Games You Played Today Oratorio Tangram

King of Posters King of Posters 2000
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At the behest of my 13yo niece, I played some fallout 3 to determine if, as she had suspected, there was gender disparity in how much weight could be carried. Happily, that is not the case. After determining that I loaded up a later save and had a reasonably good time running around the western edge of the map shooting deathclaws in the face with The Terrible Shotgun.

(My niece is awesome. We had a good long conversation about gender disparity in media and fashion the other​ day, which lead her to ask me to check her assumption. Why she was playing fo3 is anyone’s guess, since she also has access to new vegas and 4 as well.

She also loves Undertale and dressed as Frisk last halloween)

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187

They are a very swell trilogy of games, although the original might feel a bit easy if you go back to it after completing Infinite.

Worth noting is that they have a cousin game known as Squarecells. It is much more in the picross vein but has a couple little variants that give it its own unique flavor. If you end up wanting more after Hexcells that’d be a good option.

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I wish I could enjoy Hexcells more but the aesthetic somehow makes my eyes work overtime trying to focus on the puzzle. I can’t play for more than 15 minutes before feeling bleah. =/

It scratches that same itch that Picross does, though!

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I 100%'d all three hexcells

The generated puzzles in infinite are kind of boring but overall I had a good time

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In Squarecells an alternate “dark” color scheme was added that was a bit easier on the eyes, unfortunately it was never back-ported into the Hexcells games.

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Sorting through a stack of old PS1 and 2 games because I wanna clear out stuff.

Ridge Racer V: This game is not very interesting.

Rainbow Six: Love the look of this game and could possibly enjoy it if I could invert the y axis but I can’t so this game is worthless to me. Better off just playing the PC one anyway, I guess.

Twisted Metal 2: Love the 90s aesthetic and attitude but boy howdy this has not aged well. Cars handle like trolleys (and there isn’t a reverse??) and it just isn’t very fun to play.

Vice City Stories: old GTA games have also aged badly! But it has a good soundtrack and it’s fun messing around in. I haven’t played this one before so will stick with it a bit though I’m sure my patience will wear out soon enough due to how dated it is.

So gonna sell the first three, and maybe the fourth one depending how it goes. More reviews to come!

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My copy of Bullet Soul came in the mail finally. Cool game! My main complaint is that it takes far too long to get interesting because of the whole bullet cancels when ever something dies thing. The first stage is throw away. Second stage is okay and probably should have been the first stage and the third stage is when the spice finally starts to hit. Enemy placement is pretty cool, I like how they layer popcorn on multi hits so they can have a pattern structure. I like how it dictates flow but keeps it very open ended which I like a lot. Feels like a big fan of Ketsui wanted to make his own interpretation on the risk reward system of that game. What is a good score in this game? Got to about 175 mil on second credit with the fast ship.

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don’t you just press down on the d-pad to reverse

also vigilante 8 second offense is the best twisted metal, too bad you either have to leave every car stock or upgrade them all the way to have balanced multiplayer :waynestare:

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194

ah yes, this excellent design hook from 1998-2005

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OOPS. Well, it still kinda sucks.

ANNA KOURNACOVA TENNIS: I spelled her name wrong. This game is cute but isn’t a very good tennis game. Well, it’s okay, but much better ones have come out since. Apparently there is a mode with an explosive ball but I couldn’t find it. That could have been interesting? TO THE SELL PILE. Also, remember when everyone wanted to bang anna. EDIT: I looked up the other mode, it’s basically just hot potato and not interesting. You can play as pac-man, though.

GRIND SESSION: this is a competent tony hawk clone but the only reason i’m keeping it is because of the silly recreation of the 16th street mission bart station. there is even a bart train complete with the whistle! love it.

MEDAL OF HONOUR: the game that started the ww2 craze back in the day. the opening mission isn’t too impressive, it’s basically a walk down a linear road, but it controls well and has a good atmosphere, plus i remember more interesting levels later on so i’m gonna hang on it for now and play it a bit more.

vib ribbon: this game doesn’t really work, like the timing doesn’t really go with the music, but the aesthetic is great as is the soundtrack so i’ll probably keep it

syphon filter: did you know this uses the bubsy 3d engine? it’s totally obvious thanks to the tanky controls, but luckily there isn’t any platforming in this game. still controls badly though. i find it kind of interesting and will stick with it for another mission or two but i think the verdict for this one may be that is bad

also i welcome people to challenge my dismissive reviews

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I hate to use a term like “childlike wonder” but Abzu made me grin open-mouthed like a 4 year old that had just been given their favorite toy.

