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Loop Hero (PC) by jp (May 8th, 2024 at 14:07:31) |
It's an interesting game for sure. Mostly because I enjoyed slowly figuring stuff out - which tiles to place where and why, and so on. That being said, the "learning loop" (the length of time you have to play in order to try something out and then learn from it) is pretty long - which makes the game a bit of a slog in that sense. This is because, in a nutshell, the effects of your strategies are systemic - they'll play out slowly, over time, as you play the game. In my mind this is similar to playing city-building games (which I'm bad at - I get too impatient and reactive, which means everything goes ok until it all spirals out of control once certain thresholds/tipping points are met). It also makes it hard to try out multiple things at the same time - should I focus on doing X and Y while avoiding Z? (sort of too many variables).
I'm not saying any of this as a bad thing - just as a characteristic that results from this game's design. And, like I said, it is interesting to try out different things and hopefully see success (or failure you can learn from). But, the game's moment to moment isn't that interesting - you mostly watch the game play and pause every now and then to change your loadout (e.g. equip a better weapon that just dropped).
So, the game sort of gets boring pretty soon?
Oh, there's also an entire town-building system - but it's super slow to make any progress here because you need to "farm" (from the main combat/action loop) resources - though what resources you get depends on what tiles your placing, so understanding THOSE relationships is also important.
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Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4) by jp (May 7th, 2024 at 18:25:53) |
I know this game was reviewed quite poorly. I only remember stuff about the characters (art) and animations not being very good. I'd guess there was other stuff too, but that's all I recall as I type this.
So, I'm fully expecting to play a bit of the game, get tired/bored/frustrated, and then I'll move on. BUT, I'll be able to say - "yes, I have played one of the Mass Effect games for a few hours" and I'll have a better sense of the series even if it is coming from the least respected main-line entry.
I'm only a few hours in at this point - more hours than it should be due to technical issues with the disc: it didn't work while installing on the PS4, so I installed in PS5 instead, and then I had issues....and, anyways. I think it's all solved now... but - I've made it to the point where you gain access to a ship and I'm expecting to start flying around and doing missions and enjoying a bit more freedom than I have so far. BUT, so far it's been pretty fun and I'm genuinely curious and interested to continue playing...so we'll see!
The game's early intro is interesting - for an RPG in my view - because it leads with all-action stuff! There's moving around and jumping and shooting... Sure, there was some story and cut-scenes and what not. But the gameplay was all on-planet action based! I was like "woah, this is not the RPG I was expecting". And then there's an important story moment (my father dies! I'm now the pathfinder, so much responsibility), and the entire next section of the game is sort of the introduction to what'll probably be the main cast of other characters - namely everyone else on the ship we're on as part of a big "lets colonize other galaxies" effort. I walked around, talked to people, accepted missions/tasks, solved a case of someone sabotaging something in the ship and got a big info dump on "what is generally going on here".
So, in these few hours I feel like I've just had the intro stuff and that now the game will "open up" into the rest of the game!
I'm pretty excited to be honest and yes, the characters don't look "great" and I saw the AI do some weird stuff...but, it's all good.
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Cuphead (Switch) by jp (May 7th, 2024 at 13:25:08) |
I've been playing this with my son and yes, it is as hard as I'd heard. And no, we probably won't be able to finish it. But, we'll see how far we get and how much fun we're still having. We've just (almost) cleared the first island (only missing one of the run-n-gun missions).
What stands out so far?
a. Levels are a lot shorter than I expected - in a good way. I was sort of kind of dreading having to play these really long levels. But no, they're pretty short which is nice.
b. I like the variety! Not just in the enemies and their attacks and whatnot. But, so far there are run and gun (typical Contra-style running, platforming, and shooting), flying levels (only one so far, like 2D shooters of yore), and boss fights (multi-stage single screen battles). It's nice to mix things up and I've enjoyed that part of the game.
c. I did not remember their being an upgrade system wherein you could purchase different weapons, boons, and variations on your super attack. I'm not a fan of the "this upgrade also has a drawback" (e.g. get one extra heart, but do less damage in your attacks). But still, I like the variety overall.
d. Many of the boss fights have SOME randomization which is interesting (to me, not saying it's a huge novelty in the genre) - for example the boss might change into one of three different enemies (I'm thinking of the first flying level where you either get a bull, dancing twins, or an archer). The slot machine level was fun for this - even if the different attack patterns (even if one of them, the golden platforms was significantly harder for me).
e. In this game it never makes sense to not shoot all the time - I wish there was just an autofire toggle or something.
