Video Game

Introduction Some people have recently mentioned to me that almost all my blog about “artistic objects” have been mostly negative. I have decided for the end of this year, to do a blog post where I recommend stuff I loved this year! For reference, this idea started because someone asked me for movies I actually like (after my last blog post), and when I sent a list and they commented it, I ended up asking “Do you think the only thing I watch is the (mostly slop) I blog about?” ...

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/ PCGamingWiki: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Oxygen_Not_Included Broad but shallow This game feels like a weird modded RimWorld: take RimWorld, move the view to the side, remove the enemies and add Oxygen (and gas) management. The problem? Unlike RimWorld it’s far broader but far shallower. A quick way to explain it, is that there’s literally dozens of crafting stations in ONI… except all of them have like 5 recipes (while in RimWorld a crafting station does a lot of stuff). ...

Sid Meier’s Civilization 5 (2010): Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_V/ PCGamingWiki: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Civilization_V Sid Meier’s Civilization 4 (2005): Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3900/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_IV/ GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/sid_meiers_civilization_iv_the_complete_edition PCGamingWiki: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Civilization_IV A more enjoyable, worse game I haven’t played Civilization 5 until this May 2025 because when it originally released (15 years ago… time flies…) I kept hearing that it was a FAR worse game compared to Civilization 4. Years passed and following the DLCs release I started to hear that it might have become finally good, and might even surpass Civilization 4. ...

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/ PCGamingWiki: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Crusader_Kings_III Crusader Kings 2 but better Crusader Kings 3 is basically a “clone” of Crusader Kings 2 but more polished in every way, it looks better, plays better, feels better and as one of the most important things for new/beginner players: you can actually learn it by playing, unlike CK2. It has some bugs (especially when a new DLC is released), but this is expected, with so many moving parts, it will have bugs. The multiplayer is sometimes fiddly and sometimes has de-syncs bugs after hours of play time requiring you to “reload” your save to continue. ...

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/846770/DYSMANTLE/ GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/dysmantle PCGamingWiki: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dysmantle A mess that doesn’t know what it wants to be This game’s premise is great: an island “survival” game where you destroy stuff to get better tools, to destroy more stuff, with your final objective to escape the island. Simple, but efficient. It could have been great. The problem is that the developers didn’t believe this would be good enough, so they decided to make it more interesting (read: deeper)… except they REALLY didn’t know how to make interesting stuff… so they added a LOT of pointless (AND SHALLOW!) mechanics: ...