Holy man, what a treat to get to see an article from Greg Kasavin on Giant Bomb -- how cool is that!?
I love, love, love Bastion and Transistor (I wouldn't dare rank them either). I have 100% achievements in both games (I played Transistor in two back-to-back 8 hour sessions (two playthroughs, consecutive days) in order to 100% that game!). Production quality on those games is godlike, top to bottom -- writing, story, music, art, systems, mechanics, control, those games both crafted really distinct presentation which left a major impact on me; games I will never forget. Thanks for taking a chance on development, Greg -- it changed my life. :)
While the mechanics are sound and interesting, it's a game released in 2015 at a 4:3 aspect ratio, and a 30fps lock using the GameMaker engine (with all of the quirky business that affords). I'd been following the game for a year, waiting for it to be finished (I've learned not to burn myself out on pre-release/Early Access). They announced release at PSX, so I rushed to Steam to buy it.
The first five minutes of the game were spent fighting with control configuration, and the quirky gamepad support -- the game was confused between keyboard/mouse and gamepad input, and would overlay both button prompts on top of each other. Not only that, the default movement keys were the arrow keys (not WASD). Changing to WASD was a weird experience that didn't work the first two times I tried. Once I got into the game, input latency was too noticeable to be forgiveable, with or without gamepad.
I love Vlambeer's games; they are always tight, mechanically interesting games. After Luftrausers, I didn't think 30fps would matter, 'cause that game still felt pretty smooth. Nuclear Throne did not -- I don't know if it is just the genre/style of the game, but I just don't enjoy playing it, despite how fun and interesting the mechanics and depth are -- it just doesn't perform well, and feels sloppy to control. So disappointed by their needlessly "retro" approach to tech here; it really does the game an injustice.
Look, I understand if you want to raise awareness for your Premium membership sale to existing premium members. It can be legitimately useful for those that don't visit the site regularly or notice the site header ad, but please make it extremely short; deliver the information without making it sound like an ad, otherwise please leave it out entirely. I had to relaunch the web page to make sure I didn't download the wrong edition of the podcast, because the delivery of the information seemed that unnatural for the premium podcast. Thanks, guys.
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