Shadow Warrior 2 was a lot of fun tho I'm still not sure how to feel about it becoming a loot n shoot.
I haven't had a chance to pick up Shadow Warrior 2 yet but I imagine the dev team is driven to give it its own way of being an over the top FPS game. Their first entry in the series was a fun over the top reboot of a 90s shooter that encouraged to often be up close and personal with demons but that domain has been thoroughly taken over by nu-Doom and I don't think Flying Hog wants to try to compete in that arena.
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
*sigh*
Nope, I can't do it. The gitguditude is too strong.
---
Steredenn: We're still talking about roguelikes, right?
Billing itself as "at the crossroads between a shmup and a rogue-like", Steredenn is a shoot-em-up with randomized level generation, unique bosses and weapons, daily runs and a boss practice mode. You start each run with 10 health and a forward-shooting gun. From there, you'll have to shoot your way through hordes of varied enemies and take down the boss at the end of each level. Beating the final boss loops you back around for another run, supposedly with stronger bosses, while getting shot down means you start over from scratch.
Your ship is limited to two weapons at a time, of which the default machine gun is one of the more useful. Taking down enemy cargo ships drops new weapons for you to pick up, swapping with your current weapon if you already have a second. Weapon types include cannons, lasers, drone dispensers, a sword, a flamethrower, a boomerang, a chargeable smartbomb and many more. While every weapon has some ideal circumstance, I found myself grabbing the smartbomb whenever I could manage due to its consistent defensive utility.
Levels consist of waves of enemies, usually with some sort of additional stage modifier such as debris or meteors or laser satellites. Each wave gives you an objective, either beating all the enemies or dodging all the obstacles, that increases your score Combo. Getting hit drops your Combo a level. Maintaining a high Combo probably means you're playing better but there's no other mechanic that lets you take advantage of it.
Bosses have multiple phases they cycle through, changing or rotating at certain thresholds of time or damage depending on who you're facing. Early stages have a variety of possible boss variants before converging on consistent enemies later. Beating a boss replenishes your health and gives you a choice of five passive bonuses such as "+50% droprate and +15% damage for Cannons", "Charge a shield when not firing" or "+2 max health".
As someone used to Touhou, I found Steredenn brutally difficult. Bullets come fast and often hit for multiple points of health. Weapons are clumsy to switch between and most don't feel appreciably *better* than the default gun. Smartbombs are nonexistent outside of one weapon. There are no health refills until you take down a boss, no continues to let you retry from where you left. And there's no real metaprogression like Isaac or FTL - every run starts with the same ship with the same gun. Collecting new weapons does let use them in boss practice but that seems less useful when you can never guarantee what you'll take into that boss fight during a real run.
Graphics are fine. Enemies are recognizable, helpful when you see them run after run. The player ship transforms slightly depending on the weapon you have equipped, a neat detail. The music is cool, especially when it changes after you beat a boss, though none of the tunes are really memorable to me.
I don't think Steredenn is a bad game. But when it me takes twenty seconds to go from top shape to Game Over, it's getting harder to power through the frustration to try again. I'll probably come back to it someday, but for now I have to put it back on my digital shelf.
Final Score: 3/5
Playtime: ~5 hours
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg) Backlog Challenge List
Shadow Warrior 2 was a lot of fun tho I'm still not sure how to feel about it becoming a loot n shoot.
I haven't had a chance to pick up Shadow Warrior 2 yet but I imagine the dev team is driven to give it its own way of being an over the top FPS game. Their first entry in the series was a fun over the top reboot of a 90s shooter that encouraged to often be up close and personal with demons but that domain has been thoroughly taken over by nu-Doom and I don't think Flying Hog wants to try to compete in that arena.
I really enjoyed SW2 until I realized that a shotgun with +AE range and some life steal means I can just run around shooting at the sky or at my toes or at the walls and everything dies while I stay at full health. The shotgun blast isn't a cone, it's a sphere and that's just wrong. Still got my money's worth out of it but the various weapon types just weren't balanced very well against each other. It had that other amusing FPS game trope going on that the revolver is the best sniper rifle as well - high damage per shot, 100% accurate to infinite range. Grenade launchers and rocket launchers mostly just sucked (better use shotgun), SMGs were ok but rather weak, melee was fun but hard to pull off at harder difficulties and the big chaingun-style guns were good boss killers.
