This one is the easiest, but I <3 Sophie. 
1 Like
finished up H2A
will you assholes turn on the goddamn lights
the main difference between original and Anniversary graphics is apparently the light switch was set to off, or they massively fucked up the lighting model in OG mode
the Tartarus fight: still bad, but I guess thatās okay because Bungie learns how to make bosses eventually
H2 is overall okay, I guess
the second half of halo 2 is mostly abysmal which is hilarious because halo 1ās back half being mostly the same levels but in reverse shouldnāt be hard to beat. i think about how badly it lands every time they try to play a Breaking Benjamin song or some bullshit when something COOL is supposed to be happening all the time lol. that broken ass multiplayer is still the fuckin shit though, dual-wielding almost everything is fucking awesome, the only problem is what they did to the pistol between games
the lighting is the exact same as it was in the original game, halo 2 is just Really Dark in a bunch of spots because itās 2004 and every shooter was busy jacking off over lighting. the arbiter levels are extremely bad about this because ohhh the flood itās scary or whatever. also everyone who hated the arbiter when halo 2 came out is a fucking dweeb and i wanna give em a swirlie. thanks for listening to halo thoughts from the worldās most annoying pre-destiny bungie fan!!!
5 Likes
I played through A Short Hike over the past two days and sometimes you just by dumb luck play the right game at the right time. Itās gotten warm and sunny here and I canāt go to the park without worrying about inadvertently killing family members and hey here is a game where you are out camping as a young lady bird and get to go walking and gliding around a lovely lo-fi location and you can talk to other animal people who are all nice and not avoid everyone like the plague (literally) and I want to go live in it.
6 Likes
Finally started (and nearly finished) Heavenās Vault over the long weekend.
The obvious point of comparison is Outer Wilds: in both cases, you are exploring a smallish stellar space, searching for ruins with ancient text to translate. In both cases, the history you uncover reveals clues concerning a potentially catastrophic future event. In both cases, there is talk of loops.
I already knew that the main obstacle Heavenās Vault presents is the translation of Ancient text. Thatās one way it differsāin Outer Wilds, the work of translation is completed just before the game begins, and your challenge is solely in finding text to translate and piecing together what it all means. Heavenās Vault resonated more with Return of the Obra Dinn: youāre piecing together meaning, interpreting clues, eliminating the impossible to try to draw a conclusion. Draw enough conclusions, and you gain confidence in a part you got right; if thereās an error, you can eliminate the red herring and make another guess. Itās satisfying when I can put everything together, but there isnāt quite enough incentive not to resort to brute force during the first half of your translation before the morphemes have been split up into individual words.
What took me by surprise was how much Heavenās Vault wanted me to care about what happens to my finds: investigating their meaning often meant handing them over to characters with competing agendas, and I found myself fretting over how the spread of certain pieces of information might complicate my own plans. My decisions kept having unexpected, irreversible consequences. For all of Outer Wildsās volatility, its constantly-changing universe felt comparatively static.
Iām not sure if this was specifically an issue with the Steam Controller interface, but I noticed a couple of occasions in which the game said I could use (say) the X button to provide a certain reply to an NPC inquiry at the same time that the game said I could use the X button to initiate a certain environmental interaction. On these occasions, it was impossible to know which of the two actions would occur, and in at least one of those cases, this meant the character made a choice I hadnāt intended to. There are times when I feel like this interface and control messiness is earned, and that it makes sense that things would sometimes spiral out of the protagonistās control. Iāve resigned to living with the consequences of these issues. Mostly. But Iām really looking forward to trying out this New Game + option.
4 Likes
I GOT DECEPTION IV ON PS4. WEāRE GETTING TRAPT TONIGHT BABY!!
im still in the tutorial. i just unlocked the boulder and the PLUNGER CANNON. my legs are my most powerful weapon and satan is my father
my heels are so high my feet look like hooves and i have death spike spurs on them BUT MY KICK STILL NEEDS TO CHARGE
thereās still no rewind button and i still spend half my time giggling at how hard it is to make drunk stalkers stand where you want OH MY GOD PLEASE JUST STAND ON THE SQUARE. i cant wait to get to the playground level and shove people down slides while a silly whistle toots
okay i may have said im satans daughter but i take that back im actually freddy krueger i hope this game has fear mechanics i want bonuses for using peoples fears against them
9 Likes
this game has fear mechanics!!
every time a bad dude gets hit their pain noise sounds like the most painful gurgling hernia inducing vomit
8 Likes
āits still annoying in all the ways trapt is, half of the game is positioning drunk people, its like hanging out with people at gdcā - daphny
PUT IT ON THE BACK OF THE BOX BOYS!!! Weāre makin gold here!!!
