1. Gone Home is a game where you walk around until it is time to stop walking around. It is also very, very good.
2. What actually happens in Gone Home is you arrive home after extensive international travels. Your family has moved while you are out of the country and you find there is nobody home and the house is mostly still in unpacked disarray. You walk around the house and explore it but that is not what Gone Home is really about.
3. The first thing you find is a saying not to investigate the house and shortly thereafter it becomes clear that there are some horror-story type events in this home's history. That is also not what Gone Home is about.
4. Gone Home is actually about exploring people's lives.
5. The lives in particular are not that of the playable character, Katie, but of her family. Katie's younger sister, Sam, is the focus. Sam is just coming to terms w/ the fact that she is a lesbian. She live at home. It's the nineties. This is pretty rough situation all around.
6. A lot of people complained when this first came about that the horror story framework was subverted into a coming-out story and doing so was misleading on the part of the developers. I think being mislead is great in this case. While I can get behind a game where you slowly creep around a house and wait for things to pop out and scare you, I think we get a little more meaningful substance here.
7. According to the developers, the nineties were chosen just so it made sense that Katie was not in constant smart-phone communication w/ her parents and thus her arrival home could still be something of a surprise. They use this nineties backdrop to great effect though, weaving the story line to include contemporary musical movements, attitudes and government policies like don't ask/don't tell.
8. The way the main narrative of Sam's coming out is told is Bioshock-style, through audio-logs. (Well--they are diary entries that are read out lout to you, whatever.) This isn't exactly a groundbreaking storytelling method and wasn't in 2013 either but it works here because it is so well supported by the setting.
9. Voice actor, Sarah Grayson, does a great job selling Sam as a character but equally important is the fact that Sam's room has some pretty notable similarities to my own bedroom back in the nineties or that she's hung band posters and show fliers throughout various nooks and hideaways in the sprawling house in which the game is set. Generally, lived-in details are abound and do a great job not only creating the right atmosphere but telling an entirely separate story on their own.
10. Or, actually, it weaves multiple complementary stories together. You dig into Katie and Sam's parents' romantic lives along w/ their careers and their habits. You get the history of the house and the horror-story stuff that went on in its past.
11. None of it is just filler or backstory thrown in for the sake of it either. It is all baked in, a real part of the in-game universe. Details are about and each and every one seems a necessary piece to the puzzle when you discover it.
12. You don't have to dig through everything to find all this stuff but when
you do it doesn't feel like interesting tidbits thrown in for color but
small epiphanies about why the family functions the way it does. The few challenging bits in the game are all pretty much side-content and your reward for doing them is a a bit more information and a greater understanding of the underlying situation.
13. You could argue that, absent any real gameplay challenge, Gone Home isn't a whole game. And, you know,if you are gonna do that, go right on ahead. I hate this shit half the time too. This said, Gone Home is such a compelling example of world building that I have to recommend it for anyone who has even a vague interest in this sort of thing. If meandering around a creepy old house and getting to know digital people w/o ever actually meeting them sounds like a good time to you, you've just found a great way to spend a Friday Evening.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
13 Points on Just Cause 3 - Avalanche Studios - 2015
1. You know how in a lot of big action games, when it gets to the point things are really gonna pop off, you just get pushed into a quick time event and have to sit there like a dumbass and periodically press a button while you watch the fireworks? Just Cause 3 doesn't make you do that. In Just Cause 3, you not only set off the fireworks yourself, you get to pick which fireworks go off and what you use to light them.
2. Just to be clear what this means: you will regularly grapple onto a helicopter that is shooting you, chuck the pilot out the window, take control of the helicopter and send it careening into an enemy fuel tank while simultaneously parachuting out and latching onto another helicopter to repeat the process. This is just a normal thing you will do. It is basic gameplay in Just Cause 3.
3. Structurally, this is pretty much climb-a-tower-to-reveal-map-icons type open world game. You don't actually climb towers but defeating enemy bases gives you similar icon action.
4. The open world is huge and I am normally indifferent to world size but it is just so much fun to get around, it helps to have a long way to go between objectives sometimes. You have a grappling hook arm band thing that whips you along fast as a dandy and then a quickly deployable parachute and wingsuit when you go airborne. Physics are just realistic enough to have some drama to them but still allow you to fling yourself about in ways that would certainly destroy a human being in short order.
