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Portal Stories: Mel (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 26th, 2024 at 17:11:51) |
I had some Portal 2 mod sitting in my Steam library and then saw some other one released recently that was highly, highly reviewed. I thought, "I wonder what are some other fully self-contained Portal story mods with great reviews," and Portal Stories: Mel jumped out. Downloaded it, played it. It's ridiculously impressive, basically a full prequel to Portal 2. But man, is it challenging! I made it most of the way through without using a walkthrough, but eventually caved in and then relied on it to solve four or five levels. Initially, I had luck putting the game down and coming back to it later, seeing the puzzles fresh, but after a while that quit working.
It's hard in part because it begins where the difficulty in Portal 2 ended. It's a full game, but not in terms of introducing mechanics. That is to say, it doesn't introduce mechanics. It assumes you know everything and are a portal genius. That's fine as a mod. So its puzzles are difficult, and they are really clever. You have to learn new tricks, not used in previous Portal games, that it doesn't teach you. You just have to figure out, for example, that "destroying a cube" is occasionally what you need to do to solve a puzzle. It never would have crossed my mind that I would need to purposefully destroy a cube for any reason, but it pulls that trick a few times. Other times, you need to move a cube from afar using an excursion funnel. In the second level I caved in for the walkthrough, you combine these tricks, using an excursion funnel to destroy a cube, so that you can get a new cube in a different spot.
In the third level I used a walkthrough for, there is actually a decoy button and panel that you don’t need at all. I spent a lot of time messing with that button and panel! That level honestly felt mean! There is also some guesswork involved in some levels in shooting a portal where you can’t see, which was also kind of a mean trick. One trick (that I figured out, go me!) that I saw a lot of people stuck on involved sliding a cube down a slope to break the paths of a series of lasers, which opened up a series of red laser grids so that you could get to the next area. That one took a while because, annoyingly, you have to slide the cube down the slope and get it to land in a portal. You have to open the other portal after you pass the red laser grids and get the cube. But getting the cube to slide into a good spot to be able to pick it up was a pain. All these super hard levels made me feel brilliant when I solved them (typical Portal!), and like an idiot when I saw the solution online ("Ah, of course!" Or actually in this game's case sometimes, "What the hell?!?").
The story and production values are great. You play as another test subject, there is another maintenance core, and there is another AI trying to kill you. It's a direct prequel to Portal 2, which you learn after the credits. Very cool. If you're a Portal fan, it's worth playing, but just know that it'll really test you!
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Wandersong (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 26th, 2024 at 16:46:54) |
This was a freebie from somewhere or another, and it is totally worth playing. I picked it up because it looked like it had an interesting "singing" mechanic. You use the right stick to navigate an action wheel, where each of eight directions is represented by a color and produces a note. Your character is a bard, so you're basically singing with the right stick. It's pretty simple, but it is implemented in a variety of ways throughout the game. For example, you don't select dialogue options like in most games. You use the right stick to choose the option on the action wheel and the bard "sings" the dialogue option, one click on the wheel per syllable. So, "I'm a singing bard" would be like right, right, left, up, down-right. For dialogue, it doesn't matter which notes you sing, just sing the syllables. Other times, you'll have to match colors like in a typical rhythm game, or during some very cool boss fights sing notes according to colors of projectiles and environmental cues. Like I said, it's not terribly difficult, but it is such a different take on how a character interacts with the game world, and it's done in such a playful way, that it's consistently fun. I smiled through most of the game.
The entire game has a playful tone, not just the singing mechanic. The story itself plays with the typical RPG hero narrative. You aren't a hero; you're an overly positive little bard who thinks he can sing a song to save the world. There is a hero with a giant sword who calls lightning from the sky, and constantly foils your adventure, saving the world in the traditional way by killing all the bosses, but she's a jerk. The game is all about "believing in yourself" and "friendship" and "being positive" and etc. In most RPGs, you learn special moves, gain equipment to better kill enemies, get money (the bard never has any money), and so on. What does the bard find hidden throughout his adventures? A man in a mask who teaches him dances. Very silly dances. What purpose do the dances serve? None whatsoever, except to entertain you. You can dance-walk (instead of regular walk) at any time, and it is pretty funny.
The writing is also consistently funny, and there are many characters to meet. The game is broken up into seven acts, some of which are more interesting than others. They generally have a "talk to all the people" phase, then a "complete the area (side)quests" phase, then a "puzzle platform" phase, then an encounter of some sort with a fairy or a boss or the hero or someone. Admittedly, there is a lot of dialogue, and yes, I read all of it because it's good. But the characters are talkative. And admittedly the quests are not always that exciting. And admittedly the puzzle platforming leaves something to be desired in terms of how well the bard controls and in terms of length (they almost always feel too long). But damn if the whole package isn't a 9 out of 10!
It's definitely a little rough around the edges, which only added to its charm for me. The bard sometimes glitched into the terrain, so I'd have to exit and re-enter a screen. The pirate ship occasionally just refused to move in one act. Also, for some reason, when the camera was zoomed out, the dialogue could become unreadable. I assumed this had to do with the fact that the game ran in a low resolution on a TV, but it was the same on my laptop. I've watched videos where it looks fine for other people. I mean, it was like 1% of scenes that were unreadable. Most were fine, and at worst, some scenes were like looking at one of those "did u kno u can raed tihs senentce bceause the frist and lsat ltetrs are the smae??" things, which was...honestly kind of fun, like word puzzles. Obviously not ideal, but it didn't detract from how much I liked the game.
So, a big hit for me that I never would have heard of had it not been offered for free. Definitely recommend for those who like RPGs and quirky indie games.
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Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (PS4) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:26:13) |
This game is way more interesting than I initially gave it credit for (and I might even play all the cases, I'm that curious!)
There's a bunch of cases, you're Sherlock and you gather clues, investigate locations, use your special "eyesight", interrogate suspects, and more. So far, this is what you'd expect.
Some clues become more important and they show up in your "brain" where you can pair it up with another clue (if it's the correct one) to deduce something. Once you have enough of those, you can reach a conclusion. ALSO, once you've reached a conclusion you can decide how to act on it (usually it's either call the cops or call Mycroft - i think...).
What's really wild is that in the brain-connecting clues interface, you can reach lots of different conclusions! (I think it's 4 per case, at least it has been that so far and I've completed two cases). OH! And, as far as I can tell, the you can get it wrong! And, you just move on...the game calls some of them moral choices - which I'm confused by. But the idea that you could arrive at an incorrect conclusion and the game just moves on to the next case is pretty wild. So far, I've gotten both right (because there's abutton you can press that even warns you - like "spoiler alert" and it shows my result in green - which I assume is that I got it right).
Anyways, that's super cool!
Oh, and the game haslots of little mini-games that you play once, and they're part of the story (e.g. taking sherlock's pulse, or arm-wrestling with a sailor)..
The 2nd case is pretty neat - it takes place in the UK, there's a missing train...and there are rich Chilean (and Mexican) businessmen involved! Whoah.
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Fights in Tight Spaces (PC) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:19:38) |
This one's a bit weird and I'll confess I didn't play it that much (just played one mission - which is like 1/5 of a full run?). It looks like it wants to be SuperHot, but it isn't - that's ok. But, it has a "play the movie" of what you just did in a level that you would think would play fast and smooth and super action-y. But now, it's slow and it even pauses between card plays...so it looks rather boring, which is a real shame.
As for the game, there's interesting stuff going on, but I haven't fully understood everything:
a. There's a typical energy system for casting, but a secondary system (combo) that lets you play some cards with a combo cost. If you move in your turn you lose combo so it's sometimes tricky to get everything to pull off.
b. While playing I was disappointed (because it seemed unfair) that there are objectives (bonus ones) in each level - and I wasn't getting any because I didn't know what they were! Apparently they're actually shown on screen, but in a place I did not see or notice.
c. The game seemed a bit slow - I was just moving and getting out of the way as I waited to draw into a good hand of cards. This cuts the momentum for sure and also made it hard/impossible to accidentally hit the secret (not really secret) objectives. So, I'm curious to go back and try again with awareness of the objectives. They should help a lot - in that I'm more likely to try to "solve the puzzle" of each turn and hopefully get the bonus objectives.
d. It's strange that you have to pay to heal, but I thought it was neat that you can upgrade several cards (if you have the money) and that some cards are cheap to upgrade - there's different pricing for them!
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Hadean Tactics (PC) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:11:34) |
Ok, I've now cleared the game (not unlocked everything, of course) and it really is quite fun and interesting. The 3rd character (which I was waiting on to try out because I wanted to clear the game with the 2nd one) is pretty neat as well though as I write this all I can really remember is that it has an orb mechanic similar to one of the characters in Slay the Spire.
The harder ending is basically another 3 levels, but they get shorter! The last one, if I remember correctly, is just the boss. I don't remember what deck I was running, but it was pretty good - in the sense that I had picked up some good combos..traps and all.
I'm going to stop playing, for now, mostly because the list of games too look at keeps on growing - one a week - because of the design seminar I'm teaching.
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if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
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2158 registered gamers and 3105 games. 7607 GameLogs with 13098 journal entries. 5072 games are currently being played.
