1. This game proves how important sound and music are to games. It's a
solid run and gun platformer but the sonic aspects turn that into a
truly engaging and immersive experience.
2. The soundtrack is by a one man project called Solar Fields from an album called Movements. Buy it!
3.
People are saying this game has puzzle elements. That's dumb. The
puzzles are on the level of "There's rocks in front of this pathway.
Move the rocks." Seriously, people, if you have trouble figuring that
out, just give up. You are going to live w/ your parents forever.
4.
I guess some of the boss type battles require you to figure out how to
beat the boss. This puts it in line w/... every game ever.
5.
Graphically, it is a good match for the music. It is kinda cartoony,
kinda flash style. It is nothing special really but the palate choices
are nice and it looks excellent overall.
6. The levels on the
first half of the game are dirt simple and easy but they seem to start
sprawling kinda randomly towards the middle of the game.
7. Number 7 is no big deal.
8. This does not really play like Metroid
but when you are low on lives and health and just know you are about to finish an area if you can just hang on a little while longer, it sure feels a lot like Metroid.
9.
There is some local fauna in the backgrounds that is not hostile but
sure as hell looks hostile. If I was a less forgiving man, I would find
whoever did this and kill them.
10. I generally don't like
playing platformers w/ mouse and keyboard but I felt this one justified
it pretty well. I just didn't feel chained to it and some of the
functions felt natural to have on the left hand rather than on the right
where they would be w/ a controller.
11. The final boss on this
is super annoying and long. He's hard and hard final bosses are good
but they made him hard by just padding his HP and that is a bummer
because the game ends on a down note for that reason.
12. Oh well.
13. Seriously. Awesome sountrack. Solar Fields. Movements.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Monday, September 25, 2017
13 Points on Anatomy - Kitty Horrorshow - 2016 [PC]
1. This is a horror game w/o B movie voice acting or jump scares. I think this should be enough of a review for most people so I am just going to leave it at that. I don't get paid for this shit.
2. Just kidding! This is way too interesting of a game for me not to put my two cents in.
3. The way Anatomy plays out is you are dropped into a very poorly lit and decidedly computer gamey looking house w/o any explanation. Most of the doors are locked. You find a cassette tape and tape player in the kitchen. You play the tape and a door unlocks. You open the door and find another tape in the room that has opened to you. I think you can guess how it goes from here.
4. This whole game hangs on its script, nearly all of which is delivered to you via an audio essay on these cassette tapes you find. It discusses humans' connection to their homes and compares various rooms to various anatomical elements of the human body. This short lecture is well constructed and alluring enough on it's own, that Anatomy could simply be just walking through this oddly empty, dark little computer game house finding tapes and it would lack for nothing.
5. But it's more than that.
6. Developer, Kitty Horrorshow, encourages multiple playthroughs for multiple endings but that is really just a little nudge from her to get you to restart the game after it ends for the first time. I will nudge you in this same direction as well. Go ahead and play again. You know you wanna.
7. Anatomy is w/o gameplay challenge. It relies exclusively on its presentation to draw you in. This is something that I find most game developers fail at. They tend to crawl up their own butts and revel in the beauty of their wondrous game excretion, expecting players to do the same. This is short and streamlined. It's not what I'd call fast paced but it's a tight experience. You never really go more than a minute or two w/o being introduced to something new.
8. This game shows you only what you need. The graphics are simple and blocky but the kitchen looks like a kitchen, the bed looks like a bed, the tapes look like tapes and the tape player looks like a tape player. You don't need a high polygon count to do dark.
9. The audio is done especially well. It is exceedingly sparse aside from the audio-logs, esp. to start. It is just doors opening, the click of a tape. There is no music but as the game progresses a distinct, glitchy cushion of noise builds and serves as a soundtrack to the whole thing . I wrote much of this just while listening to commentary-free playthroughs--so just Anatomy's audio--and it is amazing just how much of the emotional tone of the game is built on its sonic aspects.
10. The result of this general sparseness is a layer of abstraction which really keeps things feeling personal to the player. You are not in your house or someone's house. You are in every house.
11. This was made w/ the free personal addition of Unity and thus displays a splash screen each time you start it which does detract from presentation a minor but noticeable amount. To be fair though, the only reason I noticed is because everything else is so well polished.
12. I think what makes Anatomy engaging is not just the notion that maybe your house wants you dead but what it means that your house wants you dead, that you are never safe and you can never be safe, even that which is most familiar to you is dangerous. To me, this is the feeling of being completely marginalized and vulnerable, of not fitting in to the point where your own community is hostile towards you.
13. I have given up on trying to get normals to appreciate video games as art but if you're still fighting the good fight, this would be a good game to champion.
2. Just kidding! This is way too interesting of a game for me not to put my two cents in.
3. The way Anatomy plays out is you are dropped into a very poorly lit and decidedly computer gamey looking house w/o any explanation. Most of the doors are locked. You find a cassette tape and tape player in the kitchen. You play the tape and a door unlocks. You open the door and find another tape in the room that has opened to you. I think you can guess how it goes from here.
4. This whole game hangs on its script, nearly all of which is delivered to you via an audio essay on these cassette tapes you find. It discusses humans' connection to their homes and compares various rooms to various anatomical elements of the human body. This short lecture is well constructed and alluring enough on it's own, that Anatomy could simply be just walking through this oddly empty, dark little computer game house finding tapes and it would lack for nothing.
5. But it's more than that.
6. Developer, Kitty Horrorshow, encourages multiple playthroughs for multiple endings but that is really just a little nudge from her to get you to restart the game after it ends for the first time. I will nudge you in this same direction as well. Go ahead and play again. You know you wanna.
7. Anatomy is w/o gameplay challenge. It relies exclusively on its presentation to draw you in. This is something that I find most game developers fail at. They tend to crawl up their own butts and revel in the beauty of their wondrous game excretion, expecting players to do the same. This is short and streamlined. It's not what I'd call fast paced but it's a tight experience. You never really go more than a minute or two w/o being introduced to something new.
8. This game shows you only what you need. The graphics are simple and blocky but the kitchen looks like a kitchen, the bed looks like a bed, the tapes look like tapes and the tape player looks like a tape player. You don't need a high polygon count to do dark.
