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There was some talk about Far Cry 2 a few pages back so I decided it would be my next game. Just finished it now after 21 hours. I actually liked it a lot. Maybe I've just been too FPS-deprived lately but it was just tons of fun. I completely understand the complaints about the respawning checkpoints and was kind of dreading them, since normally it's the kind of thing that will frustrate and kill a game for me very easily, but strangely they didn't bother me at all. Story and characters were paper thin but who cares, the gunplay was fantastic. It was repetitive, especially the side missions, but since the base gameplay was so much fun I didn't actually care that much. And even though it wasn't made by Crytek it felt like a fitting sequel to the original, with the big open levels and jungle setting. Now back to SpaceChem, I had to take a break at KOHCTPYKTOP.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:54
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Think I'm going to retire Just Cause 2, after 51 hours. Ended up with a modest 59.12% completion. Was obviously really fun as everyone here already knows. The save system annoyed me at first cause it felt like there weren't enough checkpoints, but when I realized I shouldn't pick up any collectibles during missions (so as not to lose them if I die) it stopped being a problem. The biggest flaw really is the immediate response of the army and the infinite respawns that seem to inevitably spiral into Level 4 heat and an endless cycle of helicopters. A delay on the army's reaction time would've been very welcome. I thought at first it was a factor of my chosen difficulty (Hard) but reading RPS's review it seems to be the same on Casual, so I dunno. Overall not a big deal. Great game, but a mod that removes the Black Market cutscenes is a must. I'm rapidly approaching the end of the line, though. My next game is either STALKER: Clear Sky or Revenge of the Titans, and after those I'm left with either games that I have no interest in (mostly multiplayer-only stuff), or games that I've genuinely tried to get into but couldn't. The latter bunch includes some that are supposed to be very good, though (Darwinia, Uplink, Freedom Force, Space Rangers 2, to name a few), so they are probably worth a second/third chance... probably.
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Oct 19, 2011 19:33
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Got around to starting Blocks That Matter today. It's generally fun but I feel like the lack of rewind feature, or at least a couple of checkpoints for the big levels, is gradually eroding my patience and I'm not sure if I can stand redoing the same bits over and over again because I hosed up at the end of the level anymore. I'll give it a few more goes but I fear the absence of this one feature will pretty much kill this game for me soon enough. Otherwise I've recently finished Limbo, Nimbus, Gemini Rue, The Binding of Isaac and the Portal 2 singleplayer, all of which I really enjoyed. Portal 2 was even better than I thought it could be. Not sure what next if I do give up on BTM. New Vegas is waiting but I feel the upcoming Christmas sale might distract me too much to devote my full attention to it, so I'll probably wait till January. I also have Sanctum and Fate of the World but am not really interested in either at the moment. Maybe I'll go back to Isaac, or else cave and buy the recent Indie Royale bundle for the Blackwell Trilogy.
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Dec 14, 2011 23:33
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Nevitt posted:Anomaly: Warzone Earth - Actually quite enjoyed this. It's a twist on Tower Defence where you protect the mobs moving through rather than the towers shooting them. The gameplay is rather simple (on casual anyway) but thought it was worth the £2.50. Not sure if will come back to do achievements. Yeah I had fun with this too. Took me about six hours on the middle difficulty so it can be knocked off the backlog relatively quickly. I was a little skeptical about how exactly it was going to play but turned out there is some strategy involved in terms of planning your route and conserving abilities and such, it was fun, and at times quite hectic. I finished Rock of Ages a couple of days ago. Not sure what to make of it. I felt the first stages were more of a straight up race to the gate, as your defensive capabilities are pretty limited. That was a little boring. It gets more interesting in the Renaissance, but in the later levels all I did was spam air ships everywhere and that was more than enough to beat every level. Maybe a lower limit on unit numbers would've been a good idea. And maybe the multiplayer is more interesting, I dunno. I am now a little torn between doing a NG+ run of Bastion, which I also finished earlier this week, or starting on Human Revolution. I don't feel as if I'm done with Bastion just yet, but... Deus Ex... Might try to blitz through Bastion in one session to wrap it up, upgraded weapons from the start will surely facilitate that, although not if I turn on some idols. Hm. It was a really good game, though, the combat is a lot more fun than I expected it to be.
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Jan 6, 2012 17:21
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Finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution just now, after 29 hours. Thoroughly excellent. They really nailed the atmosphere, it was very reminiscent of the original. I really think it's a worthy sequel even if some aspects of it are flawed. But the main gameplay elements - the exploration, the different paths and approaches, etc. - were very good. My itch for urban slums filled with hobos, prostitutes and gangs has been satisfied. I could complain about things, like the switch to 3rd person during takedowns and Typhoon kills, or the FMV cutscenes, or that it wasn't quite as detailed as the original (e.g. there were no "I already took care of that punk" moments), but these are minor complaints and I was so happy that they got the gameplay and level design right that they didn't bother me that much. Other flaws, such as the Pick Your Cutscene ending and the relatively minor effect your decisions have on the plot, I can excuse as them following the original's lead. When the first info came out about the wall punch aug and such I was very skeptical and worried they'll be over-the-top ridiculous, but the augs ended up being relatively subdued, so I was happy with that. The game does throw a lot of money/XP at you, though. I only picked the wall punching aug when I kind of ran out of other interesting things, and I didn't find one place to use it. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention. Hacking minigame was surprisingly fun but became completely trivial halfway through the game. I feel like overall the game was a bit too easy (playing on medium difficulty), not because of damage/HP, but because of the amount of resources it throws at you. I also gotta give Eidos Montreal credit for putting in the options to disable the objective marker and object highlighting - they get a lot of goodwill from me for that alone. Two silly complaints: Malik's face is practically a copy of Cindy Crawford. Much like Martin Sheen's voice in ME2, I found it too recognizable, to the point where it became distracting. And I would've preferred something game-related to look at during the credits rather than photos of the developers. I guess it's their game, though, they can high-five each other at the end if they want to.
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Jan 14, 2012 21:08
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Xik posted:That actually wasn't initially going to be shipped with the game. After the first game-play videos hit news sites there was a rather large fan outcry about it and the option was added. But yes, Dues Ex:HR is a great game and the only serious complaint I have about it was the boss fights, they really shouldn't be in the game. You can just spam typhoon though to make them trivial if you just want to "ignore" them. Yup, I remember the outcry. I'm just glad they actually listened and added those in, cause they could've also stubbornly went "No no, you'll love it, trust us" and left it for mods or ini tweaks and such. And I agree about the boss fights, they are kind of out of place, and the bosses themselves were really underdeveloped. Fortunately I wasn't shy on using guns this playthrough so I didn't have too much of a problem with them. I'm now debating if to pick a smaller game next (probably Eets), or just head straight on to AC: Brotherhood. Have a feeling it's going to be the latter, really, I do miss the rooftops of Renaissance Italy... edit: vvv Then it is settled. I absolutely loved AC2 so I've no doubt I'm going to like Brotherhood. Installing now. 
