I just learned there was a GBA game in 2004 based on the forgotten 2005 movie adaptation of a seminal Ray Bradbury story. and it looks cool! they really used to make games out of anything and we were all better off
18 Likes
Played the Baby Steps demo on steam. Inevitably fell off of a mountain when I misjudged a narrow stone bridge with a gap in the middle. After a big fall he doesnât try to stand up and will just perpetually lay there muttering obscenities to himself which is a nice touch. Seems like a good game.
11 Likes
the ice cube War of the Worlds tie-in game would have been great
6 Likes
2 Likes
Somebody in another thread (I think?) was asking about Clash Royale and here I am playing it again for the first time in literal years so time to talk about it I guess.
The basics of the game are that youâve got three towers, one King Tower and two Princess Towers that each guard a route to the King Tower. You summon units using mana, which is constantly ticking up. You only control where a unit is summoned and after that they autopilot in terms of where they move/what they target. Units have a pretty nicely complex set of rock/paper/scissors interactions â targeting single unit versus area effect, melee vs. ranged, hitting only ground units or capable of hitting flyers, units that are attracted to/damage other units/units that are attracted to/damage buildings, etc. etc. You win by destroying the King Tower or by having more Princess Towers destroyed than the other person at the end of two time periods.
You can only have eight units in a âdeckâ that you bring into a battle, so itâs a tradeoff of how you balance between destroying the other personâs towers versus having the capabilities of stopping the other person. This is I think the really fun bit, as you try and figure out ways to potentially just overwhelm somebody, or bait out certain defensive strategies, then use another unit that is weak to what was just used, or the classic âpositive tradeâ where you use lower-mana units to counter more expensive units and then war-of-attritioning the other person.
The bad stuff is all that your units have levels (at least in the main game) and you only get levels by grinding or playing money. Levels are important enough that if you start playing somebody whose units are 2+ levels higher than you, youâre probably hosed, even if youâre a better player. Iâve been seeing this a lot as you fall down the ladder of players as youâre idle, so several years later, I log back on, start using a deck full of very high level units, and I just steamroll anybody I get matched against. Iâm not sure anybodyâs even taken a tower off me so far.
The âgoodâ mode in the game is ah, Cups, I think theyâre called (and honestly I donât know if theyâre even still in the game at this point, I havenât checked) where everybodyâs units above a certain level are lowered to that level, so as long as youâve leveled units to a point, everybodyâs operating on the same playing field. This is where you find out how actually bad a player you are.
4 Likes
some girlie i apparently know from neocities popped up in the zzt server a couple days ago and said that replaying some of my games inspired her to make a zzt game for some game jam (!!)
she ended up making this little game:
the writing in this is as subtle as a brick (compliment):
what could this mean? it means you have to ascend GIRL MOUNTAIN to become a GIRL PALADIN:
the antagonists are BOYS who serve EVIL, most of whom are conveniently represented by the letter B:
you can tell theyâre EVIL BOYS because they spam a bunch of throwstars â fortunately, there are enough sources of health in the game that you can deal with the spam if youâre quick
vivian from paper mario is in this
good little game
22 Likes
my thoughts about the new Shinobi keep swinging wildly everywhere. i think the worst thing i can say about it is that the search action stuff feels very tacked on and arbitrary - like clearly a tactic to make you replay stages and extend the length of the game beyond what is probably reasonable (go find the one bauble now that you have the thing to find it, etc.)
i think you could beat the game and not pay any attention to most of that, but a lot of stages are just these big open frameworks and itâs all very floaty. lots of âgo hit the switch here, now run here, now hit that switch, now go hit THAT switchâ over and over and over again.
thereâs a really solid 2D platformer action game somewhere inside of all this Modern Quality of Life mess
11 Likes
yeah itâs like they made a good combat game, designed some pretty decent action platforming to tack on to it in parts, and then someone calling themselves a producer parachuted in and made them dump it all into a different shell game to meet reviewer demands or something. my favorite part is where you see a door, then the game decides it needs to show you where the lever to open it is, then when you hit the lever it pans back over to the door to show you that it opened, just in case this whole playing the game thing was too complicated.
4 Likes
the game feel and aesthetic are imo much better than the recent ninja gaiden (I refunded that and am inclined to keep this one) but the structure is definitely not better and may be worse
3 Likes
The mobygames for this game is pretty funny, look at this jigsaw puzzle of roles:
Itâs normal for artists to be in 2 different places, but itâs still funny that there are 2 art directors. Also you have a game design director in japan, a lead game designer in france, and just 1 regular game designer back in japan.