9. The audio is done especially well. It is exceedingly sparse aside from the audio-logs, esp. to start. It is just doors opening, the click of a tape. There is no music but as the game progresses a distinct, glitchy cushion of noise builds and serves as a soundtrack to the whole thing . I wrote much of this just while listening to commentary-free playthroughs--so just Anatomy's audio--and it is amazing just how much of the emotional tone of the game is built on its sonic aspects.
10. The result of this general sparseness is a layer of abstraction which really keeps things feeling personal to the player. You are not in your house or someone's house. You are in every house.
11. This was made w/ the free personal addition of Unity and thus displays a splash screen each time you start it which does detract from presentation a minor but noticeable amount. To be fair though, the only reason I noticed is because everything else is so well polished.
12. I think what makes Anatomy engaging is not just the notion that maybe your house wants you dead but what it means that your house wants you dead, that you are never safe and you can never be safe, even that which is most familiar to you is dangerous. To me, this is the feeling of being completely marginalized and vulnerable, of not fitting in to the point where your own community is hostile towards you.
13. I have given up on trying to get normals to appreciate video games as art but if you're still fighting the good fight, this would be a good game to champion.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
13 Points on Eets Munchies - Klei Entertainment - 2014 [PC]
1. It is curious that Klei Entertainment, best known for things like Don't Starve and Mark of the Ninja, made this. Eets Munchies does not seem like the work of a critically acclaimed developer. You gotta start somewhere, I guess.
2. This is a casual game. I don't mean that as an insult. Sometimes you just want to fiddle w/ some puzzles and burn some downtime. I actually played this because seeing the word "Eets" annoyed the crap out of me and I don't like hiding things in my Steam library until I've at least tried them so I had to pick it up just to get it out of my sight. There's never a bad reason to play games.
3. Gameplay here is kinda like Lemmings-light. Instead of having a parade of self-motivated characters that walk in a straight line until you guide them to their objective, there's just one. It's a rabbit, I think, and it is the titular character.
4. This game won't full screen properly, even w/ black borders on the side. What is this, Soviet Russia?
5. This is done in kind of a hand-drawn Flash style. It works well enough. It is cartoonish w/ an edge of creepiness. Think Angry Birds w/ a tinge of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
6. The music is country-tinged jazz guitar based and is really quite catchy. Something about this sort of music combined w/ some of the gross-out humor used from time to time reminded me of The Ren & Stimpy Show.
7. Eets Munchies main gameplay mechanic is Eets changes moods depending on what munchies it eats. You carefully place hot peppers and hallucinogenic mushrooms about all over the place and if Eets eats all the things in the right order, he wins a birthday cake. There's never a bad reason to eat birthday cake.
8. There are also little structures and usable objects both placed for you and that you can place which you must interact w/ the help Eets on his journey.
9. Just getting through the levels is not all that tough. I don't suspect most people will take more than one decent gaming session to get through it. You can, however, challenge yourself to pick up three optional collectables on each level and that adds a good amount of meat to this game about eating. This tends to require a bit more unorthodox thinking to get through than the fairly straight-forward main puzzles so it's a welcome addition.
10. Sometimes the timing you need gets quite fiddly and tricky. The game acknowledges this and gives you a slow mode to ensure it is taxing your problem solving ability more so than your reflexes. It also gives you a fast mode for the Ronco-style set it and forget it levels.
11. There is a level editor here if you like to make levels. This theoretically provides infinite playability but I do believe most people will be done w/ this w/in a few hours.
12. Number 12 is not that important.
13. As far as puzzle games, this is one. It works. It's functional. It doesn't go into fullscreen right. It's got cute art and decent music. It feels like a PC conversion of a mobile game. You can watch the trailer for this on YouTube and it doesn't really offer many surprises beyond what you see there. If that looks like something you wanna spend a slow evening doing, go for it. Or don't. I'm not gonna tell you what to do.
2. This is a casual game. I don't mean that as an insult. Sometimes you just want to fiddle w/ some puzzles and burn some downtime. I actually played this because seeing the word "Eets" annoyed the crap out of me and I don't like hiding things in my Steam library until I've at least tried them so I had to pick it up just to get it out of my sight. There's never a bad reason to play games.
3. Gameplay here is kinda like Lemmings-light. Instead of having a parade of self-motivated characters that walk in a straight line until you guide them to their objective, there's just one. It's a rabbit, I think, and it is the titular character.
4. This game won't full screen properly, even w/ black borders on the side. What is this, Soviet Russia?
5. This is done in kind of a hand-drawn Flash style. It works well enough. It is cartoonish w/ an edge of creepiness. Think Angry Birds w/ a tinge of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
6. The music is country-tinged jazz guitar based and is really quite catchy. Something about this sort of music combined w/ some of the gross-out humor used from time to time reminded me of The Ren & Stimpy Show.
7. Eets Munchies main gameplay mechanic is Eets changes moods depending on what munchies it eats. You carefully place hot peppers and hallucinogenic mushrooms about all over the place and if Eets eats all the things in the right order, he wins a birthday cake. There's never a bad reason to eat birthday cake.
8. There are also little structures and usable objects both placed for you and that you can place which you must interact w/ the help Eets on his journey.
9. Just getting through the levels is not all that tough. I don't suspect most people will take more than one decent gaming session to get through it. You can, however, challenge yourself to pick up three optional collectables on each level and that adds a good amount of meat to this game about eating. This tends to require a bit more unorthodox thinking to get through than the fairly straight-forward main puzzles so it's a welcome addition.
10. Sometimes the timing you need gets quite fiddly and tricky. The game acknowledges this and gives you a slow mode to ensure it is taxing your problem solving ability more so than your reflexes. It also gives you a fast mode for the Ronco-style set it and forget it levels.
11. There is a level editor here if you like to make levels. This theoretically provides infinite playability but I do believe most people will be done w/ this w/in a few hours.
12. Number 12 is not that important.
13. As far as puzzle games, this is one. It works. It's functional. It doesn't go into fullscreen right. It's got cute art and decent music. It feels like a PC conversion of a mobile game. You can watch the trailer for this on YouTube and it doesn't really offer many surprises beyond what you see there. If that looks like something you wanna spend a slow evening doing, go for it. Or don't. I'm not gonna tell you what to do.
