What are you playing in 2021?

nicked on 18/11/2021 at 18:34

What was so astonishing about Outer Wilds was how it took that time-loop reset mechanic, and then through clever design, completely eliminated any sense of loss of progress.

henke on 18/11/2021 at 19:13

Speaking of Subnautica (as someone was doing, recently, I assume, since this is TTLG) I fired up the PS5 version tonight but to my dismay it doesn't carry over the PS4 save! Oh well, I decided to start it up anyway and poke around a bit and before I knew it 2 hours had flown by. This really is addictive, but I should probably just do the sensible thing and play Below Zero instead. Or maybe the latest The Long Dark episode.

I've also been playing Guacamelee 2. Not sure if it was Metroid Dredd giving me a hankerin for more metroidvanias or Forza giving me a hankerin for more Mexico, but here I am. It's fun! This series has probably my favourite 2D brawling systems. It's a combinaion of regular attacks, power attacks, grapples and environmental dangers. Just the right mixture of accessibility and complexity, makes me feel like a badass when I'm skillfully dodgerolling and uppercutting demons across the Mexiverse.

nicked on 18/11/2021 at 19:33

Quote Posted by henke

I should probably just do the sensible thing and play Below Zero instead.

Nooo - Below Zero is fine, but it's not got quite the same magic.

WingedKagouti on 18/11/2021 at 19:34

Quote Posted by henke

While not required, completing the original Subnautica gives you a sense of scope for some of the story events in Below Zero. And while the games are very similar in core gameplay, they do play differently. Some things require different approaches due to some tools not being available in both games. And as a general rule, there's less aggressive fauna in BZ than in the original. BZ also has a smaller underwater environment due to the focus given to the surface and the story as a whole is shorter too.

Starker on 18/11/2021 at 23:32

Quote Posted by Aja

I'm sure it was an inspiration, and there are some thematic similarities, but Majora's Mask is still a relatively linear Zelda-type game whereas Outer Wilds is entirely open with almost zero gatekeeping. I can't think of many (or really any) other games where the main reward isn't items or upgrades but simply knowledge. But hey, if two of the greatest games of all time share some traits, who am I to complain?

I'm talking about innovations to the time mechanics, not level design or other game design elements. That would be shifting the goalposts quite a bit.

Also, there are lots of games where the main reward is knowledge. Plenty of IF adventures come to mind. And games like The Witness or Obra Dinn would surely qualify too, not to mention narrative-focused games like Her Story.

Aja on 19/11/2021 at 00:14

I don't know what an IF adventure is, and Google isn't helping, but yeah, I guess the Witness would be a good comparison, probably the closest I can think of in terms of the overall experience. But the way information is doled out in Outer Wilds I think is unique. You can explore it in more or less any order you want, pick up the clues, and piece it together as you see fit. It's quite possible to discover big things by accident, and both the gameplay and the story allow for that.

I mean, if you're going to be Zylonbane about it, yes, the time loop mechanic itself is fairly basic. Do you want to argue about whether it's an interesting game with a time loop or a game with an interesting time loop? I'd rather just talk about how great it is and how everyone should play it.

demagogue on 19/11/2021 at 00:29

Quote Posted by Aja

I don't know what an IF adventure is

Interactive fiction like Zork and all the games by Infocom & Magnetic Scrolls, and now all of the fan made IF games on the Z-Engine & TADS. A lot of creative or experimental game elements were originally pounded out in IF.

EvaUnit02 on 19/11/2021 at 02:07

Quote Posted by demagogue

To clarify further:- They're text-based adventure games.

It's a lost art. I've played a few over the years, they can be extremely flexible in their interactive permutations (probably because of their text-based nature).

Anarchic Fox on 19/11/2021 at 03:53

A good sampling is this (https://www.filfre.net/2021/09/the-neo-classical-interactive-fiction-of-1995/) 1995 review by Jimmy Maher, from when this genre started its resurgence. The games listed at the link are less obtuse than their Infocom inspirations.

Speaking of time loops! I recently played Increlution, a sort of ultra-simple RPG version of Groundhog Day where skills improve over subsequent lives. Each ~30 minute life nets you enough improvement to reach 2-3 minutes deeper into its fixed storyline, which contains more sophisticated choices with each subsequent chapter. It's an incremental game, meant to be interacted with at wide intervals, and includes an automation system to carry you through chapters already mastered. It's $2.99 with a free demo on Steam. Worth a look, but it probably won't grab you unless you have peculiar tastes.

Then there's a game that plays to my mental health problems, so that I've vacillated between wanting to trumpet it here or bury it in a memory hole: Tactical Nexus. It's DROD RPG extended to an absurd extent. Which is to say, it's a series of optimization puzzles in RPG disguise: a level will have a fixed array of enemies, healing and upgrades, which must be collected/defeated in an optimal order to make it to the end. On top of all of these levels is a metagame whereby progress in one level contributes to bonuses in any other (although each level can also be partially completed without bonuses). I do wish these levels had a story beyond some loose theming in their floor titles. This stupid game became a way of life for a month, and that's probably not a good thing.

Now I'm alternating between Metroid Dread on the weekends and Alwa's Awakening in evenings. The latter is a passable Metroidvania, nowhere near the heights of the genre but still fun enough.

EvaUnit02 on 19/11/2021 at 04:42

Trucking on with the Prey playthrough. I still think that the level design here is outstanding.

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Picked up and continued my Kingpin: Life of Crime save from last year for a couple hours. I dunno how my experience is affected by the rebalance mod that I'm running ((https://www.moddb.com/mods/kingpin-rags-2-riches) Rags 2 Riches), but the game holds up really well IMO. The game is linear but there is backtracking to quest givers. If this game was influenced by Half-Life 1's narrative structure we don't know, but I assume there is some given the Barney-like follower NPCs that you can command. It certainly doesn't follow the FPS game structure cemented by prior years' Id Software games (Wolf 3D, Doom, Quake, etc).

One thing important to remember is to loot enemy corpses for money. Hiring NPC mercenaries was a necessity to one mission that I played (Louie's Errand).

[video=youtube;0XJZb8JlevI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XJZb8JlevI[/video]

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Here's a video from my recent Bullet Witch playthrough. The late 2018 PC port of this early gen Xbox 360 game (2006) is fairly solid. The game is a pretty pedestrian shooter, but a fun enough time passer. This game was made by the developer of Yoko Taro's Drakengard games and the first Nier, for what it's worth.

All of the 360 version's DLC is included here. I tried playing the first DLC level, it was copypasta bullshit of a campaign level. I would've been livid if I had paid for this bollocks back in the day.

[video=youtube;Q8S7Q4WIwdY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8S7Q4WIwdY[/video]