Thursday, 19 December 2024

Fiction

A Book for Christmas by Selma Lagerlöf
The Legend of Saint Lucia's Day
(translated by Linda Schenck)

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 19th: The Bordello Endemic

Games

Syberia

After just over another hour of play, it's finally finished! Honestly, good riddance. I think if I hadn't chosen to play this, I probably would've completed more games this year — I've had this on the go since October, which might not sound like a huge amount of time (it's two months almost to the day), but the game's only about 10 hours long. If I'd been enjoying it, I probably would've burnt through that in a week. Instead, I've never felt much desire to return to it; I always had to force myself a little bit — including today. It's a month since I last played it, and I've started or toyed with several games since then, and now I just wanted it done. Quite how it's got so many positive reviews is beyond me.

Previously I mused that I'd probably end up wanting to play the sequels anyway (the same thing that happened with NPCs, essentially); but, even though the game ends on a tease for what comes next, the story just isn't interesting enough — especially when coupled with all the other flaws (atrocious dialogue, dull characters, boring gameplay) — to compel me to carry on. Unless I forget myself someday, I'm done with the world of Syberia.