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Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (PS4) by jp (Mar 2nd, 2026 at 19:08:07) |
Decided to quit suddenly because I realized I was just starting to grind for achievements and not actually having fun or enjoying the game. Which, in the grand scheme of things sounds like a bad thing other than I think that I quit in time BEFORE I got super tired and bored. So, leaving on a (little past) the high of the fun experience.
I was grinding the Dream Doors - and apparently there's a nice monster at the end that can be a real challenge - but, I didn't have a sense of WHY I'd want to do that. Here I mean motivation within the game's story. I was hoping for a nice story payoff if anything? It seems like there isn't, it's just a grind for resources and stuff and so...time to bail!
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Vampire Survivors (PC) by dkirschner (Mar 2nd, 2026 at 15:38:02) |
I first played this a few years ago on Game Pass and loved it. I rebought it on Steam because there was so much extra content. (I have since learned to avoid long games, roguelikes, and stuff with tons of replayability on subscription services; buy those instead!). Last summer, I replayed the game and started to dig into the DLC. There is practically an infinite amount of stuff to do in Vampire Survivors. I still feel this after sinking another 30 hours into it. The achievements and unlocks are extremely compelling and I could chase them all day. But it has finally started to feel repetitive. Longer 30-minute runs that result in like one unlock or just some progress through a map feel more and more like a time sink, especially as I have other games to get to, including newer games in this genre.
The DLCs (so many!!) have been interesting in that they alter the base game in interesting ways. The maps have rooms, islands, and more geographical features; they are not just massive plains with the occasional obstacle. Contra has a different kind of boss fight. They have new characters, weapons, evolutions, and secrets. The Ode to Castlevania DLC is massive, about the same size as the entire base game! It also has unique boss fights, and an even bigger map to explore, including different spawn points so you don't start over every time. I mean, really, I could just keep playing this forever...but I can't keep playing this forever! I must delete it. Maybe one day there will be another DLC that really piques my interest and the game will rise like a vampire from the coffin of my Steam library! I did see that they are releasing a first-person card battler roguelike, so I am sure I will get sucked into that too!
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Fabledom (PC) by jp (Feb 28th, 2026 at 18:37:25) |
This one is in the "sim" sub-group "city building" bucket for this semester's critical game design class. I'm generally not a fan of city building games since I find that the simulation part often runs away from me. I think I'm doing well, but then everything falls apart.
This game was surprisingly chill - it almost feels like the game you'd just keep on playing? As in, you start - and then just continue. I'm 6 hours in and I've just hit the point where I should be building palaces and having nobles prancing around. The game is basically a "Sim-City FairyTale Edition", but I've really liked the pace of it. At times things were going wonky, but I just kept going and slowly things have recovered (I took too long to build the hospital, so people died - once it was finally built it was funny to see a huge swarm of sick people mob it).
The economy is rather complicated with lots of different resources and I find it really hard to know if things are going well/poorly - there's time delays on everything of course, I just don't notice when "production" happens and whether or not it is sufficient for the demans of my populace. Basically though, it's always "make numbers go up" and then you run out of people to work - so make houses for them, and so on.
Here's the things I've particularly appreciated in this game's design (or that I thought were neat).
a. People live in houses (and bigger residential buildings), but there's always ONE person who is the head of household. That's their job.
b. When you pay for a new building you basically pay money, and decide where it's going. But you then have to wait for the resources for the building to be delivered/transported there. I often ran into an issue where I paid for a bunch of stuff, but no construction was happening because I didn't have enough planks or something.
c. My village has a cyclops that wanders around making people happy. So much better than terrorizing.
d. In winter, lots of things shut-down, this felt like a "vacation" for the farmers, which I let them have/enjoy.
e. I thought it was funny that Commoner's really don't like living next to peasant homes. So, a peasant home could be super desirable - but only for other peasants. It's the complete opposite for commoner's (highly undesirable). Basically, there's a class system and they don't like each other when it comes to living close by. (I'm assuming the same will apply for nobles, but I don't have any of those yet).
f. A common driver of unhappiness in the people is how far they have to walk to work (you can manually assign different people to different buildings). It makes sense - but this is all walking anyways...but still - distance from home-to-work matters! Apparently this is because workers go home to eat!
g. I liked how you could chop down trees but also have a little add-on forester hut so they grow back.
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Fear the Spotlight (PC) by dkirschner (Feb 26th, 2026 at 17:49:42) |
Dang, another kickass random freebie from Epic sometime in the past year. I remember being drawn to it because it was published by Blumhouse, which has had some horror movie hits, and which is apparently getting into game publishing. This is like a PS1-style survival horror game, but without combat. Gameplay is straightforward. Without the combat, it is more linear, simple puzzles, play some hide-and-seek with the monster. It builds a great atmosphere though--still manages to be tense--and has a unique story.
