Games You Played Today: 13 Going On 30

King of Posters
1228

I have never played Super Mario Bros to completion. I’ve never seen most of the game. So I’m doing that now.

The genesis of this was seeing someone post a 22 minute video review of SMB in 2025, asking myself “What on earth does anyone have to say about SMB in 2025?”, then watching the video and seeing that the person doing the review sure didn’t have anything to say. So is there something to say about SMB? There might.

Right now I’m working through world 6, keeping notes on things (I have got some spicy notes on goombas). I’m doing the warp room run each time I game over, trying to keep the experience as authentic as I can. The other half of this experience is trying to mentally put myself in September 1985 (putting my mind in the world one month before I was born, 40 years ago) through the use of magazines. I want to see how and why SMB earned its place in history (spoiler, yeah, it earned it, Loderunner is cool and all but- (that said, Miyamoto tried to claim it was some big revelation to have a blue background instead of a black background because black was standard to reduce eyestrain but I’ve got receipts for 1984-85 showing how blue backgrounds had already become standard AND YOU WEREN’T WORKING ON MARIO WHEN THEY PUT IN THE BLUE SKY MIYAMOTO YOU SLEEP ON A BED OF LIES)).

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1229

it seems like a sign that I tried to play sf6, got one round deep into one awful match with a gimmick blanka player, and then steam died globally just long enough to give me a leaver penalty

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1230

this looks like a parody of western pc games

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1231

I should! in that comp, dibbles azmo and junkrat should shove and rotate as 3, I should afk a lane somewhere and merc more or less on CD, and ganjo should roam gank/cover for me when I merc. that’s not really what happened and nothing mattered because the enemy team fell over and died. but! but!

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1232

Its eurojank so in a way, it is

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1233

it’s extremely good and knowing eurojank though

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1234

Redundant phrase, eurojank is one of the most interesting corners of game design

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1235

Euro synonymous with jank at this point

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1236

let’s start calling it euank

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1237

Solar Ash is kind of goofy. It’s kind of talky and full of audio logs to search for. It lacks a full map though which is appreciated, as is having the full move set from the beginning. I played it in easy mode with no shame. It wears influences of Jet Set Radio and Shadow of the Colossus on its sleeve. It’s not a great game but it’s a decent eight hours.

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1238

Inspired by everyone else and because I’ve been interested in it for a year, I’m playing Half-Life 2 as intended, on a PS3 via USB stick. And instead of stalling out at the boat section for the Nth time, I went straight to Episode 1. Like every other old on the forum I played all the HL2 at the time.

Obviously we have completely soured on Whedon-ism “That Just Happened”. The beginning is so fucking talky. I hated the hug Alyx gives you. I hated she had to take a break after having a zombie shoved in her face to show you she’s tough but vulnerable. Our tech will make you fall in love with our polygon girlfriend who already loves you. I hate what would be even more prevalent in Portal 2 of “there is only one way to solve this puzzle.” Except Portal 2 doesn’t have infinitely spawning enemies screaming at you while you try and find the obvious thing you can do, in the dark.

I know I am playing a shit-backwards version, but I do not trust Valve to implement controller support. So when I say with venom, “It’s a seamless world, with constant interminable loading.” Maybe I’m wrong, except I remember Valve games do have constant loading that you have to stare at. And if that is minimized in 2025, that ain’t how it was.

It’s cool Alyx is a brown character and it is weird she never came to my mind when I worked my brain really hard to think of PoC in VG.

I’ll probably finish Episode 1 and 2. Then I remember the big war setpiece at the end of 2 which was cool but stressful. I do not like the emotions Episode 1 gives me. “Solve our little stupid puzzle smart guy. Do the only thing you can do to succeed.”

I think searching through a store room to find a crank to attach to a wall to escape from a subway station while Alyx yells, “Crank That Thing Gordon.”

I’m rambling but there is this dialog with Valve of “Look what our Tech Can Do” and “Solve our stupid little puzzle” and neither are the organic experience I want from video games.

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1240

Two years post-release, with a current game that is (presumably!) set to get more DLC, Assassin’s Creed Mirage inexplicably* gets a huge update with an entire new area and story to play though.

"Actually very easily explained by “was paid for in full by your friends at the Public Investment Fund,” which has me lookin’ at the whole thing with a real skeptical stink-eye. There’s a lot of borderline tourism promotion of AlUla in the loading screen blurbs, but that seems to be the most of it.

