Yeah this game just ate another day. I can’t believe I’m enjoying this so much, whenever I saw any of the preview stuff it seemed so unappealing.
6 Likes
Then I got a Bad End abruptly. Okay, sure. Then I got stuck for a while and took a look at a guide and the answer was Farm a Drop from a seemingly inconsequential enemy. Then I took another look at the guide to see if getting the True End was bullshit and in my opinion it’s maybe 50% bullshit. That’s just enough to say “okay, that was pretty fun but it’s time to move on before I sour on this thing. The backlog holds other delights.”
i should stop trying to write big posts or something.
But
finished Blood third chapter, i got lost a lot, the dogs are scary.
almost at the End of Blue Planet (the first episode thing?) Freespace 2 , and whoa! family issues and having a ship that goes reverse is really good, i really like that mission where there a motherload of shivan ships and you have to escort all the ships on the GTV and the last humans on the sanctuary.
1 Like
I have been informed that there is, in fact, a run button in Doom. 25 years later I have finally beaten Doom 2 mission 2
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Playing some big hitters with Arx Fatalis (thanks to the Arx Libertatis patch) and Disco Elysium!
It’s fun to click around and laugh about the things I see in Disco. I’m invested at this point even if my role-playing is still incoherent. Apparently I’m a sorry-cop. And Arx Fatalis is finally coalescing into something pretty exciting, but I am still early on. Got a real imm-sim bug going and this is working for me so far. Love the geometry and the dingy textures but I wonder if the game’s going to have me feeling sky deprived or stone-block worn out in a few hours.
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The ~exact~ Genesis I played as a kid, no less. Big nostalgia for this thing…
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Tried out Control finally because I wanted to play a game and it met the “looks pretty good” bar.
It’s indeed pretty good but I’m amazed at how few ideas of its own it has. It constantly reminds me of other games: HL1, System Shock, Doom 2016 for instance, in addition to the now-obligatory Dark Souls. Elements that are new to me, like the 20-minute elite mob quests that trigger at random, also visibly were taken from some other game I haven’t played (since it doesnt flow naturally from the setting).
Overall the stolen elements are fun and basically cohere together, and it’s about what I expected coming in so I’m enjoying it. I’m just a bit sad this level of extreme conservatism is what’s apparently needed for an AAA non-sequel in 2019.
3 Likes
Im not even sure which Genesis my original… Ive got like 4 of the things from various trades.
I love that game
1 Like
yeah, I think Control goes beyond being unoriginal to actively feeling like a pastiche in multiple respects – the passivity of its storytelling and sidequests combined with the lengthy list of narrative inspirations (Alger Hiss and the X-Files being the most obvious) that are mostly cleverly alluded to in a lot of the flavour text really contribute to the feeling that You Are Playing Game, and it’s funny that this has been easily Remedy’s least troubled and best-received project in over a decade.
it is very decent though and lots of the optional stuff is worth it so don’t ignore how little the game pushes you toward it
2 Likes
to some extent describing a category of AAA single player action games that come from nothing or nowhere in 2019 and onward is fanciful just because of the armies of subcontractors that have to be brought to bear to push those things out, in this case it seems like it was enough to develop it from “known and beloved midsize developer still hanging on through big publisher contracts” + “graphical advances” + “very familiar setting that is not quite generic,” but like … barely, right?
1 Like
The problem is that its inspirations are too famous and familiar. Every game is pastiche to some degree, but it’s better to be like Getting Over It building off Sexy Hiking. It goes back to what Astromech often complains about about AAA studio employees never dipping past mainstream tastes.
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everything about control seems so calculated and precisely pulled off that i haven’t thought about it at all since finishing. which is super disappointing considering how it’s a story about mysteries that i loved while i was playing through it.
3 Likes
I wasn’t familiar with it, but my buddy pointed out to me that http://www.scp-wiki.net/ seems to be a pretty heavy/primary influence as well.
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Also, to give it its share of credit, here are some fresh-feeling parts of Control
- The motel puzzles
- how it mostly represents the concept of “evil corruption” via concrete blocks changing shape away from clean, functional modernist lines towards artsy abstract sculptures
- The protagonist as a total rando who gets appointed Director moments after walking in the front door
The premise seems grounded in the theme of postmodern society undermining the social cohesion of the Cold War, but so far the script doesn’t seem to be elaborating on that much.
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you can layer your script reading with Remedy’s issues as a studio underneath negligent publishers
Remedy is one of the only studios that can make their conservative attitude appealing; they’re very precise in tone. I wish IO (truly their sister studio) took as much care in Hitman’s ambient dialogue as Remedy does
2 Likes
I scroll the curated selection, pondering what challenge I should take on next
a smattering of colors and shapes catches my eye
I listen for a brief moment before confirming this what I want
I gaze upon the options presented and find them to my liking
I press start
she looks at me from the corner, dead-eyed but cheerful and erupts,
“Let’s Groove Coaster!”
I hear it, all of my synapses firing at the speed of light
something very primal in me breaks
" LET’S GROOVE COASTER. "
a growl no one will witness
my thumb hurts
3 Likes
Because I couldn’t find the door to Parapsychology yesterday I accidentally did a sequence break into the optional fungus area instead, even though I didn’t have the level 4 keycard. The sequence break is so easy to find and execute I assumed it was one of those half-lifey navigation puzzles, so I assumed it’s where I was supposed to go for a while even as I kept getting wrecked by the level 6 moldmen. I came back today and now the area plays voicelines I didn’t hear the last time.
3 Likes
Ori and The Blind Forest is hilariously unsearchable on this software. Searching for Ori gave every result for original.
The game is stunningly beautiful and then GAME SAVED pops up on screen and I lolled. It is very video gamey and doesn’t want you to forget it. I need to go to Spider Cove and collect Shards and Map Fragments and Health Orbs and use Ability Orbs on my completely linear Ability Tree.
It also indirectly says that I am the reason everything is bad. Everyone should watch the first 10 minutes because it is just the first 10 minutes of up and then VIDEOGAMES.
5 Likes