List items
-
************
it was fun as a co-op hangout sort of game but everything else about the game seemed pretty forgettable
update it's been a few years and I indeed forget everything
-
************
finally got to play this game co-op with my nephew after helping him build a nice little starter pc and hey it's fun as hell
-
************
this is a neat game, though not one I particularly liked.
I appreciate it more conceptually than in practice, as actually playing this game was not something I actually wanted to keep doing. Even as short as it was at 5 hours, I kinda still was like "ok I'm good" at around hour 3 and was ready for the game to be over. I kept going only because it was so short and I wanted to get it over with to fully cross it off the to do list.
In concept, the way the game's mechanics and story both mesh with the message the game is trying to get across is rather commendable. But the message the game is trying to get across is that sometimes communication can be difficult or messy or frustrating and while it's neat that they managed to get it to come across so well in the mechanics of the game that doesn't mean I like the mechanics, because hey guess what they are intentionally difficult and messy and frustrating and all too often annoying.
The story wasn't really much of a draw, it really was more focused on interactions with various oddball characters, but again the difficulty of the communication mechanic meant that those interactions were disjointed because of how often a good/interesting interaction hinged on if you drew a useful or shitty card, and the bad interactions weren't interesting. So on the flip of a card characters shifted from friendly/interesting/helpful to more along the lines of "oh I guess you don't want this interesting information/useful item well ok you can just fuck off I guess see you next time or not who cares" which when that happened kinda made me just not care about the characters.
I probably would have been more appreciative of it if I didn't play it myself as playing it just didn't do anything for me except make me not want to play it.
The best thing about this game is the dog. The dog was wonderful. Interacting with the dog was the only time I actually enjoyed playing the game and having the dog provide a mechanical benefit of taking away some of the fatigue cards that added to your deck was extremely vital. Seriously without the dog I probably wouldn't have bothered getting through the entire game.
-
after sojourner I decided to continue to check out games from the itchio bundle and this one caught my eye and it seems real neat and interesting, should finish this one day
-
pretty good co-op hang out game but maybe seems a bit repetitive and also that lots of options are locked off until you get very deep in
-
+2+2+2+2+
-
managed to get my nephew to try playing this game co-op and you know what? early on I actually quite enjoy playing this game, maaaaaybe even more than I enjoyed playing any of the previous wolfenstein games I've played solo
-
gave this a shot on game pass, it's good but I would like it a whole lot more if it had more options so you could come up with some cool plans and/or freestyle a bit more like the recent hitman games. Or if again there was some more stuff along the lines of the different targets specific leads that lead to fun/wacky kills like hitman games have. There are in some cases something like that but I would either want more, or have them lead to bigger/grander and thus more satisfying payoffs. Because a combo realtime with pause option tactical hitman style game sounds potentially amazing. This game is walking in that direction but is far too simple/limited to get that result. Most of the time it feels just like you're doing the same stuff over and over again. Throw a coin. Shoot from a distance. Sneak up behind a guy. Distract a guard with feminine charms. Find the one weak point and exploit it and then do it all again. So more options or more satisfying payoffs would really kick this up a notch.
-
************
I need to dig
ok so after many many years I finally got bit by the minecraft bug as my nephew wanted to play this game with me now that we both have new pcs. And hey turns out this game is really fun! Who knew?
-
-
************
I'm liking the game quite a bit and feeling that compulsion to see it through, but I do feel like the oxygen limits and inventory limits (not to mention the separate hunger and thirst timers) are a bit too strict which can make exploring kind of annoying and/or tedious at times. Exploring an alien water planet would be really cool if I didn't have some limit keeping me from doing something I wanted to do pretty much at all times, and every option I could use to get around whatever is limiting me has its own annoyances and limitations which makes it feel just a bit too much of a hassle.
Things that I would want, and if any of like 2 of these things were different everything would be so much better:
If resources weren't quite so scarce/hard to find. Particularly salt.
If you could stack items like food or resources in the inventory a tiny bit so your inventory didn't clog up immediately with food/water/titanium, or I could pack up an air pump with a bunch of pipe
if food didn't spoil basically five minutes after you cook it without salt (and even with salt it still starts to spoil after maybe 20 minutes) (update maybe I was wrong about this one but I really thought this happened to me)
if I could say, combine some equipment like say a rebreather mask for oxygen efficiency in deeper water and radiation mask into one thing. I'm carrying the rebreather mask around but can't ever seem to even use it because of the radiation everywhere means the second I switch to it my health starts to drain
if how or why you something was/was not working were a bit more clear. I built a scanner room, but how does it work? fuck if I know. Or I wanted to build an aquarium but I couldn't seem to put it anywhere, and why not? fuck if I know.
