SteamWorld Quest - Hand of Gilgamech

Writing this post my first thought was to start out with something along the lines of "this game might not blow your mind but...".

But... I don't actually want to say that, because I don't actually think it's a fair way to start a text on my feelings on SteamWorld Quest.

So let's begin somewhere else. The SteamWorld games seem to be a franchise in which the core idea, i.e steampunk style robots in a cartoony aesthetic, has been crammed into a variety of game genres. It started out with SteamWorld Tower Defense, which I had never heard of before researching for this post. I, however, started out with SteamWorld Dig, which I loved, and that brought me to check out more games in the series. SteamWorld Quest looked like my cup of tea and suffice to say, it definitely turned out to be.

SteamWorld Quest may disguise itself as a role-playing game, but don't be fooled. This is 95% a deck building game. You move your characters around and you find treasure (almost exclusively more cards) and can buy things (more cards). You can equip yourself with some gear, but other than that the game revolves pretty much entirely around cards. I didn't know this going in, but fortunately I am a closet super-fan of deck builder games. I have tried a fair few, from the regulars like Magic the Gathering (2013 is the best edition) and Hearthstone, to more obscure ones like Card City Nights and Runespell: Overture.

Making a good card game is not easy, but few things can hypnotize me like a well-designed one. Maybe it's the board game nerd in me. SteamWorld Quest dresses all the card playing up in a story that starts out with friends Copernica and Armilly out doing nothing particularly important. They quickly get involved in a much bigger story and joined by a few more heroes as you move along. The story is simple and a reason for all the card battling you're going to do. I am actually happy they put the money, time and effort on the gameplay here because I would've accepted any excuse to get on with my cards.

And the way the card playing is designed is just pure fun - SteamWorld Quest manages to get gameplay that feels both snack-sized and more-ish, it's easy to jump in and difficult to put down. It has no ramp-up time to get into, and the rules are simple to learn yet so much fun to proper dig into.

Combining cards certain ways unleashes combos and each turn is a joy to figure out which cards to play. You can combine cards between characters or try to build chains, it all comes down to what you want to achieve a certain turn. There are buffs, debuffs, weaknesses and resistances to take into account. Between fights it's fun to tinker with your decks and try to optimize combinations, there are many fun and interesting cards to play around with.

Though I rarely got game over in my playthrough on normal difficulty, I rarely felt completely safe either. There isn't a sure-fire setup, but I do recommend that as soon as you find a combination of cards that feels good, you try to keep things fresh by swapping in one of the other characters. The balance of the difficulty is pretty spot on, some times I even wondered if enemies leveled along with me, though I never grinded for levels. You can return to already completed segments of the map, but that also meant re-watching any and all cutscenes so I quickly decided against that and just played onwards.

For better or worse it is difficult to prepare for a match before-hand. Theoretically you could, since you can see your opponents on the screen before you engage with them. This means you could go into your decks and tweak the setup before starting the fight, to avoid fighting fire with fire, literally. Practically this isn't something you're going to do though. There are some foes that have really annoying skills, like despair which prevents healing or bleed which makes you take damage for every action. You might want to equip something to counteract that, and the game throws gear at you that offers protection against or boosting of a lot of different stats.

The game doesn't really provide you with much information around debuffs and what they do, mostly this is not an issue since you can deduce them fairly quickly. I would've loved more information about what the different masks of Orik do however. There are some that I am still not sure of.

None of that takes away from the fun of setting up combos and trying new cards though and it's so easy to slip into the "just one more"-mindset. I pretty much "just-one-more"-myself through this game, and it was a long time since I played a game so hard as I did this. It really speaks to the fun gameplay that it feels fresh and engaging all the way to the end, which I reached in just under 20 hours. I accidentally engaged the final boss without a solid healer and only managed by the skin of my teeth. But that only shows to the strength of the decks that no one character or type of cards is absolutely necessary, but it all comes down to the abovementioned combination and chain building.

The music is another good thing about the game, and the battle themes are even quite banging. Which is good, since you will be hearing them a lot. Apparently the composers (Erik Gudmundson, Pelle Cahndlerby, and Oscar Rydelius) are all from Sweden, which is a bit extra fun for me.