+1 star for Wang being Wang and I'd say it's about 3.5 stars, maybe 4.
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
So I bought the Vagrant because why not and played it a ton last night. I really like it actually. Once you get past the aesthetic choices (which is easy for me, maybe not for others) it is a super solid game. I guess thought now I am going to have to acually play Vanillaware games though.
Finished Vanquish. That was fun.
Some plot spoilers.
So the basic setup is the US President (probably not an unintentional Hillary Clinton-ish look) has conspired with the Russians to start a war to reinvigorate the economy while both sides try to betray each other. And Californians pay the price. Ok, little implausible but ok.
Can't wait for the sequel. It came out how long ago? Ok, maybe no sequel in the works.
Then I hit the ABORT button on an attempt to play through Blood of the Werewolf. It seemed liked a pretty decent action platformer but then I hit an instant death section where I repeatedly died over and over and over again.
I think me finishing that seemed too unlikely for the backlog challenge.
Started up Night in the Woods which has been very good so far. The writing is top notch, and the music and style are great. It's one of those games where the whole package feels very carefully crafted.
Not sure how far along we are yet. People are starting to get pretty honest with each other so it feels like it's starting to take a turn.
Hanging out in Steam chat as one does. @Malakaius and I were discussing the complexities of lunch sharing. @destroyah87 decided to take one of my statements out of context and well, here we are...
Thank you Hopefully this will scratch that Monster Hunter itch I've never had the chance to scratch
I've never played Red Solstice but the price is right. It also looks like it has 8-player online co-op so that could be a good option for some FNG in the near future. Grab it now while it's free!
Okay, I had actually intended to be completed done with Resident Evil Revelations 2 but this raid mode is actually pretty cool.
Its got abit of RPG style level progression and looting mechanics to it.
Rev 2's Raid Mode properly sunk its claws into me for a while, I think I wound up spending nearly twice as much time in that mode as in the actual game.
It's certainly the most fun arcade-like experience that I've seen for a long time.
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
I won the game!
...No, not the game I was talking about twelve hours ago.
---
You Have To Win The Game: Okay, now what?
Available for free, You Have To Win The Game is a short exploration platformer delivered in retro style. Your character runs and jumps, exploring A Place divided into screens with helpful and/or snarky names to help you keep track of your location. Liberally sprinkled throughout the game are checkpoints, wall-mounted bells rung when you touch them. Enemies and spikes abound but the save points are always placed generously, ensuring a hard segment can be retried quickly and a single mistake doesn't set you back. These segments also tend to be short rather than elaborate.
Scattered through the world are coin bags and heart purses, each of which increases your completion percentage. These do nothing to actually aid in your Winning of The Game but there's probably something special if you get it to 100%. (I Won my first Game with 94%.) There are also four mobility aids - two to fill in hollow blocks, one to enable double-jump and one to enable wall climbing - to aid in your collection and eventual Win. Finally, the world is peppered with graffiti to aid in your learning the Magic Word, the key to Winning The Game.
The Game is presented as an experience in four colors (pink, cyan, white and black) projected upon a 1980s computer terminal screen. The menu screen first greets you with the clickety-clack of a period mechanical keyboard, loud and obnoxious but also absent from all but the bookends of The Game. You can also turn the effect off if it gives you a headache, though I was fine with it.
Overall, You Have To Win The Game is short and sweet. The only points where I slammed against the difficulty were in the "bosses", really just bullet hoses for you to navigate past to access the powerups and progress past them. I'm not sure I'll be getting all the achievements during the challenge (including a 10-minute speedrun and winning the nine-lives Cat Mode) but it's not something I'll exclude for the future. On the list for tomorrow is the sequel, Super Win The Game!
My Score: 4/5
Playtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes, 40 seconds
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg) Backlog Challenge List
Every time I see the name of that game without context, I think it's a school exam writing simulator
I'm not sure how to pull it off, but that could be an interesting game. One minute of prep to "study your notes" then try to pull off enough part marks to get a pass on the curve. A little memorization, some guess work, educated guessing the right equation to drop numbers into, plus an assumed 4/30 for the long answer section. Could be fun.
