This week, my backlog took a backseat so I could enjoy two new releases. Well, technically only one, but I don't have an Xbox One, effectively making both of these new releases.
Holy cow, what a game. It's rare for me to play for long stretches of time, but The Witness hooked me pretty much as soon as I got my hands on it. Well, it kind of hooked me before I even started playing, thanks to the quick look and review hype. I don't really have much to say about this game that hasn't been stated a thousand times already, but man. I love the hell out of this game. It took me about 24 hours to complete the game, which upon reflection is kind of weird. If I play a game for 24 hours, it's usually over the course of two or three weeks.
This was my game to wind down with, before I started pulling my hair out (well, if I had any) due to puzzle frustration. I haven't put as much time into this one, but from my 5 or so hours with it, it seems to be hitting all the right notes. It's hard to say if the story is going to work out well, but that's not really why I play this game (and why I really liked the last game). The traversal is kind of what I like the most, even if it's not nearly as fleshed out as something like Assassin's Creed. What this has though is level design that's tightly focused, which leads to almost every moment looking really cool. I'm digging it, and I'm probably gonna use next week to finish this up before Firewatch comes out.
Another week of chewing through my backlog. I'm not doing terribly good job, seeing as I can't generally find the time to play more than 3-4 games a week. Nonetheless, here are some games I played this week and my thoughts on them.
Last week, I pondered whether I like adventure games or not. Turns out I really do like them, especially when they're this good. I'm pretty new to the genre (my first foray into this since childhood was pretty much Broken Age last year), having only played a handful of the "modern" adventure games. I started thinking about maybe playing this game when Vinny kept going on about how good The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is. HumbleBundle had a sale this week, where both this game and the sequel were heavily discounted, so I thought I might as well give it a shot and start from the beginning. I'm super glad I did! There's a lot to like about this game; the inventory management isn't of the standard that I've heard comes with the genre. Rather, using items in your inventory with other stuff is pretty easy and straight-forward. I liked having the option highlight items on a given screen which may be of use to me in a puzzle. The puzzles themselves were for the most part fun and not too far out there. The game is laid on a pretty logical foundation, something I've thought a lot of other adventure games don't do well. Often, as soon as I found an item I had a pretty good understanding of what I needed to do with it. The game is divided into 5 chapters, and you play as a varied cast of characters, either on their own or as a posse. The final chapter I found REALLY clever. I don't know how commonly narrative devices like this are employed, but seeing it for the first time was definitely cool. I'm really looking forward to the sequel.
I think I tried this game a couple years ago, but never gave it too much thought. There was seemingly way too much to get into and understand and, frankly, I didn't have the patience for it at the time. TotalBiscuit recently made a video explaining some of the basics and what the game IS, and seeing as it is free-to-play, I decided to give it a go. I played for about 4 hours in short burst sessions, and so far have not reached a level where I find the "goals" fun or achievable in any way. The game presents itself as a loot-driven game, where you can level up items. Items with the highest level show up in your profile as "complete", and there are corresponding meters to fill up. Seemingly, the aim is to collect every item in the game and "complete" it by leveling it up. The problem is, getting those items is a real chore if you don't want to cough up the cash for it. First you have to get a blueprint, then grind out some materials by doing missions on different planets, and then the actual assembling process has a long wait-time associated with it (I saw a case where the crafting time was 3 days, which is utterly ridiculous). I don't know if this is a game I'll play extensively, but I find the core gameplay satisfying and fun so I can definitely see myself coming back to it every now and then to kill some aliens. Also worth mentioning, for the 4 or so hours I've played this game, I haven't been able to get ANYTHING other than the starter warframes (character classes, basically) or weapons.
Last week I was sort of on board the Dragon Age II-train. This week, not so much. The few times I played the game this week were sort of forced sessions, where I told myself I just had to keep going to see where the story went. After about 4 or so sessions like that in a row, I'm not sure if this is a game I'll play to completion. I've played about 14 hours, which according to HowLongToBeat is not even the half-way point. It's a shame, 'cause the world they've built is really cool. I just don't care at all for the story being told, or for any of the characters.