5. Gunplay is pretty tame. It is all run and gun w/ some aim assist. There's ironsights eventually but only as an unlockable. The magic in combat is in the little grappling hook arm band thing which you can use for a high variety of violent purposes. You can use it to throw an explosive barrel into a gas tank. You can latch it onto a man's chest and throw yourself at him. You can tie a jet airplane to the ground. You get the idea.
6. Though Just Cause 3 is pretty much a textbook male power fantasy, I have to give it credit for having a broad group of female characters that don't exist just to get rescued. The leader of an idealistic rebellion, its highest ranked scientist and the head of a scrappy group of mercenaries are all women. This is pretty much any person that's in charge of anything aside from the villains. Not bad.
7. This said, plotwise we are strongly in "Who even cares?" territory. You are on some kind Italian archipelago run by an obviously evil dictator and your goal is to overthrow him through the unorthodox use of his own helicopters.
8. You have regenerating health and this combined w/ the fact that you can use your little grappling hook thing to zing out of any situation at a moment's notice makes you practically invincible if you chose to be. You chose to stick around more often than not but you probably will cheese your way through some tricky situations from time to time by firing a few shots and zooming away to safety over and over.
9. Similarly, the punishment for death is rather minor. Everything you've destroyed up until your death stays destroyed so you can just keep taking things out few at a time between deaths rather than come up w/ a better approach or strategy.
10. You gain all of your major abilities w/in a few hours of gameplay, which is a good thing. It always drives me nuts when the most fun elements of combat aren't available for the full game. There are a lot of bonus items and skills you can earn through about a million various challenges that you unlock as the game progresses. Some of these are powerful enough as to make some difficult tasks trivially easy but, honestly, I didn't really find the challenges enjoyable enough to play most of them so I guess that kinda solves that problem.
11. An open world this big and this open-ended as far as gameplay is bound to have some rough points. I accept a bit of weirdness as the price of admission in a game w/ such potential for edge cases but, esp. toward the end, I found it a bit galling that what I'd done had very little effect on the world itself. It'd be cool if, for example, as you started taking out enemy oil rigs, you'd see enemy tanks out of gas on the side of the road or something. The way it is, the missions are exactly the same whether you've left the enemy's network of bases relatively in tact or destroyed almost all of them. It makes the world feel a bit shallow in spite of its massive size.
12. The story missions are also just kinda crappy. Let's just say there's lots of escort missions and the grand scale battles that end each chapter only partly make up for this.
13. If you want a game where you can attach an exploding barrel to a moving vehicle and watch the combined mess crash spectacularly into a satellite dish, Just Cause 3 is your game. If you want a game where you can wing walk on a fighter jet and bazooka other fighter jets, Just Cause 3 is your game. Lots of games do this kind of thing but this series is pretty unique in letting you do it whenever you want. It makes some compromises in other areas but in terms of gameplay spectacle, it is second to none. I can't say it's a perfect game but I will say I am very excited for Just Cause 4.
2. Just to be clear what this means: you will regularly grapple onto a helicopter that is shooting you, chuck the pilot out the window, take control of the helicopter and send it careening into an enemy fuel tank while simultaneously parachuting out and latching onto another helicopter to repeat the process. This is just a normal thing you will do. It is basic gameplay in Just Cause 3.
3. Structurally, this is pretty much climb-a-tower-to-reveal-map-icons type open world game. You don't actually climb towers but defeating enemy bases gives you similar icon action.
4. The open world is huge and I am normally indifferent to world size but it is just so much fun to get around, it helps to have a long way to go between objectives sometimes. You have a grappling hook arm band thing that whips you along fast as a dandy and then a quickly deployable parachute and wingsuit when you go airborne. Physics are just realistic enough to have some drama to them but still allow you to fling yourself about in ways that would certainly destroy a human being in short order.
5. Gunplay is pretty tame. It is all run and gun w/ some aim assist. There's ironsights eventually but only as an unlockable. The magic in combat is in the little grappling hook arm band thing which you can use for a high variety of violent purposes. You can use it to throw an explosive barrel into a gas tank. You can latch it onto a man's chest and throw yourself at him. You can tie a jet airplane to the ground. You get the idea.
