#42 - The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

I was almost forced to take a hiatus from posting today!  I was up all night playing this game, when around 5 AM, my PC popped and shut off suddenly.  It felt hot, so I just left it to cool down and went to bed.  This afternoon, it wasn't booting back up, so I opened it up and blew all the dust out of it (it was due for a cleaning anyway).  Nothing looked broken, so I flipped off the power switch and flipped it back on... and it started right up!  Woo!  Adventures in custom-built PCs...

Anywhoo... today's game is The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria.  This game is like a blend between Satisfactory (minus the automation) and Deep Rock Galactic, with a Lord of the Rings theme.  It's a crafting game, but takes place deep in the mines of Moria.  You can play solo, or play online co-op with up to 8 players on PC or 4 players on console.  The mines are procedurally generated, so no single gameplay will play out the same.

You get to custom-build your own dwarf to play as, including their appearance, name, and origins.  Of course, I like to play as women in my games (my mother was a strong, independent type, so I'm drawn to strong women in my life and games), so I made my dwarf a woman.  I named her Nordri.  I seriously debated giving her a beard (that's an option!) but it made her almost indistinguishable from the men... so clean-shaven for now!  You can edit your character any time from the main menu, so you're not stuck with a single look for the entirety of your gameplay.

Gimli declares that it's time to stop waiting for Durin's potential return and that the one true home of the dwarves, Moria, needs to be rebuilt.  He calls on dwarves from all regions of Middle Earth to converge on the Misty Mountains and help excavate it.  But for some reason, they can't get through the Doors of Durin.

While attempting to use explosives to blow their way in, you end up falling through a fissure that opens up and land deep in the mines.  Unable to be heard by anyone, you decide to make your way to the Doors of Durin from the inside.

Along the way, you find Aric, a Raven of Erebor.  He's also trapped in the mine, but some "ill curse" prevents him from leaving.  So he scouts ahead for other routes out of the mine while you forge ahead on your own.

This is where you get your introduction to crafting and building.  Crafting helps you build tools and weapons, while building will create structures that you can use to improve a home, or in this case, climb a wall.

You make your way to the Doors of Durin, only to find them sealed with a shadowy curse from the inside.  No wonder no one could get in!  It looks like you need to venture further into the mine and find a different exit.

If you explore in the halls near the door, you'll find signs of the Fellowship!

Venturing further into the mines, you find that it's orc-infested.  They're pretty cowardly on their own, choosing to run instead of engage you, but be careful of packs of them roaming in the middle of the night.  They can be aggressive when they're prepared and in larger numbers.

You run into Aric again and he suggests you rebuild an old camp nearby, so you have somewhere to shelter and prepare food.  You fix up an old stone hearth, a furnace, and a forge, and you now have the basics for crafting!  You can find mushrooms, berries, and some other plants growing around the ruins, and you can kill roaming rats and wolves for meat.  All these resources respawn pretty regularly, so you're never in short supply.

You need to eat at least 2 meals a day to keep from getting hungry.  If your hunger bar runs out, you'll take the occasional small bit of damage to your health.  You also need to sleep at least once a day to prevent exhaustion.  Your stamina bar will get smaller and smaller the more tired you are, until you can barely trudge from one place to another.  Sleeping will fast-forward the clock 6 hours.

There is a day and night cycle, and the luminescent stone ceiling in the mines will mimic the time of day, so it's extra dark and cold at night and decently bright during the day.  Make sure you keep a torch on you at all times, to keep your courage up in the darkest corners.  There are small buffs you get depending on various situations, and you'll see them in the bottom left corner of your screen.  Also, certain meals will give you an additional buff if you eat them at certain times of the day.

Occasionally, a pack of orcs will attack in the middle of the night, targeting your current camp.  Be prepared to fight them off before they break everything.  I learned the hard way to build a wall to keep out the orcs.  The first time I came under siege in the night, they just walked in and wrecked my stuff.

Fortunately, you can make a hammer that will restore damage to structures; both your own constructions and to the ruins of Moria.  If you spent enough time, you could technically fix up all of the ruins, single-handedly restoring Moria!

If you find damaged statues, be sure to rebuild them.  You'll get recipes from some of them which will expand your crafting capabilities.  I've mostly received improved armor and weapons from them so far.

Of course, what would a game about dwarves in a mine be without some mining?  You need to mine ore in order to smelt various types of metals for armor and weapons, as well as some fancy furniture and structures later on.  While mining, you get the option to sing an inspirational tune, which will give you a buff.  There are various songs that may be sung and your character may comment on the songs too!  They put some serious effort into this detail instead of just designating one mining song that you always sing.

I once found a barrel of ale in the ruins of an old tavern, and it was still good!  I drank and sang merrily for a bit, which gave me a little buff.

There are more than just endless dark ruins in the deep.  You can find other places, such as an Elven Quarter to explore, and the Great Forge of Narvi, which you can repair to gain more forging abilities.