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Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) by ETA |
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most recent entry: Friday 25 January, 2008
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Entry #2:
GAMEPLAY:
After spending yet another hour with SotC I must say that the games flaws are definitely out shining everything it does right at this point. The navigation is simply horrible, and I am not just talking about the “navigate by sword” feature (which is horrible too mind you). The combination of constantly fighting the camera and a bleak, more or less featureless landscape make finding where I am suppose to go a burden. The map (access via the pause menu) might as well just not be there because it provides no help at all
Once I do eventually find where I am suppose to go things don’t get much easier. What I am supposed to do and how I am supposed to do it is never very clear in this game. And I am not sure if that is intentional or not? Coming to a giant swamp with a big “tower” looking thing with some obvious ramps in the middle scream “climb me!”. So naturally you do, but once at the top you have to navigate a series of jumps are not very obvious. The slow, slightly unresponsive controls and god awful camera don’t help making this pin point jumps any easier.
Once you finally do get to a boss/level (since they are pretty much one in the same in this game) the fun finally starts. But in my little over one hour of play I only got the chance to have one fight! The rest of that time was spent trying to find my way and doing other tasks that made me want to turn the game off and not even bother with it.
The battle itself was fun once you figured out how to climb the monster. The crypt hints are never any help in these battles. I guess I was suppose to figure out that “The armor he is wearing looks weak…” means that I am supposed to get the monster to take a swing at me while I stand on this little stone circle and move out of the way which results in him hitting the stone, breaking his armor and allowing me to climb up to his weak points to kill him…Its so obvious right? I don’t know why it took me 15 minutes and a crap load of luck?
Why am I going you boring details like this instead of discussing the game play? Well because over 1 hours of gameplay in this game is equivalent to one boss fight and a lot of wondering around. Not much interesting to report about I guess. I suppose I could have played for another hour. But quite frankly, I don’t think I want to continue play this game any longer.
DESIGN:
This game is one odd duck. This actually fights with the colossi are great. But everything else rangers from tolerable to awful.
I’ll start with the colossi battles. Simple put, whoever came up with the type of gameplay design was a genius. No levels, well not in a traditional sense, instead each level in a giant monster that is you must platform hop on. This opens up a lot of gameplay possibilities. How many other games offer dynamic and constantly changing levels? Even the design of each boss is exactly pulled off. Each one offers a few different ways to navigate them each of which has their own advantages. For example, in one battle you can climb up the front or back of a colossus. The front gets you to its kill point quicker but is harder to navigate and hang on while the back is pretty easy to climb and avoid being thrown off, but then you have to get to the kill point in a round about way. However, despite their technical greatness (in both innovation and originality) they wear out their welcome quickly because of the games other major flaws and are not enough to hold this game up on their own. Basically, the game falls down when it comes to design is everywhere else.
Lets start with the most superficial part of the experience: The music. Simply put, its terrible. It does a nice job of dramatizing battles, but it becomes annoying very quickly. The fact that it repeats so much and a boss battle can take about 30 minutes to complete means it wears out its welcome quickly. Moving on to the visuals, they are bland and unappealing. The landscape looks boring and plain and while the art style is not bad it is nothing unique or special if feel (though the monsters do look nice).
I know I keep harping on it, but the camera is the single worst design element in the game. Its hard to tell if it is just badly programmed or if the designers intentionally made it so it focuses on what they thought you should be looking at at any given moment. Its almost like they wanted to have a fixed camera, but at the last minute changed this minds and gave control to the player.
Inconsistencies in what you can and cannot climb on are also a major drag. Why I can’t just hop on a colossi’s foot and start climbing is beyond me since it looks like it is the same texture and surface as other areas that I can climb on. In fact, that fact that you have to usually wait for some kind of “action” on the part of the boss in order to start climbing it is one of the biggest draw backs to the battles. These monsters move slow, and if you have to wait for it to swing at you with a giant sword or rear up on its hind legs to get in into a position for climbing is just bad design. It makes battles longer and more frustrating than they have to be and to me seems like a mechanism to add challenge to the game in an underhand manner. Instead of, for example, by designing more complicated or well thought out levels/bosses the designers just decided they could extended the battles by making you wait anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to get another shot at it.
On closing, I’d like to say that the controls are stiff and unresponsive (which again I don’t know if that was intentional or not), the horse controls like a tanks (and for some reason pushing forward doesn’t make it move forward, you have to hold down X) and gets in your way during battle, and the “fetch quest/go to x and do y” structure of the game is not that appealing to me. Overall, ever element in this game’s design seems to work against it or adds a layer of challenge as lazily and inefficiently as possible (i.e., to extend the life or increase difficulty without having to put too much thought into it).
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