I briefly mentioned the main characters Armilly and Copernica - as mentioned they will be joined by a handful of other heroes before long and each new hero comes with a new deck of cards. They've done an excellent job of keeping each deck distinct from each other, and while I had my favorites I felt they were all useful and fun to play, if you make sure to make them work towards each others strengths and weaknesses. The characters are trope, but lovingly so. Their personalities also fit their decks and I not only enjoyed playing with all of them, I wished for more. It's almost crazy to say, but even after 20 hours I almost felt like the game was too short.

It is fortunate then that the game comes with a generous New Game +, in which you can try the hardest difficulty which not only makes enemies stronger, but also gives them new skills. I tried this for a bit and yeah... I was steamrolled immediately.

If you got this far and only end up remembering this final conclusion I am going to leave you with this: SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech is a solid Deck Builder game that makes time fly. It does one thing and it does it excellently. Play it.

Top 5 Eurovision Songs 2025

I haven't done a top 5 list in a while and what better way to get back to it than to celebrate the craziness that is Eurovision. If you're born somewhere in or near Europe, you've probably not been able to miss Eurovision but for everyone else out there here is a short explanation: Every year most European, and some that usually don't count as European, countries compete and celebrate in a singing contest. This has been going on since the 50's and started careers, like ABBA's. The quality of the songs is generally quite low, honestly, when compared to mainstream music. But it often has charm. And some je ne sais quoi.

I think the European countries care about the competition to varying degrees. Some take it very seriously. Sweden is one of those countries (where I am from). The UK is usually considered not very bothered, and for some reason their entry almost always ends up in the bottom ten. Some countries come and go, depending on politics (though the competition is trying very hard to be non-political) and funding.

As someone who grew up in Sweden it has been very hard to avoid Eurovision, and though I have always loved the concept I have honestly not given it much attention most of my life. I never follow the national competition to pick an entry, and only glimpse at the end result to see if there is a song or two worth listening to. Out of 35-40 entries, there are usually only a handful that are any good. But for some reason it has grown on me. The idea that different areas compete in something as joyful and completely subjective as music, I think it is great.

Sweden is sending KAJ with Bara Bada Bastu (Just Doing Sauna) this year. I don't personally think it's very good, but it's caused a bit of an upset for being out of Sweden's comfort-zone. Sweden usually sends pretty predictable entries, and Bara Bada Bastu is at least not that. For one it's a humorous song and it's sung in Swedish which isn't something that has happened in over 20 years I think. I respect the song for that at least.

I usually joke that Eurovision songs all fit in one of three categories;

1. Ballads

2. 90's eurodisco

3. Generic pop (this is where Sweden often falls).

But let's get on with the list. If you want a medley of all the entries this year to make your own mind, Youtube will provide. Obviously this is completely subjective, and my tastes are rhythm-heavy and high energy which is probably going to be reflected on the songs I have chosen.

I've got to start with some honorable mentions though:

Azerbaijan - Mamagama - Run With You: There isn't really much wrong with this song. It's slick and makes me bop my head, this could've been made by someone close to Pharrell Williams. It gets minus for not singing in their own language.

Croatia - Marko Bosnjak - Poison Cake: The song changes up things throughout, rhythms and style and keeps itself interesting and fresh. Minus again for not singing in their native language.

Spain - Melody - ESA DIVA: It was a close call between this one and my number 5 entry. This song starts off a bit slow but has as cool breakdown towards the end and it has been growing on me.

5. POLAND - Justyna Steczkowska - GAJA

Did I mention I like rhythm-heavy and high energy? Well, this is kind of exactly what I mean by that. This sounds a bit like the UK band Juno Reactor that I quite like. And you've got to respect anyone who can sing and dance with that energy (Justyna is over 50).

4. UKRAINE - Ziferblat - Bird of Pray

Ukraine have had a few good songs the last couple of Eurovisions. And Ruslana's "Wild Dances" from 2004 is considered a Eurovision classic. Bird of Pray tells a story and I love the way it meanders back and forth between more forceful and more gentle. It also feels very sincere and from the heart. 