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Jan 15, 2012 13:21
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I'm playing through Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood at the moment. Man, the mission design really took a nosedive in this one compared to AC2. I don't remember failing missions so many goddamn times in the previous one. Everything seems to be far too contrived, far too scripted, far too limiting, particularly when you add in the optional requirement for 100% synchronization. I just did the collosseum mission in sequence 7 which was just awful in almost every possible way. Restricted areas, time limits, auto-fail on detection, idiotic setup, etc. etc. Just utterly terrible. On top of that if you fail the optional challenges (but want to complete them) you have to start the whole memory over, from the start, rather than the last checkpoint. I don't understand this decision at all. The only good decision they seem to have made is to have the final Cristina mission unlocked at 75% and not 100%. I guess they knew what a pain in the rear end it would be to get 100%. The story is basically nonexistent, too, which is a disappointment considering the ending of AC2. Essentially almost everything about Brotherhood seems to be a step down from AC2. Your assassins are surprisingly fun to have around, though, and it's nice they added buyable maps for flags/feathers, but that's pretty much it. I'm still really enjoying it, mind, just cause I love the base AC gameplay. I want to say I hope Revelations is better but if I remember correctly the reactions on release were "More of the same with even less story". Oh well.
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Jan 27, 2012 19:27
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Colon V posted:To expand on this, don't try for the no-damage ("____ Boy") achievements unless you're going for Mastery. You will murder someone. Speaking of murdering people, I've been stuck on 3-11 in BIT.TRIP RUNNER for two hours. Feels like 3-10 and 3-11 were designed primarily to drive suicidal people over the edge. What is the point of such long levels, they could have cut them in half and it still would've been too difficult. And stop throwing those goddamn red cubes out of the sky, ugh. So close to finishing this game. It's driving me crazy. edit: Done. Don't think I'll ever touch this game again, although to be fair I had fun with it for the most part. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 17:42
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Morter posted:After about 36 hours, I finally beat Darkstar One I gave up on that one after 14 hours. It was just so aggressively mediocre, I couldn't bring myself to keep playing. I think you're right that in small doses it might be more easily digestible, though. Personally I tend to only play one game at a time so I just stopped. If I recall it was during a story mission where you fly into a gigantic cube/station/whatever and the navigation inside was so disorienting that I got lost and just couldn't take it anymore. I may be confusing it with another space game, though, I dunno. I'll support the notion that for $2.50 it's worth checking out if you're really itching for a Freelancer-ish game.
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Feb 19, 2012 17:04
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I finished Arkham Asylum the other day. Not that anyone needs another report on it, but even though I knew just how good it was supposed to be, it still took me by surprise. I avoided it for ages in every Steam sale just cause 3rd person brawlers aren't really my favorite genre plus I don't care about the IP at all. But yes, it was utterly fantastic, and it was obvious from the very beginning when you're escorting Joker into the asylum that it was going to be fantastic. I even bothered to get all 240 Riddler challenges. And on Normal it was the perfect difficulty for me. Really, the only flaw I can find in it is having to rapidly press Space to open grates and pull down weak walls, which is unnecessary. Such a minor flaw, though. What's most amazing to me is that the game was so good and involving that it actually got me to look up Batman-related things on Wikipedia (though this interest was short-lived; I'm back to not caring now). Great voice acting, too. I don't know how Rocksteady pulled out such a masterpiece from an established, licensed IP. Also played through Zeno Clash which was good fun, much better than Rock of Ages. I hope they're making ZC2.
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Mar 15, 2012 21:34
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I've finally gotten around to playing some games in the last couple of weeks. I've finished these: 1000 Amps: Fun puzzles in a fun map that you wander around Metroidvania-style. I liked it. Botanicula: Amanita is a great developer, and although this didn't seem to have as much 'meat' to it in terms of gameplay as Machinarium, it was still a lot of fun. The art and sound design are beautiful. Puzzles were not inspiring but got the job done. Stacking: So happy Double Fine is back on PC. My only complaint about Stacking is that it could've used an option to pull back the camera; I actually got some motion sickness while playing it. As with all DF games it has tons of character and charm, and the art is gorgeous, as expected. Back to the Future: The Game: I had my doubts about this as I've felt thoroughly burned out on Telltale's formula in the last couple of years. This doesn't deviate from that formula, but I ended up quite enjoying it nonetheless. As with seemingly all of their games, though, I think it suffers from the episodic format (limited locales, limited characters, etc.), and it was really easy. And Telltale's control scheme is still atrocious and I was fighting it the whole time on kb/m. But as with their other games, it ends up being fun despite how limited it is... does just enough, basically. I guess The Walking Dead is their first real homerun, but I haven't played that yet. Hard Reset: I usually play FPS games on the second highest difficulty, but after two levels I took it down to 'Normal' and never looked back. It was so, so much more fun that way. In a game where it seems almost impossible to avoid taking damage I think it's a lot more fun to take that damage head-on with a shotgun than take it while running backwards haplessly. Especially when there's no quicksave. Proper run-and-gun shooter, loved it. Also, it looks beautiful and my now-sorta-ancient HD4890 can run it on Ultra. And there's an in-game benchmark tool; much appreciated, that. Good on them for releasing the DLC for free, too. Up next I'm thinking PixelJune Eden, and then it's time for a big one. Either AC: Revelations, Divinity II or Alan Wake.
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Sep 16, 2012 19:31
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Knocked off a few more in the last couple of weeks. PixelJunk Eden: I knew very little about this coming in other than it's a platformer and someone recommended it during the summer sale when it was $2. I loved it. It's just so pleasant. Really pretty and it's very relaxing to hop around from branch to branch. There is a time limit, but you can refill it constantly and it's really slow anyway. I could see how other people may take issue with it but it didn't bother me that much. I really enjoyed the actual platforming, too, once you acquire all the various moves you can move around pretty fluidly and easily, and the levels were really fun to explore. I almost never 100% games but this is one where I might have - if there weren't a couple of unusually frustrating bits to it. The parts where you have to mess around with several levers to open up a pathway seem like they were designed for co-op, which was omitted in the PC version apparently. On my own it was incredibly tedious to move around from lever to lever over and over again (since the platforming was more difficult in these later levels) just to check what it does, then go back again, etc. These were the only parts where the time actually ran out on me. Assassin's Creed: Revelations: Redundant in both gameplay and story, but I love the base AC gameplay so much that frankly I didn't care. Yeah, it's not up there with the others, but free-running around Constantinople is still lots of fun, even if the city is not quite as interesting as Florence or Venice. However, it was lovely of Ubisoft to resolve the ending of Brotherhood in DLC rather than the base game; I imagine they will address this in some way in AC3 because not everyone would have bought the DLC (I didn't, but I read the spoilers for it). Also, please stop desynching me for every tiny little infraction. Accidentally stepped out of the pre-defined combat zone? Desynched. Fell into the water? Desynched. This one NPC accidentally took some damage? Desynched. For a game that gives you so much freedom of movement, and so many weapons and tools to go about your business they sure love restricting you during the actual missions. I sincerely hope they loosen up a bit for AC3 because to me this is the single biggest flaw in the series. Rochard: From the HIB6, of course. Again I knew little about this, but I ended up enjoying it for the most part. Unlike the above two I don't have much to say about it, though. Decently fun puzzle-platformer, with some questionable combat thrown in (a bit too much at times). Scratches: Director's Cut: The horror is good. Atmosphere is well-done - it's suitably creepy to walk around the mansion, and the story is pretty classic horror mystery stuff and works well, and the developers wisely left some plot points open to interpretation. Music and sound design, which are so incredibly important to good horror, are for the most part also good. There are a bunch of good scares. The puzzles, though, range from fine to completely loving awful. The game gives you very little to go on; at times you will be walking around with seemingly absolutely no goal to accomplish and no idea what to do until you happen to stumble on what the game wanted you to. Crucial items will not appear in their locations before you 'know' they're supposed to be there. Some puzzles can only be completed in the specific manner of the designer's choice even though you literally have a solution in your hands (for example, the classic adventure game puzzle - slide paper under door, make key fall out of keyhole, pull piece of paper with key - only works with a very specific newspaper, even though there are a million newspapers tossed around everywhere - you have to pick up the RIGHT one which you might have missed because you didn't pixelhunt well enough - and this even though you have a perfectly suitable envelope in your inventory). Other puzzles are just straight up tedious or nonsensical, and since the game does a terrible job at giving clues (journal and friend-on-the-phone notwithstanding), you will end up walking around aimlessly for long periods of time. I think it's worth a playthrough, but be prepared to alt-tab to UHS every now and then and do not feel guilty about it.
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Sep 26, 2012 19:54
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Went through another round of shorter games. Vessel: Really liked this one a lot though I seem to recall people were complaining about it, but I don't remember why. I suppose it is a little buggy at times, but nothing too bad, and the puzzles were for the most part well done and challenging / satisfying. Music was great too. Never found a use for any of the upgraded nozzles, though. Wizorb: Dull, but I shouldn't have expected anything else. I did beat it since it's really short and easy but I feel like I shouldn't have spent 3 hours on an Arkanoid clone to begin with (at least one that isn't Shatter). AVSEQ: This is decent fun but seems very barebones, there isn't much to it. I didn't notice a difference between the levels other than the crystals dropping a little quicker and the note goal set higher. Visually it felt a little cluttered, and in the later levels it actively got in the way in the sense that the clutter could obscure the falling crystals, causing you to lose notes. Mediocre. Trine 2: More of the same but longer and prettier. Much prettier. Maybe one of the prettiest games I've played. I played it solo but I can see how co-op could be loads of fun as well. I might actually come back to this later to collect more experience / secrets, and will keep an eye out for a sale on the DLC. I've also made some good progress on SpaceChem over the past few weeks, going from "No Employment Record Found", where I was stuck for a really long time (can't believe it, it was stupidly easy), to "Suspicious Behavior". I genuinely think this is one of the best games I've ever played, potentially in the top 5, and I will beat it. It is brilliant. Next up: To the Moon, then Blackwell Deception... and then maybe I can finally get around to Crysis.
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Oct 25, 2012 20:22
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Finished another round of backlogged games. To the Moon: Very light on gameplay, and what is there is not very compelling, but the story is very touching, and the experience as a whole is gratifying in a way that most games aren't. Neil's dialogue is a bit grating at times, though you can look past it, and I'm not big on the SNES-style graphics, but everything else more than makes up for it. It's incredibly unusual for games to hit these kinds of emotional notes, and I definitely welled up a little at one point (it was when Johnny gives River the platypus toy way back when they were kids). Very curious how the sequel will turn out; hopefully the developer won't try to go for the same notes but more heart-wrenching, or else it risks falling flat. Blackwell Deception: The Blackwell games are all very good adventure games, and this was no exception. The voice acting seemed somewhat improved from the previous games in the series, too, though maybe I was imagining it. If you liked the others there's no reason you won't like this one. Crysis: I can't believe it took five years from release before I finally bought this game. Overall it was pretty good fun. I didn't modify any ini files and the suit felt well-balanced, though I can see how it would be fun to increase the duration of the powers so you can mess around a bit more. Unfortunately not since Fahrenheit have I played a game that takes such a sudden, massive nosedive in quality. In Crysis' case it's when you enter the alien structure. Linear levels, forced vehicle sections, spazzy flying enemies (are these ever fun to fight?), etc. The original Far Cry is blasted for introducing the trigens but the drop in quality there was nowhere near as bad as it was here. Pretty lame that Crytek made the same mistake, except worse. In Far Cry there was a much better balance of indoor/outdoor levels. Indoor, linear levels were just as much part of the game as the open, sprawling ones. In Crysis the linear levels are introduced suddenly and halfway through the game which really clashes with the early experience. Also, the last level is a woeful, buggy mess. Crysis Warhead: Much better! Short and to the point and cuts down on the alien enemies. Still some vehicle sections but at least you don't have to actively steer any if you don't want to.
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Nov 6, 2012 19:52
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I sort of finished Dustforce. I mean, not really, but I'm probably done with it. I've SSed every level except Hideout, Abyss and Backup Shift. So I won't get to play the very final level, which I suppose means I won't actually finish the game, but well. You gotta know how to recognize your limitations and quit when you're ahead. Great game overall. I was skeptical at first if it'd be as difficult as SMB but it sure delivered on some of those gold levels. After getting 106% on SMB and A+ on each level, then doing some ironman runs, however, I don't feel like I can get into another slog with a punishing platformer, so I'm calling Dustforce done at this point. I did beat those three levels, though. I'd say Abyss seems the most doable in terms of SSing it but screw it. The other two are just plain nonsense. Started on The Witcher 2 and have now arrived at Flotsam. It's okay so far. The first is quite possibly one of my favorite RPGs so I'm hoping this picks up soon, after all I've only done the prologue. Best thing so far is the writing on Dandelion's journal entries, which is great. I was a little baffled by the inclusion of QTEs, though... seems totally unnecessary. I'm also not entirely convinced by the UI from my PC-centric perspective, but I guess it could've been a lot worse.
