I really liked the hacking puzzles in Half-Life Alyx. There was a nice variety to the different type of puzzles that could appear, and the difficulty never felt like it got out of hand.
I’m continuing Daggerfall Unity now that version 1.0 is out. There were only 2 minor issues that I had with it when I previously played, and they both look to be fixed. I’ve joined a knights order, a temple, and the Dark Brotherhood, and got my character up to a high enough level that I would be comfortable with going for the main quest.
I feel like the combat wasn’t necessary since the puzzles and exploration felt like the main focus of the game, but at the same time, I don’t know how they could have made the environment feel dangerous without the threat of death. There was a puzzle later in the game that did require you to injure yourself, but I don’t think that would have worked as a replacement for combat in the rest of the game, and being present throughout the game would lessen the impact of it in the short moment where it is actually necessary. Also, the guns were very neat looking, so that is an additional upside to having combat.
Even though this sounds like a lot of complaining, I don’t think I could come up with any other criticisms, as pretty much everything else about the game felt perfect. I don’t think it is the sort of thing I will play again, but it will be something I will think back on more than most other games.
I’ve been playing the original Doom for the first time over the last few days, and just beat it today. It was really good and I can see why it was such a big deal at the time. It was a significant improvement over Wolfenstein 3D in every way, not just technically, but also in terms of level design and story.
I just finished playing Submachine: Legacy. I was really looking forward to it, and it surpassed my expectations. It is a remaster of the whole Submachine series of flash games, but a lot of stuff has been reworked and improved from the originals. There was actually a fairly significant amount of new content, so even though I was already familiar with the originals, I ended up spending the whole weekend playing it.