3. ALBANIA - Shkodra Elektronike - Zjerm

Great beat on this one. Songs that give me a glimpse of where they come from, structurally and instrumentally, often fall high on my lists. I find one of the great strengths of Eurovision (and Europe) are all the different cultures that have different ways of seeing and doing things. Albania gives me some of that feeling with this song.

2. GERMANY - Abor & Tynna - Baller

Full disclosure, I am part German. That has never made me like any song from Germany however. No, not even the Satellite one. But finally Germany sends an entry in German! Melodic and rhythmic, it fits the language great. And she has a voice you want to hear more of.

1. AUSTRALIA - Go-Jo - Milkshake Man

Ok so my number one pick is Australia this year. The fact that Australia is even competing in a competition literally called EUROvision is worthy of an explanation. But long story short, Australia have been huge fans of the show for decades, probably more than most European countries. Apparently they get up in the middle of the night over there to watch it. For the anniversary in 2016 they invited Australia to take part and it was such a success they have been invited ever since. They always have good entries, but none that have been my favorites. But this year they have it, the one I think should win Eurovision 2025. It's fun, has a good beat and I could listen to it all the way to Eurovision. 

It'll be interesting to see if any of my favorites make it high on the lists this year, they usually don't. Käärijää with Cha Cha Cha was an exception, and that song definitely should've won over Tattoo.

Saint's Row IV: Re-Elected (2013/2022) - Review

 If you're not around to play a game series from the beginning for whatever reason, after a few years you'll be stuck with the first world problem of trying to figure out where to begin. The internet is shock-full of lists asking "which Castlevania is the best?" and "Which Super Mario game should I start with?". There are a lot of thing to factor in here - the series might have crossed over platforms you don't even have access to anymore. It might have evolved through different genres, meaning you have to figure out which ones suit your tastes. It might be unclear how much the games reference each other, meaning you have to start from the beginning to enjoy later parts more.

I've managed to end up having to make this choice recently with not just one but two games I am currently playing. Taking on the Assassin's Creed series I had over two handful of games to choose from (you can click the link to see how that went). Looking at the Saint's Row series I fortunately had less than half of that to choose from, but for some reason I went with the latest one (not counting the reboot).

What was my reasoning? Maybe it wasn't deeper than simply being the game that was on discount when I was looking to try it out. When investigating the older games (1 and 2) they also looked a little more serious and a lot more ugly than what I was after. So the choice for me was really between 3 and 4 in the end. 4 won out for unclear reasons and here I am, wondering whether I made the right choice. Can I ever really undo it by playing the third instalment afterwards?

Either way, the fourth game (this being the Re-Elected version, which includes all the DLC) has not been a bad experience. And maybe it could be interesting to read what the game is like for someone who has no previous knowledge of the series and judges it on its own merits alone. If you think so, read on.

Trying to explain the story of SRIV is not easy. Right off the bat it was pretty clear that things had been going on in the earlier games and this was a continuation on that, or at least so I think. There is going to be a lot of assumptions from my side moving forward here, assumptions and straight out guesses. But here we go; You play as a character who is the president of the world. But pretty quickly you learn that there isn't much world to preside over. Alien forces have destroyed it and caught you and your posse, the eponymous "Saints", in their mind game of a simulated world. It's unclear who they are, where they come from or what their motivations are, but these things honestly don't matter so much. In all the confusion one thing stands out clear as day - everything is just an excuse to allow you to try out crazy gameplay.

It's a very dark game, with the occasional neon.

And in this regard SRIV delivers. I am not generally a fan of games that make it their main goal to be weird, games like Goat Simulator for instance, which seem to be designed mainly for those special Youtubers who get their money from screaming a lot on screen.

But I do enjoy a game that takes an odd premise and still manages to build a somewhat interesting story around it, a game like Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a good example of this. While SRIV might lack a bit in the story department, in the sense that you get the feeling that everything is just a "free-for-all"-excuse for more mayhem, it does deliver on heart and character. SRIV has a lot of both.

