the Andrew Bailey

No, it's not different this time!

Screenshot of Batman punching a bunch of goons in Arkham Asylum.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Like Psychonauts (and Aquaria), I've had Arkham Asylum in my playing list for a long time. When doing research for examples of games the you shouldn't have preordered, I noticed that I somehow had Arkham Knight. That was news to me! Turns out that it slipped into a recent Humble Bundle, a long time after another Humble Bundle gave me some other Arkham games. I've heard some good things about the Arkham series for years, namely, they are some of the best superhero games ever made. I resolved to continue to complete games on my list.

Screenshot of StarCraft Insurrection, showing a massive Zerg attack on a Zerg base.

StarCraft: Insurrection and Retribution

Recently, GOG started selling Diablo. Soon after, it added Hellfire to the deal. I was aware that Diablo had that expansion, but it wasn't great, and was largely forgotten. I'm not sure why GOG has bundled it, but I'm cool with it being there, because I respect complete collections. Although I've played Diablo, I don't have nor plan on playing Diablo Hellfire.

Screenshot of Psychonauts, from the Milkman Conspiracy

Psychonauts

This one has been a long time coming. Remember way back when I played Broken Age? Since that would be the first Tim Schafer game I've played, I wanted to do some research on how this guy does games. I started to play Psychonauts before the first part of Broken Age came out. The first time, I got a little ways into it. I restarted a few years later only to get distracted again, maybe because of some RPG or another. Two months ago, I started making a concerted effort to finish Psychonauts, so I restarted yet again. This time, I made it!

Screenshot of Spec Ops: The Line

Spec Ops: The Line

Although the setup sounds like it, Spec Ops: The Line is not your ordinary modern military shooter. The single player campaign is pretty short. It comes to tell a story, makes its point, and finishes, without any obviously unneeded parts or sidetracks. So this post will be likewise.

Screenshot of Sam and the Narrator.

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse

The game opens and closes every episode with a narrator. He doesn't do much, and only explains obvious things that I could figure out myself. He has a slight British accent, but he isn't Stanley's. The office that Sam and Max uses is unavailable for the entire game. They were kicked out between the last season and the first episode of this one. The C.O.P.S. have moved into the Desoto, and Sam uses it as a mobile office.

Screenshot from Dear Esther, showing a hillside covered with knee high stone walls.

Dear Esther

This is a confusing game, for some definition of game. Do you remember the saying, "Show. Don't tell"? Dear Esther is a game that's all tell, but no show. It's a pure walking simulator with a narrator. Despite this, it's nowhere near as interesting as The Stanley Parable. There's no interactivity at all in this game, and there are no impactful choices to make. Walk around, and a voice says something.

Screenshot of a messed up character model in Assassin's Creed Unity.

Don't Preorder Games

Hi! You probably just read a message telling you to not preorder games. The following is an incomplete list of games that were terrible on release, and many who preordered them regretted it. You might have been one of them. Thanks to patch culture, some of these might be OK now, but you should not count on that for future releases. You already gave The Man your money, so why should he care? To him, you're just another sale in the quarter. So in the interest of learning from the past, let me remind you in chronological order: