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It’s a fishing sim with an H. P. Lovecraft twist. During the day you take your boat out, catch fish, and sell them for money to upgrade your gear. At night you need to stay near light or various horrific creatures will emerge from the depths and attack you. Your best bet is to dock and rest until morning then wake up and repeat the process. It feels like one of those cozy games that brain-dead zoomers enjoy but with just enough of an edge to it to make it seem more deep than it really is.

The dark lore is not terribly interesting, or at least it’s not presented in a way that captured my fancy. I was surprisingly engaged by the fishing parts of the game. The act of fishing is mostly just simple timing-based mini-games. Any upgrades you buy just give you access to more of the same. The game would have been much better if your skill at beating the mini-games actually determined the quality of your catch. That would have given some real purpose to the upgrades. As it is, capturing your 1000th fish is the same challenge as the very first one you caught.

In the end, this is just relaxing but mindless item collection. I enjoyed it but it could have been so much more.

Dead Island 2 is surprisingly good and it’s a vast improvement over the original game. Much of the open-world aspirations have been chucked aside and you’re limited to a group of ten or so tightly designed regions. The primary focus here is mastering melee combat and building a tableaux of effective weapons. I really enjoyed the gory combat. Also, there are just enough secrets and collectables quests to push players towards exploration without it becoming a chore.

The story is kind of basic and amounts to the obvious, “how can we get ourselves out of here” plot, but it’s told through interactions with an assortment of goofy, narcissistic characters that have managed to survive the outbreak. Despite the grim backdrop, it’s filled with humor and a touch of satire. It’s least interesting bits are the sci-fi puppet-masters plot line that is there to set the stage for any future sequels.

My only big complaint is that player deaths tend to come out of nowhere just as you’ve almost made a big boss kill. Then they require you go back and fight the encounter again but your inventory and heath kits are not restored. It’s that same Bioshock style respawn that I didn’t like in Dead Island part one. It feels simultaneously unfair but also too eager to soften the consequences of failure.

You play as John Marston, a reformed cowboy outlaw whose family is being held hostage in order to get him to kill his old gang partners. There’s not much more to it than that. Kill the first guy and then there’s another boss to hunt down. This all plays out in a massive open-world with tons of desert scruff to explore.

The problem I have with the Rockstar Games’ open-world formula is that, despite the freedom you are given, you are pinned into playing the missions exactly as designed. This is as opposed to a game like Fallout where you can approach obstacles with violence, stealth or intelligence. In essence, this is a middling movie western story in which you perform tasks just to see the next cutscene.

While there is an “honor” system, the story almost demands you play as the good guy. I was less inclined to just instigate mayhem like I would in GTA. Even though you are forced to align with obviously corrupt characters and kill peasants, etc., you remain the virtuous hero trying to save his family.

Yet, despite all my criticisms, I enjoyed the various shootouts and the simple bullet-time gun mechanics. The world is big and beautiful and exactly the environment you’d see in a classic western. Much of the side challenges amount to collectable quests or gambling simulations. Each is fun for a while, but I didn’t have the time or energy to go through the game 100%. I’m wondering if the sequel offers more depth.