brawlhalla is awesomenauts
9 Likes
the gameplay in 2k22 is a really good mix of arcadeness and punishing simulation ā its just a shame i donāt care to play in mcmahonās world. they were going to put jushin thunder liger in for the rey mysterio career retrospective according to dataminers. they are so close to making a good wrestling game.
every yearly sports game release is emotional manipulation
6 Likes
A lot of times lately, a game will effortlessly pull me along for a few hours and then when I put it down, the spell is broken. I might be at that point with Deathās Door. I was really having a pretty good time with it for a solid 3 hours or so, and since I put it down Iāve had zero motivation to pick it back up. Iām not uninstalling it just yet, but I might not wind up playing any more of it.
I also feel like the game is maybe using up a lot of its best ideas in the early going, but thatās totally just a hunch more than anything.
2 Likes
I kinda want to like Stray but I am bouncing off of it hard. It doesnāt do anything I hate I am just getting bored too quickly. It needs an action or progression I can bite into. The autoparkour is really finnicky since you have to really look up and around to spot jump points. Cat navigation is almost too vertical for its own good.
Your helper drone translates speech and text for you, the cat. Itās a dumb fictional inconsistency thing I get hung up on but I donāt get why they bother with the conceit of language translation for the player, who is a cat - unless the cat turns out to be a sophisticated robot or something?
The cat never grooms itself! Or does weird cat shit. It only does cute cat shit that will rev the trend engine.
10 Likes
this is making me wish for a game where the mechanics behind inhabiting an animal are based around animorphs lore, and youāre constantly fighting the animalās natural urges to do whatever it does
like youāre a cat and the game just wrests control away from you every once in a while so that the cat can explore what it actually finds interesting instead of what you with your human eyes find interesting
13 Likes
Iāve not played Stray but I got instantly turned off seeing that the game is not about managing the locomotion of cat anatomy but is just instead relegated to asscreed movement where all your platforms and surfaces to traverse on are marked by a UI element and you just press a button to get there. Give me the game about managing momentum and traction to see how long I can go before missing jumps and sliding on hardwood floors.
Iām mildly attempted by tv screen robots though. I might play for story/vibes once its on sale for bed time gaming on the deck.
3 Likes
Iād not seen that idle but where is the crotchlicking? Or that thing cats do to lick their back
3 Likes
Iāll have you know this is a certified Wholesome Gameā¢ there will be no crotch licking in this piece of entertainment software
8 Likes
AS DUSK FALLS
NIGHT ONE: A JOURNEY BEGINS
This is a game about a mouth breather who always makes bad choices.
Some of the choices are Select Buttonās fault. We had like a dozen people rocking the vote via Twitch chat*. Most of us wanted this guy to suffer. But he also fucks up plenty on his own. His name is Paul** and he used to build airplanes, but then someone died on his watch and he lost his job. Now his wife is the familyās sole breadwinner, and, also, its only sex-haver. Her new job is the reason the family is relocating to St. Louis. Paulās inability to handle stressful situations involving teens is the reason they end up held hostage inside an Arizona motel. Can this family possibly surviveā¦as dusk falls???
No, probably not, my fellow players seemed pretty dedicated to seeing these people dead. I hope they remain committed to this cause. I hope we can prove Road 96 was wrong. I hope we can prove democracy works.
We played through the first two chapters of this game. There are 6 total. Those 2 hours were very, very slow, but we got to do some cool things, like demand pizza, urinate, and make pudding. There was also the time I assaulted a woman in a wheelchair, I think that was an accident, I think that was cuz I failed a QTE, maybe that wasnāt very cool.
I laughed though, sorry, Iām a bad man, write whatever you want about me.
So yeah this game is all about choosing your own adventure with occasional quick time events so letās talk about that. Letās talk about the choices Select Button made during one of lifeās most stressful situations that isnāt divorce.
The end of chapter 1. Paulās loved ones are held at gunpoint. Heās looking down the barrel of a shotgun. What do you do? 90% of SButts chose to make a play for the shotgun, and then shoot its previous owner. No mercy. Who was the lone pacifist here?
It was me, dearest reader. Iām the only sweetheart you know. But itās mostly cuz I found the idea of this guy constantly wimping out really funny.
Anyway there were no shells left in the chamber, the gun just went click, once again Paul looked like an impotent oaf, yet no harm came to his familyā¦yet.
Immediately after choosing to Do Murder, but before learning we absolutely failed, we were treated to the above screen. 
This is the sort of thing you can only find in video games, and that is why I love them.
During intermission we also learned if others shared our bravery. Can you believe only 28% of players chose to spend quality bro-time pissing in a copās fridge? And even more shocking: can you believe some of your fellow posters voted against watering down a pigās RC Cola? Some did, dearest. I wonāt name names (mostly because I donāt remember) but some did.
Also Paul didnāt do the pissing, it was a member of the teenage violence gang, this game has perspective shifting but I donāt want to talk about it cuz itās barely been featured so far and also who cares.
Only 42% of players follow one of those Twitter accounts that only post comics about how ADHD makes you special but, also, miserable and impossible to live with. This bit was the highlight of the game so far, as it was an incredibly dull flashback where Paul packed up the old apartment. It was the most realistic portrayal of my daily life Iāve ever seen in a video game, as thanks to democracy Paul accomplished absolutely nothing, and that made me feel less alone.
