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8370

So, about 50% of the way through Return to Monkey Island (playing on hard remember), and… most of the puzzles have been incredibly straightforward (to the extent that we’ve solved 3 puzzles essentially before we knew there were puzzles to solve), and the ones that haven’t have mostly been because we didn’t talk to everyone at some point or other.
Some of this is due to the incredibly simplified verb system - in that there’s not really a verb system at all, just “combine this item from my inventory with [some other item either in my inventory or in the world]” - which both makes easy puzzles easier, and makes “harder” puzzles just an annoying “guess which verb Guybrush will use when you put these two things together” game.
The rest seems to be a genuine case of not wanting to make people bounce off the game due to frustration, which seems to be missing the point of the whole genre…

(There’s also, plot-wise, still a huge amount of self-referentialism - most of which isn’t really very transformative.)

So, I’m really in two minds about the game at the moment, to be honest.

8371

I think something also worth pointing out about the PVP in Deathloop is that you can limit to friends. This is definitely going to become a game that when I hear a friend is going to give it a try that I’ll just be watching their status and then sneak in and try and get into their match.

The one caveat to the PVP I will say is I have gotten some people who are clearly on a less then stable connection and that REALLY sucks when you know you got the drop on someone and then they just lag around a corner.

Gundam Evolution is really fun! I think they have managed to make a very competent team based character shooter that is a lot of fun. If you are wanting an Overwatch alternative definitely give it a shot.

I am worried about character unlocking though. The prices on unlocking a character seem quite highly both in terms of grinding or outright buying. Characters are about $10 each or if you buy the pack you can get all 5 plus some skins for $41, which is kind of a lot but I get they need you to pay for something. On the bright side you get 12 for free and they don’t feel like they put the strongest mechs behind a paywall (although melee Zakue II seems very strong).

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8372

Watching Natalie and Rob play System Shock last night made me want to play it, but I’m holding out for Nightdive’s remake (if it turns out to be bad I guess I’ll go back to the remaster but that’s a future problem). But they also namedropped BioShock and I remembered that whole remastered collection has been sitting in my PS+ library.

Up front: I don’t have fond memories of the original game. I’ve long bristled at the way it’s treated as a classic in most quarters. Some of my negative reaction was down to the political/philosophical swings it was taking being so heavy-handed it didn’t sway me even as an undergrad; some of it was not entirely the game’s fault, because when it came out I was dealing with the death of a family member and I wanted a game to escape into, and BioShock wasn’t it.

I’m not sure I ever revisited the original. I did play 2 and Infinite, and I know there’s a dark horse theory that the best thing in the series is the Minerva’s Den DLC for 2, but much of it blends together for me thinking back on it now. I don’t know whether I’ll play through them all or even finish BioShock itself: I’m immediately struck by the bizarre control choices that cannot be edited even in the remaster, from odd button mapping to frustrating things like being unable to top up your plasmid power manually; you have to fire off some plasmids and let the game use a syringe automatically.

So the controls immediately made a poor impression, and the narrative made me groan right away, but I guess I do have to praise the aesthetics of Rapture. They were always delightful and no less so now. There’s also just something - even at this lightest of lightweight end of the immersive sim spectrum - about poking around environments, hacking machinery, finding hidden stuff. If nothing else, that might keep me going, even though I’d maybe be better served replaying Dishonored or checking out the new stuff in the Deathloop update.

But oh boy! There are some things a younger me either didn’t notice or forgot. My eyebrows were all the way up reacting to an early recording by Tenenbaum, a concentration camp survivor, explaining how she corrected a Nazi scientist because, paraphrasing, “if he was going to do medical experiments on the inmates he should do them properly”. Or a recording of Steinman, a cosmetic surgeon who the game depicts as going too far in his obsession with aesthetics and beauty to the extent he wants to be ‘Picasso with a scalpel’, complaining that the ethics of the surface world held him back from changing people’s “looks… sex… race”, casually lumping gender reassignment in with his ‘unethical’ procedures. It makes me wonder what other misguided nuggets I’m going to find if I keep playing.