Friday, September 15, 2017
Designing A Defensive Works in a Post-Apocalyptic Game World
Are you armed to the teeth w/ rusty weapons? Are you incapable of saying anything other than three canned phrases that are the exact same thing all of your friends also say? Are you wearing a bandana w/ a skull on it? If your answer is yes to these three questions, congratulations! You are an enemy NPC in a post-apocalyptic game world. Get your buddies together. It is time to build yourselves a defensive works.
First things first, let's get some old shipping containers. No defensive works in a post-apocalyptic game world is complete w/o at least a few shipping containers. While you're at it, pick up a couple old school buses, some corrugated metal, I-beams, oil drums, ladders and some old suitcases to stuff full of medical supplies and ammunition. Really, just gather as much old garbage as you can find. It is all defensively viable in a post-apocalyptic game world. Bonus points if it's kinda half painted/half rusted. That will look really cool.
Alright, now that we have raw materials assembled. Let's chose a location. You have a few choices, all of them are excellent. Lots of post-apocalytic defensive structures are build in sunken swamps. This works great because it provides opportunities for player characters to fall into the water, which is totally annoying. Also, being lower than ground level gives player characters a chance to kill you from on high w/ their sniper rifles. Hilltops work great too but try to find one w/ a satellite dish because, Jesus Christ, do I even have to explain why? If you don't have many old shipping containers, you may want to find a bombed out building and just put the shipping containers you do have out front.
When you are putting this thing together, there are a few things that are pretty critical. For starters, your main entry needs to be under heavy guard w/ mines, snipers, and, ideally, flamethrowers but you need to have a secret, undefended entryway for the dipshits who do stealth builds. Yeah, I know, fuck those guys but their money spends the same as normal people's so we have to throw them a bone. Once you have this taken care of, make sure that there is no easy way to traverse the encampment such that you can easily amass a solid defense at any one point. There must be choke points between all open spaces even if that doesn't make any practical sense. If you have staircases, makes sure some of them lead to nowhere and, for God's sake, put some fucking ammunition underneath them. Anyway, the most important thing is that each space is discreet such that the player character can clear it out and move on to the next one w/o thinking about it again.
Once you have your structure assembled go and get that random garbage I mentioned earlier and throw it about everywhere. It is especially important to have some garbage on top of the mattresses you sleep on. You are an enemy NPC, not Martha fucking Stewart! If you have some sort of food, place it on the ground, preferably near where you sleep but anywhere random is fine as long as it's not on a table. The tables can only have spare parts, cash money and ammunition on them. No exceptions. Kill one of your buddies and leave his corpse decaying somewhere. They key is to give the joint atmosphere. If the player is given the idea you are anything but a bunch of psychopaths, they might question whether killing rooms full of random dudes is wrong and that would be a total bummer.
At this point, you have a completely impractical defensive works that looks cool and is clearly inhabited by maniacs. This is exactly what we want so don't fuck it up by standing in the wrong place! First of all, even if you are expecting an attack, you and your buddies need to be in small groups such that you can be picked off piecemeal. If you get more than five to a group, make sure to stand near an oil drum or something explosive. Failing that, be near enough a door so that the player character can back through it and make you attack him one at a time. Ideally, you'll have some guys hanging out w/ their backs facing doorways or even sleeping through a firefight for those stealth build assholes. Honestly, at this point, if you could feasibly defend your structure, you've really gone off the rails but anything can be salvaged through poor tactical choices so go ahead and make those whenever possible.
Okay, nice work! You should be surrounded by rusted metal, garbage, explosives and usable ammunition. If your friends don't have their skull bandanas yet, now is the time to distribute them. This, my friends, is what a post-apocalyptic game world defensive works looks like. Take a deep breath and spend a moment appreciating your handiwork. You earned it! If all goes as planned, everyone you know will be dead by the end of the day.
First things first, let's get some old shipping containers. No defensive works in a post-apocalyptic game world is complete w/o at least a few shipping containers. While you're at it, pick up a couple old school buses, some corrugated metal, I-beams, oil drums, ladders and some old suitcases to stuff full of medical supplies and ammunition. Really, just gather as much old garbage as you can find. It is all defensively viable in a post-apocalyptic game world. Bonus points if it's kinda half painted/half rusted. That will look really cool.
Alright, now that we have raw materials assembled. Let's chose a location. You have a few choices, all of them are excellent. Lots of post-apocalytic defensive structures are build in sunken swamps. This works great because it provides opportunities for player characters to fall into the water, which is totally annoying. Also, being lower than ground level gives player characters a chance to kill you from on high w/ their sniper rifles. Hilltops work great too but try to find one w/ a satellite dish because, Jesus Christ, do I even have to explain why? If you don't have many old shipping containers, you may want to find a bombed out building and just put the shipping containers you do have out front.
When you are putting this thing together, there are a few things that are pretty critical. For starters, your main entry needs to be under heavy guard w/ mines, snipers, and, ideally, flamethrowers but you need to have a secret, undefended entryway for the dipshits who do stealth builds. Yeah, I know, fuck those guys but their money spends the same as normal people's so we have to throw them a bone. Once you have this taken care of, make sure that there is no easy way to traverse the encampment such that you can easily amass a solid defense at any one point. There must be choke points between all open spaces even if that doesn't make any practical sense. If you have staircases, makes sure some of them lead to nowhere and, for God's sake, put some fucking ammunition underneath them. Anyway, the most important thing is that each space is discreet such that the player character can clear it out and move on to the next one w/o thinking about it again.
Once you have your structure assembled go and get that random garbage I mentioned earlier and throw it about everywhere. It is especially important to have some garbage on top of the mattresses you sleep on. You are an enemy NPC, not Martha fucking Stewart! If you have some sort of food, place it on the ground, preferably near where you sleep but anywhere random is fine as long as it's not on a table. The tables can only have spare parts, cash money and ammunition on them. No exceptions. Kill one of your buddies and leave his corpse decaying somewhere. They key is to give the joint atmosphere. If the player is given the idea you are anything but a bunch of psychopaths, they might question whether killing rooms full of random dudes is wrong and that would be a total bummer.
