Day 14:

I'm realizing I'm playing quite a lot of a certain category of game this go 'round. Today is no exception with the civil engineer simulator: Poly Bridge 2. It's one of those games where you build a bridge and then run a load over it to see if it holds up. I remember, many years ago, "playing" basically a non-game version of this in school for a intro to engineering type class, even with much the same tension/compression coloring for links. It had much worse graphics of course, and it certainly didn't have levels where you build the 'bridge' into a ramp to jump a dune buggy. It pretty early on gets into some neat mechanics like the hydraulics to make a lift bridge and springs. There's quite a lot of levels as well as a sandbox mode. I would have easily spent much longer on it were it not a shorter night for me, will definitely play it some more.

Left broken and listless after Doki Doki Literature Club and Bendy and the Ink Machine (for different reasons), I now turn to the delightful Euro-thinking-man's-shooter, Generation Zero, a game provided by the generous and effervescent @cheep_cheep. This represents the 3rd entry in this event that I've played of his/hers, and it looks to be a banger.

I just started so these are just my first impressions. And, this also gives me a chance to make predictions about things I don't know about, a thing that never, ever ages poorly in the future.

Right away, I get Half-Life vibes. Far from a boomer shooter, this is a more grounded take on the Skynet uprising, but only if it took place in 1980s Sweden (top marks for that; I have the audio on English, but you could play the whole thing in Swedish if you want).

My elevator pitch for this game is: "Fallout 3, but in Europe before the bombs fell done in real-time." Seriously, this game scratches an old itch and it's spectacular. There are many mechanics involved with this game that include skill trees and weapon upgrades that skew this towards an RPG, but what's most like Fallout 3 is the open world roaming that allows for free exploration. What's more, the looting is very fulfilling with stashes grouped in logical spots like abandoned hideouts (just like Half-Life) that reward you for going out of your way.

The game advertises itself as a stealth-shooter hybrid, and that comes through in the gameplay. Enemy robots have great aim, meaning that you have to be hiding as much as you can in this game that mostly takes place in the open. It makes for some tense moments as you do your best to scout your surroundings and avoid enemies with better firepower than you. It's not as satisfying as the run-and-gun gameplay of DOOM, but even in this gun-enabled version of Sweden, things take a more European approach.

Speaking of which: The most European thing about this game so far is that in this robot-uprising apocalypse where nothing works, society has broken down, and you can't drive anywhere, there is one solution you can count on: the bicycle. Yes, that thing that doesn't need gas and was nowhere to be seen in The Walking Dead (except for S01E01) is a mainstay in this game. Really goes well with my metal headbanger avatar; I imagine him cycling to the gig with his guitar on his back when all of a sudden uh-oh, gotta shoot some robots.

I just started the game, and now I even have to restart from the very beginning due to a bug that stops enemies from spawning during a mission. And yet, this doesn't at all stop me from making wild predictions about Generation Zero.

Here goes:

1. The story will get political. Maybe not much, maybe not on an international scale, but I bet the story will explore a political issue to some degree.
2. (may or may not be connected to #1) A politician will appear as a character in the story at some point. Like, maybe a mayor or some elected official. This game keeps it very grounded by making the characters in the beginning just normal people (like my headbanging metalhead), but it will raise it with this politician that pushes the story to another level.
3. This game will feature a lot of Swedish culture, and there will be one Swedish thing that will be very prominent, but also very weird and obtuse to outsiders like me. It won't be a major part of the story; you don't need to be familiar with it to understand the story. It'll just be there, making all the Swedish players laugh. As an open world game, Generation Zero is prime pickings for Easter eggs, so I imagine this prediction may have to do with this.
4. I, as a player, will come away from this game with a greater appreciation of Sweden. Some element will stick out and show what a great place it is to live in. I've remarked on the use of bicycles, so there must be something else to be discovered too.
5. There will be one instance where a Swedish cliche appears in an obvious fashion. I'm guessing the devs are savvy, so they'll do something subversive with it. My limited knowledge of Swedish cliches include: IKEA, meatball, really good at Olympic Winter Games and sometimes hockey, a lot a lot of snow.
6. This game is about fighting robots. It only makes sense that you become what fight against. I'm guessing there is a short part in the game where you drive a mech or operate a robotic arm or something.
7. There will be shit talk against Norway and Norwegians.
8. Taking a long shot here, but I'm guessing that at some point you will meet up with a resistance group that is left-leaning or anarchists. During your time with them, you fight robots and hear about their tenets in an indirect way. This group has been around for a long time, before the robot uprising began.
9. Though this game takes place in the wilderness of Sweden, there will be one character who is not Swedish. Maybe American. In the Swedish dub of the game, they wouldn't be speaking Swedish (it doesn't translate).
10. I'd prefer if the guns in the game stayed conventional, but I have a feeling futuristic weaponry will become available, like an EMP or plasma rifle.

All right, enough talk, back to the grind.