Basically if/where I can put or or how I can use something shouldn't be this much of a guessing game, make that shit clearer please
Fortunately the early annoyances do get easier to deal with later on and the game definitely goes some place unexpected. Really cool game overall.
-
************
time to give this a shot. why? because I applied for a job that involves robots and I am playing this for "research" and hey it might have worked I did get the job.
this game feels very much like a ps2 era game in spirit. I kinda get the feeling it's the ps2 game someone wished they could have made. You don't see many third person platformer/shooters with lock on targeting these days. But there's a reason some of this stuff has fallen out of fashion. For example it also does a thing that was more frequently done in the ps2 era where right before the end all of a sudden you are required to go collect a bunch of shit before you can finish the game.
Combat can be annoying if you're up against multiple enemies, as you don't move very fast and it's hard to keep track of all of them.
Also up to this point so far the story really hasn't felt like a story so much as a prologue to what should be now turning into a story and knowing what I know that....... isn't what happens.
But overall, it's alright.
update ok I've gotten very sick of the combat so lucky me the game decides that in the last tower you're going to have to deal with several extremely long combat sequences, each of which takes place on a very tiny arena some of which you can fall off of to your death, filled with enemies who can pretty much one shot you or stun lock you to death if you happen to get hit, and if you die you have to start all the way from the beginning of the fight. Oh and sometimes they add "fun" new twists like poison that constantly ticks away at your health the entire time.
I am now at the point where if I weren't so close to the end I'd stop, because I don't want to do this anymore. It's not like this game has a reputation for having a great ending anyway. Sounds more like I should expect more along the lines of an "ending" in sarcasm quotes. But I'm so close so I might as well suck it up and finish it off.
Beat the story and apparently the definitive edition includes some more story stuff after the end of the original game, but you know what, nah I'm good. Thanks anyway.
-
-
-
-
-
clank
-
horde mode is fun
I got to be a robotics expert!
-
the opening intro kinda makes it look like the game is gonna be mario golf x mario kart which sounds like a lot of fun
but unfortunately it is not quite that level of zany and the speed aspect really just detracts from the golf aspect, since you can't really see where your ball lands you can't plan your next shot when playing speed golf or any of the other variants that require you to run to the ball.
xc golf is probably the neatest of the new golf variants
but I wish the story mode included way more normal golf
-
************
orcs must die co-op continues to be a fun time with the nephew
-
-
************
best game of the century
-
-
2022
************
inscryption is a good game that starts off great and weird, then it starts to get waaaaaay weirder but the game becomes easier and less interesting, and by the time it ended I was like what the hell is the point of all this weird stuff and kinda wished the game had just been only the first act
-
************
the people who made this game definitely played portal and made one of those games
it never gets quite as out there as the concept perhaps suggests and it has a bit of a cheesy heavy handed message attached to the end but hey it's alright
-
************
griftlands was fine. I beat the campaign on the first run and the card game aspect was fine. The story was fine.
just like invisible inc it seemed fine but the run took too long and I imagine I will have no real compulsion to play more of it
-
won a run and the game said congrats now there are 35 increasingly difficult episodes to go and I'm like eh no thanks I'm all set
-
seems very cute and goofy in a way reminiscent of golf story and but I am not as into the dodgeball as I was the golf
-
************
yet another deckbuilder
it was fine
I spent the first half of the game using the same 3 characters and the same deck because that was very effective, but I got bored as the game really doesn't ever do anything to force you to mix things up, then I swapped some characters and my deck and basically was using a less effective strategy kind of intentionally because I wanted to change things up and the other characters didn't seem to mesh as well.