I can never make my mind up as to whether I like adventure games or not. That perception was challenged once again, and swung both ways for the 9 or so hours it took me to complete the two chapters that have been released so far for King's Quest. For the first chapter, I found solving the puzzles really fun and the solutions to them were mostly logical. The funny writing and nice-looking art style certainly helped in that regard. It was too bad I couldn't get into the second episode at all. I resorted to playing it with a guide on my phone, because the puzzles started to get really convoluted. I also wasn't a fan of the way things went because of the game not explaining anything, where I was stuck with the "worst" outcome because I fumbled around not knowing what to do. I do hope it picks up again in the future episodes though, because the foundation is pretty solid.
I had a strange feeling while playing through this game. Like I wasn't supposed to be there. And that was exciting. But after its conclusion, I was somewhat disappointed. As has become a recent trend, this game has foregone gameplay mechanics almost completely in favor of pure narrative. While the story being told was somewhat predictable, I still enjoyed it, but I feel like the value proposition will turn some people off.
After watching Brad and Vinny play The Room 3 on the quicklook, I decided to check this series out for myself, having never played it before. And I was blown away. God damn. This is a game that is able to have puzzles that are really cleverly made, but also make you feel really smart when figuring out the solutions. I enjoyed the simplistic nature of it, where I knew that everything I needed to solve this puzzle was within my sight. I breezed through the game in one sitting and was completely bummed out to realize that neither The Room 2 or 3 have made their way to PC. It's a shame. Nonetheless, I'm really happy to have had this experience.
This game doesn't seem to be getting a lot of love on the internet. I don't know, maybe it's because it's been like 7 years since I played the original and never gotten to it before now, but I think there's something to it. Granted, I've only played for about 7 hours and mostly done side-quests, but even those are interesting, so far. I wonder if the game will run out of steam before I've seen the story through, but so far the combat's been interesting, the talky bits have been interesting and the world is interesting. I'm excited to see where it goes.
I played some video games this week. A lot more than I usually do! And for the first time since the conception of this blog I actually have a new release to talk about (That Dragon, Cancer), but mostly this week has just been more of me digging through my backlog. Other than the games below, I also played Emily is Away, which I thought was a neat little thing, and Princess Remedy, which I quite enjoyed.
Wow. This is a heavy game. Since the game just came out today I don't want to touch on too many specifics as far as the story is concerned, other than that this is a story about a family dealing with the harsh realities of cancer, but I want to talk about how the story is told. The game is split up into several disjointed vignettes that each focus on something different, whether it be a playful day at the park or a hellish night at the hospital. Interspersed among these mundane (although very effective) scenes are scenes more fantastical in nature, where we (the players) are treated to a lot of gorgeous scenery and somewhat abstract metaphors for different concepts. There are certainly issues with That Dragon, Cancer as a game, but that's really not why I played it in the first place. It's not a "page-turner" in the usual sense of the word but it kind of strings you along without letting go. It's hard to describe, but I'm trying my best not to give too much away. Honestly, you should just play it for yourself.
After having soured on this somewhat in the weeks prior (due to the repetitive nature of the quests and the drab environments in the middle part of this game) I decided to just push through and try to finish this game. Which I did, and boy am I glad I did. It's a shame that the game grinds to a halt in that middle section, because the third act of this game switches it up so frequently it's almost hard to keep up. There's a third person shooter section which isn't great, but the environment in which it takes place is cool, and a nice callback to the first game in the series. The angelic/demonic environments are a really cool way to end the game. The core gameplay was still fun up until the very end, so I decided to play through the DLC packs (which came bundled with the Deathinitive Edition) and enjoyed those as well. Both the environments and their use of specific puzzle mechanics. I'm happy I saw it through that rough patch.
To me, Shovel Knight was completely unsurprising. I came into it expecting to love it, and came out of it loving it. It just has that extra something that now I'm finding a very hard time putting my finger on. The movement feels good, the pogo-jumping feels great and everything just looks and sounds so good.
Holy cow, this is a pretty-looking game.While there's definitely some enjoyment to be had in the way the puzzles work (which I'll touch on in a minute), there's so much stuff between all the good parts that it sometimes feels like a slog, even though I completed the game in about 4 hours. The good parts are the actual puzzles, which usually consist of you having to investigate an area, put items in certain places and then having a vision of the past which you then have to engage with. It's neat. But there's a LOT of just walking around, and a lot of obtuse adventure game logic. Still though, on the whole, I quite enjoyed it.
