If you were really desperate for more Portal 2, you could play Lightmatter. The puzzles are pretty clever. The writing was worse (and I know a lot of you already have a low opinion of the former’s). Also somehow locking the framerate at 60fps fixed a persistent audio glitch? Fuckin’ computers, there’s the real puzzle.
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finished the story mode in R: Racing Evolution in a session
i might try to do it again on Hard mode, but i should probably work on the challenges first
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Some of this is the weird Steam popularity dynamics and the death of games journalism, but I also think a bifurcated reception is to be expected for things that are “brutal, overwhelming, relentlessly bleak”. I once was the only person in the theater to go watch a Holocaust movie I had heard described as a masterpiece. Similarly, Pathologic 2 has been on my list of games to try but I’m never quite in the mood to start it.
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I liked Pathologic 2 a lot, in part because of the tension of always being on the edge of failure. But the PS4 version kept crashing and making me repeat sections and then I reached a part where I was expected to start crafting and I’m afraid I may never return to it now.
3 Likes
Whispers of a Machine is a point and click police procedural that has a bit of nuance in dialogue (i.e., you can pick Assertive/Analytical/Empathetic which is supposed to have an effect on proceedings). It takes place after some societal decline which has resulted in AI being outlawed. Now between that, the title of the game, and a bit of foreshadowing, it seems almost certain the murder culprit is a robot. But how they play this I guess I’ll have to see.
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This is so true. And usually this results in the death or endangerment of some story NPC, which is so much more interesting than resulting in the player’s death. I think that artaud stuff services Pathologic 2’s great critique about how cheaply videogames have used “Death” as a metaphor for player failure, because, truly, when you die in most games and Pathologic 2 included nothing is really stopping you from just taking another stab at things. But you can’t save those you’ve already failed.
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I keep wanting to play pathologic 2 but there’s always some part of my brain going “but there’s pathologic 1 over here, maybe I should do that first” and end up doing neither
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So in Noita, a witch sidescroller assembling spells on wands to cause havoc in a dungeon that is essentially the flash “sand game” but with a focus, has an NG+ option. Like a handful of rogue-likes, you could get to the bottom, beat the boss, collect your goal, and then use it immediately there to turn the entire world into gold, including yourself. OR, if you’re particularly versed in the nuances of wandcrafting, return to where you started and use the goal along with some side collectables you found along the way. This remakes the world harder but keeps your entire inventory intact.
I got particularly lucky in this run and was able to, after several hours exploding because I decided the Essence of Fire was worth picking up, blow up the boss and dig my way back up. The game promptly crashed a second afterward. :V
EDIT: Because of how long it takes the cloud save in Steam to match up, I only just now checked on the status of the game. I found that I’m back to a previous state where I had just completed The Tower climb (some side-dungeon thing) with all my cool wands intact but before I had picked up the Essence of Fire. I guess I can just…continue to do dumb things then.
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Except for the story of Pathologic 1 you’d be missing out on, you’d truly miss none of its gameplay. I would suggest to not let that get in the way of playing Pathologic 2, cause it’s really worth jumping straight into. You can always go back, which is what I did.
Okay, I’m like 20 hours into Hollow Knight and I’m convinced this is a mostly good explore-em-up. The pacing is weird though.
The first area doesn’t make for the best first impression, but once I got to the second area (Greenpath) and started getting more movement options my opinion of it increased.
More Bullet Points
Feels weird to be 20 hours in and still not entirely sure about what the endgame is gonna be.
I really like the mapping mechanics.
My wife and I both agree that, yes, the vocal sounds are awful and detract the experience. Like, I can understand why folks like Hornet as a character, but her her constant shouting during her fights just puts me off.
(Also, this game has to be awful for people with misophonia, right?)
Fog Canyon is my favorite area. I like the bubbles. I like how you can’t get the map of it your first time passing though. Also, the giant jellyfish with the explosive cores that home in on you are an absolutely brilliant enemy. I love them.