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Nov 29, 2012 23:28
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I finished The Witcher 2. In short:  It's just so good. I loved the first one despite the flaws and this one does almost everything better. Like the first, it's very well-written, particularly the characterization. I'm sure the developers benefit a lot from the fact that the universe and characters have been fleshed out by a proper writer in countless books earlier, but full credit to them for not spoon-feeding us exposition anyway. There are references to events that took place outside the games all the time, and it's fine that the player might not be aware of them. The characters are, and they act and speak accordingly. I like that Geralt actually has friends (rather than mere acquaintances). I honestly don't remember any other RPG where the main character has proper friends. I like that you, on occasion, sit at an inn and have a drink with your friends, and the conversation is believable and relevant to the plot. The party at Shani's in the original is one of my favorite quests in that game. The premise for running into Dandelion and Zoltan at Flotsam is a bit silly, to be fair, but I can forgive it. Speaking of, whoever wrote the journal entries in Dandelion's voice clearly had a ton of fun, as that was some of the best writing in the game. I actually made sure to read every update cause they were so entertaining. The scope of how your decisions shape the game is only fully revealed if you reload a save at the end of Chapter 1 and play through the second path as well. There are plot points that you never learn in one path (if you go with Roche, for instance, you never learn that Saskia is a dragon and how she came to be controlled by Philippa at Loc Muinne). Chapter 3 is a totally different experience as well depending on that choice, despite taking place in the same location. I like the ambiguity in the game. Almost everyone is a villain in some way, but they all have an actual goal, and they can all support their goal with proper arguments. I like that you never know if you can trust someone. Even Triss I have my doubts on, but then again I can't trust the people who caused me to doubt her, so who knows? There are quests where you have to make a decision without ever being able to learn the 'truth' of what happened. You can leave it be, of course, and fail the quest, but that's not very satisfying as a player. Point is, the writers of these games understand that not everything has to be explained in full. Sometimes Geralt and the player will not learn what actually happened. This is in such sharp contrast to most other games, where there is a single truth in conflicts. The player might not discover it and end up picking the 'wrong' side, but it is there to be discovered. The combat is a big upgrade from the first game, and quite satisfying I thought. The Alchemy skill tree is massively powerful, though, seemed moreso than the Swordmaster one. I didn't really develop the magic one enough to judge it. I died a lot of times but never felt like it was unfair. All the little conveniences that I want are there: quicksave, frequest autosaves on top of that, skippable cutscenes, skippable dialogue, etc. There is enough gold to buy what you want but not too much that it trivializes the decision - you have to think a little about which armor, sword or rune you want to buy. Lots of little things like that that they just got right. There are some issues, obviously. The QTEs during boss fights and cutscenes added nothing, and at times I failed them just because I was sitting back and watching the scene playing out, not expecting to be prompted for a QTE (I quickly learned to pay attention, though). The sex scenes were very funny, and unfortunately it does seem like the devs still don't know how to justify the 'mature' label they flaunt about when it comes to portraying sex. I do appreciate that it's straight up, unapologetic casual sex rather than a dreadful 'romance', but the way it's presented (the cutscene direction) is in fact the opposite of mature. At least they got rid of the cards, though. One small step in the right direction. Overall, the game is amazing and anyone who likes RPGs should play it (and the first).
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Dec 14, 2012 00:47
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For whatever reason the current sale just isn't singing to me at all. Possibly because I've bought some of these games before, or maybe it really is just plain underwhelming. In any case, I've been making good progress through my backlog relatively unhindered. Three more down: Faerie Solitaire: Got it when it was free, and did not expect it to be quite so addictive. You barely notice the hours passing. It's a genuinely good, fun game, as most people will attest to I think. Beat the story mode and the challenges but as I'm not a 100% completionist type I'm not going to grind for those last few pets. Syberia/Syberia 2: Might as well lump them together cause very little separates them gameplay-wise (pretty much just a couple extra idle animations for Kate, I think). Overall I liked them, but with some reservations, though I don't want to be too harsh as they are like ten years old by now. Clunky animations, some UI inconveniences, etc., nothing too serious. I disliked some of the art direction, which bordered on cartoony for some characters. I felt that clashed a bit with Kate's rather normal appearance. I can't forgive the dialogue, however. It's just atrocious in every possible way. Borders on Two Worlds-level, on occasion, just absolutely horrible. Presumably it was originally in French? If the original script is decent then it got massacred in translation, or else it was awful from the start. The voice acting is similarly painful but I'm reluctant to fault the actors too much as they had very little to work with. Put subtitles on and click through it. Pacing was pretty good, although at times I did feel like the game was constantly sabotaging my progress (i.e. you solve one problem and a brand new one pops up. Again and again and again). Obviously there are always obstacles in your path in any game, but in this case some of them felt a little forced, and consequently slowed down the plot. The puzzles are mostly fine throughout with the exception of a few at the end of the second game. I loathe puzzles where you have to decipher some unknown civilization's codes/symbols/language. I had a horrible flashback to that one island in The Longest Journey. It also really needed a longer cutscene at the end to resolve Kate's situation. Even just putting her on a train somewhere in Russia with an inner monologue voiceover would've done the trick. It's so abrupt. Give me something. And now apparently Syberia 3 is in development... but why? The story's pretty much wrapped up. Strange. Anyway, in short, they are good but flawed games. Like most adventure games.
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Dec 25, 2012 01:09
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Finished some more games. Snapshot: Decent puzzle platformer. Could use a rewind feature, like many other puzzle platformers, or else mid-level checkpoints or something. The platforming controls are not precise enough and you end up dying a whole bunch of times and having to redo puzzles again and again gets frustrating. I didn't beat every single level cause the game doesn't require it in order to get to the end and it'd outstayed its welcome for me. Closure: Another fun puzzle platformer. I liked it more than Snapshot but really it had a similar issue with a lack of rewind/checkpoints. I am getting a little tired of puzzle platformers, though. Shank 2: More Shank, decent fun for the three hours it takes to beat. Presumably controls and gameplay were much improved from the first one but I guess I'm too poo poo at brawlers to notice cause it didn't seem that different to me. Offspring Fling!: More puzzle platforming... but lots of fun actually. Red Faction: Armageddon + DLC: After the first 1-2 hours I was ready to dismiss it as another mediocre action game and give it a pat on the back for trying, because it really does try. But strangely I started enjoying it more and more as I trudged along. The aliens are kind of annoying to fight, as spazzy enemies tend to be, and the weapons are not that fun to use despite the wide variety on offer, but the action was at times delightfully chaotic and destroying structures was fun. Overall a decent romp. I didn't buy a single game during this recent sale as nothing I really wanted got discounted deep enough, so I'm making good progress. Looking over my backlog, there are maybe 7-8 games to go before I'm left with things I'm either not so interested in or straight up never going to play (the latter are multiplayer-only). I think next I'll finally start up Cave Story, then either Saint's Row 3 or Legend of Grimrock.
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Jan 8, 2013 23:30
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Beat Cave Story+, sort of. I got the bad and normal endings playing on Easy, then started another run on the Original difficulty to try and get the best ending after looking up the requirements (which are very counterintuitive - especially the one regarding Professor Booster. Maybe that's the point though). I'm now at the Sacred Grounds but I'm considering calling it quits. The first and third parts are fine, but the second is annoying as poo poo, and, most importantly, it's incredibly disheartening to know there's no save point after the Heavy Press. Furthest I've gotten was taking it down to half its health. Looking on youtube, the final boss fight doesn't even seem that bad, but the tedium of going through that final area over and over again is getting to me. Really, I should've never bumped up the difficulty considering how terrible I am at this type of action sidescroller. Also, I can't stand having to click through that Nintendo-style slow scrolling text every time I die at a boss, which was an issue throughout the entire game. I know autosaves or even more abundant save points are modern conveniences but this poo poo can so easily kill a game for me. Aside from that, though, it really is fabulous, and maybe I'll go back to get the best ending on Easy later on.
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Jan 13, 2013 20:54
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ToxicFrog posted:If you don't already have the Nemesis I don't think this helps you, though. I skipped it.  I did look briefly for that little man while I was getting the mushroom but figured the Spur would be enough to get me through the endgame, plus the concept of the Nemesis - having to deliberately avoid experience so as not to level it up - sounded like it'd be more annoying than fun so I decided not to bother. Oh well. I'm moving on to Legend of Grimrock for now but I will keep this in mind in case I go back to CS+.