Keep pressing deeper into the mines to find more advanced crafting and building options, and be sure to move your camp forward as you go.  I learned the hard way that sticking with my original camp meant hoofing it a long ways back to drop off supplies or forge new supplies.  Eventually, I learned that I need to make a new hearth and rebuild my camp, then move my supplies forward so I'm not spending 90% of my game time running back and forth.

This would probably be easier with multiple players, as you can move all your resources quickly.  I had built up my original camp so much, I had to make at least 3 trips to collect everything.  I was also stockpiling resources instead of using them, so that made it more difficult to move.

This was a very fun game!  It just released in August, so it's relatively new and still being tweaked by the developers.  I haven't had any issues with it yet, besides my beefy desktop computer overheating for the first time ever.  But that was after 7 hours of continuous gameplay, and I maxed out all graphics settings, so I may have been pushing it a bit on this one.

Otherwise, it was very enjoyable, not only exploring Moria, but getting to fix it up and restore it as I go.  Definitely scratched that itch for a good crafting game that Satisfactory gave me.  And like I said, mining resources, tunneling through caved-in halls, and fighting occasional roaming enemies felt like a medieval fantasy version of Deep Rock Galactic, another game I thoroughly enjoy.  I give The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria top marks!

#41 - Road Redemption

 Road Redemption is a unique game, in that it's a motorcycle racing game, but also a fighting game.

There is some lore, presented with a single screen of text.  According to the Steam store page, this takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, ruled by a brutal dictator.  Biker gangs rule over segments of the country.  You're part of the Jackal gang and basically racing against other biker gangs through their territory, pursuing an assassin for the bounty.

Every once in a while, some other Jackals will show up to help you (see first screenshot with the peace symbol over a Jackal's head), but you're on your own for most of the races.

This is a game of stamina.  There are 17 total races across 3 gangs' territories, and your status carries over to each one.  Any loss of health, nitro, and if you've unlocked it, your jump boost, all carry over to the next race and require you to replenish them during races.

You either pick up resources on the road, or kill other gang members to collect resources.  Or you can also gain a small bit of nitro every time you have a "close call" with an oncoming car.  Just steer so you nearly miss oncoming traffic and you'll be rewarded with some nitro.  Which is needed to catch up to the racers in the lead; you'll never gain on them otherwise.

There are two main types of races: 1.) a straight race to the finish, either finishing in 3rd place or better, or just survive to the finish line by a certain time limit; or 2.) enemy takedown, which requires you to eliminate a certain number of enemies before the finish line.  Sometimes the cops show up alongside the gangs to fight everyone, sometimes the cops are the takedown enemy.

Cars are especially hard to take down.  Explosives are pretty much the only way I've found to stop them.  During takedown races, they'll also plow through oncoming traffic, denying you that needed nitro boost to gain on them.  It can be very difficult if you're stuck behind a car with no nitro left.

The last race in each territory is a takedown enemy race against the gang's leader.  They're pretty tough and you need to kill them before you reach the end of the race.

There is one random event that may take place called "Hallucinogenic Chemical Zone," which will have cars and trucks randomly spawn in the sky and fall onto the track, creating hazards to navigate around.  None of these vehicles have their parking brake on, so if they land on their wheels, they'll slowly roll across the road, making it harder to determine the best path around them.  You never know which direction they'll start rolling until it's almost too late to change direction.

After each race, you spend the money you earned taking out enemies or meeting the objective to upgrade your current stats or replenish health or nitro.

Whether you win or lose each race, you'll automatically continue on to the next race.  But your health bar will shrink if you lose the objective.

The races continue until you die.  Then you get to spend all the XP you've earned on permanent upgrades, which will make it easier the next time you play.  You likely won't beat the game in your first playthrough.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't even beat the first territory until I'd upgraded my permanent stats quite a bit.  I've replayed the campaign race many times over and I've finally made it all the way to the assassin, but I still haven't beat him.  Gotta keep upgrading my character!

Before each game, you get to select your bike and character.  Both come with various stats and weapons, so pick what works best for your play style.  You can unlock more bikes and characters as you accomplish certain criteria throughout the game.

I like to play with Admiral Uganda (a Captain America knockoff) because he has 35% resource gains from regular kills, 140% resource gains from shield kills, and 115% max nitro.  He also doesn't use guns, which is fine with me.  I'm terrible at aiming a gun while also steering my bike, so I mostly fight with close-range weapons that only require a button press to use.

There are other joke characters like Santa Claus, who's a pacifist and can't kill anyone except for bosses; Helloween Rider, a Ghost Rider knockoff; PC Master Racer (see screenshot above); or Theranos, a blonde woman with Thanos' golden gauntlet.  Plus a ton more to unlock.

My personal play style is to just kick other bikes.  It sends them flying off to one side, and if you time it right, you can kick them into obstacles or off bridges and kill them instantly.  Much easier than hacking at them with a sword or beating them with a lead pipe, etc.

Most races are on roads cross-country through mountains, snowy terrain, or post-apocalyptic cities.  But the most interesting races (in my opinion) take place across building rooftops.  You spend the entire race speeding from rooftop to rooftop, and it's easy to knock people off to their doom. Or fall to yours, if you're not careful.  These levels are where the jump boost comes in really handy, keeping you airborne longer if you don't time a jump between buildings well.