6. Though Just Cause 3 is pretty much a textbook male power fantasy, I have to give it credit for having a broad group of female characters that don't exist just to get rescued. The leader of an idealistic rebellion, its highest ranked scientist and the head of a scrappy group of mercenaries are all women. This is pretty much any person that's in charge of anything aside from the villains. Not bad.
7. This said, plotwise we are strongly in "Who even cares?" territory. You are on some kind Italian archipelago run by an obviously evil dictator and your goal is to overthrow him through the unorthodox use of his own helicopters.
8. You have regenerating health and this combined w/ the fact that you can use your little grappling hook thing to zing out of any situation at a moment's notice makes you practically invincible if you chose to be. You chose to stick around more often than not but you probably will cheese your way through some tricky situations from time to time by firing a few shots and zooming away to safety over and over.
9. Similarly, the punishment for death is rather minor. Everything you've destroyed up until your death stays destroyed so you can just keep taking things out few at a time between deaths rather than come up w/ a better approach or strategy.
10. You gain all of your major abilities w/in a few hours of gameplay, which is a good thing. It always drives me nuts when the most fun elements of combat aren't available for the full game. There are a lot of bonus items and skills you can earn through about a million various challenges that you unlock as the game progresses. Some of these are powerful enough as to make some difficult tasks trivially easy but, honestly, I didn't really find the challenges enjoyable enough to play most of them so I guess that kinda solves that problem.
11. An open world this big and this open-ended as far as gameplay is bound to have some rough points. I accept a bit of weirdness as the price of admission in a game w/ such potential for edge cases but, esp. toward the end, I found it a bit galling that what I'd done had very little effect on the world itself. It'd be cool if, for example, as you started taking out enemy oil rigs, you'd see enemy tanks out of gas on the side of the road or something. The way it is, the missions are exactly the same whether you've left the enemy's network of bases relatively in tact or destroyed almost all of them. It makes the world feel a bit shallow in spite of its massive size.
12. The story missions are also just kinda crappy. Let's just say there's lots of escort missions and the grand scale battles that end each chapter only partly make up for this.
13. If you want a game where you can attach an exploding barrel to a moving vehicle and watch the combined mess crash spectacularly into a satellite dish, Just Cause 3 is your game. If you want a game where you can wing walk on a fighter jet and bazooka other fighter jets, Just Cause 3 is your game. Lots of games do this kind of thing but this series is pretty unique in letting you do it whenever you want. It makes some compromises in other areas but in terms of gameplay spectacle, it is second to none. I can't say it's a perfect game but I will say I am very excited for Just Cause 4.
Friday, October 12, 2018
13 Points on Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - Steel Crate Games - 2015 [PC]
1. This is what I think you really want to know about this: yes, people
who don't play video games will enjoy playing this game at your dinner
party. Or at whatever kind of party you have. I don't know what you're
into.
2. Remember to print up the bomb manuals before your guests arrive.
3. This is a party game but it's not the sort of party game where you can chit chat while playing. This makes it really handy to have if you don't actually like your friends.
4. The games are about five minutes long predominantly. In between games, you argue who's fault it is.
5. NOT MINE!
6. This is fun even when you lose but it's more fun when you win.
7. If you are playing with first timers, get people initially to specialize in one or two types of puzzle a piece. There is a lot to learn, the manuals are pretty thick and it gets a bit intimidating.
8. Probably one person will be the weak link in your system. Have that person mix the drinks.
9. They make a big deal about people w/ the manuals not being able to see the bomb and vice versa. I don't honestly think it matters one bit for casual play but it would be kind of hilarious to have someone hide in a blanket fort as the game suggests in its opening sequence.
10. "Somebody set up us the bomb." It will be said.
11. The mini-game called "Who's on first?" is the most breathtakingly infuriating thing in gaming since the dog that laughs at you in Duck Hunt.
12. Infuriating is fun in this case.
13. After playing this just because you have guests over, you will want to have guests over just to play this.
2. Remember to print up the bomb manuals before your guests arrive.
3. This is a party game but it's not the sort of party game where you can chit chat while playing. This makes it really handy to have if you don't actually like your friends.