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Jan 14, 2013 18:13
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Beat Legend of Grimrock last night. I have to say, when I loaded it up that first time and it took me straight to the menu, with absolutely no intro movies standing in my way, I was stunned. That's unheard of nowadays! Overall I really enjoyed it, though it doesn't quite reach the heights I hoped it would. For whatever reason it didn't give me that intense feeling of descending deeper and deeper into a horrible dungeon from which you will be lucky to emerge alive. Maybe it's cause you never see daylight in the game to begin with, so there's nothing to contrast the grimness of the dungeon. I think more lore/backstory might've helped there too. It just felt like a series of levels rather than a dark descent into the unknown - the dungeon needed more character. But the gameplay was really fun. Some puzzles were annoying as I'm not a big fan of deciphering vague riddles/clues, but I appreciate that comes with the territory (though I almost can't believe there are people out there who didn't look up any solutions). Level 9 in particular can gently caress off. There was also a tad too much wall-staring. Loved the boss fight, it took me by surprise. And as someone who generally dislikes overly difficult/frustrating boss fights (who wants to end the game on a sour note?) I was happy that this one was so tame. Any other game would have reset his HP anytime you dropped into a pit just to pile on the misery. Hopefully Grimrock was successful enough that the devs can go and build on it, and make another dungeon crawler that's more fleshed out, has more content and more character.
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Jan 19, 2013 16:44
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Pierzak posted:Did you help your friend? Heh, I carried him with me to the end waiting for a chance to do something with him but it completely didn't occur to me to use him on a life crystal. In retrospect very stupid of me, but oh well! I'm sure he got a proper burial afterwards.
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Jan 19, 2013 21:26
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nipplefish posted:Unfortunately, I have all of the adventure games from the studio sitting in my backlog, and I'm compulsive enough that I'd like to beat any game that I paid for. My question is, can anyone tell me (as I struggle to power through this one) if I should even bother trying Syberia 2 or Still Life 1 & 2? Do the later games get more streamlined, or are they all pretty much the same in terms of this slow gameplay that I hate? I can't comment on Still Life but Syberia 2 is a direct continuation of the first in everything: story, mood, puzzles, interface, etc., it's the second half of the same game. The only improvements I noticed on my playthrough were a couple of additional idle animations for KATE WALKER (I can't not hear that automaton's voice when I see that name). If you're struggling to get through the first game you might as well abandon it before you reach the hideous cliffhanger at the end, I think, as the second will be more of the same. I've made some good progress on my backlog recently: Saints Row: The Third - Lots of fun. Was surprised to find out when reading the SR4 thread many people didn't like it, but I haven't played the first two so I had little expectations. It delivered on good quality open-world mayhem. E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy - Beat it three times to get the 'real' ending, but when you know the levels you can breeze through the campaign. Awesome game, but kind of unbalanced, and I wish the brouzouf prices were lower across the board. Loved the huge levels. Brutal Legend - Metal sucks, but not while you're playing this game. The Cave - I didn't expect much from Gilbert after... what, 20 years of not making a relevant game? I liked the individual segments of it but few people will dispute that it's a chore to play. The Basement Collection - Beat everything except Triachnid, which I really disliked, and AVGM, which is just tedious. Not necessarily 100% on everything, but that's okay. Time Fcuk would be the best one here, but Aether and Spewer are fantastic too. Meat Boy doesn't control as tightly as SMB so I skipped some levels and didn't go for all bandages. Alan Wake - Takes a while to get into it but once you do it's quite nice. The story's good fun but it should've, well, ended. From a plot perspective the DLCs add nothing and even they don't properly end it. I feel like Remedy is needlessly dragging it on considering they're making a full sequel. Broken Sword 1-3 - Decent adventure games which come with all the caveats you would expect. I didn't love them but they were pretty enjoyable. Except the third. The third is atrocious in every possible way. It has a long list of bad design decisions (box puzzles, forced stealth, poorly done QTEs, unskippable cutscenes and dialogue, awkward camera angles, bad controls, etc.) and this on top of the questionable writing, voice acting and puzzles that the first two had as well. Next up I'm going back to Alan Wake with American Nightmare. I find myself actually looking forward to the combat, surprisingly. After that Waking Mars, and after that hopefully I can get started on Divinity 2. I've been holding off on it for too long, but once I beat it my backlog will be in great shape. Probably less than twenty unbeaten titles, and most of those are either unfavored genres or games I've tried and couldn't get into. I could happily null many of them.
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Mar 31, 2013 21:54
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Beat three more. Alan's Wake American Nightmare: A really fun, fast-paced, combat-focused light version of Alan Wake. I probably enjoyed this more than the original to be honest. The camp might be a better fit for AW than pure horror/thriller. At the very least it was nice in a cathartic sort of way to play a stress-free session of Alan Wake. I also really loved the locations, particularly the Observatory. Waking Mars: I'll just echo what everyone else has said already. It's fun, pretty, relaxing and all-around excellent. Only thing I didn't like was the ART AI, both the writing and the voice acting. I had to chuckle when Liang asked if it's possible to turn him off, you get the feeling the devs knew he was annoying. Very minor flaw in an otherwise splendid experience. I wish more games like this existed. Divinity 2: Director's Cut: It took me over a year from when I bought it to get to this for some reason. It's very good. It's got everything I want from my RPGs, really. Nothing about it is particularly brilliant on its own, but everything comes together into a super fun, polished package. Orobas Fjords is one of the most unique areas I've seen in RPGs probably, just cause you don't normally see vertical space used so much. Combat's fun, loot is plentiful, quests are mostly interesting. The expansion is very different to the main game, interestingly. You're limited to just one town instead of big open areas, but Larian absolutely crammed that relatively small area with a huge amount of content. There is good world building there as well, with many locations and NPCs participating in more than a single quest (that's a bit of a pet peeve of mine in RPGs - when assets are obviously created for one singular purpose/quest it sort of exposes the 'design' behind the world). Good game, this.
