? Don’t read anything into how that was worded. You need to listen to find out. We also read your responses to October’s games: Cultic, Stone of Madness, and Silent Hill: Townfall.
November’s Games:
Shining Force

The Incident at Galley House

007: First Light (Premium)

December’s Game:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

It might be hard to believe, but we found a Silent Hill game that Gary likes slightly more than Kaye. Townfall is another side game in the Silent Hill international tour, taking place on a Scottish island where something horrible has happened and our protagonist Simon must figure out how he’s involved. It’s first person, it relies on outmoded stealth elements, and has some extremely memorable imagery. And if the series continues in this direction, that would be… fine?

Second verse, nearly the same as the first! Stone of Madness’s second and notionally longer campaign, “The Gate of St. Jerome” starts out with a promise that it will be spookier and more intriguing than the prior chapter. Engravings left by an engineer gone mad talk of horrible thing beneath the abbey, but it turns out you’re doing more of the same things, and learning more of the same things you did last time.
Highlighted Project: Wow Okay Cool and their album “If This is Where it Got Us, What Good Is It?”.

Things are not going well at a secluded monastery in the Pyranees mountains of Spain. The Inquisitor and the Mother Superior treat the mentally ill people in their care like prisoners, and they’re starting to disappear one by one. It’s up to Father Alfredo and a team of misfits to use their complementary skills to investigate what’s happening and bring it to a stop. The result is a board game-like real time stealth and strategy game that runs out of tricks well before either of its campaigns finish.
This episode covers the generalities, Prologue, and the “Corrupt Hand of the Church” campaign.

Cultic is a boomer shooter unlike any that we’ve played, being equal parts Blood and Resident Evil 4. You play as the Detective, who woke up in a cult’s mass grave and must now go on a rampage to stop them. What results is one of the best games we’ve played this year.
Highlight Project: The Woods at Blight’s Hollow