In terms of world design, this reminds me a lot of (bizarrely) Super Metroid Redesign. Besides the spawling-ness, there a certain obsession with one-way gates that you have to take the long way around to open, and how once they’re open they stay open and provide a nice shortcut through the area.
Also, for as long as this game is (for a search action thingy), the game world doesn’t feel that large. I feel the length comes down to several factors: (1) the game almost never gives you direction (good), (2) the game never locks you into an area (like Super Metroid would), (3) key progression items are spread out very thinly so it’s often like finding a needle in a haystack, (4) most areas have multiple ways of entering them, so you’re free to explore further in the game if you don’t want to deal with a tough boss (who likely guards a progression item), (5) most enemies have an aggro state thus encouraging you to fight them (greatly multiplying the time spent in most rooms), (6) the mapping and death mechanics encourage a cautious and methodical approach to new areas, and (7) locks and keys are just spread all over the heckin’ place (meaning they you have tons of options to poke at whenever you get a new power-up). I almost feel like the average first playthrough of this could be shortened by like 1/3 with a handful of judicious changes to the world (though it might result in a worse game).
So yeah, this is a game that expects you to enjoy the game because you enjoy exploring the world for exploration’s sake, rather than for progression’s sake. Your reward for exploring an area is so likely to be a minor item or a dirtpile of 50 quid or a lore-dump or a dead end.
I still don’t understand what the point of the rancid eggs is, and I almost hope that there is no point to them.
I spent like 10 hours exploring without the ground pound move because it was behind a boss that I felt was to strong (and felt so even after I beat it).
Also, this game has probably the longest start-to-double-jump times of any Metrovania I’ve played. I wanna say I had about 15 hours on the clock when I got it.
At one point the banker lady just disappeared and I haven’t seen her since. Does she come back elsewhere, or am I forever separated from the 2000 bucks I gave her? (Don’t answer this.)
The Abyss was a neat area that successfully creeped me out, but I’m surprised that the reward for dipping in there was just a progression item and not something more climactic (though it looks like I’ll need to revisit it later).
Is there any point to the dream-boss-rematch-things besides collecting Dreambucks? I mean, most of the bosses in this game are tuned just a smidge too hard imho, but those rematches are actually Way Too Hard for my tastes.
I can understand why folks are so enamored with this game, but I almost think I would have preferred if it were a leaner, more focused experience.
10 Likes
i love the bug noises… though i wish they weren’t mixed bizarrely loud in places
(sigh) bapanada.
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yeah, I feel you on that. even actively playing it as I am now, it takes real effort for me to launch the damn thing every time I sit down to give it a go. I first started playing in february, but it turns out “on the eve of a global pandemic with an unknown virus” was not the best time to try to play a relentless game about a mystery disease killing an entire town. who knew.
6 Likes
started and finished minit and it’s ok? didn’t really feel satisfied doing these microruns or these super brief little fetch quests but it’s cute and clever.
tried celeste and it had a really nice feel to it, but i could hear the fans speed up which rn is a terrible omen of doom so i shut it down.
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The game charmed me immensely when I discovered I could upgrade my sword after having beaten 75% of the game with the first level sword, including the second hornet fight. It was just so amazing that a game would let you miss something so important, AND still be playable.
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i did it! i finally did it! i can play other maps again! 
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Still all these years later fuming over the loss of the hobo version of splinter cell conviction, the doomed hostage scenario simulator where you went around running from cops and wedging chairs under doors. Ruined by maxime bellend, who earlier this year had to resign from ubisoft for “inappropriate workplace behavior.”
No enemy formed against me shall prosper.
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Okay, it didn’t go where I thought it would. The ground it trod was still a little passé, but hell it was still a good sci-fi detective story. Mercifully brief, as well, though I’ll admit I used a walkthrough to get through a few parts where I couldn’t quickly figure out what the solution was. So some of that old adventure game bullshit was alive and well in there.
I feel extremely cursed to finish Blood and Wine now that I’ve started it, but ugh it’s huge!!
No greater stealth villain in videogames
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