I think I’ve paid for two games on the Epic store, back when they offered the $10 off coupons for free during their sales. I’ve played a number of the free games I got on it, but that’d still be like at most 5% of the games I grabbed for free from there.
I got past the puzzle that had me stopped in Message from Deep Space, I actually figured out what it was asking and tried giving it to them but ended up having to get a hint somewhere as even afterwards I have no idea what was up with the formatting it required from the player which was completely different from the formatting in the puzzles immediately before it (based on comments I was not the only one crossed up by this). Anyways I figured out the section afterwards almost immediately and blazed through that whole week smoothly, so hopefully things are back on track.
I also started up the Plague of Shadows campaign/DLC in Shovel Knight as it seemed like it’d make a nice contrast. In the opening section there was a bit over an instant death pit where you have to figure out some sort of odd trick to be able to “charge jump” and then be able to throw bombs to break a wall before you fall into said pit that I have no idea why it let me do so the one time it did as opposed to the multiple times I fell to my death while hammering on the throw button. Hilariously it was changed to this poorly designed bit as every youtube vid I checked had an entirely different obstacle there which made looking for hints impossible. It also kept spawning my dropped money upon death in places where the only way to grab them was to die doing so and hope they got better locations next time, so long story short it took me over a half hour to get through said opening stage in what was the opposite of an auspicious start. Somehow this is the most beloved throwback style action platformer and it is making design mistakes I likely wouldn’t see in an itch game made with re-used sprites and beginner level programming skills.
If I were to name the biggest flaw in the game, and it is a flaw I was able to forgive, it is that the game is a bit persnickety and inconsistent about how you format your answers.
this can get pretty irritating when you’re sending messages that are 7 or more frequencies long
Really loving UFO 50. For once a NES tribute game(s) that are as punishingly cryptic as actual NES games rather than like, indie platformers with an 8 bit(ish) coat of paint. Not that there’s anything wrong with those sorta games, just it’s so fun to be like “ahhaha yes… an unforgiving mechanic" with no instructions
I forgot where I’m at in Assassin’s Creed Shadows after being away from it for a long time and am now fumbling around, just mowing the lawn, defogging the map.
Took…a bit, I think, to get back into the controls and the rhythm of the combat. I had this issue when I fucked around with my old God of War PC save, too - too many goddamn games making you hold a trigger and then press a face button for extra attacks or abilities or whatever.
The kicker with AC Shadows of course is that there are all these people you can meet all over this gigantic map, many of whom will beg you to go into X castle and rescue Y brother who has been forced against his will to serve some corrupt lord or something, but if you’re like me and wanted to clear that part of the map and systematically slaughtered every single person in that castle - whoops!
I’ve also definitely just stumbled into what has to be later game missions on accident. Talking fondly and with great concern about some character I haven’t met yet like they’re dying. Will they? If I find the initial trigger will they be alive and alien to me? I dunno!
They just…they really don’t need to make games this big. I think maybe if I was 12 and this was My One Game and all I had responsibility for was to burn through my homework in an hour and then fuck around til I went to sleep, sure. But now I am old and tired from a day of work, and each hour spent running up and down a foggy map has a lingering reminder of my impending mortality…not sure if it’s worth it, hahaha.
I’m gonna beat this fuckin’ game, some day, maybe a year or two from now, but they gotta…they gotta not do this! From the sounds of things with Ubisoft, maybe they won’t be able to anymore.
Star Fox Update: i’ve finally been going through several rounds of Star Fox (2026) and i really love it. i think a lot of people might have issue with the fact that beyond the really nice visual upgrade it’s basically the exact same game, down to it’s routes, medals and secrets, and that would be a bigger problem for me if it weren’t for the fact that Star Fox 64 is one of my favorite games of all time, a fact that has only really cemented itself during this little retrospective i’ve been doing for the whole series.
but i know 50 bucks is 50 bucks, and in terms of content, this is for sure a Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy “Same Bones New Skin” kind of Remake than a Resident Evil 1/2 Modern Game Design with Retro Aesthetic kind of Remake. but for me, i love the new polish and the little details. I love how great all the planets look now, and even though some of my furry colleagues have issues, I like the new look of all the characters, i just enjoy them looking more like the real animals in semi-cartoon/semi-realistic jackets. it makes me laugh everytime, sorry 'y’all!