I think that the internet has been for years on the path to creating what is essentially an electronic Necronomicon: A collection of blasphemous unrealities so perverse that to even glimpse at its contents, if but for a moment, is to irrevocably forfeit a portion of your sanity.
Xbox - PearlBlueS0ul, Steam
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
...No, not the game I was talking about twelve hours ago.
---
You Have To Win The Game: Okay, now what?
Available for free, You Have To Win The Game is a short exploration platformer delivered in retro style. Your character runs and jumps, exploring A Place divided into screens with helpful and/or snarky names to help you keep track of your location. Liberally sprinkled throughout the game are checkpoints, wall-mounted bells rung when you touch them. Enemies and spikes abound but the save points are always placed generously, ensuring a hard segment can be retried quickly and a single mistake doesn't set you back. These segments also tend to be short rather than elaborate.
Scattered through the world are coin bags and heart purses, each of which increases your completion percentage. These do nothing to actually aid in your Winning of The Game but there's probably something special if you get it to 100%. (I Won my first Game with 94%.) There are also four mobility aids - two to fill in hollow blocks, one to enable double-jump and one to enable wall climbing - to aid in your collection and eventual Win. Finally, the world is peppered with graffiti to aid in your learning the Magic Word, the key to Winning The Game.
The Game is presented as an experience in four colors (pink, cyan, white and black) projected upon a 1980s computer terminal screen. The menu screen first greets you with the clickety-clack of a period mechanical keyboard, loud and obnoxious but also absent from all but the bookends of The Game. You can also turn the effect off if it gives you a headache, though I was fine with it.
Overall, You Have To Win The Game is short and sweet. The only points where I slammed against the difficulty were in the "bosses", really just bullet hoses for you to navigate past to access the powerups and progress past them. I'm not sure I'll be getting all the achievements during the challenge (including a 10-minute speedrun and winning the nine-lives Cat Mode) but it's not something I'll exclude for the future. On the list for tomorrow is the sequel, Super Win The Game!
My Score: 4/5
Playtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes, 40 seconds
I like them both, but I think I preferred the smaller world of You Have to Win the Game over Super Win. I also appreciate Minor Key Games's CRT emulation, which is something they've tinkered on and applied to their other relevant titles, but I prefer to play with it off. I'm glad they allow you to choose whether you want it.
11.5 GB download for a game that crashed in the first five minutes & then wouldn't let me log back in. Seems legit. I guess this is why you don't trust games that have a "mixed" rating on Steam, even if they're free-to-play.
The lovely @Ed Gruberman pointed out to me that Revelations 2 deluxe edition is on sale on the humble store, so I'm downloading that now, and it might be the next game I'm gonna play for the challenge.
Meanwhile I've completed both Event[0] and Rakuen.
Event[0] is a quick but enjoyable (and very pretty) game, where you play a human space traveller, and resident of a science station orbiting europa, who's station is destroyed in an accident and who's escape pod is rescued by a luxury liner dated back to the dawn of human spaceflight. The only thing 'alive' on the ship is the ship's curmudgeonly AI, who you talk to via old school computer terminals. As the player you have no ability to really manipulate anything, all interactions have to be done via convincing the AI to do what you want, with your end goal being getting back to earth.
Rakuen is an RPGmaker game in the vein of To The Moon, about a boy getting treatment for cancer in a Japanese hospital. The boy and his mother use a magic book to go on adventures that take them out of the confines of the hospital wing, where they explore the magical land which parallels the hardships the other hospital residents are suffering through. The game has very pretty pixel art, and beautiful music. It has a cute story with some pretty dark undertones. I enjoyed it plenty, but ultimately I think it was held back a bit by being an RPG maker game (more so than To The Moon was). The visuals are pretty, but are only output at 420 resolution (or something similarly tiny) so you have to either play the game in a tiny window, or have it upscaled by your monitor in fullscreen mode (which at least on my system turns it into a bit of a blurry mess). The music is good, but would greatly benefit from a dynamic music system rather than having each track always start from the beginning every time there is a scene change (there are several tracks that I've heard the first 20 seconds or so a hundred times, but the rest of the track only once when I stood around just to find out what the whole thing sounded like). The game's pace is also slower than it needs to be. It feels well paced when you first enter an area to explore it for the first time, but with the slow rpg maker movement moving from point a to point b through already explored areas slows the pace way down when it doesn't need to be so slow.
