Author: A.K.H.

The video in this post features heavy spoilers for Hades 2, and is targeted at people who have already played the game as it exists in late October 2024. So if you haven’t yet played Hades 2, watch at your own risk.

The Olympic Update is the first major patch for Hades 2, and it was released a few days ago, on October 16, 2024. It introduces the new Olympus region to the surface path of the game, a new main boss, Prometheus, and a new weapon, the black coat, which is said to be the final weapon to be added to the game. Oh, and for those playing on the Mac, this update adds native Mac support.

With these new updates, let’s look at what the game contains now: six weapons, four bosses in the underworld region, three bosses in the surface region, two different game modes that add various modifiers and conditions to keep your runs interesting, and a whole lot of collectables, decorations, and characters with whom you can build relationships. What’s more, there’s more to come, with at least one more boss for the surface region, and maybe some more story surprises before the launch of the final game.

This is exactly the kind of experience I was hoping for with the early access version of the game, and so far, Supergiant games hasn’t disappointed me. There are a group of fans who are intentionally delaying their purchase of the game till the full version is out, because they do not want to experience the game with so many delays. The next major update is not expected until early 2025, and there is no word about the final release of the game. This means you will have to constantly remind yourself about what happened with the story, or how each of the six weapons work, and so on.

I don’t mind consuming the content in small chunks, because so far, it is very much in line with the experience offered by the first Hades game. We know what to expect from the game, and even though there may be a few surprises, the basic structure of the game is expected to remain largely the same.

Occult Chambers is a third person action horror game being developed by BornMonkie, an independent studio from Hyderabad, India. Recently, I was fortunate enough to be given access to a playtest of an early build of the game, and the team kindly allowed sharing of the footage on YouTube.

However, it is very important that I give a disclaimer right away: I primarily play on consoles, and the footage you see in this video has been captured on my really old PC, which is more than eight years old at this point, so it does not represent the best visual quality or performance of this game. I still wanted to use this footage though, because I was surprised to find the game running decently, at maximum settings, and wanted to showcase it as an example of the game running on old hardware. Thanks to some pointers from the dev team, I was able to squeeze out a decent 20-40fps performance out of the demo, while still keeping the visuals impressive, but the footage you see here has very low FPS, because I wanted to record the game at max settings. In any case, the game is still in development, and this level is only a slice of the final game, so don’t let this video give you any assumptions about the game’s visuals or performance.

Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment is the latest book from noted video game journalist, Jason Schreier, and over the course of thirty-one chapters, it walks us through the story of one of the most prominent video game developers of all time, Blizzard Entertainment. The history of Blizzard is available on the internet for free, so why should you spend your hard earned money to buy a book that narrates the same story? That’s where Jason’s experience in being a video game journalist comes in handy. He tells us the story that we have known for years, but adds in some interesting tidbits that give a bit more context to some important events.

I have not made a video review of a book before, so I don’t know what exactly you, as a viewer, would be interested to learn. With nothing more than a guess, I have split the video into different sections. To learn more, watch the video!

Similar to last week’s video on Frostpunk 2, this video about Ara History Untold is not a full review, even though I have finished one full playthrough. Once again, it’s because I feel I haven’t played this game the way it’s meant to be played, which is a strategy game.

I played it more like a clicking simulator, where I set my game on the easiest setting so that I didn’t really have problems with resources, and after a certain point, I just had to keep clicking to go to the next turn, and the game more or less played itself. I did this because I was curious to see how the game would end. I played other 4X games like Civilisation 6 and Humankind, but never really played beyond the first hour or so. But Ara was simple and approachable enough for a casual player like myself to stick till the end. And the presentation of the game goes a long way to enable this.

Sadly, it appears that regular fans of the 4X genre are not too impressed with this game, and it currently sits at a Mixed review rating on steam. However, 67% of the reviews being positive is still a good sign, and hopefully the developers can push some quick updates that will improve the game.

This is not a full review of Frostpunk 2. Even though I have finished one playthrough of the game, I am not comfortable with calling it a full review, because I don’t think I have played this game the way it was meant to be played and experienced. I was just curious about the game based on the success of the first game, and seeing that it was a day one release on game pass, I gave it a try and ended up completing one full playthrough.

Long story short, I liked it quite a lot. It is a blend of a city builder and a survival game, and even on the easiest difficulty, you can never really relax, because things can fall apart within minutes and your run may end abruptly. In fact, on my very first attempt, I got a game over in the prologue, because I was still learning the basics and made a few bad decisions. Then I actually paid attention, and was rewarded with a really good gaming experience. Watch the video for more details!