also the cards that seemed most powerful or most fun were usually just so fucking expensive that I could never use them
my deck was very poorly constructed for the final boss and that fight took me maybe an hour and something like 70 turns to beat
-
************dlc
played the cold as ice dlc, it was a bit more challenging
-
very very talky, potentially good but damn I couldn't make it past all the early talk
-
************
a charming little puzzle game
-
************
very fun, seems a bit easier to make progress through than the first one which is an improvement in my book because the star requirement to progress in the first one seemed a bit too high
-
************
the missing is definitely very much a puzzle platformer straight out of the limbo/inside mold but I liked it better because the puzzles were as good as anything in those games generally, and it had dark and disturbing themes mixed with a surprisingly touching story
a few of the puzzles had me scratching my head about why something that looked like is should work didn't work like I expected only to learn there was a more obscure detail I hadn't noticed. And the game did crash on me several times, including a corrupted checkpoint where every time I loaded and tried to go into the area I needed to do the puzzle it crashed which caused me to have to replay a chapter from the start
-
************
the majority of the story mode is an extended tutorial which caused me to drop it for a long time, but the last race to the finish out of nowhere goes off into some golf story esque style quest nonsense that I wished there was much more of
the different golf modes like speed and battle and the open ended one where you run around the entire course to complete holes in whatever order are clever concepts, but they aren't really what I want when I want to play mario golf. maybe they could have been better if they leaned more into the idea they seemed to be goin for of mario golf x mario kart somehow. perhaps add lightning and blue shells? fuck it why not
-
-
************
rogue like Doom is very good, but maybe could use a bit more weapon variety or other things to mix it up a bit more than just tweaking numbers slightly
-
************
started a war of the chosen campaign and it's very good
finished a war of the chosen campaign and it continued to be very good
seems like war of the chosen added so much to xcom that it seems like the base game had to have been very basic
-
2023
-
************
now more like valkyria chronicles and probably better
changing the game so you could have any combination of characters you want in your party rather than having to always include mario is definitely a plus in my book as I enjoy mixing the various characters and their abilities. the spark powers also add a lot of variety and fun strategies, particularly some of the unique ones
-
************
************dlc
finally at long last picking it back up I steamrolled through the rest of the main game and the dlcs and had a hell of a time doing so
this is a really playable game with a universe that is maybe my favorite game universe ever
-
madeline is running the farm I'm just the indentured servant but hey this game is fun
-
************
when it snowed slightly more than just a little bit for the first time this winter I decided it was time to finally play snowy subnautica
subnautica is still really fucking good, and this game has a story that seems interesting and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes
looking back at my original subnautica thoughts, this game does seem to have addressed one or two of the annoyances I had. Particularly the food. Now food doesn't spoil if salted, and you can cook some recipes that are really damn beneficial.
It was a smaller and shorter experience than the first game, probably made even shorter by me accidentally happening to stumble upon many of the places and things I needed yet I still put in 40+ hours of it mostly gathering and/or searching for resources for base building and such which is itself a good time. I'm not sure how large the world actually was as I didn't fully explore the world as much as the first game. As a result I couldn't tell if they just crammed everything you need in a relatively small area where you could stumble upon much of what you need quite early even though the world is a bit larger, or if the world is just very small and I just didn't notice the edges
I hope they make more of these games and am curious to see if they do where they would pick up. The ending was definitely intriguing and I wonder if they make another one of these games if they'll follow up on that or not, as that could be rather different from these first couple games to the point where they might need a complete rebranding
-
charming but simple and I seem to have a hard time sticking with it very long
-
************
this is probably the most gorgeous game I've ever seen with my own eyes to this point
it also seems charming
the game is a zelda like in the vein of okami or beyond good and evil. Combat is the focus rather than puzzles however, and the boss combat became challenging in a way that I wasn't really there for. I got a bit worn out before the end and I almost decided to quit the game at a couple points when I felt like I'd had enough, but because I was close to the end I pushed through and finished the game
-
************
as far as story driven games go, this is a good one though perhaps has a bit too much going on as far as the number of individual story threads, and though the story was interesting and emotionally compelling there were some elements that seemed like they could have been resolved differently, especially if you could converge different story lines by introducing different characters to each other like for example the person trying to leave with the woman who has a ship, but the game stories are ultimately linear and give you specific ways to resolve most of the threads. then to see all the stories through you have to choose to ignore others or choose an ending you might not want just so you don't leave and miss out on the rest of the stories.
it went on a bit longer than I was expecting, partially because I guess they added 2 parts of a dlc story that is not yet fully finished when i played so it's a bit of a shame that I happened to play it before I could finish that arc. but also for a game that seems to want you to replay it to see story it's just a bit too long for me to want to do that.
-
************dlc
finally played bowser's fury on switch, and hey it was a lot of fun
the ending was rather funny
-
************
a sweet little puzzle game that except for one puzzle where I just couldn't see a piece I was supposed to use was rather pleasant
-
so the thing about total war is that I could probably play any of them and come away thinking it's one of the best games of whatever year it came out if not ever. this one sure is fun and I think having a fantasy universe full of crazy shit all trying to kill each other is an incredible setting for total war. maybe the best setting for a total war, as it's hard for a historical or even semi legendary setting to match up against this nonsense where I'm fighting off pissed off dwarfs and annoying demons and rat scum and oh god what the fuck is that is it a giant mammoth charging at me how am I supposed to kill that thing fucking fuck
It probably worked out for the best accidentally waiting to play these until this third game where they combined everything together into one giant experience
I played through the prologue and then started an immortal empire campaign as the orcs and it's been so fucking exhilarating and intense as I've gone from the brink of ruin almost immediately fighting some angry and tanky dwarfs to suddenly skyrocketing and running wild across the land to picked apart at all sides desperate for all these dickheads who are angry at me for no good reason to give me a moment to catch my breath so I can then turn around and crush them like the worthless scum they are. particularly azazel. fuck that guy
it's real fuckin good
update for the ongoing tale of my orc campaign, I survived the onslaught enough to succeed in a waaaagh at almost the last second but now oh fuck where did all these fucking dwarfs come from?