There’s more fun personality in the characterizations now, even within the confines of old voice lines. I’m thinking of Falco’s jacket, the little painted wings on his ship, the fact that he skips through the G-diffuser check on Cornaria (“Everything seems…fine…”) only to have it back fire in the same way it did in 64 and for Slippy to make fun of him. it’s small but it’s the kind of thing that goes further than just doing the same lines again (though there’s still a bit of that). I like that Fox is obviously more resentful at General Pepper for sending his Dad to death so it creates a little arc that makes what happens in Venom 2 feel a little more earned. Slippy is less helpless and more a sweet goof which I enjoy. The Travis McElroy-ass voice for Peppy has grown on me and I like that he doesn’t really say “do a barrel roll” but pops when everyone else talks about doing one. the only voice work i thought was really bad was Bill, you guys fucked up Bill’s doofy voice! what a shame.
(side note, I also rewatched all of A Fox in Space again for this, and it’s still hard for me to divorce those characterizations in my head because i really enjoy the writing and the amount of work put into such a project and I think to me Falco as Italian lunkhead is canon)
one thing i think that’s gonna bother some people about this game is that they are WAY more explicit about telling the player what it takes to do the alternate routes while you’re still in the level, and when you miss them. which i think is probably good for anyone playing this game for the first time but i think it can be annoying to experts doing it again. i do kind of wish there was an option to limit the chatter after you’ve already beaten the game and are going through for medals and challenges. also the cutscenes become a little cumbersome to skip through after a while, but to be fair these are the biggest gripes i really have.
I haven’t tried multiplayer and i haven’t tried doing expert runs yet since i’m still trying to get some medals. i will say some stuff is still hard, here’s me being proud of finally getting the medal on Aquas as an adult because fuck that stupid level lol
I didn’t expect that Titanium Court would be psychological horror , and I definitely didn’t expect that you ARE the horror
Cat still loves me though. never go stale kitty
The pacing of how they dole out this story is so good though. There’s a lot of things I didn’t expect out of this and good pacing is definitely on that list.
Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4): i continue to struggle in combat against anything that wants a piece; beginning to suspect i wasn’t paying sufficient attention during the prologue
still haven’t gotten around to putting in any time with the customization options, besides giving Arthur’s beard a nice, close shave and naming the little Morgan stallion from “Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego”
still not satisfied with the name, incidentally- anyone got any suggestions?
I finished the whole story and walked away feeling like I never learned the controls too. The game is just kind of different feeling from a lot of other third-person games.
I solved combat in red dead by having two sawed off shotguns with incindeary and explosive rounds. They have the fastest draw time. Pop the slowmo button and explode a head or 4. At distances throw dynamite.
For me it was just leaning on the dead eye ability as much as possible. I don’t remember if there’s stuff you have to do to upgrade it or if it just kinda of upgrades as the story goes on but eventually it becomes versatile enough to trivialize most fights. Try focusing on doing the sharpshooter challenges.
Okay so it was both. There are five ranks to dead eye that each enable more useful stuff like letting you pick targets manually or showing enemies weak spots like the heart or stomach. Those ranks increase with story progress.
Then there is a separate level system to it that increases how long you can stay in dead eye and is mainly advanced by getting xp from doing stuff like hunting and crafting, and a couple levels you can only get from completing specific challenges.
imo there has never been a fan work that by its sheer quality, love, and refusal to do anything the easy way has completely overtaken the original. A Fox in Space is Starfox. The games are all crappy licensed money grabs
Found a Claymore in Dark Souls, which has opened the game up substantially and by that I mean I can one-shot a bunch of dudes I could not before. Really makes me feel like Guts from Bezerk. Probably not great for the Wanderer build but I’m having fun. It was really neat to find an elevator that just takes you back to the Firelink Shrine, that was really cool. Bell Gargoyles are giving me a lot of grief though.
The thing I started doing was, if I’m frustrated I can’t alt+F4 out of the game ever, because if I know I have an instant out I will just take that instead of taking it slow. Shit has been rough, like forgetting to two-hand weapons and other nonsense. I also feel like i’m not going as fast as the average Dark Souls player even though it’s my first time. Also cannot kill the black knights but maybe later.
This is such a well designed game, I can sense the love in the enemy and item placement, and the encounter spaces. However there’s a lot in the wiki that helps when I get stuck, as well as stuff I’ve missed. I don’t have it open but I usually read it a bit after a session.
I think my first time playing this game I got to that elevator and thought, I don’t know where that goes, maybe a whole other zone, let me stay here for a bit, and I struggled through those dang gargoyles, then finally went down and I was just stunned. It’s such an interestingly designed space and it’s world layout is what still keeps it my favorite of them all even if the others fix some mechanics.