Oh yeah this game takes place in 1998 and these motherfuckers have a widescreen CRT that probably would have cost like $5,000 USD (before inflation) but they still watching shit on VHS. I have seen photos of this dev team, they all look like they were old enough to go to a kegger during Desert Storm, they should all know better than this.
More anachronisms contained within, so click here for more Everybody Voting, all tucked away to keep things somewhat tidy
When wifey got home we chose to look at her cell phone, and we learned she was doing adultery. Again, this game is set in 1998, absolutely no one was sexting then, dudes like Paul were struggling to type AOL KEYWORD: SEX, my brother is his age and he probably still believes using a webcam would steal a portion of his soul, texting was not in widespread use until the 00ās ā even I know that I and only turned old enough to drink last night!!
Anyway we chose to act like a horrible child, handling the entire affair revelation as poorly as possible, but it all paid off because we made some pudding earlier, while we were having ADHD.
Like, it really paid off. Sexually. Only 5% of players got laid! Congratulations on being amongst the elite group of sex-havers, Select Button. I knew you had it in you.
After having marital relations we return to the motel, where things go wrong, and the wife gets shot. She hates having a bullet in her so much. She begs you to take it out. Did you ā and by you I mean Select Button ā have the guts to stick your grubby fingers inside your wife?
Of course you did!
And did you ā and by you I mean me, the guy who was controlling the game the entire time ā excellently execute all the subsequent Quick Time Events, remove the bullet, and comfort our wife?
Ah. Well.
At least weāre once again all elite, eh. At least this time thereās proof that numbers donāt lie and I am, indeed, very special.
The pizza debate numbers were hidden from us but we did participate. A deal was struck between the police and the teen violence gang: one wife in exchange for some pizza. Paul is trusted with the exchange, and he does a very bad job of it, repeatedly dropping Michelle because somebody doesnāt like doing QTEs. As sheās loaded into the ambulance she says to Paul āIām so scared. Will everything be ok?ā
Select Button answers āNo, we are all going to die, and I also want to do divorce.ā
Select Button, onlineās #1 Bravery Club.
At least we have the memories. Memories of pudding.
Iām going to play this again someday and Iām going to demand people suffer with me, and vote. Please look forward to it. Itāll be very boring but, also, Iāll be laughing a lot throughout. Thank you.
*Well, we did at first, then people kept leaving cuz this game is very boring ā bet theyāll regret cutting out early after reading this post though!!
**Ignore all the subtitles that say āVinceā ā thatās his āshootā name but I will always call him Paul, because sometimes I get confused and thereās just no undoing it, especially if people keep correcting me, and telling me Iām wrong.
31 Likes
iād decided before i booted up stray that i wasnāt going to expect more of it than ābe a kind of tech demo for an actually good catgameā and lo i am content enough
musicās nice
cat getting all wriggly when the harness is first attached was satisfying, i do think these guys gave something of a fuck about the assignment, even if they insisted on deeply un-cat behaviour like the cats meowing at eachother in the intro
8 Likes
are there any existing platform games that are explicitly about defining and then protecting your turf?
1 Like
Terraria?
3 Likes
BattleZone II
2 Likes
Weāre just following Road 96ās advice:
8 Likes
As Dusk Falls looks like itās Dark Stock Photos: the videogame
Also the VA for Vince is also the VA for Adam Jensen, the protag in Deus Ex Human Revolution.
Much like Screenshake and āJuiceā will get you a Devolver contract, the American Southwest, teenage bandits, the 1990s, and dialog choices will get you an Annapurna contract. Although Road 96 actually won me over despite everything because it just kinda went for it. I feel like what iāve seen of As Dusk Falls is too conservative and holds too much back. Theres zero stakes in the plot.
3 Likes
there is this unnecessarily elaborate open world cat simulation RPG that I tried for about 30 minutes on switch before getting too confused/overwhelmed to continue:
8 Likes
As Dusk Falls was published by Microsoft and Road 96 by uhā¦some European company I think. And thatās good news! Annapurna aināt the only game in town when it comes to adventure games! There are plenty of other buyers and seemingly none of them care if your game is remotely good. Now that is what I call ~inspirational~
10 Likes
Having finished Stray last night, I think the game was slight but amusing. I laughed like a child every time the cat ruined a mahjong game.
I didnāt care initially for the action/stealth sequences, until I realized that this gameās primary influence wasnāt asscreed or anything like that (though the hold A to autojump came from that), it was Another Worldāa low difficulty adventure game that looks like a platformer on the surface. I would have preferred that they leaned even further into adventure game design, and perhaps included some puzzles that couldnāt be solved within 30 seconds, but that wouldnāt have the mass market appeal, I suppose.
After watching that terrible stock-photo-of-an-unhappy-marriage video game Bachelor streamed last night, I canāt be mad at Stray. It had personality, the music was nice, and the good jokes outnumbered the terrible dated memes 10-to-1.
19 Likes
Whoa, whoa. Cat marriage?!
4 Likes