At last, 343 Industries released Halo 4 in the PC Master Chief Collection. Note that up to this point, Bungie had made all the main entries. By the time they made Reach, they had already bought themselves back from Microsoft. They cited oppressive corporate culture, and went straight into the crushing arms of Activision. (Why oh why did Bungie think Activision would be better?) Microsoft formed 343 Industries to pick up where Bungie left off, and this is the first of the new series.
After doing some spooky games for Halloween, I wondered what games would go well for another part of the year. I realized that the Oregon Trail kinda fits for Thanksgiving, since it's old-timey, and about people moving to a new land. There were several versions, but I had the Oregon Trail Deluxe growing up. Its VGA graphics are more detailed than the original, since it's from about 10 years later. Since the Internet Archive has thousands of DOS-based games, I wondered if they had it. They do!
Halo: Reach is set on a planet named... Reach. Unlike last time around, you resume your role as a cyborg warrior. However, you aren't playing as Master Chief, but as another Spartan, Noble Six. If you paid attention in the other Halo games, you know what Reach is. It was overrun immediately before the first game.
Back when I first wrote about Supreme Commander, I noted that its sequel shares little of what I liked about it. Back in the day, being so pumped about SupCom, I got hyped for SupCom 2 after reading previews in PCGamer. I probably preordered this, too. I was a fool.
Like the Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us is a series based on comic books. (I'm not familiar with either comics.) The setup is simple: all the fairytale characters were forced to leave whatever kingdoms they lived in, and are holed up in New York City scraping by. You play as Sheriff Bigby Wolf. (Bigby Wolf -> Big B. Wolf -> Big Bad Wolf) Because I've portrayed this guy in school plays, I'm immediately on his side.
Hey look, a game for Halloween! (Yes, I planned this one, unlike last time.) I've finished playing through The Walking Dead, the game that Telltale Games got popular on. This is one of those games from the zombie craze that reached its height around 10 years ago. I think this rode the coat tails of a Netflix series based on the same comic series, but the game has different characters and story. It merely takes place in the same world.
If you haven't noticed by now, I'm going through the Halo Collection by order of original release, not by order of story. This installment follows the stories of a team of drop troops during Halo 2 and 3. Halo 3: ODST largely slipped by me unnoticed when it first came out 10 years ago. I don't recall any of my friends getting psyched out by it. The hype machine was more restrained.