At this point, you have a completely impractical defensive works that looks cool and is clearly inhabited by maniacs. This is exactly what we want so don't fuck it up by standing in the wrong place! First of all, even if you are expecting an attack, you and your buddies need to be in small groups such that you can be picked off piecemeal. If you get more than five to a group, make sure to stand near an oil drum or something explosive. Failing that, be near enough a door so that the player character can back through it and make you attack him one at a time. Ideally, you'll have some guys hanging out w/ their backs facing doorways or even sleeping through a firefight for those stealth build assholes. Honestly, at this point, if you could feasibly defend your structure, you've really gone off the rails but anything can be salvaged through poor tactical choices so go ahead and make those whenever possible.
Okay, nice work! You should be surrounded by rusted metal, garbage, explosives and usable ammunition. If your friends don't have their skull bandanas yet, now is the time to distribute them. This, my friends, is what a post-apocalyptic game world defensive works looks like. Take a deep breath and spend a moment appreciating your handiwork. You earned it! If all goes as planned, everyone you know will be dead by the end of the day.
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
13 Points on Super Metroid - Nintendo - 1994 [SNES]
2. Super Metroid looks great but its truly stellar aspect is sound design. The music is minimalist and memorable which fits the stark graphical design. The sound effects fit in perfectly and feel almost like part of the music. This is why I think game reviewers are constantly throwing the term "atmospheric" at this game as if that even means anything.
3. Control is a low point. The game does seem to behave responsively and consistently but the timing on some things is stupid finicky in a way that feels frustrating rather than challenging.
4. Number 3 seems like it's by design but that almost makes it worse.
5. So, yeah, I'm saying Super Metroid has bad controls and they are bad in both theory and execution. Sorry you had to hear it from me.
6. People pretend this game has a plot but it does not. You get a feeling of wonder from playing, you feel the desire to explore for the sake of it but the plot here is in the manual not in the game.
7. Nothing really wrong w/ number 6. Just sayin'.
8. Getting through this whole game w/o getting hints for the first time should take around twelve hours. Actually doing so takes closer to twenty. This is to say you will spend about eight hours aimlessly poking around, lots of "Hey kid, buy a strategy guide"-type secrets. Expect to go poking and prodding every wall in every single room in the game if you want to get through on your own.
9. Number 8 being said, you can beat it much, much faster than that once you know where everything is. Replayability is increased both by the fact that you can re-beat the game collecting only a fraction of a powerups and the fact there are so many available powerups that you likely missed at least some of them on your first run through.
10. Replayability is not helped at all by some very minor variations on the ending depending on your performance.
11. Super Metroid requires a lot of backtracking (see number 8) but lots of times you will want to backtrack anyway just for the fun of it. It is a backtracking-centric game. If you don't like that, don't play.
12. The last boss is pretty easy. The second to last boss is really hard. This always bothers me when it happens. Maybe it won't bother you. I'm not gonna tell you how to think.
13. I have a lot of nits to pick w/ Super Metroid but a huge part of that is I just like the game so much. If it were just some crappy game w/ some poor design choices here or there, I'd put it down and not worry about it. This is good enough that you can't help but over-analyze it. That's actually a good thing but it makes talking to people about it annoying.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
13 Points on Human Fall Flat - No Brakes Games - 2016 [PC]
1. This is a third person 3D puzzle platformer where your character looks and plays like a chubby toddler.
2. You know how in Assassin's Creed, where w/ no more effort required than to hold up on the controller, it looks like you are doing all this awesome parkour? Human Fall Flat is the opposite of that. Everything you do is really hard and you look stupid doing it.
3. Your chubby toddler's appearance can be completely customized so you can give it a tattoo of a butt w/ a butt shaped tattoo on it and it can be right on its butt. Between this and the fact that gameplay often consists of long bouts of flailing awkwardly through each level, one could be forgiven for thinking this is YouTube let's play fodder at first glance. I mean, it is... but it's also a good game.
4. This is one of those games where I look at it and think, "This looks like an indie game." It's got low poly graphics, solid colors w/o texture. It's blocky and simple looking and that suits the gameplay just fine.
5. As far as controls, while this is a third person game, it controls more like it's first person in some regards. Left and right make you shuffle sideways rather than turn and you change direction using the mouse/right stick. Frequently, you will need to use left/right triggers/mouse buttons to grab onto things. This is clumsy at first--and actually, it continues to be clumsy--but starts to make sense as you dig into the game. The controls aren't bad, they are intentionally awkward. This is a game where, to climb on a ledge, you need to manually grab it and then manually tell the game to pull yourself up. If this doesn't sound fun to you, don't worry; that's normal. Give it a go anyway.
6. I can't really get a bead on the music here. It's sparse and dramatic like something you might find in a heavy handed arsty fartsy kinda narrative game but this game is not that. It gives me a hint of something like Elmer Bernstein's music in Airplane movies where the soundtrack is composed as if the composer had no idea it's a comedy. Regardless of intent, I like it way better than if they tried to make some goofy music to match your character's movement.
7. The quality of the levels progress in the same trajectory as the early career of Metallica. The first couple are great and show a lot of promise. It's your Kill 'Em All and Ride the Lightning type stuff. Then there are a couple that are real masterpieces where the disparate elements from previous levels fall into place, which would be Master of Puppets. Then for the last level, the developers overextend themselves and make something that is more technically impressive than previous levels but somehow less compelling. This would be ...And Justice For All. If they keep releasing levels, the next one will be a crowd-pleaser that won't stand the test of time and after that, you should just stop playing.
8. The levels here have an open world aspect, which is cool but unfortunately poorly executed at times. Sometimes, there is an alternate, harder solution to various puzzles that lets you skip some of the map. Sometimes you can just cheese your way through w/o solving the puzzles. Sometimes you accidentally cheese your way through and miss puzzles you actually want to solve. There is a method you can use to climb sheer walls that can let you cheese even more of the game, including basically entire levels, but I never got the hang of it. It's all good in the end but I think a little more play testing might have helped here.