4. The games are about five minutes long predominantly. In between games, you argue who's fault it is.
5. NOT MINE!
6. This is fun even when you lose but it's more fun when you win.
7. If you are playing with first timers, get people initially to specialize in one or two types of puzzle a piece. There is a lot to learn, the manuals are pretty thick and it gets a bit intimidating.
8. Probably one person will be the weak link in your system. Have that person mix the drinks.
9. They make a big deal about people w/ the manuals not being able to see the bomb and vice versa. I don't honestly think it matters one bit for casual play but it would be kind of hilarious to have someone hide in a blanket fort as the game suggests in its opening sequence.
10. "Somebody set up us the bomb." It will be said.
11. The mini-game called "Who's on first?" is the most breathtakingly infuriating thing in gaming since the dog that laughs at you in Duck Hunt.
12. Infuriating is fun in this case.
13. After playing this just because you have guests over, you will want to have guests over just to play this.
Friday, October 5, 2018
13 Points on Abzu - Giant Squid - 2016 [PC]
1. Alright, nerds, I didn't like this stupid underwater walking sim. If
you want to save time, skip the rest of this list and just flame me in
the comments. I am going to say exactly everything you expect me to say
and I'm right.
2. Gameplay is you swim around until it is time to stop swimming around.
3. For a superior experience to this, I recommend you stream David Attenborough's The Blue Planet and just fiddle w/ a controller of your choosing. This offers the same level of player engagement and you can use a Sega Saturn controller w/o the need for an adapter.
4. This is the sort of game people describe as relaxing and atmospheric. By this, they mean it's a glorified tech demo w/ almost no discernible plot or challenge.
5. I am thoroughly glad that developers are experimenting more and more w/ making games that are pointedly supposed to be seen as art. I am upset that so many of these developers forget to make a good game in the process.
6. The visuals and sound design and music are very nice. This seems to be the only thing anybody ever notices about it, which makes sense because that's all there is to it.
7. I seemed to have played this less than most reviewers. Honestly, I'm not sure if that's because I didn't finish or because I couldn't be bothered to explore anything so as not to artificially extend the time I spent being bored to tears. I got to a point in the game where gameplay seemed to stop but I am truly not sure if that was meant to be the end of the game.
8. I was happy to turn it off at that point though.
9. The advertising copy for this game is unintentionally hilarious. "The word ABZU is from the oldest mythologies." Riiiiiiiight...
10. PC Master Racers take note: they suggest you use a controller for this game for no real reason other than they couldn't be bothered to refine the keyboard controls. I mean, seriously, are you telling me there no good games w/ six degrees of freedom played w/ mouse and keyboard? Put some work in, people.
11. Despite all my complaining about everything else, I don't have an issue w/ price vs. play time on this. You know that it's an animated fishbowl getting into this and that you can take basically as much or as little time as you to explore so it's not like the developers pulled the wool over your eyes or anything.
12. Really, since they didn't seem the need to build gameplay into this game, I don't see why I should have to do a full thirteen points in this review.
13. OK, fine. This is point 13.
2. Gameplay is you swim around until it is time to stop swimming around.
3. For a superior experience to this, I recommend you stream David Attenborough's The Blue Planet and just fiddle w/ a controller of your choosing. This offers the same level of player engagement and you can use a Sega Saturn controller w/o the need for an adapter.
4. This is the sort of game people describe as relaxing and atmospheric. By this, they mean it's a glorified tech demo w/ almost no discernible plot or challenge.
5. I am thoroughly glad that developers are experimenting more and more w/ making games that are pointedly supposed to be seen as art. I am upset that so many of these developers forget to make a good game in the process.
6. The visuals and sound design and music are very nice. This seems to be the only thing anybody ever notices about it, which makes sense because that's all there is to it.
7. I seemed to have played this less than most reviewers. Honestly, I'm not sure if that's because I didn't finish or because I couldn't be bothered to explore anything so as not to artificially extend the time I spent being bored to tears. I got to a point in the game where gameplay seemed to stop but I am truly not sure if that was meant to be the end of the game.
8. I was happy to turn it off at that point though.
9. The advertising copy for this game is unintentionally hilarious. "The word ABZU is from the oldest mythologies." Riiiiiiiight...