I think this game is a real bummer. Not because I think it's bad; in fact I think the core game is really sound. But I'm having such a hard time using the Wiimote for longer than 30 minutes, my wrists just won't allow it, which is a weird problem to be having with a game. The input method being a limiting factor for how much I can play this game (and consequently how much I want to play the game) really sucks. I suspect I'll be checking in on it from time to time in the coming months.
It's a brand new year! Which for video games means that stuff I want to play isn't being released yet. So, once again (all I've been doing for the duration of my blog posts) I'm reaching into my backlog. This week though, I've done a lot of comfort food gaming. I've played a LOT of Hearthstone and some Mario Maker, which to me are games I can check up on whenever I want to (or in the case of Hearthstone, every day). Oh, and I also finished Ocarina of Time. Woo!
I finally did it! I finished a Legend of Zelda game. This is the first one (my only experiences with Zelda prior to this was a good chunk of Link to the Past and a few hours of Wind Waker), so I still had never faced Ganon or seen the Sheik reveal. It was cool. The dungeons that were left after last week were the Spirit Temple and Ganon's Castle, which didn't really take very long (other than me dying to the final Ganon fight, and the fact that the "corpse run" so to speak was very long) and was a great deal of fun. This has kind of sparked my interest in playing the rest of the Zelda franchise, and I think I might do so. Really happy with my experience.
After hearing the crew discuss this at length on their Game of the Year deliberations, I decided to fire it up again after not having played this for a few weeks (months?), and I was really stoked! There were a lot of new event courses to play (and costumes to unlock), a bunch of new Nintendo-made levels and the Super Mario Maker Bookmark tool to filter through levels. All the levels I've found through there have been really good, and the system itself is really easy to use and very functional.
Man, this game is fun! I've only played this for like 2 hours, and still have a lot of things to learn but this game is REALLY fun. It's in early access, so a lot of "features" aren't there yet, but the core of this game is to complete an objective (kill these people, destroy these buildings, etc) by building a vehicle/structure/thing from scratch and by using different materials and objects. I made a functioning spinning flamethrower on wheels, which was pretty fun. The craziest part though has been watching Youtube videos of this game where people are building the craziest shit. Man, what a crazy game.
All of a sudden, I pretty much stopped playing video games. I didn't even open up a video game on my PC, but I did manage to pick away at a few of the things from previous weeks, as well as mess with a few mobile games.
This game is pretty cool. It's a 2D dungeon crawlingroguelike, with very limited control options. I thought it was cool the way the tutorials worked. It took me 45-60 minutes to get through them, because they didn't utter a single word of advice on how to proceed with anything. They just slowly introduced the mechanics one by one, and by the end of it I felt like I had really made some progress. The downer part of that is.. that's also when I stopped caring about the game. There are no more structured levels, just procedurally generated endless levels. From the UI, it seems like there is a campaign coming, and if it ever shows up, I'm gonna be all over that. Oh, and it's on iOS/Android, which shouldn't matter because the foundation here is really strong, building on the strengths and weaknesses of the touch interface.
I feel like I'm getting close to the end. I've put about 25 hours into it, and since last week I've completed the Fire Temple, the Shadow Temple and Gerudo Fortress. I continue to enjoy it (other than that stupid stealth sequence in Gerudo Fortress), and am really looking forward to finishing it and moving on to other Zelda titles that I haven't played (Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Link Between Worlds).
I played through all of the seven games in this neat little package, and was pleasantly surprised by many of them. The one that stood out to me the most might be the one that is the least inventive though, but the NES-like exploration platformer Super Clew Land definitely grabbed me with its charm. The unique game mechanic in this game is that you evolve (and gain new abilities) by playing a mini-game where you have to match different colored blocks. It's neat! I didn't finish it, nor any other game in the package, but I fooled around with them for a few hours. And that's okay, I didn't necessarily feel like I didn't get my value.