I've fallen back into the mountains from whence I came, and eradicated the first nomadic horde of dwarf colonizers to sully my lands, but now I've lost a waaaaagh and I'm penniless and hemorrhaging troops as I brace myself for wave 2 and 3 of angry dwarf civilizations trying to manifest destiny our home. Things are dire. Me and the ladz are holding on for dear life.
also azazel is still a dick fuck that guy I hope once I am able to turn things around that he will still be alive so I can end him for good
we fought off wave after wave after wave of dwarfs, sandwiched between 2 dwarf super powers we valiantly took every punch they threw at us and punched them back. Even as desperate as things seemed I thought I could see a path to glorious victory ahead. but while I was heroically fighting off a dozen dwarf armies to the southwest the cowards of cathay snuck an army from the east and defiled my capital before I could possibly respond. That blow was fatal, as it crippled my ability to rebuild an army capable of punching back against the myriad enemies at more doorstep any longer. With our dying breath we declared war on the world and fought to the bitter end.
-
************dlc
got around to going through the scales dlc with my nephew and orcs must die continues to be a good time
-
************
this game is real good, the bosses were tough and fun
it should have been called metroid pissed because samus a metroid and samus is pissed
-
************
I am the queen of the cult of pleasure and I've expanded speedily and greedily. I've wiped out some skaven and now am about to finish off some wood elves. I assume as we are the cult of pleasure we're having lots of fun orgies along the way.
my conquests have not been going over well with the people at large despite the aforementioned very fun orgies I'd be more than happy to invite them to, so there have been several rebellions but hey that just gives me the chance to gather more slaves for the slave pits.
large update: my son tried to destroy me, around the same time the snotty high elves got a bit bold from their neck pillow shaped island off the coast, some european colonizers and the lizard people in fantasy central and south america decided to try and get in on the action thinking there was blood in the water too, roaming armies and rebellions continued to buzz around like flies, and to top it all off for good measure the fucking angry dwarfs once again popped up out of nowhere and took hold of fantasy california to be a literal thorn in my side. However my son and the other dark elves collapsed to my onslaught, as did the high elves. After they were gone I dealt with my dwarf problem and I became a superpower in control of the land from definitely not mexico to not canada as well as most of neck pillow island. I turned my attention to the lizard people but more of the damn dwarfs and also the fantasy french started poking around the oceans thinking they could come steal my land. I decided to teach them a lesson and landed on not europe and punched them in the face pretty good. However it turns out they're all buddies along with the fantasy germans and when they get together en masse they can punch back pretty hard. I'm still holding on to my foothold of not europe, and I'm now attempting to make a second foothold and hopefully split their attention. All the while I'm making slow but steady progress down fantasy south america. i control everything north of brazil and bolivia now but lizard argentina and lizard chile are putting up a respectable resistance. though I think they're close to the breaking point. Once they're gone and the fantasy americas are under my complete control the damn french/german/dwarf coalition won't stand a damn chance.
Final update, glorious victory.
First I stomped the last bit of life out of the south american lizards. As I was finishing of the lizards I made an effort to befriend several of the factions that the dwarfs and fantasy europeans were at war with. With some assistance from the very stupid very very eager suicidal armies of my allies, the dreadfleet, the seducers of slaanesh, the gorequeen perverts etc etc, the dwarfs were kept busy and as soon as south america was free my full attention was free for european conquest and once that happened it was as I predicted they didn't stand a chance. I didn't come close to stressing my resources by the end of the game I was richer and more powerful than all the other factions of the world combined. Nobody is a threat to my empire. Anyone foolish enough to try to fight against me will be given the a swift and painful death.
I befriended the blessed dread faction and welcomed them into my flock through confederation giving me control of even more land and resources. Soon practically all the non lizard non high elf non european factions of the world were begging to be my friend. I graciously accepted their pleas for trade agreements and military alliances. I am not one who would step on the lowly ants who know their place.
