Theo Beck

Welcome to the first part in a prospective series about exploring my video game backlog. Specifically, I thought it would be very interesting to delve into why a hoard of games I have enjoyed (although briefly) in the past have ended up gathering dust in my Steam library. The plan is for each of these articles to be divided into a 'before' and an 'after'; the former is about my attitude prior to finishing the game, with the intention of explaining to the best of my ability why I like it, and...

If you'd asked me a month ago what I'd write about Hollow Knight: Silksong, I would've laid a twenty on the table and said "Not a chance it's anything but paragraphs and paragraphs of praise". Yet here we are in the introduction of a piece that I plan to be essentially a critique - an effort to propose that the game is in fact best experienced by those not familiar with its predecessor, and fans of the first game might even have a 'near-miss' attitude towards the seven-years-in-the-making...

About an hour into my play-through of Routine, a body-cam style immersive horror experience set on a future version of Earth's moon, I realised my normally cynical and overly critical mind had yet to roll its eyes or sigh in disappointment at a single element of the game. I was totally engrossed, completely invested in the world being presented to me, and constantly on the edge of my seat, equally anticipating either the next scare or the next lore reveal. The game has no UI; all tools...