I think I will either love this or get a big sad because my '90s teen years weren’t nearly this cool.
To be fair, no one’s actual teen years were that cool…
I can say that my teenage years were (on average) pretty good… but god damn was i cringe and uncool.
My teenage years were a little too cool.
Dropped out of one school, then almost got kicked out of the school for dropouts and troubled teens, but instead managed to test out and got graduated early due to some legal shenanigans there being investigated, so they were rushing everyone out, then after partying too hard with my roommate at our first apartment, ended up evicted and homeless for a bit.
It was a learning experience for sure. Or as Bruce Springsteen would say, Glory Days.
Which is about all we can talk about when I talk to my friends from back in that time. Like “Yeah, now we have kids and decent jobs. Remember the time _ happened?”
Started up Alan Wake again. My Remedy-verse runthrough might be on track again, we’ll see. Last time I had played Alan Wake was a year and a half ago, so it really did fall by the wayside.
I didn’t restart, just kept from my last save. I hope that wasn’t a mistake.
ETA: No matter what, FBC isn’t getting added to the runthrough. I’m keeping just to the single player stuff.
I’m curious what all this involves. I’ve played Alan Wake and Quantum Break (the latter I didn’t know was by the same people, so imagine my surprise when there was an in-game Alan Wake 2 trailer only a few minutes into the game), and I have but have not yet gotten around to playing Control and Alan Wake 2. I’d never heard of FBC until you mentioned it. Are there others I’ve missed?
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is the other one you’ve missed. I think you’ve hit all the others. I’ve played some of Control and Quantum Break, but didn’t finish either. I’ll be restarting those when I get to them.
I’m planning on original release order Alan Wake → American Nightmare → Quantum Break → Control → Alan Wake 2. I’ve got the AW:Remastered, so the DLC in there, and all the DLC for Control as well. I haven’t purchased AW2 yet, probably won’t bother until I’m done and when a complete edition is on sale.
I actually have played that, just was counting it as DLC rather than a standalone game (even though I suppose that’s not accurate). Anyway, I played Alan Wake Remastered last Halloween season. Still holds up, IMO!
And then there’s this, which I’ve been holding off on until I finish the first game
ETA: Finally watched it (2025-07-25). And it makes absolutely no sense, no spoilers to worry about if you haven’t played the game. Some related characters and this ends about a week before the first game starts.
Also this blog!
Has anyone played Sand Land (or read the manga / watched the anime)? I have a question of something that doesn’t make sense. Blurred for spoilers to act 2 of the game.
How did the aquanium get in the box in Forest Land? The box and the key make sense to me, it’s probably centuries or millennia old dating to whenever the races lived together in the ruins. From all the mentions in the game, it seems that aquanium technology is only 50-100 years old, with the big explosion 30 years ago, and it sounds like the age of the battleships was 50 or so years ago. So how did the aquanium end up in the box?
Zachtronics made a new game (sort of). It’s totally a game, but Zachtronics doesn’t really exist any more, even though they sent me an email to announce it… Anyway, there’s a new game by Coincidence, which is at least some of the people formerly known as Zachtronics:
Somehow I missed the earlier reference by @Nonentity, but now it’s actually out.
I’m glad to see that Last Call BBS wasn’t really the end, and this one looks fun.
Alan Wake Remastered done. Hated the DLC, plus it feels like it didn’t really add much to the story overall.
On to American Nightmare.
I definitely found the DLC underwhelming. It was kind of weird and interesting, but it was all so short and really didn’t do all that much.
It’s been a long time since I played American Nightmare. I don’t remember it being particularly good or important. I’d be interested in your perspective having played everything back to back though.
Not sure how it’ll go. A horror game on PC, which is a double whammy for me drifting away. On the flip side, all the reviews are saying it’s really short. On the gripping hand, very repetitive for its length. So I have no idea when or if I’ll manage to finish it. It took me a couple of years to finally finish AW.
A lot of these things ring true.
https://www.howtogeek.com/games-became-more-enjoyable-when-i-stopped-doing-these-things/
I’m guilty of all of them except the forcing hard mode one. Nope, can’t change. Just straight-up can’t. I don’t know if it’s some undiagnosed neurodivergence issue or what, but I’m absolutely a completionist, I gotta find all the things, I gotta do all the side quests. I wouldn’t say it ruins my enjoyment of a game, either- if I really don’t like a game, I’m still capable of just dropping it, but if I’m having even a little fun I tend to want to exhaust every experience and challenge the game has to offer.
ETA: I should probably add, I almost exclusively play single player games that have a definite ending- no MMOs, no mobile app games specifically designed to be endless, no participation in the multiplayer/ladder/seasons aspects of games like Starcraft, Doom or Diablo.