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Battlefield 4 (PS4) by jp (May 7th, 2024 at 13:04:49) |
So, something strange happened - and it turned out the problem is the kind of thing that makes me really angry because it shows how stupid some decisions are..
Ok, so I load up the game and from the splash menu (press X to start) I get taken to a screen that says "Please reset your password", there's QR code, some instructions and the options to "Close" and "X Select". None of the buttons work. I have no idea what this is about, but ok - I'll reset my password. No idea why, or what password. The QR code takes me to a webpage, I reset my password. And nothing happens in the game. Ok, lets close the game, open it up again..see what happens. No luck. I reset my password (for an EA account) again, still no luck. Then I think, maybe I have two EA accounts? So, I try another email - still no luck. I close the game, change the password on the second account again, and still no luck. Why is this happening? I have no idea. AFAIK, I've never even linked my PSN account to an EA account.
I start googling, no luck. But plenty of people complaining (from years ago). All the online help, EA customer support pages included mention stuff you do from your EA account. I try it all. From both accounts, just in case. In both accounts I actually can see that I have not linked my PSN account.
This is stupid. I cannot play a game on my Playstation, lawfully purchased and all the rest, because EA wants me to update a password - which I have. And I don't know why.
I spend about an hour searching around trying to get someone on customer support at EA. Their webpage seems designed to make this impossible. Maybe they don't even have that anymore? Eventually I do find a chat interface. I don't know where or now. I wait for 15 minutes before someone comes on. They're helpful. I tell them what's going on...
I give them the emails I've tried (for the EA account) and my PSN account. They then tell me that none of those are the account. AND that my EA account (one I have no idea about) has been deleted because it hasn't been used in too long.
No, bear in mind I was playing BF4 a week earlier and supposedly this involved it checking my account and whatnot. So, I don't know how that works.
The EA chat rep won't tell me what email was used - it's probably (maybe?) the one I had over 15 years ago when I was a PhD student... BUT, they tell me they can unlink it. I say sure. Go for it. Account I don't know about, that has been deleted, is now unlinked. AND, I can now - from my computer - link one of my other EA accounts to my PSN account and it all works.
Geez, is it really necessary to have all these accounts linked up? No.
Can't they tell that the account is still "used" because I'm playing on Playstation? Isn't that what they wanted to know in the first place?
Why was the account deleted in the first place?
ALL of this is stupid. And none of it is necesarry. Sigh.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on May 7th, 2024 at 13:16:20.
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Resident Evil 2 (2019) (PC) by dkirschner (May 5th, 2024 at 14:19:33) |
This one blew me away. Utterly engrossing and intense survival horror. I am sure I played RE2 way back in the day (I remember the police station), but this is the one I'll remember in the future. I was a little worried that the remake's excellent reviews were biased for nostalgia, but that's not the case. It's incredible in all respects.
One thing I was thinking about while playing was how effective it is at making me tense. Other good horror games do some of these things too, but this one ties all these tricks into one package. When you kill a zombie, it might not actually be dead. By "kill," I mean shoot it until it falls down and appears dead. I learned that these zombies will sometimes begin groaning again and get back up, sometimes as you walk past, and other times they'll be reanimated when you return to an area. If its head explodes (by shooting it in the head with a shotgun or occasionally with the pistol), then it's really dead, but if its head doesn't explode, I was always anxious that it would come back. And you can't just go around blowing up all the zombies' heads with the shotgun because, as a survival horror game, ammo is a scarce and valuable resource. Later in the game, there are these plant zombies that will always come back unless you kill them with a flamethrower.
Another thing that constantly had me nervous were the corpses. Enter a room, see a corpse, and you have no idea if it's one that will animate or not. You have to go about your business always watching and listening in case it gets up. This uncertainly about enemy states is really nerve-wracking! Another type of enemy, the "licker," is blind. If you make noise (run, slam open a door, fire a gun), it attacks you. If you are quiet, you can walk around it. But if you get too close, it will become alert, although it won't *know* that you're there. When it becomes alert, it will start moving around, which means it might run into you, since you're trying to quietly creep by. Those things were scary.