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Apr 13, 2013 21:49
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I've been playing some FUEL. It sure is something. I was primarily interested in it for the open world it's set in, as its virtues have been touted on various occasions and locations over the years. On that aspect it does not disappoint, as the world is indeed stunning. First of all, it's absurdly enormous. I guess there are MMOs that are bigger, and Daggerfall, but presumably FUEL would rank up there on the list as well. A very pretty world, too, with a lot of variety in landscapes and scenery. It's a lot of fun to explore even if there is very little to actually discover. That's about the best aspect of the game, though. The racing itself is merely decent, I suppose. I used the REFUELED mod, which gives you the option to unlock all content in all zones from the get-go rather than by winning races and earning stars in career mode (though the entire map is available in free roam from the beginning). Although I didn't use it myself I would advise prospective players to just go for it. The races are often very long and it can get frustrating to miss out on a win because of a late mistake. There is no prize for second or third place either, which is aggravating. You either win, or lose. Since the exploration in Free Roam mode is the best thing the game has to offer I thought it disappointing that you can't unlock content/collectibles in a zone by reaching its camp in free roam mode. Frankly driving from one camp to another takes so long that it's practically a bigger achievement than completing a few races to earn enough stars for the next unlock. It's also more fun. I think this is a perfect game for when you want to relax. Ignore the actual racing. The default music is crap, so set up a playlist on iTunes with some moody instrumentals and go for a drive (I thought Dirty Three and Ratatat worked particularly well). Use REFUELED to lengthen the day/night cycle for longer sunsets and sunrises. It's beautiful. If you're lucky you'll get a tornado or two on the way. Start at one side of the map and head in the other direction, making detours for collectibles if you've unlocked them in whatever zone you're in. The races could be rage-inducing at times (and I swear the game occasionally teleports opponents ahead), but this is much more like it. It's also a real shame no one licensed the engine/tech and made a proper game with it. Feels like it could have been great for an open-world RPG or FPS. Technically I guess I haven't beaten it, but I unlocked all the zones legitimately and that's good enough for me. Whatever races I haven't beaten were probably too annoying to bother with. Calling this done, but I plan on keeping it installed for whenever I feel like taking a ride. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 18:25
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I beat SpaceChem.  That final defense mission was a huge, huge pain in the rear end. I spent literally hours retrying it after the reactors had already been set up just because of weird timing/pipeline issues and annoying asteroids getting in the way. My solution was probably hideously inefficient, though, as was the norm with me and this game. There is a certain type of satisfaction in watching a suboptimal solution do its thing, though. You know it's poo poo, and though it's all the way on the right side of the graph in cycles and/or symbols, it gets the loving job done anyway. Even if it takes twice as long as other people's solutions. It's ugly and inefficient but dammit it works.I still have some loose ends to tie up (one optional mission, half the DLC, etc.) and I plan on getting all the achievements too, but for now it's nice to call it done. I'm 100% convinced this is one of the best games ever made, and it's certainly in my top five. It has only one flaw - and it's a massive one - which is the inability to save solutions in-game, but even factoring in this flaw it's still one of the best games ever made. And the flip-flop is one of the greatest gameplay mechanics/elements ever. Going back to pre-flipflop assignments feels like you're missing a limb.
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Apr 28, 2013 11:53
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My "Recently Played" page has twelve entries on it, which surely means I am doing well working on the backlog. The Walking Dead: Everybody already knows this is fantastic and I don't have much to add. I hope they fix the save game bug for season 2. Stealth Bastard Deluxe: Quite a fun puzzle platformer. You die a lot but checkpoints are usually generous, so it's all right. Hotline Miami: Took me some time to get into this but I liked it overall. I thought the controls were a bit tricky, particularly the guns/ranged weapons. Capsized: I've read a lot of bad things about this game but I actually quite liked it. It's pretty, plays well and doesn't overstay its welcome. Thomas Was Alone: It's all right. I think it suffers a bit from the same issue The Cave had where you have to move a number of characters to the same place separately. But it's got character and some good puzzles. Little Inferno: Loved it. Serious Sam Double D: Decently fun side-scrolling shooter. Serious Sam: The Random Encounter: Really weird game that gets kind of difficult in its later stages, but fortunately it's very short. Organ Trail: Director's Cut: Really enjoyed this take on the Oregon Trail. It took me about two hours to do a run but I might go back to try one on a higher difficulty. On Normal at least the strategy seems to essentially be - scavenge while activity is low, trade excess food, then wait a day and scavenge more. I was rolling in supplies by the end. Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers: Pretty fun! Not much else to say. Hector, Episode 1: The humor is hit or miss, some of it is kind of dull, crass toilet humor, but some of it is actually kind of funny as well. Puzzles get the job done. I like it enough to play the next two. The twelfth game is Fractal, but I'm kind of undecided on it, not sure if I'll bother beating it. It's okay I guess, but seems to have become really hard really quickly, though I think I also kind of suck at it to be honest. The prospect of beating ~60 of these levels doesn't sound very appealing at the moment.
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Jun 24, 2013 18:16
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Beaten some more games over the past few weeks. McPixel: It's all right and pretty amusing at times, but doesn't really have much staying power. I did the minimum required to beat it. Intrusion 2: Not a huge fan of side-scrolling shooters. I thought the controls were a bit floaty and weird. Boss fights were fun, though, which was surprising to me since I normally dislike boss fights. Virtua Tennis 4: I liked this more than I thought I would, probably because I like tennis in general. Career mode is fun and there is a lot of variety to the playstyles you can choose. Got double bageled by Nadal at the French Open, no surprises there. I got 11.5 hours logged but think I'll probably play more of this. Armed and Dangerous: This has been sitting in my library for maybe two years and I've finally gotten around to it. Unfortunately I hated it. It was trying way too hard to be funny and fell completely flat. A Scottish accent doesn't automatically make everything funny. The dialogue and jokes were awful, the cutscenes were too long and the actual gameplay sucked. I was disappointed as I kind of expected a cult classic. Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures: Pretty good. I'd never seen any W&G stuff before so I didn't mind that the voice actor for Wallace wasn't the original, which many people apparently bemoaned upon release. I thought he did a good job. It's pretty standard pre-TWD TellTale stuff, good but unremarkable. Mark of the Ninja: Very good as everyone already knows. I didn't like that each scroll had a specific text attached to it, cause if you skip some the story becomes very disjointed. I guess that's something subsequent playthroughs can tackle, though, filling in the details. I might go back to this cause I skipped a lot of challenge rooms. Serious Sam 3: BFE: It's Serious Sam, which is fun. I didn't mind the early levels that much, even if they were corridors. I do think I should've paced myself better with this game. I did levels 1-9 in one day and by the end it became a real slog, wiping 200 enemies, moving on, wiping another 200 enemies, etc. etc. I really just wanted it to end at that point. Came back the next day and finished it, taking a break between each level, and it was much more fun. Two complaints: the indoor bits in the darkness with the spazzy enemies were awful, and there was not enough time with the cannon. Critter Crunch: I'm not sure why I don't like this. It's technically good, and it's cute, but I just don't have fun when playing this at all, I get annoyed instead. Maybe if gems didn't vanish after a few seconds so you didn't have to rush to get them, or if the rate at which lines dropped was slightly slower, I would like it better. As it is, though, I'm at the last level of adventure mode and once I beat that I am uninstalling it immediately.
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Jul 21, 2013 12:07
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Beat Dishonored in 22 hours. It's awesome. You can totally see and feel the Thief/Deus Ex lineage. I'm very appreciative of them giving players a lot of freedom to customize the UI, though there were on occasion some issues with removing the quest marker as the game didn't always inform you whereabouts whatever or whoever you had to find was (but usually it did!). I spent an eternity looking for Pendelton after one mission and finally found him in front of the tower. In retrospect though I should've used my vision The level design was fantastic and the game looked beautiful and ran super smoothly on my aging HD4980. Plot-wise, I was disappointed about the betrayal. I'm kind of tired of being betrayed all the time in every game. Not a big deal, of course, and overall I really enjoyed the story and setting. Excellent game all in all.
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Jul 30, 2013 21:29
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I guess I beat FEZ, though I feel like half the game passed me by completely. I made it to the credits with 28 cubes and four anti-cubes, then grabbed a couple more on NG+. But I was useless for solving most of the secrets and non-platforming puzzles. Owl, windmill, bell, clock, telescope - I really have no clue at all what I was supposed to do there. I mean I scribbled some notes as I was playing, matched up some symbols to some other symbols, etc., but it was all very basic and frankly I did not really understand any of it. Nevertheless I did enjoy the game a lot, but I hate deciphering codes/alien languages in games. I appreciate what it was going for, though, the sense of mystery and subsequent glory when you finally find the solution. It's nice that many others did enjoy working out all the secrets whether alone or with others. Good game, but only half of it was for me.