9. There are moments though, were you stumble your chubby toddler out to a certain portion of a level and the grand, blocky vistas and dramatic music combine into moments that are unexpectedly beautiful. It's called art, motherfucker. Have you heard of it?
10. This game has no plot.
11. Ordinarily, I say it's the cardinal sin of puzzle games when you have a puzzle figured out but the solution is still difficult to execute. Human Fall Flat commits this sin repeatedly and egregiously yet somehow still works. Thanks for making me look like an idiot, No Brakes Games...
12. This one seems like a good candidate for speedrunners. I suppose being able to skip through levels works in this regard but it's more that completing the puzzles quickly would require a really in-depth mastery of the controls. Again, this is a game where simply climbing up a ledge requires multiple actions from the player. You can screw up even the simplest things. Getting through the whole game unscathed without dying would be a feat. Getting through quickly on top would require serious commitment.
13. What makes this game work is the fact that it's satisfying. Everything you do, you actually do. It doesn't matter if you are walking from point to point or arranging the pieces of a complicated puzzle. Every small action that happens is a direct result of the player's input. There is no focus on ease or making the player feel powerful and that's refreshing in a game these days. If you are a fan of platformers, puzzles and not having everything handed to you, this is well worth checking out.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
13 Points on Far Cry 3 - Ubisoft Montreal - 2012 [PC]
1. Ubisoft gave this and a bunch of other older titles away last year in an attempt to get people to use Uplay, proving people still don't want to use Uplay even when it's free.
2. This was released in 2012 but still has graphical settings such that you can see the individual hairs on a tiger from 500 meters away allowing you and your friends can have conversations that are like, "GTX, Ultra, Ultra, 60 FPS." (Your friends are boring, by the way.)
3. The setup here is you and some chill, white bros are partying with your chill, white girlfriends on an island paradise. Because something bad needs to happen, you skydive into a nest of brown-skinned, red shirt wearing pirates that speak only in heavily accented English even to each other. You and your chill, white bro attempt to escape but your bro gets shot by the mohawked, brown-skinned, red-shirt pirate captain right as you are about to get away. Fortunately for you, said red-shirt pirate captain gives you a running start because he's unaware that he's the villain in a video game in which you are the protagonist. Naturally, from here you run into a group of islanders who were apparently just waiting for a chill, white bro protagonist to lead the way and you all begin to diligently work together to save your friends and kill everyone else. You go from being squeamish about your bro's violent and decidedly un-chill methods during your escape attempt to killing human beings with a machete in less than ten minutes real time. Also *spoilers* as you play through, you find out all the people really pulling this strings on this island are white bros (but not chill).
4. Honestly, all this terrible shit just becomes background when it comes time to sharpen the old explosive arrows and murder everyone in a red shirt.
5. There are a lot of extras thrown on but this is a tactical shooter at heart. The series started on PC but is now fully console-ized w/ fully console-ized controller support. Playing feels really good w/ either controller or mouse and keyboard--though some of the button combos on controller get confusing in heated firefights--so use what you like.
6. This is a game set in an open world sandbox. It is not really an open world game. The story missions are completely on rails and nothing different happens based on how you go about things. This is fine. The story is really secondary anyway. Sure you are off trying to save your friends or whatever but you don't go about that in any way that makes even remote sense. You are never given the option to even try to go radio for help--and repairing radio towers is a major gameplay mechanic. You never get to try to steal a boat to get away and come back for them--and you do steal boats. You can't try to just keep your head down and sneak them out or raise the money to ransom them.You face the villains head-on and try to overthrow their massive slavery and smuggling ring. This is your only option to save your friends in Far Cry 3. It all kind of works out in the end. While I guess it is always cool to have the option to do a pacifist run, I will not fault a developer for focusing on what is, realistically speaking, the way most people are going to play.
7. The most interesting thing about the story is that your friends as you rescue them--not to mention you, yourself--notice that you are going through some pretty drastic personal changes. This would actually put it above your standard action movie as far as that goes so, you know. huzzah for games! It is a bit disappointing the developers never really move try to push this into a meta-narrative about the player and why a person might wish to spend their limited free time pretending to kill hundreds of red shirted brown people but I'll take what I can get.
8. In the end, the game is more about general mayhem than story anyway. You can churn your way through the story in a dozen hours or less but you are kinda missing the point if that's what you do. The most fun to be had in this game is in taking down enemy encampments, running supply missions on various vehicles, murdering specific people, revealing the map by climbing radio towers or searching the island for relics.
9. Taking down the enemy encampments provides the most variety of these things. It rarely works just to charge right in like an idiot but there's a variety of things that do work and things don't necessarily work out just how you planned them. The enemy AI is sort of gloriously stupid and trigger-happy so you might try to distract one by throwing a rock so you can sneak up behind him for a stealth kill as he yells something about getting venereal disease from a hooker only to have the dumb bastard fire his machine gun in the general direction of a caged tiger which then manages to escape and maul everyone in camp (and sometimes you too). When things do go as planned, it is deeply satisfying but it's almost better when things go awry and you can scrap by by the skin of your teeth.
10. The crafting system in this is an outright horrorshow of dreariness and busywork. You collect random animal skins for random upgrades and you never know what you will need in the future so consequently half your inventory is full of skins because you don't want to go shark hunting again. You wonder if Ubisoft just failed to playtest this element or if it was added under duress from the marketing department.
11.The skill trees are kinda cheesy too and, again, just feel like something tacked on because it's something games are supposed to have. You can can chose what you upgrade but many upgrades are locked based on your progress in the story of just your character level so it's impossible to focus on making a build based on stealth or a sniper build because you can basically just take every upgrade available to you at any given time. So why not just give people these skills from the outset and let them decide how to play based on how they want to play? I dunno. Skill trees are the shit I guess.
12. After getting on my high-horse about the treatment of brown-skinned people in this earlier, I feel like I should squeeze in a bit on the treatment of women. There are three main women characters in this game. Two of them exist only to be rescued. The third is thankfully more difficult to pin down and is actually the only native islander who is really in charge of anything. I suppose we live in a world where one out of three ain't bad but that is still not exactly ideal.