10. PC Master Racers take note: they suggest you use a controller for this game for no real reason other than they couldn't be bothered to refine the keyboard controls. I mean, seriously, are you telling me there no good games w/ six degrees of freedom played w/ mouse and keyboard? Put some work in, people.
11. Despite all my complaining about everything else, I don't have an issue w/ price vs. play time on this. You know that it's an animated fishbowl getting into this and that you can take basically as much or as little time as you to explore so it's not like the developers pulled the wool over your eyes or anything.
12. Really, since they didn't seem the need to build gameplay into this game, I don't see why I should have to do a full thirteen points in this review.
13. OK, fine. This is point 13.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
13 Points on Bust-a-Move Deluxe - Taito - 2006 [Sony PSP]
1. Coming to Bust-a-Move Deluxe as someone unfamiliar w/ the series, I can say now that it seems like it's a pretty okay series of ball-based puzzle games.
2. The object is you shoot little balls at a bunch of other balls and if you get three balls of the same kind touching, well, something good happens. This is just like real life.
3. The main mode is called puzzle mode. You are given a setup of a variety balls in a preordained pattern. The balls you get to shoot at the puzzle balls are not completely random balls but neither are they balls in a completely in fixed order as far as I can tell. The puzzle is in getting rid of all the balls as efficiently as possible.
4. The balls are actually called bubbles. This is set in the extended Bubble Bobble universe, which is a thing that exists for some reason. I'm going to keep calling them balls.
5. In addition to the standard colored balls, there are specialty balls. Some of these balls are really good. One ball makes all balls of whatever color it touches disappear. There is also a ball that just blows up any ball it runs into.
6. There are also a few balls that will only ever show up in the preordained ball patterns. These include balls that have no matchable ball color so must be dropped by removing the balls that connect them to the rest of the balls. Then there is an even more insidious ball that does not fall until every ball touching it is removed. I hate these balls.
7. Bust-a-Move is generally considered a puzzle game but really the challenge tends to be more in putting your balls exactly where you want them. You will really spend more time developing your ability to place your balls than anything else really.
8. Number 7 is slightly less true when you get good enough to really start going for high scores and the time it takes to shoot a few extra balls has a big impact on your bonus scores.
9. Speaking of time, the aiming reticle in this moves at a rate that can be frustratingly slow. It moves constantly at the speed you would use for finer adjustments so when you gotta one ball somewhere vastly different than the ball before it, it can take a minute.
10. There are 300 puzzle levels, which is plenty really. They all seem the same after a while and there's no rhyme or reason to how hard they are. They do not get progressively more difficult, which makes each session a game of attrition. It's all about not making mistakes and really nailing your ball-shots.
11. Additionally, there are like six or ten extra game modes which are fun distractions but none of them feel essentially different than the main mode. One mode that is noticeably missing is some sort of marathon mode where new balls come down from the top of the level until you can no longer handle any more balls.
12. Overall, having thought about this a considerable amount, I stand by my opinion this is an okay ball-based puzzle game. When you are playing it, it gets addictive and you want to keep pushing on but it does not persist in your memory well enough that you continually feel an urge to play with these balls when you aren't already doing so.
13. I think I could have done more w/ these ball jokes. (That's what she said.)
2. The object is you shoot little balls at a bunch of other balls and if you get three balls of the same kind touching, well, something good happens. This is just like real life.
3. The main mode is called puzzle mode. You are given a setup of a variety balls in a preordained pattern. The balls you get to shoot at the puzzle balls are not completely random balls but neither are they balls in a completely in fixed order as far as I can tell. The puzzle is in getting rid of all the balls as efficiently as possible.
4. The balls are actually called bubbles. This is set in the extended Bubble Bobble universe, which is a thing that exists for some reason. I'm going to keep calling them balls.
5. In addition to the standard colored balls, there are specialty balls. Some of these balls are really good. One ball makes all balls of whatever color it touches disappear. There is also a ball that just blows up any ball it runs into.
6. There are also a few balls that will only ever show up in the preordained ball patterns. These include balls that have no matchable ball color so must be dropped by removing the balls that connect them to the rest of the balls. Then there is an even more insidious ball that does not fall until every ball touching it is removed. I hate these balls.