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Aug 2, 2013 16:01
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monster on a stick posted:Nulled: Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight Prototypes I would at least try Autonomous as well, it feels a lot more complete than the others and is great fun if you have like thirty minutes to waste. That's the one most people want to see made into a full game, I think (and Brazen, but that was an older prototype).
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Aug 4, 2013 08:30
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Sleeping Dogs: It took me ages to get to this one. Definitely a good game but I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I'd done all this stuff before. I enjoyed the setting but I was keen on wrapping it up pretty quickly cause it just became a bit boring. Decent fun for 17 hours, but no way is this GOTY 2012 when it's up against Walking Dead. I'm probably just bored of this genre though to be fair. FTL: It's fantastic. Didn't quite grab me as much as, say, Binding of Isaac did, though - I don't think I'll put 160 hours into it. But I'll definitely keep playing cause just beating it once is not enough for sure. There are a lot of ships still to unlock and I've been pretty faithful to the Engi A/Teleporter combo, so it'd be interesting to see how the strategy changes once you play with the various crew/weapon combinations. Crysis 2: Is this sort of what cinematic shooters like CoD/Homefront are like? Press Space to use defibrillator, press Mouse 1/2 to crawl. I enjoyed it for the most part, but by the end I just cloaked and ran through the levels while things exploded around me. For whatever reason the suit didn't feel as fun to mess around with as it was in the first game. Many of these AAA games don't seem to do much for me anymore. My backlog took a serious beating with the recent bundles, and particularly the Spiderweb Software one. Each one of those is a monster... I think I'll play Ittle Dew next instead.
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Aug 22, 2013 20:20
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ManxomeBromide posted:Also, holy crap: I've been playing this as well for a little bit, but I'm really struggling with the camera. I feel like I'm constantly in battle with it and it's just a huge source of frustration, particularly on certain levels. The second level of Advanced Whale, for example - the pyramid - is just a total nightmare. You can't see anything, and the camera swings about seemingly at random which just compounds the misery even further. I haven't even been able to move the whale a single step on that level because I just cannot see what I'm doing. This is the same problem I had with RUSH, another 3D puzzle game. I really wish the game let you skip levels, even just one per world, or otherwise opened up more worlds to you. Between the pyramid and a few annoying levels on Advanced Larvae I get the feeling that I won't be progressing any further, and from everything I've read it seems the best puzzles are later on.
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Sep 3, 2013 08:46
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ManxomeBromide posted:If this is the pyramid with the holes in it and the whale is somewhere inside it, there's a trick to it: Never enter the pyramid. You should be able to push it out merely by pushing the light shooting out of gaps. If there aren't any gaps, you made a mis-move and need to undo.. That's the one. Thanks, I'm going to give it another go keeping this in mind. I do really like the Whale mechanic as well, though I've only seen that and Larvae so far. Some of what I read about the later mechanics reminded me a bit of the old game Heaven & Earth, which is still one of my favorite puzzle games ever, so I was doubly disappointed to get stuck so early in ECT. I'll keep at it and hope the camera doesn't kill it for me completely. edit: Yeah, that did it. The camera is still a nightmare though, good lord. edit2: Beat Advanced Whale and thought I'd unlocked a new world, but unfortunately I still have to go through Advanced Larva. I really think that's a bad decision on the developer's part, although I suppose SpaceChem is the same. ECT feels to me a lot more trial and error than SpaceChem, though, but maybe I'm just not as good at it. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Sep 3, 2013 |
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Sep 3, 2013 12:02
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Beaten some more games: Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can: I generally don't play hidden object games so I actually kind of enjoyed this. It was pretty relaxing. It's funny that there's a whole genre of games based on what is commonly perceived as the worst part of classic adventure games. Ittle Dew: Nothing but Zelda block puzzles, but I enjoy those and the game has a cute art style. It's short and easy to knock off the backlog, but does offer some replayability for anyone who wants it (you get three items to help you solve puzzles throughout the game but apparently you can do entire runs that completely omit any one of the three, instead just relying on the other two) and there's some optional puzzles in there as well. Sang-Froid - Tales of Werewolves: This reminded me a lot of Horde, which is a good thing. It's really unpolished in some areas (animation, voice acting) but there is a lot of heart in there. The planning phase is really fun and it's very satisfying when your plan goes through without a hitch. Seems like there could be decent room for different strategies as well. Fun game. RAGE: As someone who bought this for $5 two years after release, had zero technical issues and no expectations, I had a lot of fun with this. The shooting is excellent and varied (weapons and ammo types), the levels are big and pretty and the character animations are great. It's linear as poo poo but I don't mind at all. I wasn't convinced by the racing but you're only obligated to do two of those, I think. You can tell they really tried to stuff a lot of side content into it to enrich the game, and even though it's of varying quality I can at least applaud the effort. And if you stick to the main missions I honestly think it's a pretty good game. The plot is crap and the end is abrupt and underwhelming, but it's a FPS from id so I can't bring myself to care. Really fun shooter.
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Sep 11, 2013 18:21
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The Whispered World: If you can get past the voice acting for the main character or otherwise click through his dialogue quickly, there is a lot to like about this. Some puzzles are nonsensical, but that's routine when playing adventure games (though I suppose it shouldn't be). The art is beautiful and the game feels old-school in that it's much harder than some other contemporary adventure games that I've played (particularly the TellTale ones, which I feel sometimes give you half a solution for free). Looking forward to playing more of Daedalic's stuff. Aquanox: This has a lot of heart but the gameplay just isn't quite there. It's a cool setting and all, like a cyberpunk world but underwater, and it'd be great to explore that in, say, an RPG or an adventure game. The actual game part is really lacking, though. There are only a few ships to pick from and the progression in their stats is very linear. Likewise, there are relatively few weapons to pick from. The customization that you'd expect from a space sim game (which this essentially emulates) just isn't there. The missions are boring too - there is a lot of travelling from navigation point A to navigation point B, etc. I played with a mouse and the controls were awful, I had to google extensively to find a solution and tinker a ton with ini files and whatnot before it was even remotely playable, but I suppose you could argue I shouldn't have bothered without a joystick. It's an old game, too, so that's sort of forgiveable I suppose. My biggest complaint is the lack of checkpoints even in very long missions. I ended up playing on Easy because it was a pain to have to restart all the way at the beginning if you died. After finishing this I then tried to play through Aquanox 2. The controls and UI were much improved, but the mission design and lack of checkpoints weren't. I made it to the fourth mission or so but it was just so crushingly dull that I could not persuade myself to keep going. At the very beginning you're still stuck with awful, dingy weapons that do so little damage that trying to whittle down an opponent's health becomes an exercise in tedium. I knew from the first game that it gets a bit more fun as you unlock the better weapons, but that knowledge was not enough. Gunpoint: It's really great and worthy of the praise. Super fun, funny and clever, but yeah - it's short. It does allow for replayability, though, either just with a different play style or going for speedruns. Two Worlds: Epic Edition: I knew what I was getting myself into but I intentionally wanted to experience this for myself. It was 80% off during the summer sale so I went for it, and frankly, it was kind of fun. The dialogue and voice acting combo is the stuff of legends and rightly so, and it remains funny to the end (though you'll be clicking through most of it anyway). The actual game is decent, I thought. Though definitely a bog-standard open-world RPG, the weapons are fun (though combat is admittedly very simplistic), the item stacking mechanic is weird in a good way and the game showers you with loot. The quests are your typical stuff that you'll see in these games and the pacing of the story/exploration I thought was a little off (you will see very little of the bottom half of the map), but all in all it's a fun and charmingly stupid romp for ~15-20 hours. The 39 Steps: I haven't read the book or seen any of the film adaptations, so the story was new to me and it was pretty easy to get into it. I thought there was just enough interaction required from the player to help make it a little more involving than simply clicking through text. The backgrounds and illustrations were very pretty and helped set the mood of each scene nicely. Very enjoyable.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:35