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8373

Not for nothing, but the game takes place in the 50s and 60s in a place run by assholes. It’s been a minute since I played Bioshock, but from what I remember those things you mention were not tacit endorsements by the game, but rather assholes saying and doing asshole things.

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8374

I hear what you’re saying, and I don’t read these as endorsements of any particular position, but I find them representative of a carelessness or ugliness to the whole game’s approach: I don’t think the writer who had Tenenbaum helping Nazi scientists intended to endorse ‘science at any cost’, that’s clearly something they’re putting on the character. But putting that on a Jewish holocaust survivor is incredibly gross and is not paid off with nuance or other qualities that make me go “oh yes, that was a fascinating narrative choice they made, an interesting moral dilemma they made me confront”. It just sucks, and I’m not sure they knew how much it sucked.

Or in the case of Steinman, my problem is not his surgical obsession, it’s that the way the game frames it to the player suggests that there is a slippery slope from, quote unquote, “normal” cosmetic surgery to “other” things that are beyond the pale. When a character like Steinman talks about “phony ethics” the player is meant to think that ethics are good, actually. Again, I don’t imagine the writer was particularly thinking “gender reassignment is bad” when they wrote his line - but I do imagine they were thinking “what can I insert into his dialogue that sounds increasingly shocking” without considering the implications.

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8375

outside of that way-too-long deathloop post, haven’t really been posting much on here lately but hey i’m here now and have just very recently finished two 2022 games, two more since completely obsessing over elden ring for the first half of the year, so why not talk a little about two other good 2022 games

OlliOlli World is the 2D Sonic game I never knew I wanted. It’s fast, it’s colorful, it’s got cool jams, it’s got cute and chic fits, it’s got a whole bunch of clever and challenging levels with a lot of reasons to replay them, and it gets me into that good, good flow state so so smoothly in a way that all the Sonic games I’ve played only make me wish they could.

this is maybe the most difficult thing i’ve accomplished in gaming all year, and i beat malenia solo with no spirit ashes and a couple of daggers!!!

The only thing that holds it back for me is that the last couple of areas demand such a mastery of maintaining momentum that I don’t think the game actually teaches you how to accomplish. I figured that you have to trick off of ramps and grinds at the right moment, but I could just never get the timing down consistently with the increasingly tight and complex layouts. I did just about every challenge and beat every high score in the first three areas, but I hit my limit with the default high scores in the fourth area, and the fifth area’s high scores were basically impossible for me. I couldn’t ever reliably maintain the necessary speed to clear the difficult jumps in those levels to keep your combo going, which you basically have to clear in one single combo if you want to get even a whiff of those levels’ high scores.

Still had a real good time with it! I also just adore the combination of the bubblegum cartoon Adventure Time aesthetic with the perfectly curated licensed chill-hop/jazztronica soundtrack for the ~vibes~ that made it easier for me to retry runs for hours. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants an arcade-style runner/platformer disguised as a skating game.

And just because I love the soundtrack, I’ll just drop some of my favorites that are now just part of my playlists.

NORCO is bizarre and beautiful. I was actually taken aback at how its final sequences shook me, almost to the point of tears. I have such a weakness for stories about families and the distance we put between ourselves and family for all sorts of reasons, intentionally or not. The game’s layering of religion on top of that core conflict, swinging wildly from its maximally absurd and blasphemous grotesque representation to a light touch with how the more grounded characters treat it, made it all hit a little harder for me, a lapsed Christian from a deeply religious Christian family.

Don’t have it in me to unpack those themes or the other heavy topics the game tackles that are very much about that specific space in New Orleans, but they certainly made me feel some type of way! The off-beat humor also certainly made it all go down a little smoother, which its disarming presence reminds me why I was also so taken by Disco Elysium.

It also deserves a lot of praise for its music. The synth soundtrack is brooding, melancholic, sinister, and at times surprisingly chipper, setting the mood perfectly for every scene. It does so much to elevate the storytelling, and I hope more people appreciate it as being just as important as the striking pixel art and excellent writing.