Anyway, it’s more Assassin’s Creed. After a lengthy intro mission the game throws your character into a prison where you just kinda have to wait for certain things to happen or prompt before you can get back to it - that ain’t great! It’s also a little funny to start your expansion with a prison break that has not only been done better in other games, but was also done better, I think, in this exact game.

They bring back the music sheet chasing thing, if you want to sit down in a few designated areas and jam out on an oud. I’ve played so many of these things that I can’t remember if Ambushes are new or not. They’re kinda annoying, but you can spot a few of them before they happen.

They also do the extremely annoying thing that recent games got away from of having little bonus objectives in each mission, but unlike older games they do the GTAV thing of not letting you know what those are until you beat them (and unlike GTAV, if you fulfill those in the first playthrough, you don’t earn them - you can only get them on replay, I think?). Those bonus objectives fill a sorta Battle Pass looking thing for the expansion so you can unlock some gear and cheats.

Anyway I dunno. It’s OK. I’m probably almost done with the story of it, it’s only like seven or eight missions long.

Straddling that line of “well I guess it’s free” and “ugh yeah but at what cost.”

Edit: Finished it. Does some heartstring tuggin’ with Basim finally finding his long lost father, who has dementia and is mentally stuck in the time of when he had to abandon him as a child. Bittersweet stuff, undermined a little by if you beat this game/played Valhalla, you’d know Basim hits a point where he doesn’t really give a shit about humanity. Also interesting little bit of lore spackle, where it’s explained that Basim’s mother was a blonde haired blue eyed woman from “the far north,” which I guess would explain how the rest of the reincarnated Norse Isu were hanging out in Norway while Basim/Loki was in Iraq.

Sorry folks I’m sorry I’m…I’m still a sucker for this dumb tired brand…

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1241

Episode 1 really broke ground by predicting the current AAA cycle of “having your companion constantly yell you what to do while you’re doing it.”

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1242

If only they could combine quipping 90s mascots with this technology.

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1243

finished dispatch; loved dispatch

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1244

I also finished Dispatch and also enjoyed it a lot. They sort of cram the act 2 low point and the entire 3rd act into the last two chapters with a bunch of payoffs on choices.

I went with Waterboy instead of Phenomaman and I feel like I missed out on some good stuff. Hearing him say ‘11 months remain’ of his melon sculpture subscription got a laugh out of me.

The actual dispatching pivots to harder hacking minigames and having fewer heroes at any given time. It’s clear they want you to specialise heroes to solo calls more easily but also to screw you over in the final section when half the heroes are missing because you’re scrambling in an emergency. Rally the cast but you start with 3. They get across the ‘working overtime’ experience in the final act pretty well.

I fucked up and got a pretty bad end and also had sex with no-one. Professionalism doesn’t pay!

Mission accomplished on making me wanna redo it. Probably the best Telltale-esque thing and likely gonna be franchised. I will say that the game exudes heterosexual pheromones if that’s a deal breaker but it’s good. I wouldn’t mind more stuff that’s willing to do rapid/weekly episodes.

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1245

I think I got the best ending (for blazer rather than invisigirl – I dance with the one who brought me thanks very much and also much prefer to be the weaker party in unequal power dynamics), managed to wrap up the heroics neatly too, everybody onside (even manbat who I fired earlier), felt good! it felt like an earned overly-tidy ending, those are not that easy to do. though tbh if they do a sequel I feel like the best ending at least makes it very plausible to switch partners later on if you conspicuously maintained boundaries with the one you were mentoring since she came out of it so well. I barely noticed aaron paul though he did a great of carrying the lead role, and all the livestreamers or w/e who made up the rest of the voice cast were all excellent, not a weak one in the bunch.

but yes it’s a very heterosexual game and a very LA game so playing to my biases here for sure

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1246

I regretted going the Invisigal route almost immediately and the ending really rammed it home when she stabs Shroud to death. Blazer seems a lot more fun.

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1247

from looking up the possible endings after I finished it, I think you can actually avoid her doing that even if you romance her, but it’s possibly a harder good ending to achieve?

there is one really clear “she wants it too much in a not healthy way” scene in ep7 if you aren’t paired up with her though which equally made me glad I didn’t go that route

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1248

You can but I was kinda done with her shit after ep6 I think? My replay will be full Blazin’

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