If you’re worried about bugs I think you should be able to get Mod Organizer 2 running on Steam Deck, and with all the various stability mods installed New Vegas runs fairly well. The Viva New Vegas mod guide is a great place to start, it should have most of what you need to get going.

Alex Casey (the detective from Alan Wake’s books) is essentially Max Payne - they had to change the name when making Alan Wake 1 because Rockstar had bought the IP.

There are callbacks in AW2 in both narration, atmosphere and character design that I really enjoyed, but you won’t miss out on anything story-relevant if you haven’t played it. Watching a couple of minutes of cutscenes from Max Payne 1 on YouTube is probably enough to get most of the references.

Love it! The level designs are so cool in Lonesome Road, and I agree that the final battle felt very cinematic in a way that a lot of other New Vegas fights don’t.

People love or hate Ulysses but I enjoy him as a character. I think the story as it ties through all the DLCs is very cool and the climactic, desolate journey through LR to cap it off was great for me.

I was planning on picking up Lily but I can’t remember how to get her as a companion.

I think all you need to do is finish the sidequest for the doctor in Jacobstown.

Alan Wake 2 is amazing, but with the interconnected Remedyverse being what it is it also sort of wants you to “do your homework” - the experience is definitely enriched by having played Max Payne and Control before (with the AWE DLC of the latter being a direct bridge to AW2). The Quantum Break overlap is much more minor as they don’t own the rights to its IP. It’s fun for those who played it, but not necessary and not important.

Glad you found the toaster! It’s probably my favourite too, though I also loved the jukebox having an affair with the light switches. I hope you’ll enjoy Lonesome Road, it’s my personal favourite DLC I think, though objectively OWB is probably better. I just love the vibes and the levels in LR.

Two very different games in the pipeline after. Alan Wake II was my GOTY last year so hard not to recommend it here. Have you played the preceding Remedy games?

The article itself brings up viewer retention, which would be a fair comparison if there were actually more than one Penguin episode available. Otherwise while context will be important I do think comparing viewership-to-budget is fair.

I’m assuming the jumpscare characters are Dr. Marmont & Marmont.

I am stoked. Looks like we’re playing as agent Estevez in this one? Have to imagine it’s setting up Control 2, as well.

I’ll throw in another vouch for it. Play blind, look up absolutely nothing about the game before playing.

Thanks for the super thorough reply, I really appreciate it! I did do the ritual, I think I got the “ring ending” for Morrigan as I entered the portal with her in the Witch Hunt DLC.

I agree with you on the appeal of these long series of games with save-import being the continuity, so it’s a shame to hear it’s not more elaborate than that. I know Welonz did a full Dragon Age series playthrough last year so I might just watch that some day. If Veilguard turns out to be incredible (doubtful) I’ll take your advice and just watch story recaps I think.

Would you say seeing your choices reverberate through the story by importing your saves makes it worthwhile, or no?

I’ve played and really enjoyed Origins, but haven’t (yet) taken on the other two. With the size of my backlog I’d be happy to leave the other two unplayed as I was satisfied at the end of Origins, but the fact that you can import saves and have your decisions matter does interest me.

They’re a bit different than the military ones, but the first three Splinter Cell games are fantastic if you enjoy stealth. Chaos Theory in particular is absolute cinema, one of the best stealth games of all time.

I’m well aware of TTW, and I’m happy it exists for those who want it. I personally have no interest in Fallout 3.

The themes are great and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. There are parts of the gameplay I don’t like as much (and a bit too much backtracking through samey environmens), but I think it’s really cool how bold they went with how it plays completely differently from the whole rest of the game.

I was hoping for his thoughts on Dead Money specifically, but I agree New Vegas has a great storyline.

It’s strange you haven’t been able to get it to work though, there are lots of stability and performance mods out there by now that combine to make the game fairly stable. The Viva New Vegas guide is a good place to start if you need direction.

How have you been finding it so far?

I’d say so. The biggest selling point is the Origins-system itself and the player agency from both that and your gameplay choices. The extent to which your chosen Origin affects the game is staggering and very few games (perhaps none?) has even attempted something similar. I can tell you this, it puts the “background” choice in Cyberpunk to shame.

The overall plot is fairly standard-fare boilerplate fantasy stuff but the world is decent and the companions are mostly very enjoyable, though some are more well-written than others. Alistair is - in my opinion - one of the best companions Bioware ever produced. Morrigan is also a great character.

The combat is okay, RTwP is a divisive system and I personally think it lacks the depth of Baldur’s Gate II (though I always play the latter with Swoard Coast Strategems). I installed some mods that expanded the built-in “Tactics” function that lets you set triggers for your companions to execute actions, and I had great fun in programming my party to play itself with me completely hands-off.

My main complaints with the game that I’d like to see fixed would probably be beyond the scope of the term “remaster”. The facial animations during dialogue were pretty uncanny in the base game, but they’re good in the DLC and sequel.

To me this feels like perfectly within the scope of what should be the realm of “remaster”, it’s just that history teaches us to expect less.

With each lazy and unnecessary cash grab remaster we move closer to the day a remaster announcement is made at the end of a game’s release trailer.

Very excited for you to take on the Sierra Madre! It’s a pretty divisive DLC, people either really love it or really hate it. I personally really enjoyed it, but there are certainly parts of it where I can see how they’d make some people dislike it.