Initially, I didn't get all the criticism this game got. Sure, there was a lot of stuff to do in sets of 3 that got old pretty quick, but the core game was still fun, I thought. A few hours later, and it really is starting to lose its charm. I still feel like I'm gonna see this through to the end, but I'm not feeling it the way I used to. It might have to do with the environment; the second world (the realm of the dead) isn't nearly as fun to run around in as the first sprawling forest-y area, and the visuals of the dungeons are nowhere near as fun. Undead crypts are no match for places like the Drenchfort or the Foundry.
I've been playing Ocarina of Time 3D from time to time for this past month, but this week is where I started playing a LOT of it again. I did the Forest Temple, the Water Temple and the early parts of the Fire Temple, and been having a LOT of fun with it. Even the dreaded Water Temple was fun (though that might have had to do with the updated 3DS mechanics). I don't really know what else there is to say about this game other than that it's a really good game, even for somebody who never played the original all those years ago.
I still have some hold-overs from previous weeks that I still haven't finished (Trine 2, Ocarina of Time 3D and Picross e), but I didn't really play enough of any of them this week. What I DID dig deep into on the other hand was Darksiders II, among other things! I'm kind of enjoying this lull in new releases that interest me that lets me dig into my backlog.
I've always had a curious relationship with Dark Souls. I bought it for the 360 when it came out, and played a bunch of it with a friend of mine (up until the Gaping Dragon) but we've since moved apart and I never picked it up again after that. Until recently that is, where I ran through the early parts of the game, killed Quelaag (and rang the second bell), but the game has started crashing like crazy within a few minutes of loading the game up, so I'm not entirely sure what to do about this. This might be one of those cases where I just skip this entry and go ahead and play some Dark Souls II in preparation for the release of Dark Souls III in April. Anyway, it's too bad, 'cause I really fundamentally enjoy this game. I love the look and feel of it, and the slow and deliberate pace, but crashes aside, it runs really poorly on PC even after DSFix (slow framerate, controller issues, etc). I loaded up Dark Souls II real quick just to compare how they ran, and they're miles apart. Then there's also the fact that I keep hearing that Dark Souls II isn't nearly as good as the first one, so I'm really torn on this situation. Guess we'll just have to see how it all shakes out.
I really liked Black Flag, but stopped playing after I ran into a wall where I couldn't progress before upgrading my ship some more (about 10-15 hours in), so I thought to myself that I'd had my fill. I was excited about Freedom Cry going in, but I just couldn't get myself to play more than an hour of it. I thought the new character and the story that would come with him would be enough to keep me going, but it's still just more Assassin's Creed, of which I'm experiencing heavy fatigue. I still haven't tried Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, and I'm hearing a lot of good things about that one, so that might be the one to hook me again.
This is the big one for this week! I've played about 12 hours so far, and I'm really digging it! Again, this is one of those games that I bought and played when it first came out but for some reason never finished. I thought the Deathinitive Edition (silly names aside) would be a good reason to check it out again, and I don't regret a second of it. It looks and feels really great, and it's kinda fun playing a Zelda game while I'm playing an actual Zelda game (Ocarina of Time 3D) on the side. So far, there's nothing about the way the game plays I don't like, both the combat and the traversal is really fun. What I've started noticing though is the endless quests comprised of picking up THREE items. Collect 3 souls, 3 stones, 3 skulls, it just never stops. All that said though, I'm still really enjoying it and looking forward to playing a lot more of it.
2015 has been a fantastic year for games. We have most definitely had some real heavy hitters, but a lot of great indies have graced us with their presence as well. There are some notable omissions, but they might be because I didn't play them. So without further ado, let's get on with the list!
While I didn't fall as deep as others have into the wonderful hole that is Rocket League, I have definitely highly enjoyed my time with it. It showed us that sports games can provide something fresh and appealing to us, the core gamer audience.
Episodic games (especially of the Telltale variety) have been plentiful this year and despite some fatigue starting to set in with this kind of game, the witty writing and terrific voice-work really elevate this game to something else. There were a LOT of memorable and great characters, which was not something I would typically expect out of a game set in the Borderlands universe (which overall has not resonated with me).
Undertale was a really special game to me. The actual story was pretty cookie-cutter, but the setting and the lore behind this game really spoke to me. I was not aware of the intricacies of the combat system until I started playing this, and the twist was REALLY cool, feeding into the nature of the creatures you happen to be fighting. There is something to be said for its brevity as well, clocking in at about 6 hours which to me was the perfect length for this type of game.