The character controls well, and I would even dare say excellent when comparing it back-to-back to Assassin's Creed: Unity, which I as mentioned played simultaneously. You get super powers that allow you to jump very high, run very fast, throw huge objects in people's faces and run up the side of buildings. And that is just mentioning a tiny fraction of all the skills you can play around with after a handful of hours into the game. The skills you get can be unlocked with currency, you can unlock other attributes with other currency. Some are found on the stages, some are got by completing quests. There is a lot to keep track off, but it manages to stay fairly easy to understand and use.

The map of the virtual city is littered with objects to interact with. I didn't understand the purpose to having fifteen shops where you could alter the look on your rides, buy a new t-shirt or load up on more ammo, especially not after a short while into the game where it becomes easy and quick to get around the city. Convenience, maybe? There also seem to be quests that are specifically designed for multi-player, somehow, I didn't get a chance to try these.

The game is overall never a challenge on normal mode, probably veered more towards having fun than giving you a real challenge. When I died it was mostly to fooling around and not caring, than genuinely trying to solve something. The only time the game made me scratch my head and reload over and over, was during a quest where I had to fight Giant Paul the Giant Soda Can. That guy blasted me with a laser that was essentially a none-dodgeable one-shot, even on normal difficulty.

You can tell that your character and their gang has a long backstory together, a lot of the quests allude to that. I often felt that it would've been fun to have played the quests and scenarios that this game references first, but the quests often hold up gameplay wise on their own, at least enough to be entertaining even if you don't get that extra oumph from fan service and nostalgia.

And there is a lot of whacky shit to do, that's for sure. I love that the game designers have not held back in the brainstorming sessions. Even character creation allows you to create something with pink chrome skin, if you like that sort of thing. In order to interrupt the virtual world that the alien Zin (as they are called) have created you need to break the code like some Neo on crack. You get to hurl your body, literally, against objects, save Santa from Evil Santa, use all kinds of weird weapons and have a gang of Gingerbread Cookies be your sidekicks. I can't emphasize enough that the pitch document for this game probably just had the words "MORE IS MORE" written in big, bold, red letters.

But generally it works, I am entertained. I like the characters, though I barely know them, and I have fun with the insane things that we get to do. Until at some point I can't help but feeling that even this golden treadmill, is still nothing but a treadmill. Am I asking for a sense of direction in all this mayhem? Maybe. There is just so much to do, so many characters to help and so many virtual pedestrians to run over that it actually manages to feel a bit... empty. When I am given these many toys to play with, I end up feeling like none of them are fun in the long run.

I don't want to tell SRIV to get a grip or to calm down. I think SRIV is doing exactly what it should and it is doing it well. But for us mere mortals it gets a bit overwhelming in the long run. SRIV is an all-you-can-eat buffet where after ten minutes of browsing you realize you're really just interested in the baguettes.

Limbo (2010) - Review

I personally think the indie game landscape is one of the best and freshest things to happen to the video game world. It was looking quite dark there for a while in the mid 00's, with triple A developers only hinging their money on the safest of bets, ergo the most predictable of games. The video game industry seemed to be caught in a loop of trying to predict and deliver exactly what video gamers wanted, which only led to games that no one fully enjoyed. Things were glum indeed and suddenly, almost as by design, developing tools became accessible and user friendly enough that any basement game designer could give it a go. It was a beautiful full circle back to the very dawn of computer and video games, when most of them were made by people just playing around on their machines, trying to create something that they themselves wanted to play and not necessarily make the most money out of.

Limbo, released in 2010 by Playdead, wasn't among the very first indie games, but in my mind it definitely belonged to the first batch of games that showed players what indie games could accomplish that triple A developers were missing out on or were overcomplicating. It was a game that dared to be simple and concise, something that video game designers seemed to have almost forgotten the art of. Instead of moving towards even more content, even more open world, even more customization, Limbo was a game that removed all of that and told the simplest of stories with the most straight-forward of gameplay, like the darker twin of Super Mario Bros.

I was deep into my World of Warcrafting when Limbo was released and had little interest for it at the time. And in all honesty, the only reason I decided to eventually check it out was simply because it still lingered in the back of my mind as a game that was part of a big moment in video game history, and as such at least something I should know a little more about than the name and that it seems to have huge spiders in it.