The lovely @Ed Gruberman pointed out to me that Revelations 2 deluxe edition is on sale on the humble store, so I'm downloading that now, and it might be the next game I'm gonna play for the challenge.
Meanwhile I've completed both Event[0] and Rakuen.
Event[0] is a quick but enjoyable (and very pretty) game, where you play a human space traveller, and resident of a science station orbiting europa, who's station is destroyed in an accident and who's escape pod is rescued by a luxury liner dated back to the dawn of human spaceflight. The only thing 'alive' on the ship is the ship's curmudgeonly AI, who you talk to via old school computer terminals. As the player you have no ability to really manipulate anything, all interactions have to be done via convincing the AI to do what you want, with your end goal being getting back to earth.
Rakuen is an RPGmaker game in the vein of To The Moon, about a boy getting treatment for cancer in a Japanese hospital. The boy and his mother use a magic book to go on adventures that take them out of the confines of the hospital wing, where they explore the magical land which parallels the hardships the other hospital residents are suffering through. The game has very pretty pixel art, and beautiful music. It has a cute story with some pretty dark undertones. I enjoyed it plenty, but ultimately I think it was held back a bit by being an RPG maker game (more so than To The Moon was). The visuals are pretty, but are only output at 420 resolution (or something similarly tiny) so you have to either play the game in a tiny window, or have it upscaled by your monitor in fullscreen mode (which at least on my system turns it into a bit of a blurry mess). The music is good, but would greatly benefit from a dynamic music system rather than having each track always start from the beginning every time there is a scene change (there are several tracks that I've heard the first 20 seconds or so a hundred times, but the rest of the track only once when I stood around just to find out what the whole thing sounded like). The game's pace is also slower than it needs to be. It feels well paced when you first enter an area to explore it for the first time, but with the slow rpg maker movement moving from point a to point b through already explored areas slows the pace way down when it doesn't need to be so slow.
Oh hey it's 1 in the morning, again. I must have been playing Kingdoms & Castles.
Spoilers for big-ass pictures and rambling about Kingdoms & Castles:
Welcome to Evgaard!
Hurry now to reserve a residence in our finest medieval slum!
Refugee ever since your last hamlet got burninated? Find assurance within our dragon-busting ballistae system!
Religious? Of course you are! Your Lord isn't silly enough to let something like the printing press anywhere near his peasantry! Visit Our Lady of the Giant Sword church to be reassured of your rewards in the next life for spending this one in abject poverty and endless subservience to the aristocracy!
Speaking of the aristocracy, tired of gathering resources and peeling potatoes for the rest of your natural life? Take up a slightly sharper pitchfork and enlist under the command of Sir Allen and defend Evgaard from Viking raiding parties!
Okay seriously fuck these raiding parties. Try me now, punk.
DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Oh hey roguelikes. I've been playing Golden Krone Hotel lately. I got it early on in the Winter Sale and it's been a lot of fun. It's solidly in the roguelike category, Berlin Interpretation intact. Now that is out of the way, it's a pretty nifty little game. It's on the easy side of the genre, and on top of that it has an easy mode. It also features enough options that you can fully grognard the game out, including a Grognard option you can select that just autoselects all that stuff for you. Awesome.
I've been playing the game with default settings on easy mode because hey why not? Let's take the scenic route for a while. There are a lot of starting archetypes you can unlock easily just playing through the game. There are lots of humans and vampires in the hotel that you can fight or talk to, depending on whether you are human or vampire. That's one of the several novel things in the game; You have to manage your state between human and bloodsucker by using limited resources and time mechanics including a day/night cycle. Yes, you can break windows to let in the sunlight to instantly destroy blood suckers.
There's a lot of lore to suss out, the game has great music and art and is generally just a really solid roguelike that can play as hard or soft as you like. A nice blending of tactics and thematic elements. Check it out.
At PAX South I played some games and here's some initial impressions.
