Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. This week was quieter than the last, and most of the games I played weren’t new. I spent a good amount of time completing Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? and also finishing my walkthrough for the latest Adventure Escape game. Still, there’s much to discuss, so let’s get to it.

Fury Unleashed

I only spent about half an hour with Fury Unleashed, but I really like what I saw. It’s a roguelite in the vein of Dead Cells, where each run is different and you try to get as far as possible. While doing so, you pick up all sorts of equipment such as guns, swords, or even armor. All these things can help you get farther. But you also earn skill points from each run that you can use to upgrade your skills. Those upgrades are permanent, so over time things should feel a little easier. I’m usually not a fan of such systems in turn-based games because I think it muddies the water and makes it hard to tell if my skill and strategy are improving or I’m just brute forcing my way through. But I don’t mind it in action games like this, since it’s not a slow, methodical game but more about reflexes. I don’t feel I have anything to prove to myself with these kinds of games, as I just find it fun to run around and kill things. So for what it is, I’m perfectly happy with the core gameplay loop of blowing things up, earning upgrades and then trying to get deeper. My only real complaint at the moment is that the on-screen controls aren’t customizable, and they’re a bit awkwardly placed on my iPad. I still want to spend more time with it because it is fun to explore and find new gear to mess around with. I recommend watching some of my gameplay video below if you want to see what it’s like.

This Is A True Story

I’m currently subscribed to Netflix, so I was able to play through the new game, This Is A True Story. It’s an educational game made with charity:water, meant to raise awareness about the lack of clean and safe drinking water in parts of the world. The game follows an African woman on her journey to a clean steam to fill her jerry can with water. It’s set against gorgeous hand-painted scenery and is fully voice-acted to bring it to life. It’s a bit janky at times and the few puzzles aren’t always clear, but there is a help button if you get stuck. The woman’s awkward animations distracted me a bit from the game’s message and had me laughing when it was supposed to be serious, but overall the meaning gets across. It’s a long walk back and forth and I can’t imagine doing something like that on a regular basis just to get water. I’m glad something like this exists to raise awareness. I wouldn’t spend $20 on a Netflix subscription for it but it’s worth playing if you already have one. You can also watch some of my video below to get an idea of what it’s like.

Puzzle Adventure: Mystery Game

I didn’t have high expectations from a game with such a generic, keyword-stuffed name as Puzzle Adventure: Mystery Game. But it’s still worse than I imagined. I played through the first level and some of the second. All I did was tap on boxes to clear them and then pull a lever here and there, while occasionally pushing a piece of a pipe. Nothing used any actual brain cells, but every action did consume in-game energy. Tapping a box to clear it? Energy. Turning a valve? Energy. Pulling a lever? Yup, you guessed it — energy! There were a couple of “puzzles” (if you can call them that) where you need to rotate an object until the symbol matches the one on the wall. Each and every time, it had to be rotated three times (the max before coming full circle), thereby consuming the maximum amount of energy. I even thought I’d try being more efficient and save energy by only breaking the boxes I had to in order to progress. But the game actually demands you break all of them to get all three stars in a level. Absolutely everything about the game feels lazy and rushed out to try and make a quick buck off any players masochistic enough to stick with it. There is no heart, no soul here. It’s one of the most depraved uses of energy I’ve seen in a game. The only good thing about the energy system is that it gave me an excuse to stop playing sooner rather than later. If you value your time even the least bit, stay away from this one.

Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?

I wrote about the FMV murder mystery game, Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?, last week but had only played through it a couple of times by then. I really enjoyed those first two playthroughs and love the idea of the game as a whole. But as I started looking for more evidence so I could accuse more characters of the murder, it started to fall apart. Instead of playing detective and using the information I learned to question people, I basically had to try every dialogue option until I got all the evidence I needed. Sometimes it really just came down to resetting a quiz round to try and get the evidence because it was so unclear how to do so. For instance, getting the answer wrong on the quiz could lead a character to open up in a way they wouldn’t have if you got it right. But you have to purposely get the answer wrong first to find this out. To make matters worse, it wasn’t always possible to skip clips I’d already seen, so I’d have to watch them over and over. By the time I discovered the killer, I didn’t really care all that much anymore. I’m sad that the game wasn’t more than just trial and error, because there was so much potential here. I wish I could recommend it, but at the very least wait to see if they fix it so you never have to rewatch a scene if you don’t want to. That would have at least cut down on the tediousness of replaying it over and over. I have all my gameplay videos here if you want to see more.

UNREAL LIFE

I finally finished playing through UNREAL LIFE. Last week I got some alternate bad endings, but now took the time to find the proper good ending. The story is a bit out there, but I enjoyed it. There’s a lot of heart and soul poured into the game, and I felt like I bonded with each of the quirky characters — even the artificial intelligent traffic light. The pixel art and soundtrack were great, too. I’m glad I went on this bittersweet journey with Hal and would recommend it to any adventure game fans. And once again, I have all my videos here.

Adventure Escape Mysteries – Lost Ruins: Revenge on Atlantis

I finally finished the new Adventure Escape game this week, along with my walkthrough. I just have to make videos for the last three chapters. It was a pretty decent game with some tricky math puzzles but not too many annoying ones. The story wasn’t the most exciting, but it did the job. I’m still waiting for more like The Covenant, which is still my favorite of the series. Anyway, you can see my full walkthrough here.

Genshin Impact

And last, I’m still playing Genshin Impact but version 2.5 has been the slowest ever. Even though I got two new characters, I didn’t really have all that much to use them on. Thankfully, 2.6 is coming in a week or so and it includes a whole new area to explore. I’m definitely looking forward to that, as exploration is my favorite part of the game. And it’s especially fun when you have new characters to use.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I also watched a few movies, such as the first Fear Street, Synchronic, and The Power of the Dog. I also realized that I somehow never watched Gattaca before, so I remedied that. It was so good that I watched it in one sitting, something I rarely do when watching a movie alone at home. Right now, I’m watching the new season of Bridgerton on Netflix, but I’ll probably switch to HBO or Hulu for a month when my subscription runs out. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re enjoying and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!