2 Likes
but seriously this game is fucking hilarious so far and I felt really smart for designing a stupid trap where a lady got airjuggled between axes and springboards and stage hazards so we could get a 6 hit combo for the ability to drop BIG ROCK on people. I fucking love being the daughter of the devil and humiliating men in their dreams to increase the power of my legs.
5 Likes
I played through the Mortal Kombat: Aftermath story mode and, uhhh, itās fucking fantastic?
I cannot stress enough how good Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is in coming back to the role of Shang Tsung. The guy absolutely chews through every scene. Heās just so damn good.
The story mode ends more along the lines of Injustice 2, with you (big honkinā spoilers ahead) choosing between having Shang Tsung or the Fire God Liu Kang reshape time and history. Shang Tsungās ending isā¦corny a pretty disappointing. Liu Kangās, on the other hand, resets the timeline in a just slightly different enough way that it could make a pretty good springboard for future games.
Also, a very minor spoiler, but thankfully not one line of dialogue from Ronda Rousey in the DLC.
For $40 and three characters, itās kind of a lot for what is, in the long run, not a whole heck of a lot. But goddamn that additional story mode is some great BTTF2-style fun. Totally worth it (or maybe, uh, wait and get that physical copy with everything in it for $60 next month).
Oh and uh, Robocop is pretty cool. Makes the Terminator look like shit when they were able to get Peter Weller back to voice the role.
4 Likes
i wish people would stop reminding me of this and pretend like the band didnt exist instead of getting bad songs stuck in my head whenever i talk about a game i like
1 Like
I also want to play Rain World but I havenāt decided on which difficulty yet.
On which setting do you play it? Monk (that is, easy)?
Isnāt it brutal / unenjoyable otherwise?
I never finished Rain World but I got a very enjoyable 10 hours out of it on whatever the default difficulty is. It feels tuned for that.
1 Like
im not into hard games or anything, but i think playing the normal mode (survivor?) is the way to go. monk limits certain interactions from what i remember.
the game is tough, but i think if it clicks for you, you have an understanding of how the ecology works and the challenge was never offputting for me.
EDIT:
for all the games that pull their death mechanics from dark souls, rain world is one of the very few that does anything interesting with it. itās not the usual ātough but fairā and instead is often unfair, but you learn ~why~ itās unfair.
4 Likes
Yeah the death mechanic is super dope, like, itās extremely in tune with the game and the atmosphere.
played a short game of dokapon kingdom, inspired by a LP iāve been watching.
itās ok i guess but i canāt shake the feeling the AI cheats super hard sometimes lol. either way, i really appreciate the concept of a (multiplayer) boardgame-style RPG that has a long story mode you go through in chapters
1 Like
morrowind yāall. i got all the way to vivec (the deity) and was overwhelmed by the feeling that there was just so much i didnāt understand about the path i was on. so i started over with a new character! this time i am actually taking things more slowly and methodically, at least to begin with, andā¦ i really donāt regret it at all. itās no big surprise that iām already finding all kinds of new things, especially since iām taking my time with digging deeper into quests for guilds, house hlaalu, and the imperial cult (which i avoided the first time because imperial, ew, butā¦ theyāre kind of all about empathy and charity and whatnot? politics on vvardenfell are wild)
12 Likes
Iāve played a few NES-revival type games this week and I gotta tell ya, either none of these revivalists really manage to nail the feel of the old classics or my memory is more kind to those old games than it should be.
I had the highest hopes for Odallus: The Dark Call. Itās okay! But itās just okay. I canāt say Iād recommend it over just emulating a Castlevania game or something. It has some nice flourishes but overall I wasnāt enthralled.
8 Likes
My personal feeling on these is that most of them crib the aesthetic and nothing else, in much the same way we had like 7 major Dark Souls clones that missed the point entirely. The closest Iāve seen capture the feeling of an old mysterious game recently is Hollow Knight, but also I think that game is deeply unwelcoming in a couple of ways.
Axiom Verge wasā¦closeā¦but missed the mark as well. Looking forward to the sequel though!
2 Likes