7. Bust-a-Move is generally considered a puzzle game but really the challenge tends to be more in putting your balls exactly where you want them. You will really spend more time developing your ability to place your balls than anything else really.
8. Number 7 is slightly less true when you get good enough to really start going for high scores and the time it takes to shoot a few extra balls has a big impact on your bonus scores.
9. Speaking of time, the aiming reticle in this moves at a rate that can be frustratingly slow. It moves constantly at the speed you would use for finer adjustments so when you gotta one ball somewhere vastly different than the ball before it, it can take a minute.
10. There are 300 puzzle levels, which is plenty really. They all seem the same after a while and there's no rhyme or reason to how hard they are. They do not get progressively more difficult, which makes each session a game of attrition. It's all about not making mistakes and really nailing your ball-shots.
11. Additionally, there are like six or ten extra game modes which are fun distractions but none of them feel essentially different than the main mode. One mode that is noticeably missing is some sort of marathon mode where new balls come down from the top of the level until you can no longer handle any more balls.
12. Overall, having thought about this a considerable amount, I stand by my opinion this is an okay ball-based puzzle game. When you are playing it, it gets addictive and you want to keep pushing on but it does not persist in your memory well enough that you continually feel an urge to play with these balls when you aren't already doing so.
13. I think I could have done more w/ these ball jokes. (That's what she said.)
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
13 Points on A Story About My Uncle - Gone North Games - 2014 [PC]
1. I kinda figured this would be a walking sim w/ some platforming
thrown on top but it's the opposite. It is a platforming game first w/
cute, sentimental fantasy plot thrown on top.
2. I start playing a 3D platformer and I immediately reach for the controller out of habit. This was the wrong move. There is no aim assist and this, makes the accuracy of a mouse absolutely essential.
3. While I was still using the controller, I stacked a bunch of pillows on the side of my couch so I could have a place to safely chuck it at the wall. This wasn't as satisfying as crushing the thing to smithereens in a fit of nerd rage but a whole lot cheaper.
4. It's not really the same kind of game but this reminds me of Portal as much as anything. There is a story overlayed via narration but you are not really involved in it. It just comes at you bit by bit as you progress. It's also a first person game where you have to aim and shoot but can't kill anything.
5. The way A Story About My Uncle works is, basically, you are Spiderman w/ rocket shoes. This is obviously pretty sweet. Grappling is the gameplay focus. There is a bit of challenge puzzling your way into finding the best root through a given set of obstacles but it's mostly about getting the timing right and aiming quickly. This works well and for the most part the game flows smoothly.
6. You play as a young boy who goes off looking for his uncle. In his house, you find a magic space suit and somehow manage to transport yourself out to a bizarre world of floating rocks and frog people. Adventure ensues.
7. I don't know where the hell the voice actors for this game from but they all speak like people who learned English as a second language and spent years perfecting it but still ended up like 1% short of speaking it perfectly. They are in the accent uncanny valley. It is strikes me as kind of creepy at times but sort of works for the fantasy setting. If you tell me frog people from outer-space speak like northern Europeans who majored in English, who am I to say any different?
8. I found this much more difficult than most people. That is partly because I stubbornly stuck w/ a controller for longer than I should have and also because I was drunk half the time. Not gonna lie.
9. The graphics here are not a technical marvel or anything but are quite pretty and alluring so I feel the artists accomplished what they wanted so good for them.
10. Number 10 being said, I did have two issues w/ the graphics. Firstly, there are spots where it is too dark to see your various grappling points in the distance. Towards the end, I had to crank the gamma way up to see what I was doing and I liked the look of the game much less once I did that. Also, often, I felt that at times it was not clear based solely on their appearance what points you could grapple. This made some sections a little more trial-and-error based than I thought they should be.
11. I played this solely on Linux. Thanks for the support! It worked almost perfectly but I did have some trouble w/ menus becoming unresponsive. Still, not nearly bad enough to avoid the Linux version.
12. Most of the replayability here is going to come from just wanting to play it again. There are also opportunities to find collectables to encourage some off-course exploration and a time trial mode if you are into such things.