And THEN, as if I wasn't already holding my breath half the time, there is this hulking enemy called Tyrant (that you can't kill) who, at several points in the game, appears to stalk you through an area. Tyrant is attracted to noise. If you're running, slamming doors, you'll hear his footsteps getting closer and closer. When he finds you, he relentlessly pursues you until you can get far enough away from him so that he goes somewhere else. So, whenever Tyrant was around, I was being quiet. Being quiet for Tyrant and the lickers is hard given that there are zombies around, who may or may not reanimate!
And you're constantly under pressure to conserve ammo, manage your inventory, and navigate these labyrinthine areas with maps and various keys and puzzles. In the police station, you do a lot of backtracking and criss-crossing as you gain access to new areas. One room was a darkroom where you can develop rolls of film. Every time you find film, you want to go to the darkroom. But, getting back to the darkroom meant going back through this terrifying hallway where there was a licker lurking and a few zombies strolling about. So, just finding a roll of film made me scared in anticipation of what I was going to have to do!
Oh yeah, one other thing to note, which made me feel kind of dumb, is that you'll find gun upgrades in the earlier part of the game. I had three upgrade parts in my inventory for some named gun, and had assumed they were for a gun that I didn't have because I didn't notice that my gun had a name. Then I found a shotgun upgrade, and I had a shotgun, so I figured it was for that. Then I thought, "that's weird that they'd give me all these upgrades for guns I don't have and then give me a shotgun upgrade for a gun I do have. Did I miss a gun?! Is the pistol I've been using really weak?! Is this why I'm always out of ammo?!" Turns out that yes, yes my pistol was weaker and I was always out of ammo because it should have been upgraded three times already. Oops!
The RE2 remake is a 100% score for sure. I have RE 8 queued up to play at some point. Super excited.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on May 5th, 2024 at 14:25:45.
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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
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)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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2160 registered gamers and 3114 games. 7617 GameLogs with 13106 journal entries. 5079 games are currently being played.
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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS) by Refried Hero |
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most recent entry: Wednesday 5 March, 2008
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GAMEPLAY
So this game is fun. How do I know, well when I sat down to play – which I planned to only do for a short period of time – I ended up playing through about half of the game. That's about 5 hours of game play. I'm not sure what it was that drew me in to continue playing, but once I started on each case I just felt like I had to finish it. I mean, for example, the first case the game throws at you has your mentor killed and you left to solve the murder and prove her sister (and you) are innocent. For some words scrolling across a screen the game is pretty intense.
For me, who enjoys reading mystery novels in his free time, this game has proven to be one of the best I have played in a while. Even though the game relies on some of my least favorite game play elements to continue the story – 'GO TALK TO EVERYONE THAT EXISTS, MAKE SURE YOU EXAMINE EVERY SINGLE THING EVER, TOO. HAVE FUN, KTHXBYE.' - it still proves to be a fun and interesting experience. Further, the player really feels like they are doing their part to solve the mystery.
DESIGN
The Phoenix Wright series does an amazing job of using game elements that aren't innovative – text based interaction, 2d sprites, murder mystery – and putting them into a very innovative and different setting from one that the player is used to seeing in video games. The game play itself is not so new and original. In fact it is almost like a text based adventure game. However, the position of a defense attorney given to the player at the start of the game is unlike any other game I've ever played – and I haven't even heard of any other games that revolve around a court room battle.
But even though the setting is innovative, the game play can drag on at times. In fact, when the player is not taking action in the court room, and is instead gathering evidence, the game seems to falter a bit. Instead of going from place to place searching for clues it instead becomes talk to x until you learn y, then move to place a so that person c can tell you more about y. And this can go on for the entire investigation part of the game. Don't get me wrong, it isn't particularly un-fun or bad, but it can get extremely tedious.
Even with these minor flaws though, the setting of the game, and of course the tone it creates makes for an amazing game play experience that I would heartily recommend to any who have not heard of the game.
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