Puzzle platformers are really not my thing, I must admit. I also tried Braid and didn't like it, so I didn't have high expectations for Limbo either. I also suck at Mario games, but those I still enjoy playing every now and then. My problem with indie puzzle platformers have often been that focus has been so much on making interesting puzzles, that it seems that the most important part - good platforming - has been lost on the way. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to solve a puzzle and constantly failing because your character doesn't control well enough. This was one of my issues with Braid.

I found this to be part of the issue in Limbo as well. The character, who seems to be a young child lost or running through dark woods, controls just fine until you get to parts that require timing. The controls are super simple, you can go left, right, up and down and with "ctrl" (on computers at least) you can grab things. The child will automatically cling on to ropes and edges if you're close enough. That's all there is to it. But it doesn't always work well enough and your character will suddenly do a short jump where you needed a long one, or fail to climb over an edge in time. I'm not saying the controls are badly programmed, but they are not tight enough for what is requested.

So you have to be prepared for a lot of trial and error. Limbo will throw traps at you that reverses the rule of a previous trap, which just feels devious. Or maybe hilarious, depending on your mood for the evening. Some times the puzzle is on a time limit for varying reasons (rising waters being one) and you don't get much time trying different ideas. Some times you know exactly what you need to do but fail at execution for unfair reasons, see above.

I am not entirely sure what Limbo is trying to tell with the atmosphere, but there must almost be a subgenre of games that has the "lonely in dangerous woods"-feel. If you like the feeling of being alone in the world, everything out to get you and nothing making sense (and why would you, it literally sounds like a nightmare), while solving puzzles, I can recommend checking out the games Rymdresa and Year Walk as well. The black and white in Limbo really works in its favour, and it probably helps hide the fact that Limbo itself feels like only half a game.

Because something struck me as interesting while playing Limbo - I am not so sure Limbo would've been noticed at all if it had been released in todays indie landscape. I am in fact sure it wouldn't be. Limbo in itself isn't much of a game, really. You run in one direction and  But what it represented when it was released meant a lot more than the game itself. It was what the game industry needed at the time. But now that we have indie games galore, we're spoiled with out of the box ideas and underdog design choices and a game like Limbo doesn't seem like a game that's out on a limb(o) anymore. In todays indie world Limbo seems a bit simple and tame.

But it wasn't back then. Back then it represented fresh and daring thinking, and no one can take that away from it. If you're like me, a bit curious about gaming history and gaming milestones, you could give Limbo a few hours of your life. Otherwise I think it's enough to just know what it once was, and enjoy the fruits of what it sowed.

Assassin's Creed: Unity (2014) - Review

 The Assassins Creed franchise has been actively lingering in the back of my brain ever since the first one was released in 2007. For some reason I never really got into it, even though the gameplay looked like something that I would enjoy - stealth and parkour. Since the first game came out the series has grown to a veritable smorgasbord of games and maybe it's taken me so long to get into it because I didn't know where to start. My hesitation has only added more games to the list.

Do I start from the beginning? The first games can be full of dubious gameplay and game design choices that make them difficult to enjoy with modern eyes and quality of life-wants.

50 shades of brown

Do I start in the middle? Where did they iron out the most kinks, where did they nail the story? 

Do I start with the latest? Who knows what good games I miss jumping the line all the way to the end? I could've made the smart thing and checked some list of "best games in the Assassins Creed series". But instead I did a pick of a handful with cool sounding names from a Steam sale a while ago, and decided to start with the oldest one out of that bunch. That game was Assassins Creed: Unity.

While I didn't know much about the game going in, I knew enough to have a general idea and expectation. The game largely fulfilled those expectations. The game is mostly about stealthing and parkouring. What I didn't expect however were how badly designed the game would be in those core areas specifically.