Then there's the extra rare rooftop race through a hallucinogenic chemical zone!  Don't get hit by falling cars while soaring across rooftops!

I've mostly described the campaign mode for this game, but there is also a 4-player split-screen mode where you can play together or against each other, or you can play online with other gamers.

There's a DLC you can buy on Steam called "name a character" that lets you put a custom name into the game itself.  You'll notice that every time you take someone out, it shows their name across the bottom of the screen, then scratches it out in red. Supposedly, these are all names added by other players over time.  So the next time you play, keep an eye out for cobysev...

I normally don't like games that force me to replay them over and over, grinding just to level my stats enough to continue the plot (I'm looking at you, Hades).  But the gameplay is so enjoyable in this one, I can't help but play it over and over.  I don't even care if I don't finish; the racing and fighting is so much fun!  Every time I play this game, I end up doing nothing else for the rest of the day.

#40 - The Invincible

October is over, and that means I'm back to playing all variety of games, not just horror or Halloween-themed games.  But I did miss one day in my daily October marathon, and I said I'd try to make up for it.

So... consider this game to be a happy medium.  The Invincible isn't exactly horror - more sci-fi mystery/thriller than anything - but it is kind of a personal fear of mine: being stranded alone on an alien planet with amnesia, limited oxygen, and no certain escape.  I definitely shared in the anxiety and fear that the protagonist suffered at times on her journey.

The Invincible is a blend between a walking simulator and a visual novel.  You spend most of the game walking from one point to the next and performing some basic tasks along the way, while also communicating back and forth with your ship's commander.  It's not a particularly strenuous form of gameplay.

There are dialogue choices, but for the most part, the game plays out the same regardless of your choices.  Although certain choices can open up deeper philosophical discussions into the theme of the plot.  Also, investigating the areas around you might help you learn more about the planet itself, which provides a richer story experience than just trying to get to the end of the game as quick as possible.

Also, as the game progresses, your story path is documented in comic form, which you can pause and read at any time.

This game is actually based on a Polish novel of the same name, published in 1963 by Stanisław Lem.  Although I would recommend not reading the summary of that book, as its main plot gives away most of the mystery in this game's story.

The Invincible opens up with Yasna waking up on a rocky desert planet, with no memory of where she is or how she got there.  Her radio is broken, her locator beacon is missing, and she's all alone.  The only thing going for her is that she seems uninjured, and her space suit and oxygen tank are still intact.

She checks her notes and discovers she's there with her team of researchers.  Using her logs and hand-drawn maps, she triangulates her approximate position, then sets out to find their main camp.

Along the way, bits of her memory start coming back to her.  She remembers her research ship's commander, Novik, who is known for making rash decisions.  Previously, his insistence on making an unscheduled stop for a valuable mineral cost him a broken leg and severe pain.

Now, the team was finally on their way home when Novik awoke them early from cryogenic sleep.  He made the decision to stop at yet another planet, Regis III, because he has intel that it's potentially valuable to the Alliance, and he wants to find out what is so valuable that it would draw them there.

The book followed characters from the Alliance aboard their massive ship, The Invincible.  This game, however, follows a small research team of the Interplanetary Commonwealth, an opposing faction.  So it's important to Novik that they do their research quick, then get off-planet before the Alliance arrives in their deadly ship.

Yasna reaches her team's base camp, only to find one of the members in a stupor, babbling unintelligibly.  His vitals are all normal, but he's unresponsive and helpless.  Yasna takes his radio and is finally able to speak with Novik, who is aboard their spaceship orbiting the planet.

Novik has been unable to reach the team for a while now.  He's grateful to speak with Yasna and instructs her to find the rest of the team.  She catches up on their research notes and sets out to round up the team.

The team was investigating a strange metallic structure sticking out of the ground.  It proved impossible to unearth, and scans with their metal detectors showed it stretching underground like tangled metal roots.  One of the research team, Dr. Gorsky, ventured off in search of the end of this metal root structure, so Yasna pursues his trail.

She bumps into a damaged probe and, with the help of Novik, is able to boot it up.  Using the probe, Novik is able to remotely control it and assist Yasna more directly on the ground.  You get the opportunity to pick its name, if you like.

Pursuing her team, Yasna explores complex metallic structures, finds herself lost in underground caverns, and even has run-ins with the Alliance!

Finding all of her team members and getting off-planet proves to be a challenge, with setback after setback.  It's up to you whether she'll find the courage to proceed, or succumb to hopelessness and depression.

This was a fantastic story that explored deeper philosophical topics on life and biology, evolution and invasion, and of course, the will to survive.  It's an easy-going game, where the most dramatic twists and turns come more from the dialogue than the action.  If you want a simple sci-fi game that lets you ponder life's greater mysteries instead of shooting aliens, this may be for you.

Plus, you get to drive around in a little rover!  How cute is this thing?