13. I can't help but feel like I've really overthought this one. It is really a super fun game. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to have super fun. I genuinely looked forward to pouring a beer and grabbing the controller every evening when I got home from work while I was playing Far Cry 3. I think what it does right, it does so right that it draws you into the game. That's a good thing but it does make you care all the more about its flaws. The RPG elements and the compelling but set-in-stone story telling don't feel like an extra bonus you get but missed potential at a bigger, much more engaging experience.
2. This was released in 2012 but still has graphical settings such that you can see the individual hairs on a tiger from 500 meters away allowing you and your friends can have conversations that are like, "GTX, Ultra, Ultra, 60 FPS." (Your friends are boring, by the way.)
3. The setup here is you and some chill, white bros are partying with your chill, white girlfriends on an island paradise. Because something bad needs to happen, you skydive into a nest of brown-skinned, red shirt wearing pirates that speak only in heavily accented English even to each other. You and your chill, white bro attempt to escape but your bro gets shot by the mohawked, brown-skinned, red-shirt pirate captain right as you are about to get away. Fortunately for you, said red-shirt pirate captain gives you a running start because he's unaware that he's the villain in a video game in which you are the protagonist. Naturally, from here you run into a group of islanders who were apparently just waiting for a chill, white bro protagonist to lead the way and you all begin to diligently work together to save your friends and kill everyone else. You go from being squeamish about your bro's violent and decidedly un-chill methods during your escape attempt to killing human beings with a machete in less than ten minutes real time. Also *spoilers* as you play through, you find out all the people really pulling this strings on this island are white bros (but not chill).
4. Honestly, all this terrible shit just becomes background when it comes time to sharpen the old explosive arrows and murder everyone in a red shirt.
5. There are a lot of extras thrown on but this is a tactical shooter at heart. The series started on PC but is now fully console-ized w/ fully console-ized controller support. Playing feels really good w/ either controller or mouse and keyboard--though some of the button combos on controller get confusing in heated firefights--so use what you like.
6. This is a game set in an open world sandbox. It is not really an open world game. The story missions are completely on rails and nothing different happens based on how you go about things. This is fine. The story is really secondary anyway. Sure you are off trying to save your friends or whatever but you don't go about that in any way that makes even remote sense. You are never given the option to even try to go radio for help--and repairing radio towers is a major gameplay mechanic. You never get to try to steal a boat to get away and come back for them--and you do steal boats. You can't try to just keep your head down and sneak them out or raise the money to ransom them.You face the villains head-on and try to overthrow their massive slavery and smuggling ring. This is your only option to save your friends in Far Cry 3. It all kind of works out in the end. While I guess it is always cool to have the option to do a pacifist run, I will not fault a developer for focusing on what is, realistically speaking, the way most people are going to play.
7. The most interesting thing about the story is that your friends as you rescue them--not to mention you, yourself--notice that you are going through some pretty drastic personal changes. This would actually put it above your standard action movie as far as that goes so, you know. huzzah for games! It is a bit disappointing the developers never really move try to push this into a meta-narrative about the player and why a person might wish to spend their limited free time pretending to kill hundreds of red shirted brown people but I'll take what I can get.
8. In the end, the game is more about general mayhem than story anyway. You can churn your way through the story in a dozen hours or less but you are kinda missing the point if that's what you do. The most fun to be had in this game is in taking down enemy encampments, running supply missions on various vehicles, murdering specific people, revealing the map by climbing radio towers or searching the island for relics.
9. Taking down the enemy encampments provides the most variety of these things. It rarely works just to charge right in like an idiot but there's a variety of things that do work and things don't necessarily work out just how you planned them. The enemy AI is sort of gloriously stupid and trigger-happy so you might try to distract one by throwing a rock so you can sneak up behind him for a stealth kill as he yells something about getting venereal disease from a hooker only to have the dumb bastard fire his machine gun in the general direction of a caged tiger which then manages to escape and maul everyone in camp (and sometimes you too). When things do go as planned, it is deeply satisfying but it's almost better when things go awry and you can scrap by by the skin of your teeth.
10. The crafting system in this is an outright horrorshow of dreariness and busywork. You collect random animal skins for random upgrades and you never know what you will need in the future so consequently half your inventory is full of skins because you don't want to go shark hunting again. You wonder if Ubisoft just failed to playtest this element or if it was added under duress from the marketing department.
11.The skill trees are kinda cheesy too and, again, just feel like something tacked on because it's something games are supposed to have. You can can chose what you upgrade but many upgrades are locked based on your progress in the story of just your character level so it's impossible to focus on making a build based on stealth or a sniper build because you can basically just take every upgrade available to you at any given time. So why not just give people these skills from the outset and let them decide how to play based on how they want to play? I dunno. Skill trees are the shit I guess.
12. After getting on my high-horse about the treatment of brown-skinned people in this earlier, I feel like I should squeeze in a bit on the treatment of women. There are three main women characters in this game. Two of them exist only to be rescued. The third is thankfully more difficult to pin down and is actually the only native islander who is really in charge of anything. I suppose we live in a world where one out of three ain't bad but that is still not exactly ideal.
13. I can't help but feel like I've really overthought this one. It is really a super fun game. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to have super fun. I genuinely looked forward to pouring a beer and grabbing the controller every evening when I got home from work while I was playing Far Cry 3. I think what it does right, it does so right that it draws you into the game. That's a good thing but it does make you care all the more about its flaws. The RPG elements and the compelling but set-in-stone story telling don't feel like an extra bonus you get but missed potential at a bigger, much more engaging experience.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Let's Pretend there Will Be a 3DS Successor
The general assumption in the gaming world seems to be the Switch is going to replace both Nintendo's handheld and home console lines. I don't know if that's true and don't really care. Let's pretend there will be a true 3DS successor, not another iteration but a full-on newly designed from the ground up handheld from Nintendo. This is what I would like to see from it:
Keep the 3D, lose the dual screens. Let's call it the Game Boy 3D because Game Boys are awesome. The DS had some games that made cool use of the two screens but it seems like it's just used for inventory and maps these days so screw it. Every other system does w/o them so I think you should be able to find an engineer that can make this work.