It seems clear that Unity expects you to be a returning AC player as it doesn't explain much about the premise of the AC game series. Because of this I can't really say much about it either - you play as a guy named Arno during French Revolution Paris. From being a sort of nobody you somehow become part of an assassinations guild, it is never explained where Arno gets his superhuman capabilities of climbing buildings. In actuality however, you're some guy in present time, hooked up to some machine that allows you to control Arno in a sort of virtual reality time travel. Some evil corporation is after you in this virtual world, though during my 20 hours with the game that never came to matter. Some of the quests and stages are centered around this fact that the world you run around in is actually inside a computer, or something like it, but that's the most you'll ever notice. Mostly you spend your time running up and down the streets of 18th century Paris, scaling walls and trying to complete different quests and tasks given to you.

And this is both one of the best and the worst things about AC: Unity. I love the detail of Paris and as someone who is quite interested in history it was fun to just run around and pretend to be there. I've heard that Ubisoft overall has tried to be as historically accurate as possible, while also trying to make a fun game and on one of these things I find that the game excels. Even though the game is now 11 years old it's beautiful and feels alive. They've made a lot of nice little scripts running throughout the city that make it feel like all the NPCs moving about are minding their own business, or mostly reacting appropriately to your often weird behaviour.

The story also has the potential to be interesting. It starts with a sequence about the Templars in the 12th century (or something like it) and this is continued in a struggle between the assassinations guild and somewhat unclear antagonists in the 18th century. There is a lot of optional information about things you come across and they were always a delight to read, with in-depth texts about characters, locations or situations. Some of the quests are quite interesting, like the murder mystery ones where you have to figure out who is the culprit and accuse the right person to receive the best reward.

A lot to do, not much of it fun though.

Combat is serviceable, with a possibility to block or dodge enemies and use different tools like smoke bombs and arrows to increase your advantage. Being able to jump people from above and stealth kill multiple targets is fun and useful.

Unfortunately it is all ruined by the one thing that needed to really work, the controls. If you're going to make a game that is so much about handling yourself, jumping from one building to the next, climbing up the side of clock towers and hiding from evil guards, those things need to not constantly be what you fail to do.

After having played other games that have some element of climbing, stealthing and jumping through hoops (Shadows of Mordor, Dishonored) I can say this game is by far the most poorly executed. In fact so bad that after 20 hours of playing, and a particularly frustrating sequence trying to kill the Beggar King but having to restart the mission around ten times because Arno wouldn't do what I wanted him to, I decided I didn't want to play this anymore.

It is clear that Ubisoft bit off more than they could chew. Or maybe the game was just exceptionally poorly optimized to my setup. I played it with keyboard on PC, and I toyed with the idea of trying to use a controller. But the problems I had with the controls didn't seem to stem from the control scheme, but how Arno interpreted my input and interacted with the world around him. It seemed almost arbitrary whether he would jump on to the next object or just randomly hurl himself off the wall and onto the street. Hiding behind objects to avoid being discovered I often ended up being stuck. Don't get me started on trying to get through windows, which was practically impossible. This quickly gets extremely frustrating when you have a handful of guards behind you shooting you in the backside.

And it doesn't end there;

• The menu system is incredibly obtuse, trying to find information about the quest I was on was way harder than it should be. 
• The minimap is littered with symbols indicating things you can do, but the overview map doesn't always correspond or contain the same symbols (I am aware you can filter), making it confusing to use. 
• It's way too unclear how you gain currency to unlock skills or improve your weapons.
• Even though it is supposed to be a stealth game, it is in no way clear how visible you are at any given time. While you get a good tool in the "hightened senses" that allows you to see enemies through walls, it was impossible to judge if someone was going to spot you based on light sources or distances. Some times I crept around in a fully lit church having absolutely no idea why some guards spotted me and some didn't.
• I really don't like Ubisoft Connect...

I just felt like for every moment I got to enjoy, the game had to give me two moments where I was extremely annoyed. That is just not a good enough ratio. It also doesn't help that a lot of the side quests got repetitive and I decided to try to get through the game quickly by focusing on the main story. But after the above mentioned harrowing experience of a complete communication failure between me and Arno I knew that it wasn't about me getting comfortable with the controls and it wasn't going to get any better.

This doesn't mean I am giving up on the AC series however, I still have a few games from that sale to check out eventually.