13. It'd be a stretch to call A Story About My Uncle a perfect game if I'm being honest. The plot wasn't great, the platforming certainly had annoyances but it's cute, almost always fun and is the kind of thing you can knock out over the course of a weekend w/o having to block off a huge section of time so it doesn't overstay it's welcome. People looking for a little something different in a platformer won't go wrong by checking this out.
2. I start playing a 3D platformer and I immediately reach for the controller out of habit. This was the wrong move. There is no aim assist and this, makes the accuracy of a mouse absolutely essential.
3. While I was still using the controller, I stacked a bunch of pillows on the side of my couch so I could have a place to safely chuck it at the wall. This wasn't as satisfying as crushing the thing to smithereens in a fit of nerd rage but a whole lot cheaper.
4. It's not really the same kind of game but this reminds me of Portal as much as anything. There is a story overlayed via narration but you are not really involved in it. It just comes at you bit by bit as you progress. It's also a first person game where you have to aim and shoot but can't kill anything.
5. The way A Story About My Uncle works is, basically, you are Spiderman w/ rocket shoes. This is obviously pretty sweet. Grappling is the gameplay focus. There is a bit of challenge puzzling your way into finding the best root through a given set of obstacles but it's mostly about getting the timing right and aiming quickly. This works well and for the most part the game flows smoothly.
6. You play as a young boy who goes off looking for his uncle. In his house, you find a magic space suit and somehow manage to transport yourself out to a bizarre world of floating rocks and frog people. Adventure ensues.
7. I don't know where the hell the voice actors for this game from but they all speak like people who learned English as a second language and spent years perfecting it but still ended up like 1% short of speaking it perfectly. They are in the accent uncanny valley. It is strikes me as kind of creepy at times but sort of works for the fantasy setting. If you tell me frog people from outer-space speak like northern Europeans who majored in English, who am I to say any different?
8. I found this much more difficult than most people. That is partly because I stubbornly stuck w/ a controller for longer than I should have and also because I was drunk half the time. Not gonna lie.
9. The graphics here are not a technical marvel or anything but are quite pretty and alluring so I feel the artists accomplished what they wanted so good for them.
10. Number 10 being said, I did have two issues w/ the graphics. Firstly, there are spots where it is too dark to see your various grappling points in the distance. Towards the end, I had to crank the gamma way up to see what I was doing and I liked the look of the game much less once I did that. Also, often, I felt that at times it was not clear based solely on their appearance what points you could grapple. This made some sections a little more trial-and-error based than I thought they should be.
11. I played this solely on Linux. Thanks for the support! It worked almost perfectly but I did have some trouble w/ menus becoming unresponsive. Still, not nearly bad enough to avoid the Linux version.
12. Most of the replayability here is going to come from just wanting to play it again. There are also opportunities to find collectables to encourage some off-course exploration and a time trial mode if you are into such things.
13. It'd be a stretch to call A Story About My Uncle a perfect game if I'm being honest. The plot wasn't great, the platforming certainly had annoyances but it's cute, almost always fun and is the kind of thing you can knock out over the course of a weekend w/o having to block off a huge section of time so it doesn't overstay it's welcome. People looking for a little something different in a platformer won't go wrong by checking this out.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
13 Points on Fallout: New Vegas - Obsidian Entertainment - 2010 [PC]
1. If you like Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 but got the
sneaking suspicion that despite the open world nature of those games,
their stories were on rails and no choice you made really mattered,
congratulations, you're right! You win Fallout: New Vegas which is a completely identical game except almost everything you do matters.
2. Your first dozen or so hours in Windows 10 will be fraught w/ peril w/ untimely crashes abound. Google yourself up some New Vegas Scrip Extender and New Vegas Anti-Crash (in that order) to get things up and running smoothly. I had to do this on all three PCs I ran this on.
3. You play as an unnamed courier who gets shot in the head in the course of a delivery and then revived by a plucky town doctor. One of few choices you don't get to make is to just up and leave town, which is probably what would make the most sense in that situation. I guess maybe you are worried you'll never find another doctor good enough to cure bullet wounds to the head w/o any special equipment. This much is not covered in game. Use your imagination.
4. There is a brief tutorial section you can do but by and large this is not very helpful.
5. The graphics used to be pretty good but now they're just graphics. If you've played Fallout 3, it looks exactly like that but where that game is blueish, this game is orangeish.