Still, Iâve never been more tempted to get the game seeing all those sega old heads, I wanna fund their retirements.
5 Likes
i mean i donât think itâs a bad thing to support a new Shinobi game, and while i have complaints (more below), i donât think itâs a bad game, necessarily. i think itâs just weighed down by not committing to any one idea in particular. or that the ideas they commit to are just not that interesting.
in terms of combat, i think it feels good, but the executions are dumb (edit: for those who havenât played this, enemies can be beaten up into a state where you can then hit L1 and R1 to âexecuteâ them for bonus health/kunai/gold etc.). there is an implication of the idea that maybe getting all the enemies on screen into an executable state and then hitting them all at once will be worth your time. but it really isnât - you get a lot of gold, but who cares? gold isnât that hard to come by in the game. it just feels like an idea that goes nowhere and it stifles the fun you could be having with the combo system, which is super robust, but youâre incentivized to just get enemies into a state where you can use execution attacks on them. this means youâll end up limiting your combos to the moves that do the most of that kind of damage (think of like a stun meter).
maybe there is some new thing introduced later in the game (but iâm up to like stage 6 i think) that will make me eat my words, but yeah. a game with a bunch of ideas, for sure.
iâm not trying to dissaude anyone from getting it or trying it - i think itâs still a pretty neat game, it just is sort of a B- game.
with regard to the new Ninja Gaiden, i can understand not thinking it takes things far enough, but i do think it plays like a logical upgrade of classic Ninja Gaiden, like a lost SNES or PS1 game that never got made. i think thatâs pretty neat, even though itâs a bit niche. but it plays well if you like that kind of thing, and it at least limits itself to an idea that they consistently execute on
further edit: it does seem like the underworld challenge stages where you collect pieces of a dark katana are the true representation of what they wanted to make: Celeste
7 Likes
I played two hours of Final Fantasy X-2 and am currently on the second area, trying to figure out where the fourth digit for a combination is. Completion says 6% so I guess at this rate the game will take me over 34 hours.
I also booted up Pokemon White and caught a throh. I rage quit a couple nights ago after throwing 25+ pokeballs at it and failing to catch it. This time I caught it on my first try using one heal ball, which is a relief. I didnât want to save spam to catch a pokemon. Team is going to change somewhat by the end of the game because I want to catch a Druddigon and Zekrom, but right now itâs the serperior evolutionary line, purrloin, audino, throh, the terrier thing, and the water monkey. Water monkey is going away because I donât like water monkey. Terrier thing is also probably going away because even though I like normal type pokemon I feel like dark type is basically normal type, in my impulsive aesthetic decision making calculus. Audino is not a pokemon I would ever have deliberately chosen but apparently itâs decent if you feed it enough TMs.
I was just given a water stone for the water monkey by a random guy. This game really wants me to use the water monkey. I will not use the water monkey.
4 Likes
Oh I would certainly dissuade from buying this on Nintendo Switch (1). Didnât test docked mode but the Mountain Laboratory/Lantern Festival levels have awful performance issues when the screen is busier with background scrolling elements
Other than that hard agree with all else
1 Like
I think I read that itâs maybe suffering the issue Ninja Gaiden had, where thereâs no native Switch 2 version, so where Ninja Gaiden had a rough 30 FPS cap that carried to Switch 2, Shinobi brings over the grungy lower res visuals.
1 Like
Played some Vampyr and the combat is ass so I will probably wind up sucking a lot of blood from the Heartfelt Character Development NPCs so I can empower my way to easy mode.
I already did one guy because he was a jerk and I figured the game would say The First Hit is Free but no it wagged its finger at me about how the ripple effects of my deed would be felt.
The dialogue system is perhaps too reactive, an NPC was like âEver since so-so disappeared his wife has been running the showâ and I was like âEver Since? My fictitious brother I killed him not 10 minutes agoâ.
Also the game shouldnât leave dialogue options dangling if they contradict my previous roleplay. I am already being polite to this jerk donât let me do a 180 and suddenly threaten him.