Here are some standout tracks:

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8376

I feel like a broken record here saying Dragon’s Dogma is great, but just in case anyone isn’t totally convinced… Dragon’s Dogma is great except maybe actually playing through the Everfall and Bitterblack Isle, those spaces tend to drag and feel less exciting than the rest of the game.
This is one of the few games I’ve ever played that really convinced me I was in a mountainous area that seemed real (up near bartan crag and the great wall). Most “open world” games shrink the scale of everything to fit the “you can go everywhere” game play, but the mountains in Dragon’s Dogma do feel immense and properly insurmountable.

Other than that I’ve just been playing Civ 6 for the first time and despite it really being just more Civ, I really enjoy it and the changes its made. Districts are a great move and the game looks amazing as you and in these neighborhoods and other types. Just won a science victory and the end game is still kind of a drag. I feel like 4x games like this need to rethink their victory conditions or even just how you end a game. Maybe something like the board game Tigris and Euphrates where your lowest score among the victory points is the one used to determine victory once an end game condition is met… who knows, but there needs to be something to push a more varied style in game play instead of rushing for your one chosen victory condition.

4 Likes
8377

Finally got around to checking out that new Hitman 3 map, Ambrose Island. As expected, it’s another finely crafted clockwork level from the geniuses at IO that’s sprinkled with silly sequences and multiple methods of murder.

I vaguely remember some criticism about it clearly being a “DLC map” for not having explicit Mission Stories where the game more directly guides you through a linear sequence of steps that result in a dramatic finish, but I dunno, I’ve triggered a couple of events with fairly involved interactions leading to fun assassination opportunities. Maybe they lack the more cinematic framing of the Mission Story assassinations of the base levels, but they still have complex setups, unique NPC dialogue and interactions, and satisfying payoffs.

I’ve only played through it twice, and like with every other Hitman trilogy map, I’m looking forward to completing all the challenges and discovering more of Ambrose Island.

also, this was all an excuse for me to drop this link to a fantastic essay on NORCO that talks about how technology shapes people’s perception of reality. there are unmarked spoilers for the end of the game fyi:

https://lotusrootrecords.neocities.org/writing/posts/2022-09-15-notes-on-norco

3 Likes
8378

Been picking away at Zachtronic’s Infinifactory for a couple of weeks. I’ve reached all the stages. I have no idea what I’m doing - How the hell can I weld this??? - Wait I know how to reuse this element - Wait what?

Frustration and fun is truly intermixed. Story is a lot more dry than, say, Shenzen IO but the game seems a bit easier to pick up once you get into it.

And when after a lot of trial and error you get this score screen you feel like a master. Nothing beats that feeling.

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Good game imo.

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8379

I finished Deathloop and I while I enjoyed the game overall I do not think I like any of the endings presented. I also understand they added an additional cut scene to one of the endings and I think it’s a really bad cut scene in both quality and what it adds and almost feels like a joke?

It feels like they had a really cool idea overall but had no idea how to really end it.

Just random thoughts while they’re on the mind:

  • The gun quality system is not needed at all. I think even if I didn’t end up with a very good gun at the start you spend almost no time with grey and blue quality weapons before you have all purples and legendary.

  • Gun jamming was a mechanic I think I experienced twice because as said you get high quality guns that can never jam very fast. I also think gun jamming is a terrible mechanic in general.

  • Overall I think a lot of the guns and the random perks are meh? The only one they kind of matter against is a enemy Juliana as all other enemies die in about 2 or 3 hits.

  • The quality system for the trinkets works well but it also feels like maybe they need an additional mechanic like making them expendable and craftable so you are encouraged to play around more instead of finding THE trinkets that work for you and never changing.

  • The Visionary who throws a masquerade party and you have to try and figure out which one he is while a neat idea does not execute well as the easiest solution becomes “kill everyone” because the AI does not fight back well and you can jump around on the rooftops and setup turrets.

  • Abilities shouldn’t have been locked to just Visionaries. I get why it was done for story purposes but I think if more of the AI enemies had cool abilities it would have made for more interesting combat. Teleporting for example would be a great reason to not break stealth.

