Thirith on 30/5/2023 at 06:56
Little Nightmares 2 is a beautifully crafted game. The artistry on display alone makes it worth playing this one - which is good, because as a game I find it frequently frustrating. Often it's clear what the game expects you to do, but to actually do so is fiddly, not least because of the perspectives and camera angles that add to the game's aesthetics. All too often, I ended up replaying a sequence several times because I'd misjudged the distance or got snagged on a little thing in the background.
I also think that both Little Nightmares games suffer from having lots of ideas but little idea of how everything hangs together. The game uses Holocaust imagery, seemingly because it's effective imagery but not because they actually have something to say about the Holocaust. There's a weird time loop that makes little sense, but it's there because... time loops are cool? And while the first game felt more coherent (albeit in a nightmarish fairy-tale way) in how it juxtaposed the child protagonist(s) and the world of the adults, here the various ideas don't much fit into a larger whole.
And yet... The artistry that's in the visuals and the sound is fantastic, and for these I am glad I played the game - but I'm equally glad that I'm done with it now.
I've now started playing Hob, an appealing Zelda-like from 5-6 years ago. It's not quite designed as well as the Zelda games, and so far I'd definitely say it lacks the magic of something like Tunic or even the beauty of Death's Door, but it's enjoyable in a "6 to 7 out of 10" way.
Kamlorn on 30/5/2023 at 11:52
Description: There are wooden door and table with a jar of water on it in front of you.
:erg:
Input: USE wooden door
D: The door is closed.
:confused:
:D
I: USE QUANTUM GRAPNEL ON A AND JAR
:thumb:
I: TELEPORT AJAR TO DOOR
:erg:
I: USE DOOR AJAR
D: There is enough room to crawl through.
:cool:
Briefly about Counterfeit Monkey.
Thirith on 5/6/2023 at 08:41
Almost done with Hob. If you're into this kind of game, it's definitely very nicely made: the world is a gigantic machine whose parts move and change shape and reconfigure themselves, which makes for some great visual moments. At the same time, the various regions all look pretty similar - sure, you've got a wooded region, an arid region, an area that's more watery, but the visual style could have done with more variation (or the game could've been shorter).
What's more of a problem, though, is that the game determines the perspective at which you see any given area, and while that works well enough most of the time there are sections of the map where you feel like you might be missing something and perhaps you just haven't stood in quite the right spot for the camera to pan to the side or tilt upwards - and sometimes that's true, but sometimes you're simply in the wrong place. There have been a handful of moments when I consulted a walkthrough just to find out where the game wants me to go next, after I'd searched an area half a dozen times, and sometimes it's that I didn't notice that an area had changed and I could now traverse it, and sometimes it was that the ladder or set of steps I was supposed to take was simply not particularly visible. The game's better at presenting its world for the wow factor than it is at giving subtle clues as to where you could go next.
Still, if you like Zelda-likes, you don't mind games that are wilfully obscure at times, and you dig the visual style of the game, it's definitely an enjoyable ten hours or so. Personally, I'd say I enjoyed Tunic a lot more and Death's Door somewhat more, but I could imagine Hob appealing more to people who find the former two games too cutesy.
Malf on 5/6/2023 at 10:14
I bought Boltgun, which is pretty enjoyable, but suffers from poor damage feedback, repetitive map design and no map screen.
Guns are really nice, and there's a good feeling of weight to everything. The titular bolter and its heavy variant in particular are really nice to use.
But it couldn't hold my attention, so I put that down in order to crack on with System Shock.
Having never played the original, I'm really enjoying it, although I can't say I've really come across anything particulary "Immersive Sim" about it yet. But then, I've only just got to the reactor. But again, it couldn't hold my attention...
So I picked up Hogwarts Legacy, which, despite not really having any exposure to Harry Potter other than in passing, I'm really enjoying.
It's a beautiful open world game with fantastic graphics and great performance (outside of the invisible mazes, which tank performance whenever you're in the area with them).
The combat has depth and is rewarding, and quest and world design is constantly inventive and surprising.
Yes, it has the standard Riddler style quests that so many open world games have, and is probably larger and longer than it needs to be. But it keeps pulling me forward.
It's definitely an Avalanche game, but feels a lot more accomplished than the Just Cause games. There's a better, more consistent narrative thread running through the whole thing.
However, unfortunately, there is no way whatsoever to interact with ambient NPCs, and they don't react in any way to things you do around them, which has a large detrimental effect on immersiveness.
I also get heavy Fable vibes from the game, thanks to the 19th Century rural British (technically Scottish) setting. Some of the humour can feel forced (such as Peeves the Poltergeist), but a surprising amount lands.
I am aware of the controversy surrounding JK Rowling and the world she has created. But that doesn't stop this being a fantastic game.