Forsaken Castle: Like Castlevania except with pixel anime girls. And I mean EXACTLY Castlevania, there is not a single original thought in this entire thing. Omensight: Did you like Stories the Path of Destinies? Then you'll probably like this too. Multiple routes, many characters, less repetition. Check it out when it shows up. Monster Hunter World: That line was too damn long and I didn't want to spend five hours waiting for the demo so I just watched. Tunic: Furry Zelda with a shitty dodge roll that gets locked out by animations instead of the actual good thing where dodge roll cancels out of things so you don't get stomped to death by a monster who hit you three times before you could escape. Masquerada: Top-down sort-of tactics game that let me play through the prologue but didn't explain anything so it was like dangling a hook that might actually be really interesting without ever actually trying to hook anything. In media res is a privilege, not a right. Ziik(?): Claims to be a modern-day Earthbound involving hipster teenagers or something. I didn't get to play this but watched a little bit and had no clue what was going on. Made by Masquerada people.
I am... not enjoying Revelations 2. This game should not have left the station with two characters. I think I'm going to skip it and go straight to RE 6.
Forsaken Castle: Like Castlevania except with pixel anime girls. And I mean EXACTLY Castlevania, there is not a single original thought in this entire thing.
So it's literally just a better Castlevania then. Awesome
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
If I could destroy all the anime girls on earth I would.
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Also the anime boys.
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Anime was a mistake.
+4
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
The not-Castlevania-but-it's-basically-Castlevania game I'm looking forward to is Brave Earth: Prologue. But that looks more like Castlevania I/III, while Forsaken Castle looks like it plays like Symphony of the Night.
I picked up Death Coming over the winter dale. I would love to recommend this game. It's fun. You can pass levels fairly easily but getting the highest scores takes planning and practice. There is a huge "But" though. It is really short. I beat this game in one sitting without really trying to. If you see it in a bundle then I would say it is a plus to that bundle. On its own it isn't worth full price IMO.
+2
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Finally beat Pirates!, found all the cities, resuced my family, beat the dude that broke them up, killed all the pirates and found their treasure, and retired as governor.
And everyone but the Spanish saw fit to give me the title of Duke. Probably because I kept pirating the shit out of the Spanish ships. :biggrin:
Next up is Psychonauts, I believe.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
+5
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
edited January 2018
So, uh, apparently I don't actually own Super Win The Game. Even odds someone's gonna try to fix that.
Another platformer took its place, one with a little more effort put into the narrative...
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Thomas Was Alone: The Other Thomas
Without its narrative, this would just be another experimental platformer. But the fictional news quotes at the start of each chapter and the frequent narration during levels gives Thomas Was Alone an entire dimension of character. You control Thomas, a rectangular AI, as he makes his way through a gauntlet of platforming challenges. Eventually he meets up with a host of other colorful quadrilaterals including the buoyant Claire, acrobatic John, upwards-falling James and more. Each character has something to contribute to the party, some more than others, though the Danny Wallace monologues ensure you'll think more about these little rectangles than just how they'll get you to the end of the game.
Your objective is to get your characters to the endpoints of each level. These endpoints are shaped specifically for each character, giving more depth than simply getting everyone to one spot. The player controls one character at a time, swapping between them when needed. Larger groups of characters can be a bit clumsy to control but quick swapping isn't usually important - most of the game is primarily about problem solving with only a few points where you need to rush.
As much as simply completing the game, seeing what happens next to this intrepid party of polygons is what kept me going. I looked forward to who I'd meet next and what they'd contribute. And just when I thought I'd reached the end, the game was all "Nope, you're not done yet".
There's apparently another story for me to play as well? I'll get right on that. Played it. Neat. Also woo, another game 100% achieved!
My Score: 4/5
Playtime: 3 4 hours
Ianator on
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg) Backlog Challenge List
Posts
I haven't had a chance to pick up Shadow Warrior 2 yet but I imagine the dev team is driven to give it its own way of being an over the top FPS game. Their first entry in the series was a fun over the top reboot of a 90s shooter that encouraged to often be up close and personal with demons but that domain has been thoroughly taken over by nu-Doom and I don't think Flying Hog wants to try to compete in that arena.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Nope, I can't do it. The gitguditude is too strong.
---
Steredenn: We're still talking about roguelikes, right?
Billing itself as "at the crossroads between a shmup and a rogue-like", Steredenn is a shoot-em-up with randomized level generation, unique bosses and weapons, daily runs and a boss practice mode. You start each run with 10 health and a forward-shooting gun. From there, you'll have to shoot your way through hordes of varied enemies and take down the boss at the end of each level. Beating the final boss loops you back around for another run, supposedly with stronger bosses, while getting shot down means you start over from scratch.
Your ship is limited to two weapons at a time, of which the default machine gun is one of the more useful. Taking down enemy cargo ships drops new weapons for you to pick up, swapping with your current weapon if you already have a second. Weapon types include cannons, lasers, drone dispensers, a sword, a flamethrower, a boomerang, a chargeable smartbomb and many more. While every weapon has some ideal circumstance, I found myself grabbing the smartbomb whenever I could manage due to its consistent defensive utility.
Levels consist of waves of enemies, usually with some sort of additional stage modifier such as debris or meteors or laser satellites. Each wave gives you an objective, either beating all the enemies or dodging all the obstacles, that increases your score Combo. Getting hit drops your Combo a level. Maintaining a high Combo probably means you're playing better but there's no other mechanic that lets you take advantage of it.
Bosses have multiple phases they cycle through, changing or rotating at certain thresholds of time or damage depending on who you're facing. Early stages have a variety of possible boss variants before converging on consistent enemies later. Beating a boss replenishes your health and gives you a choice of five passive bonuses such as "+50% droprate and +15% damage for Cannons", "Charge a shield when not firing" or "+2 max health".
As someone used to Touhou, I found Steredenn brutally difficult. Bullets come fast and often hit for multiple points of health. Weapons are clumsy to switch between and most don't feel appreciably *better* than the default gun. Smartbombs are nonexistent outside of one weapon. There are no health refills until you take down a boss, no continues to let you retry from where you left. And there's no real metaprogression like Isaac or FTL - every run starts with the same ship with the same gun. Collecting new weapons does let use them in boss practice but that seems less useful when you can never guarantee what you'll take into that boss fight during a real run.
Graphics are fine. Enemies are recognizable, helpful when you see them run after run. The player ship transforms slightly depending on the weapon you have equipped, a neat detail. The music is cool, especially when it changes after you beat a boss, though none of the tunes are really memorable to me.
I don't think Steredenn is a bad game. But when it me takes twenty seconds to go from top shape to Game Over, it's getting harder to power through the frustration to try again. I'll probably come back to it someday, but for now I have to put it back on my digital shelf.
Final Score: 3/5
Playtime: ~5 hours
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
Backlog Challenge List
I really enjoyed SW2 until I realized that a shotgun with +AE range and some life steal means I can just run around shooting at the sky or at my toes or at the walls and everything dies while I stay at full health. The shotgun blast isn't a cone, it's a sphere and that's just wrong. Still got my money's worth out of it but the various weapon types just weren't balanced very well against each other. It had that other amusing FPS game trope going on that the revolver is the best sniper rifle as well - high damage per shot, 100% accurate to infinite range. Grenade launchers and rocket launchers mostly just sucked (better use shotgun), SMGs were ok but rather weak, melee was fun but hard to pull off at harder difficulties and the big chaingun-style guns were good boss killers.
+1 star for Wang being Wang and I'd say it's about 3.5 stars, maybe 4.
Who would march to the northern city and set the fire giant free on the population to reap their precious statues and cards for my museum.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Some plot spoilers.
Can't wait for the sequel. It came out how long ago? Ok, maybe no sequel in the works.
Then I hit the ABORT button on an attempt to play through Blood of the Werewolf. It seemed liked a pretty decent action platformer but then I hit an instant death section where I repeatedly died over and over and over again.
I think me finishing that seemed too unlikely for the backlog challenge.
We also played through Demon Hunter 2. A hidden object game with those graphics that look like a photo that's stretched and pulled in weird ways to animate it. It was entertaining.
Also, they took a screencap of Brian Williams and used it for a news program in the background.
Started up Night in the Woods which has been very good so far. The writing is top notch, and the music and style are great. It's one of those games where the whole package feels very carefully crafted.
Not sure how far along we are yet. People are starting to get pretty honest with each other so it feels like it's starting to take a turn.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Thank you
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/the-red-solstice
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
Its got abit of RPG style level progression and looting mechanics to it.
Rev 2's Raid Mode properly sunk its claws into me for a while, I think I wound up spending nearly twice as much time in that mode as in the actual game.