6. The musical theme here is the same basic theme as the other games in the series but there's variations in terms of orchestration. As is always the case, it's one of the best parts of the game.
7. There are four major pathways to the end game which are spelled out for you pretty early on. You can decide right away which one you wish to take or try to hedge your bets and see what's going on before choosing. Delaying your choice actually makes a difference in how the game plays out in the end.
8. Many of the NPC enemies which were just called raiders in other Fallout games are actually from built-out factions complete w/ backstories and leadership. You don't actually have to be enemies w/ everyone just because they are ruthless killers that nobody in their right mind would align themselves w/.
9. Gunplay in this game is kind of balls, no way around it. That is until you bring in the existence of VATS which is sort of a realtime/turn based hybrid system that you can use to aim at specific body parts, esp. heads, which then have a chance to explode fantastically if your shot lands. Not gonna lie: exploding enemies heads is so much fun I'd probably have put ten hours into this game if it was literally just that.
10. There is a crafting system which is pretty well built out but I was too busy blowing up heads to use it. Sue me.
11. The worst thing about this game is the inventory system. There is no way to sort by anything but alphabetical. I was forever just carrying about a hundred pounds of crap I didn't need for no reason just because I didn't want to deal w/ sorting through that garbage.
12. For some reason, I drank out of toilets a lot less than I generally do when playing Fallout games.
13. End of the day, of the 3D Fallout games, this is best RPG in the series. All of them have similar appeal in the just go around and do whatever vein but this has the most adaptive world where it feels like your actions as the randomly most important person in the world have an effect. It might lose some of its sheer openness and scope in being like this but it is worth the trade-off to not just feel like you are going through the motions at the endgame.
2. Your first dozen or so hours in Windows 10 will be fraught w/ peril w/ untimely crashes abound. Google yourself up some New Vegas Scrip Extender and New Vegas Anti-Crash (in that order) to get things up and running smoothly. I had to do this on all three PCs I ran this on.
3. You play as an unnamed courier who gets shot in the head in the course of a delivery and then revived by a plucky town doctor. One of few choices you don't get to make is to just up and leave town, which is probably what would make the most sense in that situation. I guess maybe you are worried you'll never find another doctor good enough to cure bullet wounds to the head w/o any special equipment. This much is not covered in game. Use your imagination.
4. There is a brief tutorial section you can do but by and large this is not very helpful.
5. The graphics used to be pretty good but now they're just graphics. If you've played Fallout 3, it looks exactly like that but where that game is blueish, this game is orangeish.
6. The musical theme here is the same basic theme as the other games in the series but there's variations in terms of orchestration. As is always the case, it's one of the best parts of the game.
7. There are four major pathways to the end game which are spelled out for you pretty early on. You can decide right away which one you wish to take or try to hedge your bets and see what's going on before choosing. Delaying your choice actually makes a difference in how the game plays out in the end.
8. Many of the NPC enemies which were just called raiders in other Fallout games are actually from built-out factions complete w/ backstories and leadership. You don't actually have to be enemies w/ everyone just because they are ruthless killers that nobody in their right mind would align themselves w/.
9. Gunplay in this game is kind of balls, no way around it. That is until you bring in the existence of VATS which is sort of a realtime/turn based hybrid system that you can use to aim at specific body parts, esp. heads, which then have a chance to explode fantastically if your shot lands. Not gonna lie: exploding enemies heads is so much fun I'd probably have put ten hours into this game if it was literally just that.
10. There is a crafting system which is pretty well built out but I was too busy blowing up heads to use it. Sue me.
11. The worst thing about this game is the inventory system. There is no way to sort by anything but alphabetical. I was forever just carrying about a hundred pounds of crap I didn't need for no reason just because I didn't want to deal w/ sorting through that garbage.
12. For some reason, I drank out of toilets a lot less than I generally do when playing Fallout games.
13. End of the day, of the 3D Fallout games, this is best RPG in the series. All of them have similar appeal in the just go around and do whatever vein but this has the most adaptive world where it feels like your actions as the randomly most important person in the world have an effect. It might lose some of its sheer openness and scope in being like this but it is worth the trade-off to not just feel like you are going through the motions at the endgame.
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