Dual analogs, like for real this time. The New 3DS's solution to having two shoulder buttons on each side worked great but the dinky second analog just doesn't cut it. The 3DS slider style analogs feel better to me than the mini joysticks on the Vita so stick w/ them. Put them both up like they are on Wii U Pro controller because that feels great and people who don't like the Wii U Pro controller should choke to death on rotten cheese.
Don't make any new Mario games for it, just re-release a bunch of old ones. This worked for GBA so it will work on the GB3D.
Do make new Zelda games. Do make new Metroid games. Also make me a sandwich.
Put games on cartridges and I don't mean cards you call cartridges. If it doesn't seem like something I can reasonably blow into to get it working, I might as well just download it. Make a substantial cartridge and the people will come flocking to your system because nobody else has a cartridge worth a tinker's damn these days. I am talking at least a quarter inch thick here. Ideally, the label will wrap over the edge so you can read it while it's inserted in the machine.
The new Zelda game you make for it absolutely must come on a gold cartridge, by the way. I feel like I shouldn't even have to say this.
Keep the focus on good single-player experiences because you aren't always online when you are on the go. Come up w/ a new IP or two and provide good support to third party developers so the games don't dry up.
Make sure the speakers aren't covered up by your hands when you're playing. Place the analogs such that if your fingers slide off them a little bit you don't wind up w/ fingerprints all over the corners of the screen. Put the volume slider where you don't accidentally nudge it while playing. Make the battery user replaceable and upgradable. Continue using non-proprietary storage formats.
Keep the Pokemon games coming. I actually don't give a crap about this franchise so I'm really just throwing the gaming community a bone w/ this one. People love that shit.
Most importantly, actually make a 3DS successor. We have been on this same system since 2011 w/ only minor upgrades nobody cares about. I am a big enough fan I've bought three versions so far but buying a fourth... Okay, yeah, I'll probably buy a fourth eventually. But a fifth, no way! The Switch is too big to fit in my pocket and I don't see myself lugging it around. Besides, anyone who is not leery of hybrid anything is a rube. So make a real handheld and make it awesome because awesome is good and not awesome sucks.
Keep the 3D, lose the dual screens. Let's call it the Game Boy 3D because Game Boys are awesome. The DS had some games that made cool use of the two screens but it seems like it's just used for inventory and maps these days so screw it. Every other system does w/o them so I think you should be able to find an engineer that can make this work.
Dual analogs, like for real this time. The New 3DS's solution to having two shoulder buttons on each side worked great but the dinky second analog just doesn't cut it. The 3DS slider style analogs feel better to me than the mini joysticks on the Vita so stick w/ them. Put them both up like they are on Wii U Pro controller because that feels great and people who don't like the Wii U Pro controller should choke to death on rotten cheese.
Don't make any new Mario games for it, just re-release a bunch of old ones. This worked for GBA so it will work on the GB3D.
Do make new Zelda games. Do make new Metroid games. Also make me a sandwich.
Put games on cartridges and I don't mean cards you call cartridges. If it doesn't seem like something I can reasonably blow into to get it working, I might as well just download it. Make a substantial cartridge and the people will come flocking to your system because nobody else has a cartridge worth a tinker's damn these days. I am talking at least a quarter inch thick here. Ideally, the label will wrap over the edge so you can read it while it's inserted in the machine.
The new Zelda game you make for it absolutely must come on a gold cartridge, by the way. I feel like I shouldn't even have to say this.
Keep the focus on good single-player experiences because you aren't always online when you are on the go. Come up w/ a new IP or two and provide good support to third party developers so the games don't dry up.
Make sure the speakers aren't covered up by your hands when you're playing. Place the analogs such that if your fingers slide off them a little bit you don't wind up w/ fingerprints all over the corners of the screen. Put the volume slider where you don't accidentally nudge it while playing. Make the battery user replaceable and upgradable. Continue using non-proprietary storage formats.
Keep the Pokemon games coming. I actually don't give a crap about this franchise so I'm really just throwing the gaming community a bone w/ this one. People love that shit.
Most importantly, actually make a 3DS successor. We have been on this same system since 2011 w/ only minor upgrades nobody cares about. I am a big enough fan I've bought three versions so far but buying a fourth... Okay, yeah, I'll probably buy a fourth eventually. But a fifth, no way! The Switch is too big to fit in my pocket and I don't see myself lugging it around. Besides, anyone who is not leery of hybrid anything is a rube. So make a real handheld and make it awesome because awesome is good and not awesome sucks.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
13 Points on The Turing Test - Bulkhead Interactive - 2016 [PC]
1. This is a first person game set in a science facility which has been rearranged as a series of puzzles. You have a gun that is not a weapon that you use to solve these puzzles while an AI speaks to you from on high. Can't think of a single other game like this. Nope.
2. Theoretically, if there were another game that was almost exactly like this that The Turing Test very obviously was inspired by, the biggest different between the two games would be this one is completely serious in tone throughout whereas the other game would be known for its sense of humor... if it existed, which it doesn't.
3. Okay, so the setup here is you land on some moon or somewhere and the scientists there have holed themselves away, out of reach of the AI that is supposed to be running the show. In between you and these scientists, there are a series of puzzles that can supposedly only be solved by a human. The AI needs you to pass the tests so it can get to the wayward scientists who, it is soon revealed, are fiddling around w/ some potentially disruptive technology--to put it mildly. The back story is mostly told through little bits and bobs you find around the facility you're in. You read a computer terminal. Find a notebook. Pretty standard stuff. The current situation is piped to you either by the AI or through messages from the human crew. Either way, this is a story that was mostly written w/o your involvement and you are just there to put the finishing touches on it.
4. This looks great technically. There's not really much in the way of open spaces to push your system but I'd be hard pressed to think of an indie game that looks better. Something about the setting just doesn't fit for me though. Things are too smooth looking, even things meant to look worn. It feels like a set piece on a stage rather than a real place.
5. This has the kind of score that seems to just settle in w/ the ambient sounds. In the time in between playing and writing this, I utterly forgot what it sounded like and had to go back and listen again but it does actually work really well in the context of the game. It is not meant to be the focus of your attention.