The dwarfs and their friends, now fighting me from their east and west with nothing holding me back or distracting me, fell back or fell apart. Their best attempts at resistance were little more than a nuisance. For every pathetic army they muster I can field dozens. Every fresh general I call comes out with the skills of an experienced veteran. I can supply them with a full army of the fiercest troops in the blink of an eye. Europe was mine. The dwarf sttrongholds are mine. The world is mine. Long live the queen of pleasure. May the orgies never end.
epilogue
I finally did it. I achieved the long victory which is supposed to be the second easiest victory to get after the short victory but took me for fucking ever by finally wiping out the remaining snotty high elf factions who were hiding way the fuck far away in the indian ocean, as at around the same time morathi and lokhir met up to conquer the last piece of territory needed to link my empire upon which the sun never sets by land which also just so happened to be the last dwarf stronghold linked to ultimate victory not under my control by this point, and I also conquered my former orc homeland to cleanse it of the dwarfs, all of which I accidentally put myself in position to do over the course of like 3 final turns of this campaign. I honestly couldn't have written it more perfectly if I'd tried.
In my head canon this campaign and my first are linked. after my orc ladz died an angry and miserable death the dark elves came and wiped out every dwarf and conquered the world.
-
after a rough first day playin this with a group where we were playin on normal and struggled and failed to get through the very first mission for 3 hours it didn't seem like this was gonna be a long term thing but on subsequent attempts with a lower difficulty I think we're all getting the hang of it and having fun. we might actually be able to bump the difficulty back up now and do alright
I'm a tinkerer who can support but also has a lot of options because I seem to be able to bring more cards than anyone else's character and can accumulate experience extremely fast and do lots of damage from range to either individual characters or groups and even got tanky enough to soak up some damage so I feel like I accidentally chose the best starting character in the game. the tinkerer is somehow not universally considered an incredible character and I'm very confused as to what everyone else is doing wrong. I felt like I can do pretty much anything I want to do at any given point in time and come up with all sorts of crazy plans that work out great.
update
Rodney Dangerfield the tinkerer has retired to a quiet life of sadness and depression and getting no respect at all. now I'm on to a red guard which is a very different experience. as a group seems we went from "I don't know about this game" at the start to "fuckin gloomhaven hell yeah" as we've all gotten a better understanding of what the game actually wants you to do.
updated update
crimson vermillion the red guard had a highly successful career of hitting things and getting hit and has now gone to a farm upstate.
I'm now a demolitionist, the other class that is generally considered one of the worst in the game, because I was curious to see if I had a similar experience with as I did with the tinkerer. I don't love andrew dice-flay as much as I did rodney dangerfield but you know what I'm still feeling like I am doing great and having a good time. I have a mech suit. it's very good. I punch things pretty hard. I basically built the character so I have to rest as little as possible. The demolitionist class has some abilities that require very specific situations to work but when they do generally it's quite satisfying.
updated updated update i'm now mr dr quinn medicine woman the sawbones. probably my least favorite of the characters I've played so far? I feel like I don't do as much damage as I should be able to do. it's the first character where I feel like I'm doing less than I could be doing and when I try to do good things it doesn't go as well as I hoped.
-
smaller campaigns
round 3
I dabbled with the tomb kings for a bit to take a break from my dark elf conquest, they are definitely interesting. everything seems to take a very long time for them but I was trying to play far too aggressive with them and that was not a viable strategy. didn't make it far before returning to the elves. I will likely attempt to play them again at some point.
round 4
I am noctilus the pirate king and my dreadfleet spent about 100 turns simply eking out a meager and insignificant existence plundering shipwrecks and mysterious islands, fending off snotty elves and frustratingly large lizard people, never straying far from our home in the sea, claiming no territory, and living on the brink of utter ruin
However not entirely sure how it happened but after 100 turns of making absolutely no visible progress beyond technology and upgrading my own capital (and the incredibly high skill level of my first 3 pirate lords) like the tiny kid with a grudge who hit a massive growth spurt before his bullies I went from being picked on to now beating up the snotty elves and steamrolling over neck pillow land finally conquering and expanding razing and pillaging as I go becoming one of the most powerful factions currently in existence. Though there are definitely not rat men coming oh no what would make you think that you are wrong there are no rat men.
update oh no the ratmen do exist whomever could have seen this coming
but also angry dwarfs they most definitely are not. they seem to be pushovers actually hell now that the snotty elves have been dealt with and I am a superpower firmly secure on neck pillow island I could probably sit back and relax and let others exterminate the rat problem and coast to ultimate victory
round 5
I am the ingenious ikit claw of the skaven and you best be careful when taking on my armies because we have nukes. You know what kills a bunch of tanky dwarf fellas? a nuke.
we also have lots of fun missile units. I saw a lizardman army evaporate trying to charge me. Using a spell to freeze their wyverns in place and watching them melt as my troops unload bullets and whatnot on them was very satisfying. This is the most fun I've had with the actual battles. I didn't need to play many as the vampire pirates or the dark elves because my overwhelming armies were too much for most enemies to handle, and when I was the orcs they were far more stressful as I mostly fought to just not be completely destroyed by endless dwarf armies that had generals who were so god damn beefy. But now I'm droppin a nuke and my missile troops are firing away as the defenseless foes charge and I can call up ratmen anywhere I want to surprise a vulnerable unit. It's great!