It's certainly the most fun arcade-like experience that I've seen for a long time.
Check Early Access. I'm sure it's there.
...No, not the game I was talking about twelve hours ago.
---
You Have To Win The Game: Okay, now what?
Available for free, You Have To Win The Game is a short exploration platformer delivered in retro style. Your character runs and jumps, exploring A Place divided into screens with helpful and/or snarky names to help you keep track of your location. Liberally sprinkled throughout the game are checkpoints, wall-mounted bells rung when you touch them. Enemies and spikes abound but the save points are always placed generously, ensuring a hard segment can be retried quickly and a single mistake doesn't set you back. These segments also tend to be short rather than elaborate.
Scattered through the world are coin bags and heart purses, each of which increases your completion percentage. These do nothing to actually aid in your Winning of The Game but there's probably something special if you get it to 100%. (I Won my first Game with 94%.) There are also four mobility aids - two to fill in hollow blocks, one to enable double-jump and one to enable wall climbing - to aid in your collection and eventual Win. Finally, the world is peppered with graffiti to aid in your learning the Magic Word, the key to Winning The Game.
The Game is presented as an experience in four colors (pink, cyan, white and black) projected upon a 1980s computer terminal screen. The menu screen first greets you with the clickety-clack of a period mechanical keyboard, loud and obnoxious but also absent from all but the bookends of The Game. You can also turn the effect off if it gives you a headache, though I was fine with it.
Overall, You Have To Win The Game is short and sweet. The only points where I slammed against the difficulty were in the "bosses", really just bullet hoses for you to navigate past to access the powerups and progress past them. I'm not sure I'll be getting all the achievements during the challenge (including a 10-minute speedrun and winning the nine-lives Cat Mode) but it's not something I'll exclude for the future. On the list for tomorrow is the sequel, Super Win The Game!
My Score: 4/5
Playtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes, 40 seconds
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
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I'm not sure how to pull it off, but that could be an interesting game. One minute of prep to "study your notes" then try to pull off enough part marks to get a pass on the curve. A little memorization, some guess work, educated guessing the right equation to drop numbers into, plus an assumed 4/30 for the long answer section. Could be fun.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
EDIT: Which is apparently 11.5 GB. Oh my!
I like them both, but I think I preferred the smaller world of You Have to Win the Game over Super Win. I also appreciate Minor Key Games's CRT emulation, which is something they've tinkered on and applied to their other relevant titles, but I prefer to play with it off. I'm glad they allow you to choose whether you want it.
@Pixelated Pixie has helped to remedy the situation, however!
No need to be coy.
Meanwhile I've completed both Event[0] and Rakuen.
Event[0] is a quick but enjoyable (and very pretty) game, where you play a human space traveller, and resident of a science station orbiting europa, who's station is destroyed in an accident and who's escape pod is rescued by a luxury liner dated back to the dawn of human spaceflight. The only thing 'alive' on the ship is the ship's curmudgeonly AI, who you talk to via old school computer terminals. As the player you have no ability to really manipulate anything, all interactions have to be done via convincing the AI to do what you want, with your end goal being getting back to earth.
Rakuen is an RPGmaker game in the vein of To The Moon, about a boy getting treatment for cancer in a Japanese hospital. The boy and his mother use a magic book to go on adventures that take them out of the confines of the hospital wing, where they explore the magical land which parallels the hardships the other hospital residents are suffering through. The game has very pretty pixel art, and beautiful music. It has a cute story with some pretty dark undertones. I enjoyed it plenty, but ultimately I think it was held back a bit by being an RPG maker game (more so than To The Moon was). The visuals are pretty, but are only output at 420 resolution (or something similarly tiny) so you have to either play the game in a tiny window, or have it upscaled by your monitor in fullscreen mode (which at least on my system turns it into a bit of a blurry mess). The music is good, but would greatly benefit from a dynamic music system rather than having each track always start from the beginning every time there is a scene change (there are several tracks that I've heard the first 20 seconds or so a hundred times, but the rest of the track only once when I stood around just to find out what the whole thing sounded like). The game's pace is also slower than it needs to be. It feels well paced when you first enter an area to explore it for the first time, but with the slow rpg maker movement moving from point a to point b through already explored areas slows the pace way down when it doesn't need to be so slow.