6. Like certain other games that don't exist, your primary goal on a moment to moment basis is to walk through a door. The central challenge here is to provide power required to open said door while still being able to access it physically. To do this, you have a gun that lets you move spherical power orbs, power orbs that are stuck in a little box you have to carry and a series of switches, disappearing platforms, moving walkways, cranes and so forth that all must be operated in an appropriate sequence. In short, it is a first person puzzle game.
7. This is moderately difficult but some of the puzzle designs feel a bit sloppy. If you are from a parallel universe where games similar to this exist, you will find yourself proactively trying to solve another layer to the puzzle you are on only to find this next layer doesn't exist and you've collected three door-opening power supplies when you only needed one. This somehow makes what you actually had to do feel less satisfying.
8. This is one of those games where it seems like the levels were designed by the developers in the order you run into them as a player. That is to say, the later puzzles are much better than the first ones. Early puzzles frequently have what I consider to be a cardinal sin in puzzle game design, which is the puzzle is simple to figure out but then the solution is difficult to execute. As you progress, this becomes less and less of a problem and the solutions to puzzles get more clever generally.
9. Midway through, you can transfer your consciousness to and from various cameras and ro-bots to solve puzzles. The aiming reticle you get when doing this is way too small and it drove me completely bonkers.
10. I noticed the last few puzzles were noticeably easier than the ones just before them. I am not sure if this was intentional but it really worked for me as far as the games pacing. I hate feeling like I am stuck in the last few little bits of narrative right before the end of the game. The difficulty easing off as I reached the finish here, made me feel like I was making quick forward progress and I never felt frustrated wrapping things up.
11. A couple mechanics were either explained poorly or I missed them because I was huffing glue and drinking Sterno while playing. Please note that: a) you carry more than one orb in your orb gun and b) you can transfer an orb to a ro-bot if the rob-bot is situated such that its back is facing you.
12. This ends w/ what is supposed to be a moral quandary but it really seemed cut and dry to me what the right thing to do was.
13. This is the kind of game most people are going to be able to complete over a weekend and in the end that is its saving grace. Naturally, it is hard to call this game generic when no other similar game has ever existed but, you know, somehow this feels generic anyway. Everything about it from the graphics to the puzzle design to the music just feels competent w/o every really feeling compelling. If you'd like to spend some time solving puzzles while an AI speaks to you from on high, well, The Turing Test offers you exactly that experience and that is the only game I can think of that's like that.
2. Theoretically, if there were another game that was almost exactly like this that The Turing Test very obviously was inspired by, the biggest different between the two games would be this one is completely serious in tone throughout whereas the other game would be known for its sense of humor... if it existed, which it doesn't.
3. Okay, so the setup here is you land on some moon or somewhere and the scientists there have holed themselves away, out of reach of the AI that is supposed to be running the show. In between you and these scientists, there are a series of puzzles that can supposedly only be solved by a human. The AI needs you to pass the tests so it can get to the wayward scientists who, it is soon revealed, are fiddling around w/ some potentially disruptive technology--to put it mildly. The back story is mostly told through little bits and bobs you find around the facility you're in. You read a computer terminal. Find a notebook. Pretty standard stuff. The current situation is piped to you either by the AI or through messages from the human crew. Either way, this is a story that was mostly written w/o your involvement and you are just there to put the finishing touches on it.
4. This looks great technically. There's not really much in the way of open spaces to push your system but I'd be hard pressed to think of an indie game that looks better. Something about the setting just doesn't fit for me though. Things are too smooth looking, even things meant to look worn. It feels like a set piece on a stage rather than a real place.
5. This has the kind of score that seems to just settle in w/ the ambient sounds. In the time in between playing and writing this, I utterly forgot what it sounded like and had to go back and listen again but it does actually work really well in the context of the game. It is not meant to be the focus of your attention.
6. Like certain other games that don't exist, your primary goal on a moment to moment basis is to walk through a door. The central challenge here is to provide power required to open said door while still being able to access it physically. To do this, you have a gun that lets you move spherical power orbs, power orbs that are stuck in a little box you have to carry and a series of switches, disappearing platforms, moving walkways, cranes and so forth that all must be operated in an appropriate sequence. In short, it is a first person puzzle game.
7. This is moderately difficult but some of the puzzle designs feel a bit sloppy. If you are from a parallel universe where games similar to this exist, you will find yourself proactively trying to solve another layer to the puzzle you are on only to find this next layer doesn't exist and you've collected three door-opening power supplies when you only needed one. This somehow makes what you actually had to do feel less satisfying.
8. This is one of those games where it seems like the levels were designed by the developers in the order you run into them as a player. That is to say, the later puzzles are much better than the first ones. Early puzzles frequently have what I consider to be a cardinal sin in puzzle game design, which is the puzzle is simple to figure out but then the solution is difficult to execute. As you progress, this becomes less and less of a problem and the solutions to puzzles get more clever generally.
9. Midway through, you can transfer your consciousness to and from various cameras and ro-bots to solve puzzles. The aiming reticle you get when doing this is way too small and it drove me completely bonkers.
10. I noticed the last few puzzles were noticeably easier than the ones just before them. I am not sure if this was intentional but it really worked for me as far as the games pacing. I hate feeling like I am stuck in the last few little bits of narrative right before the end of the game. The difficulty easing off as I reached the finish here, made me feel like I was making quick forward progress and I never felt frustrated wrapping things up.
11. A couple mechanics were either explained poorly or I missed them because I was huffing glue and drinking Sterno while playing. Please note that: a) you carry more than one orb in your orb gun and b) you can transfer an orb to a ro-bot if the rob-bot is situated such that its back is facing you.
12. This ends w/ what is supposed to be a moral quandary but it really seemed cut and dry to me what the right thing to do was.
13. This is the kind of game most people are going to be able to complete over a weekend and in the end that is its saving grace. Naturally, it is hard to call this game generic when no other similar game has ever existed but, you know, somehow this feels generic anyway. Everything about it from the graphics to the puzzle design to the music just feels competent w/o every really feeling compelling. If you'd like to spend some time solving puzzles while an AI speaks to you from on high, well, The Turing Test offers you exactly that experience and that is the only game I can think of that's like that.
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