I'm currently at war with the wood elves but want to be their friends. Meanwhile I'm currently friends with the vampire counts but they are all about to betray me and go crazy.
-
************
nice idea, maybe could have been a little less talky as I'm listening to a sob story on the radio while also stopping occasionally to read a diary and following the narrative and also trying to focus on the actual golf and making par and it all comes across as a little heavy handed and a bit much when perhaps a more minimal approach would have gotten the point across and been more digestible. And it probably could have used a mulligan option or the courses could have been designed so that you don't constantly accidentally hit your ball in a spot that sets you back. This is the only golf game I imagine that will ever exist where you'd rather miss out of bounds than get on the wrong platform because there's no penalty for hitting out of bounds you just rehit the ball from the spot you are at, but if you land on a platform that could put you like 8 shots away from getting back to the spot you are on.
-
tried this out with the nephew and he seemed nonplussed. It was fun but I suspect we won't play much more of it unless I talk him into doin a level a week or something.
-
************
a story driven puzzle platformer that feels like it perhaps was inspired by to the moon.
the idea behind it is interesting, lying to make someone feel better taken to the extreme but this has a very convoluted plot that basically needs to be spelled out at the end through a large exposition dump
the puzzles were ok. this is a game entirely built around puzzles where if you jump off a platform things change, maybe the platform you were on goes away or puts an annoying platform blocking your next jump in your way, or maybe landing on the new platform causes you to teleport or change the type of platforms. so you have to figure out how to jump to get from the start up over a wall on the other side. I enjoyed figuring them out well enough.
-
************
I started up a shogun 2 campaign at long last after years and years of thinkin I might want to dive back into total war after having skipped over it and jumping all the way to warhammer 3. hey turns out japan is tiny compared to warhammer world. At first it felt almost quaint. Until the battle to be shogun got super cutthroat and shit hit the fan. Then it became as intense as ever.
I'm the daimyo of the Takeda clan. We are very good with horsies.
I am very bad at battles and playing on hard. My clan initially started off slow in the game of musical chairs of claiming territory as other clans jumped way out ahead. Still I have managed to somehow take command of the northern(?) chunk of the island and in very good position to become the new shogun.
update: the match was struck when one of my allies declared war on me then all hell broke loose as all my other allies proceeded to get mad at me for some reason even though I was the defender not the aggressor. They were all oh wow you broke your vow when they declared war on you, how dare you so dishonorable. I tried desperately to maintain some friendships as I fought almost everyone.
The Hattori were the aggressors, powerful and rich and secure, they marched against me along with all their friends (many of whom were my former friends). even so I was able to push my border forward and gobble up territory until they massed what seemed like everything they had near kyoto, a full 2 stack and a third short stack, in total the largest army that I have seen by far. And one I did not have a force to equal.
As that fighting was going on I sent my daimyo off south down the mountains on the western coast to try and secure that route into my territory and pick off weak enemy land, but instead they became cut off from safety or reinforcements by many angry rebels and had to fight there way scorched earth style all the way down the coast until there was a split in the mountains and they could turn north again and head for kyoto. Early along the way a general rose from the ranks and became my daimyo's bestie, following along his mad journey around the mountains.
At some point I conquered so much that everyone went crazy and wanted to kill me and keeping any friends was no longer possible, every attempt to pacify only led to them accepting my very generous offers and then immediately turning around and declaring war on me again (yet I am the one who is considered dishonorable somehow). I was broke and surviving off of conquest, my infrastructure not up to the task of remaining stable in these trying times. And enemies even managed to slip a ship past me to drop an army off in my northern territory, right as my last remaining ally who had been my northern neighbor turned against me. Now I found myself in the position I feared most, war on both sides.
But I was able to scrape together enough troops to form one solid big ass army, and just as Hattori was about to make their big push with the massive combined force I stuck it in a ship and swung it up around behind their forward advance, threatening them enough that they panicked and turned their armies back, and the massive scary enemy force seemingly disintegrated as I turned the tables. I took advantage of the chaos brought on by rebels and enemies alike to pick them all apart and strengthen my position.
As they crumbled my daimyo and general made their last mad desperate dash for home with what little troops they had left. the daimyo was able to join up with my other armies but his friend the general appeared as though he would be lost behind enemy lines, somehow still managing to conquer several enemy strongholds as he went he found a path through rebels and enemies both to relative safety and reinforcements at long last. The story of that general yamadera ieyoshi who rose out of the ranks of obscurity and went on a desperate run along the mountains with my daimyo and made it home alive is quite fun, up there with the story of the rise of manius from my rome total war campaign.
