I also started up Carrion because Rudie mentioned it (I lack gamepass but picked it up on epic Game Store some time back when it was on sale + a $10 off coupon) and it is pretty alright. I just like watching my meaty ball of tentacles and teeth move around and the level design and progression is generally like 10% cleverer than I expect (and occasionally 10% dumber, we’ll ignore that for now).
That said I don’t really care for the “bigger” combat encounters, but they are a fairly minor game element so far.
Those at least cause aesthetically pleasing results and are narratively “resonant” given the history of this particular sci-fi set-up, I mainly hate the flying drones where it feels you have a chance for either a quick kill or a longer more annoying battle. There is also a bigger enemy I’ve come across a couple times recently in what I assume is the back half of the game that is a neat concept but I just find a hassle to actually battle.
Okay final Carrion verdict from Mikey: game’s pretty damn good! Combat’s the weak point but I don’t think it ever reaches the point of ruining a good time. It knows how to tantalize you with “what’s coming next?” very well, I think.
I started Sable tonight on the new laptop and I Love It. I cried already, at the dialog. I find it beautifully written (have I been playing Annapurna and Vic Ireland games recently, but still, you know, trust that I care about this stuff. )
Who cares that it`s slight? where is apostrophe on a Japanese keyboard ‘’‘’‘’‘’’ there we go thank you. It is so beautiful and I just get to wonder around with no violence and look at it and dream about being in a world that cares about one another?
The music is nice, but slight and I almost forgive the orientalist namesake of the composer. almost.
I finished the opening area and immediately just chose a direction away from where the game suggested I go and took off. I went through a petrified forest and then climbed some rock mushrooms to the top and got a map. There’s a worm carcass out here for me to explore. That’ll be next time.
Wonderful. Even on game pass gonna turn around and give them the 25 bucks for this wonderful work.
This is absolutely the case. I still can’t get on board with the writing, but I finished the game in spite of it which is certainly saying something.
I must say that the general unfinished-ness of everything was never charming or attractive to me where it might be for others, but it’s admirable that the devs launched it all given that it frequently stumbles under the weight of it’s ambition and lack of identity.
I finished Carrion with in a few months of its launch at least on switch. I do like it but my main gripe is I get severe map blindness in it. So many hours lost due to having the mental note of the thing I knew I had the key for but never being able to remember the pathways especially through the tunnel points that warp between map tiles.
I was gonna say I found just about every minute of Sable to be insulting on the basis of how clearly the devs strived for ineffability (not a great goal in itself) while seemingly getting every aspect of scope, engine design, writing, aesthetic ripoffs, and so on, completely wrong for what they had to work with. of all the empty prestige crap I thought it might be the single emptiest. at least the rest of these paper thin experiments in resourcing aren’t so ostensibly tasteful.
Japanese breakfast rules though I didn’t like a lot of what she put out last year after she got big, her first 2 records are great
Funnily enough I don’t think I ever had this problem. Not to say I had a perfect mental map but I generally seemed to be able to blunder my way through without getting hung up too often. I think what helped keep it from being frustrating was that in the absence of obstacles the monster is quite speedy so even if you’re going in circles you’re doing it much more quickly than in other games with more traditional platforming mechanics.
I actually got the map blindness and stopped playing carrion right before the end because I got so lost that I accidentally shunted myself so far back in the world that I guessed it would have taken me fifteen minutes to wriggle my way to the ending again. Liked the game a lot though, but a map would have helped enormously!!
look, sometimes when you’re growing up, the ink gets smudged a little on which diaspora you identify with, far be it from me to encourage someone to censor that sentiment