I played some for the missus and her comment was “I can feel my blood pressure lowering as we speak”.

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197

It’s unfair that it gets compared to Journey carelessly. Understandable to an extent knowing the history of Abzu’s designer, but from what I have seen, there is enough discrepancies to warrant its originality.

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I think it’s very fair and can only view it as a retread without the dangerous/exciting communication parts. It’s sitting in a space in my brain next to Last Guardian, which is similarly gorgeous and sensitive but tired.

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Composer is also the same, and the soundtrack is similar but less memorable. It is “more of the same” and shamelessly so, but it’s done from a place of love, and it’s particular wonders (the soft zigzag and weird acceleration of swimming underwater, exploration in all directions, vivacious encounters with a variety of beings all of which you can hug…) make it great in it’s own right. Journey should be a genre.

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Got some six player going at the pre Glitch Con party.

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I liked What Remains Of Edith Finch much more than pretty much any other walking sim I’ve played those last few years! It’s essentially like a really creative game jam: you explore your dead family’s house, looking for items related to every relative’s final moments, and then you play through them. Every sequence starts relatively grounded, with your character sitting in the bedroom or taking a bath, and the closer you get to your untimely demise, the more fantastical everything becomes. You fly a kite that collects everything it hits like a Katamari ball, you try to get a jump on a monstrous serial killer with John Carpenter’s music playing in the background, you roll downhill as a shark while avoiding trees. It was impossible not to crack a smile for me during some of those fragments – they are about pure joy of interaction (the developers even insist that you use a gamepad so that even simple acts of using a music box or browsing through a book feel like they should).

At its best, it’s like Wario Ware with clever narrative justification, and the amazement you feel fits into theme of working through your grief by remembering sense of wonder surrounding your lost family members. Good, smart stuff with very focused exploration and surprising emotional range.

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more dismissive reviews, let me know if i’m being unfair

DRIVER: I remember never being able to beat the first mission as a kid and I still can’t beat it, fuck this game TO THE SELL PILE

NEED FOR SPEED: keeping this one mostly for nostalga value, but it also still plays decently and i like the visuals. A KEEPER

ALIEN TRILOGY: I was wondering how they would keep up variety since they throw face huggers and xenomorphs at you like nobodies busines, but then they throw “infected” humans at you, blah. I hate when alien games make you fight humans. Aside from that, a pretty medicore FPS where you run around identical corridors and push buttons. Not bad, but there are really good alien games now so who needs this. TO THE SELL PILE.

AIR COMBAT: the first ace combat game, and pretty boring? does the series get better later? because this failed to grab me completely. TO THE SELL PILE

SLED STORM: this game got off to a good start by playing rob zombie over the intro. it’s actually really good? the tracks have lots of short cuts, you can do tricks, the sleds feel great and have a good weight. it feels like they played wave race 64 and thought LET’S MAKE EXACTLY THIS BUT ON SNOW and they did it. A KEEPER.

SIPHON FILTER: okay this game got tedious quick, TO THE SELL PILE.

PORSCHE CHALLENGE: I bought this thinking it was that need for speed porsche game, the pc version of which is one of the greatest racing games of all time, but it’s some other rando game. disappointing me means you go TO THE SELL PILE.

SKI AIR MIX: some low budget skiing game that plays quite well and has a lot of charm. I like it. A KEEPER.

SOVIET STRIKE: wonderfully bad 90s fmv cutscenes, and the strike formula works really well in 3d. this is a grand time, a keeper

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As I recall, the book for Driver told you exactly how to beat that first level, but u could be wrong. It was pretty not hard once you knew what to do though. Also hilarious because the rest of the game is nothing like that.

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it’s just really hard to do all the tricks before the time runs out. it’s very strict.

MEDAL OF HONOR: the second mission has those sneaky ones i mentioned, but they can’t as cool as i remember. you run about showing your papers and if someone wont let you pass you just go find new papers. BUT they do let you get a little creative and kill guards so you don’t have to find papers. i like how it doesnt force you to play a certain way. these segments pop up again and are the best parts of the game. the action bits are just linear paths with objectives on the way, but the later missions do a better job of hiding it. it feels like it wants to be goldeneye but doesn’t quite get there. it must be doing something right because i’m still playing it despite my complaints. the location variety is keeping me going, i guess, and i do enjoy the stealth bits. i’m a big fan of hiding in plain sight.

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I’ve heard somewhere (??) that Air Combat is fairly tame in comparison to later entries. It didn’t grab me either.