However my enemies have once again managed to land an army behind my lines, this time it appears they are going straight at my capital. I need to spread my reinforcements out to my daimyo and general, ultimately fielding 4 strong armies. 2 will head to my capital hopefully able to keep it secure but if not to reclaim it as quickly as I can. The others, my daimyo at the head, will make a push for kyoto.
update: kyoto is mine and so is the shogunate. my accidental plan to claim the shogunate by causing so much harm and chaos destroying everything scorched earth style and leaving a trail of rebel armies in my wake made it so no one clan would have enough power it could stand against me, as my main enemies refused to conquer the rebels to consolidate their own power no matter how weak they were. My daimyo and his buddy the general now reinforced and well experienced captured kyoto and have been securing the area nearby. I think we are in control barring any nasty surprises.
Meanwhile my territory has been getting picked apart as rather than go for the capital as I feared the enemy armies plucked vulnerable provinces around the edges, but my brother and son in law the heir and son are now fielding armies and putting things back in order around our home province. My enemies are many but they do not unite against me, allowing me to pick them all off one at a time as none of them can single handedly field a force strong enough to challenge me. Japan could well be under my control soon.
final update: It was a bit more of a slog than I hoped but the Takeda clan is victorious at last.
For a while it was whack a mole as every province I captured was countered as an enemy or rebellious army captured one right back.
I was helped by at long last having some decent ninjas after years of dealing with inept ninjas who only succeeded at getting themselves killed. My ninjas assassinated many generals and heirs and even daimyos which brought mighty armies down to heel.
I also realized far too late that I could exempt a province from taxes, making it far more manageable to avoid frustrating rebellions popping up over and over again, allowing me to finally pacify my territory enough to build up my infrastructure.
After all was finished my daimyo who started from the bottom lived to become shogun and lived to see ultimate victory.
-
************
road to gehenna dlc
in keeping with my recent run of finally playing games I've had at the top of my to do list for a while I started playing the talos principle dlc and oh boy it is definitely not something that someone should play years and years after the main game. I have been able to remember and figure out enough to get through the main puzzles but the extra star puzzles are fucking rough. One took many hours of intense puzzlin before finally I figured out the order of operations to get everything I needed done with what I had available. they require knowledge of all the little tricks and techniques that I probably did know at one point in time after getting through the main game but only vaguely remembered at this point.
finished now, that was some real good puzzlin overall. the extra world puzzle piece puzzles were in particular quite excellent demonstrations of how clever the interactions between the devices could be and thus rather devious.
-
************
chaos dwarfs are here and they love to go do trucker convoys
I'm zhatan the black and I am running dwarftruckers incorporated like a literal military machine. I started off way up in the upper right corner of the map and had a very easy existence up there, nobody tried to come pick a fight so I started all the fights when and where I wanted. My corner is secure, my convoys are running nonstop, and things are good as I take on the northern provinces of grand cathay and expand my corner.
update the convoys keep a rollin and business is boomin
me and my old buddy lokhir fellhart of the blessed dread have taken all of cathay down from threat to minor nuisance as things are goin quite good for dwarftruckers inc
further update
my chaos dwarf brethren have been confederated and absorbed into my dwarftruckers empire and I am now a superpower of the world. only a couple dwarf settlements lay between me and long victory
final update
the orcs caught me by surprise with a biggest waaaaaaagh which delayed my attempt to wipe out the dwarfs by about 60 turns but I just killed the orcs as well as the dwarfs for my long and ultimate victory and now dwarftruckers inc will be able to send out convoys until the end of time
-
i couldn't stay away forever and i can also play it on my phone now
update they added ranked versus i am the top 2% (as of right now in this moment probably not for long)
-
************
goin goin back back to rapture
this game is alright! a perfectly solid excuse to see more of the rapture aesthetic which is still very good. now you're a big daddy and have a big fuckin drill that you drill into the face of big sisters and that's fun
also mildly amused how they made the villain a collectivist even though nothing she has done seems to be based on any socialist ideology, seems like they just wanted to be like communism also bad!
they finally have tied her commie ideology into her actions in a silly way, she's out to create an ultimate human aka a "utopian" because commies love super soldiers I guess
************
minerva's den
did I play bioshock 2 mostly so I could also finally play brad shoemaker's favorite dlc of 2010? probably
it was a very good rapture short story, with a much more emotional plot than the main game. Makes me wish there were more rapture short story games in existence as the setting seems to be good for that
I would probably still take shadow broker over this though
-
************
somewhat randomly decided to jump from one shoemaker favorite to another in the hopes I can finish this before I get my hands on zelda
first impression is the game seems really good, the story had a nice emotional opening, and it looks gorgeous
after finishing the game it was indeed quite good and gorgeous. the story part could have been better, it made some odd choices perhaps in an attempt to try to make things more messy and emotional that maybe weren't great
-
************
this game is fucking great and I love that the direction they went was here's breath of the wild x skyward sword x banjo kazooie nuts and bolts
the game itself was larger than botw and as a result I wound up not exploring every nook and cranny, particularly from the underworld area. but still damn good. also gannon was very creepy in this one.
