playing epistolary games and reading browser manifestos on itch.io is a good substitute for infinite scrolling. brain love information om nom nom doesn’t need to be real
9 Likes
And finished it! I really appreciate that it gives you a way to fast-track building your relationships after you max out your first one. Hugely respectful of my time. I didn’t think I’d like this one as much as I did (and I still think the combat is pretty junky) but I mostly liked these characters. Took me a while to warm up to a few of them but I feel like their arcs are mostly satisfying. They’re all charming enough, at least.
That last boss battle and the ending are pretty abrupt and feel like they’re undercooked but at least it was easy enough to get through.
8 Likes
Worms W.M.D
Campaign is rife with cultural stereotypes, and the occasional animated interludes blare way too loudly, like they’re ignoring the game’s volume setting. But the mission themselves are actually pretty fun; there are detailed tasks to accomplish OTHER than killing the enemy worms, but those are optional, thankfully. I don’t know if I’m missing unlocking even more stuff by not doing them, but if so, I’m willing to make that sacrifice.
The tiny DM set-up seems promising; the landscape generation in the game is great, and the AI can’t waste AS much time if you limit the round duration and turn off the “hot seat” swap time (why does the CPU use that, anyway? : P). And you can even set your scheme to turn off replays, yay!
Something about the game–besides the white flashes from explosions, I think–is still bothering my eyes; maybe it’s trying to read the smallish, low-contrast health numbers above the worms’ heads, I dunno. Wish they had made the game perfectly playable without zoom at 1080p, like Worms Armageddon is.
6 Likes
picked up The Ratchet & Clank Trilogy on Vita and have been playing through the original Ratchet & Clank, the Vita port is surprisingly good, gets a solid-feeling 30fps for the majority of the gameplay, and the main issues are the lack of subtitles on video cutscenes, and the fact that they didn’t really QA the FoV adjustment for 16:9 on a couple of cutscenes where Ratchet gets right up in the frustum
man, this game gets brutally difficult towards the end, I’ve not played the original in years at this point, most recent experience being the latter few PS2 games, and the PS3 games, whose progression systems more or less fixed this by removing the four-hit/six-hit cap in favour of a hit point pool with more digits, and unlocking more health progressively
I’ve hit a point on what I believe to be the final level where I have to run a gauntlet of robots who can shoot me from farther away than I can shoot them (outside of using the expensive Visibomb gun, or slowly fine aiming at them, which leaves me vulnerable to attack), and where the segment between the last checkpoint and where I’m getting killed has so few bolts in it that I can’t afford to replenish the ammunition it takes to get there
2 Likes
I had no idea this was even a thing
DO NOT be fooled into buying them individually, it’s like 130% more expensive (at least on the Australian store) for some reason
Are you doing enough jumping and swinging the wrench after losing all your ammo?
1 Like
Alundra: Tree House dungeon. Had a lot of “go back to the start to talk to a guy” and I kept thinking how this was designed to waste my time. I should quit. But I am gonna see where this goes. How sickie is the final dungeon gonna be. The combat is a lot easier since I started just using magic.
And Vic has gotten a lot more free with the translation here. Lot more unnecessary pop culture references. the mentioned guy said “walk softly and carry a big banana.” You telling me Vic to have a big dick? Just go out there with a huge hog? That’s fucking funny.
7 Likes
VIC “THE DICK” IRELAND
9 Likes
I don’t think any amount of wrenching can save me from this
7 Likes
I also recall when I played through R&C being confused by how tricky it got near the end and resorting to cheesing a bunch of the encounters then to get by. I recall a bunch of jumping left and right but that’s about it.
@Tegiminis Bullet Garden is really good and is worth your 3 bucks or whatever.
1 Like
The Void Rains Upon Her Heart 's nudity is certainly a choice. It’s a less offensive Binding of Issac (thank you really) in tone and structure if not game play.
You are using love to fight against Monsters and your own loneliness and depression only to be defeated or win and wake up the next day to do it again (this is called putting in another quarter for your ludologists out there.) Your Void/Depression speaks in joker font and tells you it is pointless. It is a thoughtful take on depression and overwhelming emotion and more particularly from a teen/lack of experience perspective.
I just don’t know if that is good for me or anyone actually suffering from those things. Folks in the last thread mentioned playing it and focusing on the shooter part. Which…I can’t look past that. It is really trying to say something. is that something just the author is in pain and looking for love? It’s really intense and raw.
But also love is more than just I love yous and glomps.
It’s an excellent metaphor you gotta wake up each day and find the strength to fight your own demons and find the love and beauty that is there for you till you fall asleep and that energy may be taken from you.
Given me enough to think about it. But was considering refunding it but well. Hmmph. Certainly do not want to play it ever again.
4 Likes
been playing iconoclasts and like it well enough… isnt much backtracking which im digging and the story has my interest. i almost dropped the game as soon as it told me how to pick up boxes though, i dont want that shit in my metroidvanias!! luckily it has barely come back up.
i like how puzzly it is to get around sometimes, but never TOO puzzly. are there many secrets hidden behind secret walls? if so, i’m not a fan of that. also i feel the game is built around opening those big doors and its getting a bit tiresome… i just walked into a room with like 7 of them i have to move around and i decided to put the game down because i cbf right now. script also has a tone problem. oh the game also doesnt have too much of a focus on combat which i dig
4 Likes
I assume this is the first game. You can get through it a lot easier if you can manage to grind the bolts for the RYNO, best place is the race track glitch where you can get on an infinitely respawning box of crates and just spam the taunter. Otherwise careful use of the Visibomb (like you say) or the Devastator is probably best. Decoy glove can help a lot too. Those early games get weirdly hard at the end, it’s the same with 2.
I don’t even look at the best images anymore
1 Like
Wrong tab but I stand by it
6 Likes
the Decoy Glove is difficult to use in this particular gauntlet because it involves a lot of precise platforming (I have died so many times here to just missing a platform by the skin of Ratchet’s oversized gloves), enemy projectiles with large damage radii and enormous targeting distances and it just altogether feeling a bit more on the “unfair” side than the “rewarding challenge” side
I think I can get through with careful use of the Devastator, Tesla Claw, wrench and the strafe mode (which, for the record, on vita requires holding a weirdly precise spot on the rear touch pad to keep enabled 
), but boy am I missing lock strafe mode from the later games
I don’t want to grind an exploit to get through this, but, ehh, maybe I’ll tire of this eventually and go do that
1 Like
Yeah, it doesn’t help that nanotech is so limited in this one. I remember it being the worst slog in that game.
not too many hidden walls afaik unless i’m just missing a bunch of them lol. i like that most of the secrets are pretty low stakes, most of the upgrades you can create are not really game changers.
there are lots of door opening puzzles. basically the whole game is door opening puzzles and bosses, which are also puzzles that require a bit quicker reaction time.
the part im at now has a lot more straightforward shooting combat stuff that i find kind of dull. i might just be bad at it, but i don’t know how to get through most encounters without just soaking up damage, and yet it’s hard to actually die in combat.