henke on 5/1/2022 at 07:39
As cool as DOOM 2016 is, it does go on for too long, and it's not really worth sticking with it till the end just for the story.
Malf on 5/1/2022 at 08:58
Yeah, it's a bit too intense to be digested in long chunks. A level a day strikes me as a good way to play the game, and also lessens the risk of you growing bored with the formulaic gameplay loop.
I still enjoy it more than Doom Eternal though. That game just won't click with me, and I suspect it's the slavish devotion to and doubling down on the formula, while the narrative also takes itself too seriously when compared to 2016.
Thirith on 5/1/2022 at 10:55
I just finished Death's Door, getting the 'true ending' (though I didn't 100% it - there would've been another couple of achievements, but 100%ing doesn't really do much for me). It's a lovely Zelda-like with a great aesthetic, and while it probably remains simpler in terms of its combat and puzzles than the Legend of Zelda games, that's exactly what I was looking for after Christmas. Nonetheless, it does a good job of adding new gameplay mechanics over time and changing things up. Again, thanks a lot to henke for this great Christmas gift. :)
I also just played Midnight Scenes: The Nanny, the latest horror short by Octavi Navarro, who issues one of these point-and-click quickies every couple of years. The plot is rather random in this one (I seem to remember that the others also had that problem), but hey, this is a half-hour game, so it can get by on style and atmosphere, and those are always there in spades with Navarro. The previous games in the series used a black-and-white '50s aesthetic, while this one goes for an '80s VHS video look, and it works well. The dialogues are also well written, even if the story as a whole feels a bit "And then *this* happened, and then *that* happened, and then they all died!!! The end." (Not literally that, mind you, just that kind of thing.)
Tomi on 7/1/2022 at 19:19
Quote Posted by Yakoob
On single player front, I played
Slime Rancher and it's quite delightful and addictive.
I played Slime Rancher quite a lot last year, but never got to the end... I think. It was fun to explore the world at first and build your ranch, but it got so damn grindy after a while. I gave up at the point where I was supposed to build and use some mining equipment that would dig up some crafting materials for me. I did that for a while but apart from endless grinding the game didn't seem to offer anything more. I must have missed something though, because I couldn't find any other way to proceed with the story. Maybe I'll have another look later.
henke on 8/1/2022 at 12:20
So G String was a xmas gift from Jesh, I've also been playing some of my other gifts, Exo One from Thirith and Jupiter Hell from Malf. Thanks again, guys!
Exo One - Looks amazing and plays smoothly, but it's not really pulling me in. All the people gushing about this seem to be comparing it to Journey and I guess that makes sense since I didn't really like Journey either. The movement-system is very reminiscent of (
https://zinethgame-blog.tumblr.com/) Zineth, which also was a big inspiration on my game (
https://henke.itch.io/a-good-one) A Good One.
Jupiter Hell - A spiritual successor to the Doom RPG, which I never played. I was kinda expecting a Teleglitch crossed with Hoplite kinda thing, but it's not living up to either. Not as engrossing as Teleglitch, and tactically too easy compared to Hoplite. I've made it through the first set of levels. It's ok, but I maybe need to crank up the difficulty to make it more fun.
Also been playing:
Wilmot's Warehouse - played this arcade-warehouse-management-game on PC back on release but just picked it up on PS5. It's all about organizing your warehouse, building a mental map of where everything is, then rushing to deliver things when orders come in. The gameloop cycles between high-intensity offloading new products into shelves, turning in deliveries, and the low-intensity "stock take" where you can arrange things at your leisure. It's unlike anything else I've played, but if you enjoy inventory-tetris in RPGs I'd recommend it.
(https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/) Wordle - The hot new webgame sensation that has all of twitter abuzz. I'm bad at it, best I've managed is 4 lines. Also if you wanna talk about Wordle please just create a new thread or this one will get flooded.
Yakoob on 11/1/2022 at 09:49
I just played thru Firewatch all in one evening, and it surprised me with attention to detail and responsiveness to my action (like accidentally dropping a beer can I was trying to pick and the guy going "fuck it, I'm not a cleaning maid lol). Great mood as well and interesting exploration. Probably one of the better "walking sims" I played.
BUT... it's also one of the few games that made me go from 100 to 0 in a span of a few minutes. It has a nice slow build up for 3hrs, but the final reveal broke my suspension of disbelief so hard, it completely sucked out my interested in the story and characters. Aside from the eye-rolling, it was also weird how the two main characters spent 2 months being mentally fucked with and growing slowly paranoid, only to shrug ALL OF IT it off in 5 minutes because "oh well, just crazy dude in a cave, phew!"
Ultimately, as great as the first 90% of the game was, the ending left me feeling entirely empty and dissatisfied. A huge copout that undermined all of the mystery and character relationship building I put my time in :|
Thirith on 11/1/2022 at 10:02
I recently started playing Tyranny, and while I'm liking the whole premise and perspective, I realise I'm no longer particularly interested in these big fantasy RPGs (though Tyranny isn't quite as long as many of them). I don't think it's the genre as such, because I'd consider Disco Elysium one of my favourite games in recent years and I played through that one twice. What I no longer enjoy is all the lore and exposition that are front and centre. Tyranny isn't as bad as other games in that respect, and it has a handy glossary feature that allows you to quickly refresh your memory on what a certain person, place or concept is within the world of the game, but my tolerance for generic fantasy writing has worn thin. And it doesn't help that I've never been a big fan of combat in RPGs, which is something there's a lot of in Tyranny.
demagogue on 11/1/2022 at 10:25
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Ultimately, as great as the first 90% of the game was, the ending left me feeling entirely empty and dissatisfied. A huge copout that undermined all of the mystery and character relationship building I put my time in :|
I liked it, or I came to like it as I thought about it more, because in the real world things that have developed over years, things we think are critically important to us while we're in them with some deep meaning we feel we can tap into if we just grind it long enough -- jobs, relationships, local mysteries -- very often just disintegrate in painfully awkward endings and realizing there never really was much to it just below the surface.
I think it was more true to the final punchline it was setting up from the start, and I kind of like that it stuck to its guns instead of giving cheap fan service at the end with some "real" mystery and other fodder you wouldn't ever really, or rarely, expect in the real world if you were being honest.
It was a disappointment for sure, but an enlightening, maybe even a necessary one.
faetal on 12/1/2022 at 14:00
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Ultimately, as great as the first 90% of the game was, the ending left me feeling entirely empty and dissatisfied. A huge copout that undermined all of the mystery and character relationship building I put my time in :|
I really love it. The ending was great because it made the game about the stories we concoct in our heads when we don't have all the facts. The story was about paranoia, exaggeration, assumption, etc.
I gave a good "well played" chuckle when it pulled that rug out from under me.
Harvester on 12/1/2022 at 14:06
I didn’t mind there not being a real mystery in Firewatch. I remember with Gone Home, where two girls dabbled with a ouija board, some people were let down that there weren’t “real” supernatural events going on in the game. I always felt those people were missing the point of that game.