-
I didn't really know what this game was until after I finished act 1 and realized just how much they made it more of a rogue lite. After seeing the act 1 boss the first time I thought I'd never beat it. but somehow had a run where my healer died in the final world and I thought about abandoning the run, but decided to press on and made it to the final inn relatively without trouble with my remaining characters, got a new character who was definitely not a healer, still considered abandoning the run but then said fuck it why not give the final boss a shot. and my party of leper dude, knight man, jester, and replacement grave robber lady actually steamrolled the final boss without much trouble. it helped that I had a trinket combination that gave my knight dude fuckin almost 80 health, and he was the only one who actually came close to dying.
then I learned that subsequent acts are kind like ascensions, they have different bosses, new areas, longer routes, and tougher enemies from the sounds of it.
so I reached the act 2 boss maybe the first or second time I attempted act 2, died, and then couldn't get back to it again for 30 somethin hours of game time later. This game is really good but also I have started the analogy of an abusive partner when discussing it. it just fucks me over at seemingly every opportunity and then occasionally is nice and I'm like "maybe things will be different now" and then starts fucking me over again. I feel like I have a streak of 6 or 7 boss fights at least where my first character to suffer a death blow attempt has died on the first fucking death blow despite my resistance being as high as it possibly could be on every character at this point. It's fucking infuriating. The bullshit quirks and negative relationships it can throw at you randomly before the final boss fight after you have any chance to do anything about it is also fucking infuriating. So much about this game is fucking infuriating. I hate it.
40 hours after beating act 1 I survived the act 2 boss, and I mean survived as despite losing a vital character to the first deathblow quickly into the fight I somehow was able to rack up enough status damage that at a certain point I was like fuck if I just have my one good character live through 3 or 4 more turns I can win this. Then on my second or third run act 3 run I reached the act 3 boss and it fucked me over yet again where the very first death blow killed my healer. I feel like if I could attempt that fight over with the same party I'd probably win 7 or 8 times out of 10 and if I survive that death blow maybe more. But instead without healing we just quickly fucking wiped and I don't want to spend another 40 hours throwing myself against this fucking torture failing to beat act 3.
But also the game is really fucking good and I want to play it. I just don't want it to fuck me over every chance it gets constantly. Especially when the odds seem to indicate I'm getting particularly fucked in some situations.
I have very mixed emotions here.
update
the bullshit death's door always seeming to kill my first character the first chance it gets keeps happening but after 30 more fuck you hours I made it through act 3 by the fuckin miracle of a highwayman hanging on for dear life all on his own, then practically breezed through act 4 on my first attempt as if the game was trying to make nice. Of course one of my characters in that successful run did die to the very first death blow I faced but his replacement and the rest of the party all knocked out the act 4 boss without much trouble.
got to the final final boss which had so much health. the fight went about an hour or more and I got it's final stage almost but not quite halfway down before my healer died and the rest of the party followed soon thereafter. think I'm all set with this one.
-
you can make custom aliases? go on...
didn't realize this game was a roguelike. That being the case actually seems to have put me off a bit in this instance as I stopped playing
-
horde mode is still fun
i still got to be a robotics expert
-
seemed like a neat board game and we had a not good time
-
they somehow made a more stylized persona game and it's still very good.
-
i played an hour of this and... meh
basically i pretty much immediately got stuck because i didn't notice a usable machine thing i needed to progress and ran around not sure what to do until i looked up a guide
-
************
words that come to mind when I describe this game
fine
adequate
sufficient
ok
acceptable
reasonable
certainly not disastrous, probably the best game in the series from a pure game design perspective I like the idea behind having a sort of job system where you can build your character in different ways though I am not taking advantage of it at all. Giving you access to what seems to be all the abilities regardless of any choice you make in character building was a cool idea. but I'm just min maxing the ones I had from the start.
playing after it has been presumably polished over the years means I haven't seen many of the weird animation or expression issues that were around at the start. my ryder broke her own neck during one conversation that's been it so far.
story and characters have been [see the above list of words]. I'm having an [see above list of words] time.
Load Comments