  • Teleport is so strong that it feels like a necessary take. Once I got it I never unequipped it.

  • Grenades became an after thought quickly. Nothing ever really seems to increase their strength or make them more interesting. There’s some trinkets for turning them into heal grenades or to mark enemies but why would you waste a slot on that when you can mark them on your own and there’s a large abundance of health items. They’re a more interesting thing for Juliana to play with IMO

  • I wish there was a coop invasion with other Colts

  • As Juliana it feels like you should have some kind ability or something on the map you can interact with to reveal Colts location temporarily to prevent them from hiding for 30 minutes.

8380

Dropped Deathloop like a hot rock after my progress-ending exit bug. Not for me. Not my scene. It’s really unfortunate that Arkane made Prey and then decided that after making their first truly excellent im-sim it was time to make two roguelikes and a live-service Wolfenstein.

Instead, it’s Control time baby. Playing through the rest of the Alan Wake DLC got me itching for the games where Remedy cut loose. The opening hour of that game is Bioshock-levels of confidence. Ever encounter a piece of art that knows it’s a classic? Control is a class-act precisely because even though the game is clearly made on a shoestring compared to both Alan Wake and Quantum Break, it’s bolder and riskier in its presentation. Every time you see that blue Trench silhouette I’m clapping like a seal. Every time the iridescent shimmer of Hiss smoke fills the room I am hooting and I am hollering.

Also this game starts with a Stephen King reference that DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE IN ANY CONTEXT. hats off Sam Lake some absolute king shit right there. Way to make a game that’s a TV show, have everyone hate the TV part, and then make a modern classic with dumber, cheaper FMV. That’s commitment to the bit.

The Ultimate Edition has the DLC which I never played, and also a bunch of QoL changes that I’m not sure were in the original like the ability to apply damage modifiers so make the game a bit easier while preserving the adaptive difficulty. I like that because the final run of this game slapped me down to the point where I have up on seeing the finale. It’s nice to know I can turn on one-shot kills at any moment.

I feel like some people were posting about The Foundation and AWE in that thread. We’re those good? I know people were disappointed with them initially but how much of that was because Remedy didn’t plan for the game to be a smash hit?

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8381

You made the right call. Having sat here and thought more about Deathloop for the past 3 hours the more I feel like there was no payoff in the story at all. Deathloop peaks in the middle when you still don’t have all the answers and once the answers become known theyre not interesting in any way. The side plots don’t even have very good payoff. I was expecting to uncover a separate deeper plot based on things you find in the world and what is hinted at as being the state of the world as a whole and it goes nowhere. The game wants you to feel bad for some characters clearly but everyone on Blackreef sucks.

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8382

It’s also worth noting that this setpiece concept also turns up in the original Dishonored, where the main issue you have with it here isn’t as much a problem (since Dishonored does want you to generally try not to just kill everyone).

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8383

Having not played any Arkane games until recently when I picked up a Steam Deck it seems like they have issues in designing around stealth and pacifist runs.

My first few hours with Dishonored felt like the game was telling me I was good guy, that I shouldn’t want to kill anybody, and that if I did something bad works happen but was also giving me tutorials on how to do cool drop kills. I ended up playing a quietly as possible, but inevitably killing 3 people fairly easily the moment I got spotted, which made my initial attempt at stealth feel like a farce. On top of that all the people I was trying to avoid killing seemed really scummy which removed another motivating factor for not killing everyone.

I jumped over to Prey after that and appreciated that I got to just focus on staying alive at all costs rather than tying one hand behind my back because of “chaos and rats”. Incidentally, Prey rules! Once I finish up Outer Wilds I’m definitely going to dig further into it.

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8384

This is a big reason why Prey is my favorite game of Arkane’s. I really dig the moment-to-moment gameplay of each game in their own way, but making the most fun way to engage with Dishonored also be the way you get locked into the thematically “bad” story endings just never sat right with me. This is also why I feel pretty strongly that Death of the Outsider is the best version of Dishonored - highly recommend if you previously bristled at the series scolding you for breaking stealth and having to go into combat every now and then.