Also my first impression of this game was very poor. Iâm on PS4, using a controller as one would expect. I reach the New Game/Options menu and the loading icon just sits there in the middle of the screen, not spinning. Damn the game locked up. Let me restart it. Same thing happens again. Iâm pressing buttons and nothing happens unless I hit 
which brings me back to the previous screen. So not locked up then? I go to the New Game screen, start mashing buttons, and then twirl the stickâ ITâS AN ONSCREEN CURSOR IN A CONTROLLER BASED GAME ON A CONSOLE? WHY DOES IT LOOK SO SIMILAR TO THE LOADING ICON?!?
Anyway, I got over it and started playing. Weâll see how far I get or if I stop caring fast.
10 Likes
the combat is very bad and kinda ruins the game ultimately, but i still enjoyed it enough to get the platinum trophy. i enjoyed the map and puzzling out the NPC stuff
2 Likes
Something about my mood has led me to Mafia 3. I love everything 1968 (except the racism lets make that very clear.) I love it takes place in the south (except the racism let me make thar very clear.) I love I spend the game killing white supremacists and dixie lovers.
I love the characters are weird complex humans.
I donât know how much Another GTA will carry me but this is so much better than GTA.
Every song on the radio was buried in my brain from a young age so also enjoying that. When the game references gumbo or beignets or okra I go âHell Yeah.â
Iâd really like to go to New Orleans as an adult. But if I did I might as well just go back to my home town.
8 Likes
Was replaying Dark Souls because I saw a terrible take about it being an alt-right pipeline and got indignant about it. Got invaded in Anor Londo by one of those mythical Hackermen you heard about a few years ago, who killed me via exceptional lag, and also somehow managed to kill off Solaire and Siegmeyer, locking me out of two sidequests. Anyways maybe that bad writer was onto something about this playerbase being full of Little Hitlers.
15 Likes
THE END OF GAMEPLAY is really good shit imo
THE END OF GAMEPLAY is a poetrybook that wants to hurt you.
Literally, it is an anthology of screen-by-screen platforming vignettes. The scenarios often have a conceptual bent and some call back to recurrent ideas throughout, the primary one being a disgust with, or longing for something other than, gameplay.
Some scenarios are violent, some want the player to get lost, some want the player to be patient, or peaceful, or simply be content with what is in front of them. It sometimes feels autobiographical but also! Hilarious game, at times. Bumping your head on the ceiling. In some cases it probes at the borderline perverted horror of desiring videogame environments.
I wasnât expecting it to be so mechanically deep. The default player character is a bunny which has a relatively hidden set of mechanics within its triple jump. Playing through the different sections helps learn these hidden rules but also frequently calls into question how interesting such a well-crafted system is, or more specifically how interesting the things you are being asked to do are. You can also do an adorable crouch.
You might get lost pursuing gameplay
You might think gameplay is all there is
You might think there is no gameplay
Secrets occupy the attention of the gameplaying community. Many levels have hidden or alternate ways to end as well as completely inaccessible tiers of gameplay that apparently can only be accessed by direct save file editing. I refuse.
You canât really be fully sure that the conversation around the game is not simply an extension of it.
I like the underlying vituperative feeling there is and itâs summed up so concisely.
Like seriously who wants regular trees? How much of the slop that we play is just shortcuts and cardboard? Games as a medium can really just be marked out by repetition. Endless repetition. Really quite mindnumbing environments, actions, and wankery. Something we pay for in time, blood, and money for the privilege of just banging your head against software designed to appeal to the worst impulses. Math in service of conflict, collection, compulsion, and stress. Imagine if it all ended. Imagine if we just ate it and stuffed it in our oesophagus, digesting it, excreting it and never thinking about it again after it makes its way down the buildingâs pipework. It would probably stay with us like a food poisoning. But Iâd recover and get better.
The music and sound are extremely effective at selling the loneliness of the concepts within. Screen transitions are hailed by a glitch echo that works to separate ideas within a level or bring it to a dramatic close. You can also manually quit at any time which gives the sound a sense of resignation. Music lightly parodies archetypal gamebloop, dropping out of the appropriate moments like a friendâs smile resolving to a blank stare.
A lot of the ideas feel as though they could have been expressed on the 2600. There is a sense that the game canât really go beyond this vocabulary in critiquing or exploring THE END, but also that games generally have not gone beyond this either. The oubliettes are my game fetish and perhaps the best summary for what droqen wants to do with you and the concept OF GAMEPLAY.
Probably the best thing Iâve played this year so far.
16 Likes