I’d agree that choices do modify something of the tone of the experience but there’s still a pretty uncomplicated narrative A to B here with no significant executional or intellectual lifting to do to get through it
Not that I utterly resent that condition, and I suppose that allows something of the script to breathe ambiguity in the gaps, but I think I need more friction outta my vidcons at a basic level
Also is pretty fudgey that we’ve a story where a dude is in a single patch of planet for 3-odd months and is still having to use a map at the close because the level design is (a probably cost-prescribed) total bank-of-assets job with little opportunity for us, his pilots, to develop the kind of detailed spacial memory we’d have of a place to navigate it effectively in a fraction of that time.
So does Firewatch play like a less-horror Kholat?
I dunno I found myself mostly able to get by with just the compass (when I got myself turned around, which happened now and again, once to great effect {and I think the devs were actually counting on that for the narrative, in that circumstance}). Thunder Canyon in particular can’t be mistaken for anything else and serves well as a base from which to reach just about any area. If I’m disappointed by anything it’s artificially cordoning off some areas with slopes and vegetation that don’t actually seem particularly impassable.
Landmarks abound, and I think a dude IRL would still need to whip out a compass and map to orient themselves in the woods sometimes regardless of familiarity. Forests are disorienting that’s why trails are always marked in big parks like that. On top of that certain circumstances late in the game I think would throw a wrench in anybody’s navigational gears.
It is much less horror. If anything it’s horror in the hell-is-other-people way.
Well, Kholat, cool as it is, isn’t much of a horror game already. I was mostly just asking if it was walking around using real-life navigation skills, or if it was linear like it looked in the one video I watched of it.
It’s very light - you’re never really going to get that lost and there isn’t much of a survival aspect to the game or any danger. I hesitate to call it linear per se but neither is it an open world.
Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day is a Video Game
10/10, game respects my time, will play again and again
I keep trying and failing to enjoy Pillars of Eternity, mostly because of the constant dying. Maybe i am dumb at these sorts of games i dunno.
I also fired up my old DC yesterday and played some Giga Wing 2, which i think is still an amazing piece of work. Definitely the most operatic shooter i’ve ever played. My decade-old high score attests that i used to be much, much better at it.
POE definitely subscribes to the infinity engine design principle that combat should not be any fun
Finally got the puyo puyo tetris game for my vita so it could feel used and appreciated again. The mix and swap modes are pretty fun but I’m disappointed that you have to play them against AI opponents and not in a survival mode setting. The only endless games are playing are fever, normal and mini puyo mode with 40 line, marathon and ultra for tetris. At least you can choose to play an endless stream of AI opponents but then you still have to keep up instead of just chilling.
Everyone on SB should play this. We all slept on it.
It might be worth buying solely to experience the AC-Bu cutscene in person
The whole thing is constantly prodding itself, pointing out how absurd it is, then ends before you can figure out why it’s such. It’s also like they took and infinite runner and made it an Actual Game, but then still realized that if they want other stuff, to just do it. It’s perfectly succinct and remarkably stupid and I loved all 30 minutes of that first playthrough.
I played all 5 episodes of Life is Strange over the past 2 days. Overall, I liked it, despite a few bad hiccups.
I understand due to the episodic and somewhat experimental nature of the story, the graphics are pretty limited and the facial animations are stilted (and non functioning in some scenes), but considering this is a super heavy, dialogue based emotional story that involves reading and interpreting character motivations, it undercuts a lot of the dramatic tension going on and pulls me out of it. This is still a major release and a Square Enix title, some of this could’ve been fixed. It doesn’t help that the dialogue in some areas is super bad and even feels like French to English script translation errors in some parts. Especially Chloe. The meme speak is insufferable, but as a Northern Californian born Bro myself, the awkward overuse of the word “hella” is like 1000 nails on 100 chalkboards. Also Chapter 5 was WAY too long in areas and repeat a lot of stuff that you already know. I like that the time travel mechanic works in service of the themes about regret and the problems of nostalgia and even some stuff on the right to life/when to pull the plug on someone you love thats terminally ill, but good lord does this game feel like its bashing you over the head with things.
But on the otherside, there are a lot of genuinely interesting moments. It’s a game with supernatural elements, but it’s also refreshing to see a game about two young women and friendship and what its like to move away and come back home and all these things that i actually related to and as someone who hung out on Art School campuses and bumming around the Pacific Northwest with people like this, it felt almost realistic in some parts. Its certainly better than some of the shit David Cage games have come up with. Also, really good soundtrack.
I’m glad i played it and i’m glad they made these games and hopefully there will be better examples of this kind of story/choice game about more “quiet” settings coming out in the future, but in terms of the Life is Strange story itself, it probably would’ve worked better as a TV show season.
now i’ve moved onto Firewatch, which i’ve played for a little bit and like what i’ve seen.
Finished nu-Wolfenstein. It was wonderful. I didn’t know Machinegames was the guts of old Starbreeze until 2501 said so on a podcast we did, but now that I know the resemblance is obvious. These guys keep getting better.
The game plays like someone made a Duke Nukem sequel in 2001 with 2014 AAA graphics. The goofy stealth mechanics actually don’t suck, the perks are fun additions instead of a horrible slog, there’s a slow upgrade track of a single sciencegun (Wolfenstein’s Gravity Gun?) that keeps it relevant all game long.
The acting and writing are par for Starbreeze: way better than you think they ought to be. Blazkowicz is built like an absolute brick shithouse, something other people in the game make fun of him for, and by all rights he ought to be ultratestosterone Gears Guy by another name. Instead, he’s this weirdly poetic and sensitive gentle giant, incredibly earnest, devoid of irony. The ending actually made me catch my breath a bit. The ending to this dual-wield Nazi robot gorefest. It’s something, I’ll tell you.
I played through the First Blood portion of Rambo for the PS3 today.
Die Hard Arcade QTEs + Time Crisis - Blue Skies + superficial handling of veterans’ issues = Rambo PS3
buoys
So who did you choose to have Deathshead kill in the opening mission? Are you going back for a replay to meet the other character you get to meet from having him kill the other guy? Was blasting Nazis with a laser rifle in a 1960-style Nazi moonbase, complete with moon dust hanging in the air, not one of the best levels in video games?
Some people were a bit put off by B.J.'s soliloquys but I thought they fit the game perfectly. I will once again sing the praises of The Old Blood. It’s basically Machine Games doing an homage to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and it is just as good as The New Order.
you’re obviously saying that it would have been better if they just said the more grammatical “hell of”
“hell of a lot of”