Also, fuck you @Stabbity Style:
Srsly, tho, best mom in video games, amirite?
Have you, perchance, played Rakuen?
Spoilers for big-ass pictures and rambling about Kingdoms & Castles:
Hurry now to reserve a residence in our finest medieval slum!
Refugee ever since your last hamlet got burninated? Find assurance within our dragon-busting ballistae system!
Religious? Of course you are! Your Lord isn't silly enough to let something like the printing press anywhere near his peasantry! Visit Our Lady of the Giant Sword church to be reassured of your rewards in the next life for spending this one in abject poverty and endless subservience to the aristocracy!
Speaking of the aristocracy, tired of gathering resources and peeling potatoes for the rest of your natural life? Take up a slightly sharper pitchfork and enlist under the command of Sir Allen and defend Evgaard from Viking raiding parties!
Okay seriously fuck these raiding parties. Try me now, punk.
Steam profile - Twitch - YouTube
Switch: SM-6352-8553-6516
I've been playing the game with default settings on easy mode because hey why not? Let's take the scenic route for a while. There are a lot of starting archetypes you can unlock easily just playing through the game. There are lots of humans and vampires in the hotel that you can fight or talk to, depending on whether you are human or vampire. That's one of the several novel things in the game; You have to manage your state between human and bloodsucker by using limited resources and time mechanics including a day/night cycle. Yes, you can break windows to let in the sunlight to instantly destroy blood suckers.
There's a lot of lore to suss out, the game has great music and art and is generally just a really solid roguelike that can play as hard or soft as you like. A nice blending of tactics and thematic elements. Check it out.
Forsaken Castle: Like Castlevania except with pixel anime girls. And I mean EXACTLY Castlevania, there is not a single original thought in this entire thing.
Omensight: Did you like Stories the Path of Destinies? Then you'll probably like this too. Multiple routes, many characters, less repetition. Check it out when it shows up.
Monster Hunter World: That line was too damn long and I didn't want to spend five hours waiting for the demo so I just watched.
Tunic: Furry Zelda with a shitty dodge roll that gets locked out by animations instead of the actual good thing where dodge roll cancels out of things so you don't get stomped to death by a monster who hit you three times before you could escape.
Masquerada: Top-down sort-of tactics game that let me play through the prologue but didn't explain anything so it was like dangling a hook that might actually be really interesting without ever actually trying to hook anything. In media res is a privilege, not a right.
Ziik(?): Claims to be a modern-day Earthbound involving hipster teenagers or something. I didn't get to play this but watched a little bit and had no clue what was going on. Made by Masquerada people.
Labor of Love
The World Is Grim Enough
Haunts My Dreams
Soul Of Vitruvius
So it's literally just a better Castlevania then. Awesome
And everyone but the Spanish saw fit to give me the title of Duke. Probably because I kept pirating the shit out of the Spanish ships. :biggrin:
Next up is Psychonauts, I believe.
Another platformer took its place, one with a little more effort put into the narrative...
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Thomas Was Alone: The Other Thomas
Without its narrative, this would just be another experimental platformer. But the fictional news quotes at the start of each chapter and the frequent narration during levels gives Thomas Was Alone an entire dimension of character. You control Thomas, a rectangular AI, as he makes his way through a gauntlet of platforming challenges. Eventually he meets up with a host of other colorful quadrilaterals including the buoyant Claire, acrobatic John, upwards-falling James and more. Each character has something to contribute to the party, some more than others, though the Danny Wallace monologues ensure you'll think more about these little rectangles than just how they'll get you to the end of the game.
Your objective is to get your characters to the endpoints of each level. These endpoints are shaped specifically for each character, giving more depth than simply getting everyone to one spot. The player controls one character at a time, swapping between them when needed. Larger groups of characters can be a bit clumsy to control but quick swapping isn't usually important - most of the game is primarily about problem solving with only a few points where you need to rush.
As much as simply completing the game, seeing what happens next to this intrepid party of polygons is what kept me going. I looked forward to who I'd meet next and what they'd contribute. And just when I thought I'd reached the end, the game was all "Nope, you're not done yet".
There's apparently another story for me to play as well? I'll get right on that. Played it. Neat. Also woo, another game 100% achieved!
My Score: 4/5
Playtime: 3 4 hours
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
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