Tony_Tarantula on 18/4/2019 at 21:15
Brutal Legend is a great example of a game that fell very far short of it's potential because it was trying way too hard to be different.
The whole RTS schtick it had going was mostly terrible. If they'd stuck to the Pikmin/Overlord mould for gameplay it probably would have been awesome.
Tomi on 27/4/2019 at 20:44
Two more games off my list. :)
(
https://store.steampowered.com/app/522210/Serial_Cleaner/) Serial Cleaner
Someone's gotta clean up the murder scene after a serial killer has done their job, and apparently that's me. This is a stealth game where you gotta make bodies and blood and murder weapons and other evidence disappear, right under the eyes of the cops who are patrolling around. The gameplay mechanics are very simple and the cops aren't very bright, which makes the whole stealth thing a bit tedious. Serial Cleaner looks and feels quite a lot like Hotline Miami. Each mission starts with an incoming phone call at your house. You get your mission objectives with a very vague background story, then you jump in your car, arrive at the crime scene, and do your thing. The top-down view is clean enough, but sometimes it's frustratingly hard to tell where you can walk and where you can not. The 1970's style music and graphics are kinda cool, but not enough to save this game.
Inline Image:
http://i66.tinypic.com/2s0dd8h.jpg(
https://store.steampowered.com/app/581270/Old_Mans_Journey/) Old Man's Journey
An old man gets a mysterious letter, packs his backpack, grabs the trusty old walking stick, and starts an EPIC journey. Okay, the adventure might not be that epic, but it's quite beautiful and you get to see all sorts of places along the way. I really like the art in this game, it reminds me of some old and classy children's book. The music fits in well too, it's relaxing and nice, occasionally quite melancholic though. The game itself is very simple, it's a kind of a point&click adventure I suppose. Most of the "puzzles" in OMJ consist of moving pieces of the landscape (hills, roofs, roads, etc.) up and down by dragging your mouse, so that the old fellow can go on with his journey. I thought it was a really silly idea at first, but it kinda grew on me. Occasionally you have to click things to activate them and to make things happen. The puzzles aren't very challenging, but that's not the point - OMJ is all about the journey itself. It's a beautiful game, not very long (around 3 hours), and definitely worth trying.
Inline Image:
http://i67.tinypic.com/sboj8j.jpg
PigLick on 28/4/2019 at 10:15
Old mans journey was excellent, in fact it would have worked even better without a lot of the puzzles which just got in the way of the story.
demagogue on 28/4/2019 at 11:03
This isn't a backlog game as it just came out today. But it sort of fits the theme.
It looked stylish and it was free, so I got it and played it.
Himno.
Didn't know anything about this game except I liked the screenshots and it's free.
This is a very stylish roguelike (procedurally generated) platformer that's basically just pure infinite platforming. There aren't any enemies, just lots of different colored light orbs that do different things when you free them or touch them. You're basically platforming around looking for the exit door to the next level while grabbing some orbs while you're at it, and doing the minimal job of just not falling into the water below. So it's simple, but you can't just press X to win and you can still muff up a jump & die. It has lush ambient music. Basically it's a game just to chill and jump around. Reminds me of a Knytt game without the puzzles.
I'm actually really happy someone made something like this, since most platformers are pretty hard. I'm going through that with Celeste, which looks great and I like the story, but it's kind of stressful. This is for when you just want to do some simple platforming with some nice music and relax. I'll probably play come back to play this sometimes when I'm in a mood to chill.
Edit: It's not without its faults. When you wall-jump, the default is for your character to jump away from the wall, which is a problem since you often want to jump up and back towards the wall to a ledge,and there are a few other wonky parts with the controls & movement like that.
And even though I'm fine with no enemies and the chill ambient thing it has going, it'd still be great if there were some kind of progress markers. The classic way, what Kyntt did, is to have progressive abilities as you go. Or you could have a greater variety of orbs and ambient creatures around. And while they don't have to be enemies... It'd be nice if there were some more life to the levels. Again to use the Kyntt analogy, it had lots of ambient creatures and little villages and scenes where you felt something was always going on that made you curious about its backstory level to level. Something like that.
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Tomi on 8/6/2019 at 20:17
(
https://store.steampowered.com/app/217270/) Karateka
So apparently this is a remake of some C64 classic or something. My expectations probably got a bit too high when the loading screen said that this is a game by Jordan Mechner, the guy behind Prince of Persia. I've never played the original, but I could imagine that this is a fairly faithful remake... and in this case it's not a good thing. The game mechanics and pretty much everything about the game is so damn simple. Karateka uses a 3D engine, but you can only move in one direction on a set path, no matter where you move your joystick. The combat is super simple as well. You gotta listen to sound clues to know how to block your opponent's attacks; bong-bong-bong or ching-ching-ching means that your enemy will make three attacks, so you must quickly hit the block button three times, after which you can randomly mash two of your attack buttons to land a few hits before the enemy attacks again. There's a new enemy waiting behind every corner, every now and then you'll have to fight some boss enemy or a bird, and that repeats until you meet the final boss. There really isn't anything else to do. It's not a terrible game, but it's just too dull and repetitive.
Inline Image:
http://i67.tinypic.com/14nikw6.jpg(
https://store.steampowered.com/app/396350/) Bleed 2
I was expecting an action game. I got a super fast side-scrolling non-stop action game with retro graphics. To my surprise, I actually liked it, after I had learned to play the game a bit. It still feels a bit too hectic for me, but it's quite fun. Basically the game's just one boss fight after another, and I gotta say that they've really let their imagination run wild with those. In the screenshot below I'm standing on a shape-shifting flying truck and trying to kill this guy who's riding a rocket-boosted bird and firing bird missiles at me. And that's still relatively ordinary when it comes to this game. The story mode is really short but worth playing in my opinion. Those who really like the game might want to try the harder difficulties and score higher points on each level, but I don't think that's for me.
Inline Image:
http://i68.tinypic.com/ayoqiu.jpg
icemann on 9/6/2019 at 07:29
The original by Jordan Mechner was an awesome game:
[video=youtube_share;7w0x1Gs7Nfk]https://youtu.be/7w0x1Gs7Nfk[/video]
Had quite fluid movement for its time. Much like Price of Persia.
The remake may be an abomination but that in no way takes anything away from the greatness of the original.
henke on 9/6/2019 at 16:24
Quote Posted by Tomi
I've never played the original, but I could imagine that this is a fairly faithful remake
It's not. The new version's minimalist controls and rhythm-based combat is very different from the original. The new one is interesting, but I didn't find it very fun either. :erg: