Cultist Simulator is a game about grinding stories. Literally. It takes about 6 hours in a succesfull playthrough to beat the game and you will spend all of this time grinding tabletop cards to tell you story. It may be a story of a failed romance with your follower, a story about madness overtaking you on the edge of victory, a story of cat-and-mouse game with occult investigators and pesky journalists trying to ruin your life. The short snippets of text generated through card interaction will tell you of fighting depression in shady opium dens, sending expeditions to the furthest edges of Earth and dangerous journeys through lovecraftian dreamlands. There is not a single thing occult or eldritch that cannot happen in this game - all you have to do is devote your time to understand it's underlying mechanics. And grind, grind, grind those cards.
As long as the game remains true to it's historical grounding, it is great. Most of the game mechanics are interesting, varied and well executed (sans dice, they are atrocious and serve nothing). The art style is great and fits the era. The problems appear when the main intrigue develops. It is, by far, one of the stupidest examples of game writing I've seen in my life. It undermines the overall tone of the game, it's absurdly ahistorical and provides you only with a cheap drama straight out of a bad anime, on top of being a filler for nearly non-existent third chapter of the game, clearly made on scraps and steam at the end of development cycle. If you want to get the game for investigation mechanics or general atmosphere - it will entertain for about 8 hours. If you can withstand a plot that just abrubtly devolves into conspiracy garbage and cheapest family drama possible - you will still have fun for most of the playthrough. Just ignore the third act. It's short and devoid of content anyway.
When Grim Fandango went out- it wasn't, by any means, a flawless game, but one can argue that it never was a game in the first place. It's a piece of culture, a mastepriece of beautiful craftsmanship. From the dark bridges and streets of casabalnesque Rubacava, to the undewater coral mines on the edge of the world, the Land of the Dead amuses with its spiritual richness and depth. The journey of Manuel Calavera isn't just a pursuit after Mece- it's a pursuit after long-lost justice, emotions and, ultimately- the sense of life and death itself. With polished textures and improved lighting, acompanied with one of the best orchestral soundtracks in years (masterfully brought back to life for the remastered edition), this gem, while retaining some flaws of the original, just cannot be percieved through them- just as noone is judging Rembrandt's canvases through the quality and age of their material, but for the essence that resonates though them. And the resonation of Grim Fandango was, indeed, never such a strong one.
Republic Commando isn't just a good shooter set in the Star Wars universe. It's a beautiful expansion of otherwise not-so-great Clone Wars fluff, started with the coming of Episode II and ended in "Imperial Commando" novel. The game does great job in not only tying various events from books and movies- it also heavily draws inspiration from mandalorian folklore and, most importantly, finnaly tells the story from a different perspective. We've all been Kyle Katarn, a one-man-army armed with a fistful of weapons, a lightsaber and a save system (:P), but here- here we take on four republic soldiers. Trained like no other, armed like no other, but still- soldiers. Soldiers who die as a part of a larger cause, soldiers who nobody really cares about, and who either live or die as brothers in arms. No SW game ever delivered that kind of expierience and thus it's the one you just have to have on your (virtuall) shelf