This is a controversial one. I enjoyed the first 10 or so hours of this game, but started quickly falling off after the repetitiveness started to set in. This game feels great, looks great and just is a marvel to play, but the thin story did nothing to get its hooks in me and as previously stated, the mission variety did not, to me, warrant a 100 hour playthrough.
If for some reason you haven't played Her Story, I would definitely recommend you go play it right now. I pretty much "finished" it in one sitting and holy cow, this game goes some places. Sam Barlow did a stellar job with the script, and Viva Seifert absolutely killed it with her performance. Writing aside, the actual mechanics of the game are really clever and really makes you feel like a detective.
Sure, this is "another one of those". But damn if it isn't one of the best-looking, best-playing Metroid-vania style games around. This game definitely has some neat ideas of its own, and the brutal difficulty ramp provides a great challenge.
I'm really conflicted on this game. While it is more Batman (and I love me some Batman), the joy of assuming the mantle of the Caped Crusader is somewhat marred by the mere presence of the Batmobile, which is forcibly shoved down the player's throat. All this aside, I still had a fun time in Gotham this time around, though I'm somewhat relieved by the knowledge that this might be the last Batman game to come out of Rocksteady Studios as I'm not sure if I would come back for another installment.
I never thought I'd rank an episodic adventure game á la Telltale this highly, but Life Is Strange certainly grabbed me and didn't let go until the conclusion some 15 hours later. I'm a sucker for time travel stories, and this is a well-written and well-told one. Sure, the acting sometimes falls a bit short, but that's something I can easily see past for all the neatness that lies inside.
This bundle of joy is the sole reason I purchased a Wii U! It's been a long time since a game has made me stay up until 5 AM without realizing what time it was. The creation tools work exactly as one would think they would, and while the filtering and searching options for stages are.. not really there, there are still some immensely fun times to be had with this game.
For better or worse, this game might be the one that triggered my open-world fatigue. I wandered about the map for ages trying to hunt down every little side quest I could find, because of how well written they are. CD Projekt Red has done something special in realizing this world, filling it with all manner of personality and quirks. It also might bear mentioning that I played through the Witcher 1 and 2 in like a month in anticipation of this, and it really feels like a step up from the previous games. It's more of everything that I liked, less of the things I didn't like, bundled up in a carefully, lovingly crafted package. This game is absolutely phenomenal.
What a cool game this is. I played it all in one sitting (about 3 hours), and while there are a lot of problems with it, I really enjoyed it. The character controls kind of weirdly and the puzzles sometimes got a bit obtuse, so I opted to having a guide open on my phone while I played through it. I don't feel like that detracted from any of my enjoyment of the story that was told, though. I really liked the setting and the characters, and the final twist was really cool to see, even if it was spoiled to me beforehand. And the visuals fit the story so well! I saw they're working on a sequel, which I will happily play.
I'm kind of torn on my feelings on this game. I'm nowhere near finishing it, but I find it hard to want to come back to. There aren't any story hooks to speak of, and while the game looks really pretty, the platforming feels floaty and the puzzles not that satisfying or obvious what you're even supposed to do (admittedly, that may be down to user error). The combat feels fun, even if it is kind of button-mashy. At the point where I'm at though, there hasn't been enough of it for me. Again, this is a gorgeous game, even 4 years after its release, but still.. I don't know if I'm gonna come back to this one.
I'm new to the picross genre, but I found the format of the puzzles really fun. That being said though, what a load of horse-shit this game is. It bills itself as a free-to-start game, which I guess is accurate since the required amount of the currency required to unlock all the areas is higher than what can be found in the stages. The energy meter is bullshit and there are too many traps to fall into as far as the currency is concerned. Still, it was really fun for those 4-5 hours where I didn't have to deal with that mess. Instead, I opted out of this game to play another picross game, which was definitely bettter.
After being fed up with the f2p mechanics of Pokémon Picross I decided to buy this since it was the equivalent of $6.00 on the eshop. And from the get-go, this has been a much better experience. No gating of the puzzles, and the Pokémon mechanics of Pokémon Picross kind of muddled the puzzle experience so I thought this was strictly better in a puzzle sense. I haven't played a whole lot of it, but it's been really fun so far.
Log in to comment