It's also the closest (outside of the aforementioned Fable) that we're likely to get to an open world Pratchett game any time soon.
As an aside, I do think there needs to be a shift in the way developers approach open world game "RPG" systems. At the moment, the trend is to give players enough experience and/or skill points so that they can unlock absolutely every ability in these games. I understand the approach, but feel that it completely nullifies player choice and expression, thereby also reducing replayability.
Thirith on 5/6/2023 at 11:19
From what little I've played I can't tell whether the remake has introduced more immersive sim elements, but the original is a stepping stone, a precursor to the genre at most. It's really closer to something like Ultima Underworld than it is to System Shock 2 and the later games in the genre. There simply isn't enough of a focus on systems that can be used in various ways and that can interact with each other. I suspect that everyone's playthrough of System Shock will be much more similar than people's playthroughs of System Shock 2, and definitely than the player expression you get with Deus Ex.
Thirith on 6/6/2023 at 08:15
I've also finished Hob, and I found the ending (at least the one I got) pretty underwhelming. I'm largely fine with the elliptic, implicit world building and storytelling approach they've chosen, but they're not good enough at it to make me all that emotionally involved. The final decision is pretty opaque to begin with - what's happening, what are my options, how do I go about doing one thing or another? - so I felt zero agency in what I made happen, and I didn't particularly *care* about the world. I found it reasonably *interesting*, but that kind of choice barely works if you're not invested in it, and I definitely wasn't. I'd still recommend the game for all the reasons mentioned above, and with the caveats I've mentioned, but it's not a game that will leave much of a trace in a couple of weeks.
henke on 6/6/2023 at 18:03
Finished System Shock. Go down to the forum if you wanna know what I thought of it.
Wanna play Amnesia: The Bunker but I know I'm gonna be too busy to play much Thursday to Sunday, so waiting with starting it till after that.
Booted up Bus Simulator 21 on PS5 instead. It has a story mode! The story is that you are a wonderful bus driver. I drove a couple missions and then management called me in the middle of a route and wanted me to Open Map and Plot New Route. I told em I'm trying to figure out what change to give back on this Senior Ticket and I don't need this shit right now I QUIT!
Might just play some solitaire and listen to a relaxing podcast instead.
Thirith on 7/6/2023 at 07:06
Just imagine if management had called you because they wanted to go bowling or watch a strip show...
On a very different note: I kinda want to try getting into Prey: Mooncrash again. I like the idea and I love the base game, but I've bounced off of Mooncrash twice - probably because I play it too much like the base game. I suspect that I should just stick with it for an hour or two; I have that sometimes that I don't click with games I end up enjoying a lot at first (Thief being one of those games, as well as Stalker). Wish me luck. :p
Thirith on 10/6/2023 at 14:25
I'm afraid Mooncrash had to wait, since I suddenly thought I'd finally play Sable. I'm enjoying it a lot: even beyond the heavy Moebius influence, the game has this feel of French games from the late '80s and early '90s, Infogrames and Captain Blood and Kult (and the kinda-CGA look to go with it). I do wish the game was a bit more polished: I like the simple, ligne claire style of the graphics, but the character animations feel like placeholders, and I wish they'd refined the traversal, especially when your character is going up things that are sometimes steep enough to climb and sometimes not, so you've got this awkward jutter between climbing and walking. But I already love the sense of strangeness and the exploration that Sable offers, and I'm looking forward to playing more of it.
Aja on 13/6/2023 at 16:48
I got a discounted PS subscription upgrade and downloaded a ton of games to dip in and out of. It took like six years, but I'm finally getting into Doom (2016). Not sure why it never clicked before; maybe I like using the controller more than on PC, but it looks and feels great even for being last-gen. At first I went in thinking that I'd just beeline through the main path and not worry about any of the secrets but it didn't take long to get the urge to replay old missions and hunt for collectibles. 2023 has been stressful for a variety of reasons, and Doom is the perfect flow-state antidote. The sequel is also included in the sub, so I guess I'll play that next.
I also got Returnal, and while I'm only an hour or so in, the quality is so evident, especially in the super-responsive controls and haptic feedback (you can feel raindrops in your hands!!) and the crunchy, heavy sound design. It's difficult and inscrutable and I still don't love procedurally generated worlds, but core gameplay is satisfying enough that I'll definitely be putting more time in.
Finally I tried Killzone Shadow Fall. It's funny to think that Guerilla went from this to Horizon, but you can see traces of it in the environmental detail and the art design of the in-game tech. It feels weighty and looks amazing for its time, but I'm not sure it'll hold my interest for too long; more of a time waster than something I really want to engage with. Come to think of it, I feel the same about Horizon.