Also can’t recommend the Mooncrash DLC highly enough - it really encourages you to use the sandbox to the fullest and rewards an understanding of the game systems in a way that is incredibly satisfying.

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8385

God of War is an incredible game but I think they need to figure out what kind of action game they want to make and I hope they decided on something better for Ragnarok. The valkyrie fights are the most aggressively unfun things in the game and it shows the limitations of their combat mechanics. It’s fine for simple combat because it’s flashy and weighty and enemies are slow and deliberate but when you fight enemies that are fast you hit a brick wall and it shows all the seams and gaping problems with what they designed.

Not only are there no clear indicators or cues as to what kind of attacks they’ll do, your defensive options are severely lackluster with how your roll puts weight and animation priority over function - the amount of iframes you get are pitiful. They all have dashes and feints but not until the last second and due to a red circle do you know if it’s a regular or an unblockable attack. It shows you how useless the “stance” change attacks are because the animation time is very long (by action game standards) and you are afforded no opportunity to use them in an action combat scenario. You hit R1 then wait like 1.5 or 2 seconds for the animation to play out then you can do the new attacks, which aren’t any more useful than just mashing. Try doing this against a heavy or boss-like enemy and they’ll just flatten you.

Basically all it boils down to is that it’s a very Sony game. They put the money in everything except what really matters in a video game. It’s functional but they rather put that extra time in animations and presentation than gameplay. Only game that seems to buck this trend is Horizon but with Forbidden West they’ve gone in the complete opposite direction of having too much stuff that it spreads thin the things that are already there.

I love me some gen X sad dad story they write to comfort and justify their poor work-life choices - the game got me to like a series I merely thought was alright but it really lost something from the older games. I remember holding the exact opposite opinion of them in which I didn’t care for the characters or story but really loved the combat. Now I think the combat is mediocre while the story and characters are great.

Edit: Basic advice for NG+ is play it on Story mode. Regular mode gives valkyries like 10000% more health and I’m not even joking. Spent like 20 tries to do one valkyrie, switched to easy and beat her in one go because I actually did damage instead of hitting a sponge.

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8386

Everything about God of War 2018’s gear system, RPG-lite leveling systems, and cool down-based action has dated it almost immediately as extremely 8th-gen game. I replayed a chunk of it last year and the game’s primary saving grace (other than the stupendous production value) is the relatively tight puzzle-based level design.

I’m deep into my replay Control at this point and this also rings true for that game. The RPG elements and timed-challenges are straight up dusty already.

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8387

Starting Watch Dogs for some reason (im waiting to build a new pc to start Cyberpunk 2077?)

I accidentally skipped the opening cutscene and was Very confused.

8388

I played both as they were released so its been a while, but I remember both being solidly Good. Control is, jeez, probably one of my fav games of at least the past few years so I went in with fairly high expectations that personally were largely met. While there are specific details that people point to when talking about their disappointment (level design, character plot choices, puzzle mechanics) I think was really driving it was that they didn’t really feel like the ‘victory lap’ DLCs a lot of modern beloved games like The Witcher 3 or Into the Breach have gotten. DLCs that feel like mini sequels in some ways and refine or iterate on the base game in stand out ways. Instead they feel more like cut content that’s largely indistinguishable from the base game in how they play and the stories they’re exploring.

That said I really had fun with both, The Foundation in particular. That one had two really fun side quest sequences that did play with the game mechanics in a really creative and inspired way.

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8389

Okay, I shook myself loose from Destiny 2 long enough to play a few levels into Metal: Hellsinger, and I’m having a great time. I struggled to play new Doom—despite having an appreciation for flow-state games—because I couldn’t adapt to the gameplay after years of FPS play defined by hiding behind things and shooting at longer ranges.

But in Hellsinger, maintaining the rhythm keeps me out of my own head, and I’m experiencing this natural incentive to flow through the arena and mix it up with the enemies. :+1: IUHGP. (Thumbs Up If You Have Game Pass.)

I realized that I’ve only mentioned FPS games in this post, but it’s not my main genre!

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