Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis didn’t require ray tracing and we were happier for it
I actually think the great circle looks quite good and look forward to playing it once I get more ram
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no we must hold the line at 16
any more is deviancy
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no-one should need more than 640k of memory
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I don’t think the writers needed to resort to as much sexual exploitation as they do for this apotheosis though.
i haven’t played it since it came out, but i remember the dissociative scene during the last v bad sexually exploitative moment as being done pretty well.
i can’t remember if i posted about playing this, but yeah, big agree on the camera cuts and soundscape. lots of film/bresson vibes in that game that i really liked, particularly really enjoyed sitting on the benches and flipping through the perspectives on the scene.
5 Likes
I agree it’s told very well throughout, they definitely know what they’re doing with the frame. I think it’s just interesting that this scene is the moment where the sin comes crashing down around her despite all the other stuff that’s gone down. I suppose it works as a moment where she feels her trust really can’t be placed anywhere anymore except in the devil’s lecturing. They do a thing here where the devil’s character model embraces her and I found it compelling as a sort of ambiguous statement about what is happening in the moment.
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I did not see the Star Wars reference you mentioned earlier, but the Blade Runner one felt kind of on the nose. I did not do the stuff to qualify for the “good” ending because parry challenge rooms are not a thing I could achieve.
Also, did not quite feel the way you did about the last three bosses. The dreamscape boss that splits into three and you have to hit the right one was some straightup madness though. I think that’s the point I put the game in Story Mode because she just kept destroying me. The next two sols felt a lot lighter to approach than that, but you are right about the final boss being some SNK bullshit. And the reprise of the axe demon boss fight was another one that wrecked me.
In the end I think I just was not made for the sort of parrying that the designers love. And I think you said what all I could about the disease angle and how it comes back to living in the Covid era.
2 Likes
Oh no Suicide Squad
The pistol is good.
One of the dlc characters is a Gravity Rush rip off, with the pistol and a sniper rifle. Neat!
I think this is the first looter shooter I have ever played so my opionions are worthless
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Oh hey my wrap-up.
Not sure how I feel about this set but hey, moderately eclectic fare genre-wise at least?
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tried to see what my Playstation wrap up was and was hit with a “you must have played at least 10 hours on PS4 or PS5” message, so I guess that answers that
trust me- you didn’t miss anything
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I apparently missed the Game of the Year 2024 as christened by gaming authority Geoffrey Keighley though…
But nah I mostly played Steam and Switch and older stuff and had a good time.
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I missed the Blade Runner reference the Star Wars reference is the war satalite made by the J- empire is just the Death Star.
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Ok I got the game running acceptably… it turns out the lighting model is kind of broken right now with RT on either medium or high so your choices are low or ultra, and the frame pacing varies a lot between environments on ultra, so I did wind up having to turn the head bob off too given that
I love how bad the stealth is, it’s just bonking brownshirts with gardening tools
1 Like
Cocoon: another one I did in 4 hours. Lovely, though I think missing the narrative edge that made Inside such a masterwork. Without any recognizably human stakes you’re left with naked cosmic awe, and while they give it a go it doesn’t have an emotional core to hit. Still, impeccable art and great puzzle design. I guess Puzzle Gamers think it’s too easy or whatever but I actually think it escalates perfectly, never overstays its welcome, and never asks too much of its mechanical premise, which could have unprofitably gone wild in the hands of a less careful designer. The art is a masterclass in doing that smooth, flat-shaded “indie” style right: evocative, a bit mysterious, not too twee, pleasant but slightly menacing. Also it plays like butter, moving your little moth man around and picking up and dropping stuff feels snappy and great which is often ignored in games like this. Well worth playing but slightly disposable.
9 Likes
I don’t care about the Indiana Jones movies and I haven’t even seen them all (of the ones I’ve seen, I had the most fun with Crystal Skull), but I like this new game so far.
It looks really great on the Xbox Series X, especially with the film grain effect turned all the way up (I wish that effect could go even harder, I want the game to look like a grotty old grindhouse print, even if that would seem to contradict the whole pristine Spielberg aesthetic). Beautiful environmental design, and the 1930’s academic/anthropological setting is a rare one in games, so that’s fun to explore.
I’m not a big stealth guy, but as Felix noted, it’s very goofy and forgiving. In the first mission I blew my cover at one point and just bonked guy after guy with brooms, wrenches, statues, bottles, every random object in the room, one after another until I just had one giant pile of Italian fascists cooling off in there. The rest of the area was totally empty after that, and I just strode through at my leisure.
It’s got some real classic video game goofiness. You can pick up several different fruits and types of bread, equip them, and honk each one down in one bite to restore health or stamina. You can make Indiana Jones house an entire lemon, skin and all, and chase it with a pistachio scone. You can mess up your controls trying to look at your map, and instead whip out a huge cracker and just stare at it vaguely while fascists march by in the middle distance.
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Yes, but can you- having grabbed some bread, meat, and cheese- then use them to craft a sandwich worthy of Dagwood Bumstead?
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Don’t know about that, but I do know from experimenting that no dog would eat any of the food you collect if you throw it. Just like the humans they get up from their resting nap positions and walk over to check it out, but then return quickly without touching the crackers or apples.
missed opportunity
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I wound up randomly fucking with AFK Jounrey and I’ll be honest I’m being carried entirely by the character designs, which I’m enjoying a lot. I suppose that’s how these gacha (and adjacent) games get their hooks in you. Exploit that pack bonding instinct and all the lonely people’s desires for parasocial relationships with a bunch of pretty cartoon people
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so yeah, the issue was:
the level wants me to rescue 3 (or 4) hostages from mummies who are trying to uh…mummify them, i guess. the problem is that they are surrounded by mummies who are all within one turn of walking and strike distance, and they will be turned into mummies with one hit.
what the stage seemed to necissitate was that i was able to kill the nearby mummies in one go, which as far as i could see, was not going to be possible. then the stage expands and adds more mummies, and at that point, it was pretty much over. when i got back to the load-out area, and i have a character telling me i can upgrade weapons now, it felt like a pretty 1-to-1 thing to me.
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I was dying at this too, I love how you find your first lemon not long after getting a handle on how the food system works and your immediate reaction on seeing the prompt to pick it up off the table is like “oh no, is he just gonna eat that”
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tbh I wasn’t enthused about the first person perspective for a slower paced adventure game because I tend to find it naturally more intense and better suited to something like wolfenstein, but the embodied aspects of this are so silly it’s almost like a VR game and that really makes it work
2 Likes