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Dr. Buttass posted:So, in general, the more cartoony and funny the art style and plot, the better shape you're in with Daedalic. Seems like a solid rule of thumb to follow. I mulled over buying A New Beginning for like a week cause I had a coupon for it but eventually decided against it - looks like I made the right call. Three more games down: Zack Zero: Not a good game. The basic premise is fine but the execution lets it down. The suit powers that you can switch in and out of are not actually that useful most of the time, definitely not for any puzzles (which are very simple) and only a little bit for combat. That seems like a missed opportunity since the interplay between them could've been exploited to build more interesting puzzles. It's a pretty game, but simplistic and repetitive, and mechanically it fails on a few fronts (like the platforming, which is imprecise). Fortunately there are very frequent checkpoints so any frustration is kept to a minimum, but there is no real reason to play this to be honest. Retrovirus: Pretty good! It starts out slow but picks up gradually, and good thing it does because it's actually pretty long - about 9-12 hours. I was dreading it a bit in the beginning but it becomes more fun once you've got some weapon and ability upgrades to play around with, and the levels also open up a lot. The first third or so is almost nothing but corridors, but later on you get some open enviroments to go through as well. There is admittedly some backtracking but I personally didn't find it too bad. It looks pretty but performance is uneven, it's lacking a bit in terms of optimization (the Steam forum is riddled with performance-related threads). One thing is I wish they'd been a little more generous with the upgrades - I feel like they were just powerful enough that you could feel the positive effects, but not quite powerful enough to drive it home and make the upgrade really exciting. I'd have liked some of the numbers to be adjusted slightly higher - 5% instead of 2%, stuff like that. Bully: Scholarship Edition: Great idea for a game. Great writing, too - it's all very funny. The soundtrack is fantastic. In terms of gameplay, though, it's a whole bunch of nothing, or rather a whole lot of minigames and QTEs. Nonstop. It's not just the classes, but also tons of the actual missions that boil down to yet another unfun minigame. Vehicle controls are an absolute nightmare (on kb&m) and checkpoints are conspicuously missing (which means if you fail a mission - at any stage - you have to travel all the way back to wherever it was you picked it up). The final chapter was very clearly rushed and underdeveloped. Final boss fight a bit underwhelming. I don't know if I can really recommend this game - conceptually it is fantastic and very well-realized, but it's just such a chore to play through. I feel like it's driven home something that I'd been suspecting for a while now, which is that I just don't enjoy Rockstar's games (and GTA-clones in general). Out-of-mission the gameplay is not engaging enough, and in-mission it's too tightly scripted (e.g. chasing someone who has the same speed as you, meaning you can't actually catch up to him until the script says you do; failing missions because you stepped out of the pre-determined boundaries; stuff like that).
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Oct 4, 2013 16:09
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Beat Dead Space and it was pretty great. Takes a few levels to get used to how Isaac controls, but once you stop trying to sprint around corners and just accept his particular pace they feel good. I was pretty faithful to the Line Gun and Force Gun, and fully upgraded they were both really fun to use. The guns in general were good I thought, and it helps that most were designed around chopping off limbs, as it makes them a lot more unique than your usual action game arsenal. Graphics and atmosphere were solid, sound was good, levels were mostly great (bit too much pulling crates around at some points), enemies were varied, etc. etc. etc. Just an all around good game. The story's obviously super cliché but I didn't mind much. I did find it interesting that beating the game unlocks "Backstory Logs". I would think you'd want that stuff in the first playthrough. The sequel is pretty much a guaranteed purchase for me at Christmas (or earlier if they bring it out for Halloween), though I already know to expect more action.
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Oct 18, 2013 20:39
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Batman: Arkham City: Essentially more of the same but since Arkham Asylum was so good it doesn't matter one bit, and this one is just as good. They went a little crazy with the amount of Riddler trophies, though. I got 100% in AA but there's no way I'm doing it here. The Catwoman segments were fun to play, but contributed absolutely nothing to the story (which is a bit weak to begin with) - they could've been dropped entirely. But more problematic for me was that I found Catwoman the character extremely obnoxious (in her dialogue as well as its delivery). I'm not well-versed on the Batman universe so I don't know how faithful Rocksteady was to the comics. If they were I guess I just dislike the character, period. Her design didn't help - they really should've zipped her up all the way. All in all it's a super fun game, and the gameplay is so smooth and intuitive that you can settle into it immediately (though perhaps it helps that I played AA). There are no bumps in the road or little frustrations that you have to overcome first. It's such an easy game to enjoy. Even the boss fights, which I dislike in most games, were fun (having checkpoints between phases helps). The Batman universe is fun to be in and these games realize it very well.
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Oct 27, 2013 22:33
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 12:55 |
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Edna & Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes: The second Daedelic game I've played and they're now 2/2 as far as I'm concerned. Fun, cute and generally well-written (it is admittedly a bit hamfisted in the exploration of its themes, but that may have been a stylistic choice. It's not a very subtle game). My one complaint is that the ending cutscene needed to be longer, it felt a little too abrupt. Plotwise it was fine to end it there, but it took maybe ten seconds for the game to go from your final action to the credits. Just a bit too quick. Primordia: The art is beautiful, the setting is engaging and the puzzles make sense and often have multiple solutions. A very, very good game. However, I am tired of snarky, comic-relief robot sidekicks. Not a great offense, but just a bit unnecessary. There is a wide range of traits that you can give your side characters and I feel like I run into this type very often (whether robotic or not). Now playing Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams. I hate so many things about this game. The platforming is annoyingly imprecise (on keyboard), the art style is gaudy and painful on the eyes, the environments are dull, the levels are too long and checkpoints too often bafflingly placed. And I just loathe the music. I hate that for some reason when you launch the game the default selected menu option is Options and you have to scroll up to get to Play, and after you do the default selection for that menu is on Time Attack rather than, say, Normal. I hate that the game doesn't tell you exactly what you need to do to unlock the boss levels (collect lots of gems and minimize deaths), and I hate that you need to collect poo poo to unlock those to begin with. Most of all I hate that I feel like I have to beat every game I start, which means instead of straight up nulling this game I'm going to bash my head against it for a while longer just because I'm fairly close to the end (3-5). Super Meat Boy has spoiled me on platformers, and this is not Super Meat Boy. Not by a longshot. I might just swear off 2.5D platformers after this because I don't remember the last one I enjoyed (I guess Trine if it counts, but it had so much more going for it than this). Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 20:10
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