I think the narrative is where this really shines. It drip feeds you the story and peels back layer after layer. You think it's this straightforward high school romance drama, but then no. And then the second layer, the second thing you think is happening, but then no, another layer. And another layer. Some taboo shit that made my skin crawl. It was really good. And it was really...sweet. It's an atypical choice for a horror game, but it works. In the end, maybe it is a high school romance story after all. Definitely worth playing.
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The Operator (PC) by dkirschner (Feb 26th, 2026 at 11:33:01) |
This game is SO COOL! Like, must play. It was a random freebie from Epic last summer that sounded interesting. I'd never heard of it. It's got a sort of Orwell feel, but is its own thing. You play as Evan Tanner, a new Operator at the FDI (basically the FBI). Operators have access to FDI databases and their job is to retrieve information for FDI agents in the field. So, an FDI agent will be working a case, find some evidence, call an Operator and ask them to ID someone, for example.
It's basically a detective game. You respond to agent queries by going through text/audio/video files, puzzling out how to get information and how to solve various problems. But an intriguing mystery quickly emerges. A mysterious hacker contacts you. There is a mole in the FDI. There are interlocking cases with a few different field agents. An unidentified killer. A cover-up. You end up doing way more than just reading through files to find information, but you interact with agents over the phone helping them through dangerous situations like guiding them through defusing a bomb or helping them break into buildings. It's really exciting!
The writing is solid. The voice acting can be a little corny, but it does the job. There are some really funny parts. In one part, you are trying to get an FDI employee away from their computer, so you call them and pretend to be IT. This is the kind of employee who would fall for a phishing attempt or have their identity stolen. You call and are like, "Hi I'm...Mike...Smith...from IT." She replies, "Hmm...I don't know a Mike Smith in IT. It says here on the caller ID that you're Evan Tanner, an Operator." "Well, I don't know about that. I'm Mike Smith." "Hmmm...then why does it say you're an Operator?" "Because...I'm...also an Operator! Yeah, that's it...Operators sometimes also help with IT." "Hmmmm. I thought Operators just worked with agents? I don't know about this. But...okay, what do you need me to do." "Just leave the room and I'll take care of it." "Hmmm...how long will this take?" "It shouldn't take but a few minutes!" "If it'll just take a few minutes, then I'll sit here and read my magazine." "Actually...It will take a long time." "But you just said it would take a few minutes. This is suspicious!" "No, yeah, it will definitely take like an hour." "Hmm....Okay, I'll leave, but I don't like this!" It was a really funny interaction and reminded me of those information security videos you have to watch for work. There were a few other parts that made me laugh too.
Also, a nod to the minimalist visuals outside the Operator screen. The sound design is great, too. I was able to guess a solution to one puzzle immediately because I had heard what the inside of a particular apartment sounded like a few times. That was cool.
The downsides I can think of are: (1) the bomb puzzle had some confusing terminology; (2) the part where you guide someone through a floor of a building was silly, as if someone couldn't walk through a small office floor and find the stairs on their own (there would be signs!); (3) I'm not sure your choices really matter.
So yeah, this surprised me. I loved it. There is a sequel in development! Hopefully it's longer and more involved, perhaps with some branching narrative (this game was just a few hours).
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 26th, 2026 at 11:35:29.
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they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
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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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2320 registered gamers and 3350 games. 7884 GameLogs with 13373 journal entries. 5125 games are currently being played.
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Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (PC) by dkirschner |
| Looking forward to more Dishonored ---------- It is fine, nothing special compared to the other Dishonored games! |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 15 June, 2021
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Flew through this one. It ends the Dishonored series with the Outsider (apparently there is another coming with a new storyline). It's basically a watered down version of Dishonored 2, still fun, but less interesting than either of the other games. You play as Billie Lurk (aka, Meagan the boat driver), and I might have enjoyed her and Daud's story more if I'd played Knife of Dunwall.
I'm not sure why this plays so much as watered down Dishonored 2. Maybe they rushed it? I understand this was meant to be DLC and then folded into a standalone expansion. Anyway, some things are missing from the main game. There's no Chaos system, which means that it doesn't matter how you go about your missions. Kill no one, kill everyone, doesn't matter. Instead of unlocking Void powers as you go, you get your only three almost right off the bat, and unfortunately they are not great. One is a movement power (though when I learned that if you teleport on top of an enemy then they explode, it is how I killed most enemies from then on, very satisfying). One is a mimic power where you can impersonate someone, which is useful for sneaking around I guess, but I always went guns blazing and only used it a couple times. The third is just an exploration power that lets you spirit around undetectable and tag enemies and objects. Useful I guess, but not fun or necessary.
I preferred to go in guns blazing, getting all the enemies pissed off and chasing me, then just jumping around like mad and picking them off with sword techniques, by teleporting onto them and making them explode, and with my other favorite move, jumping up high and doing an air assassination. Beware fighting me in a room with stairs! I actually never used an offensive item (grenades, mines, etc.), save for a few bolts at the beginning of the game. I felt like a badass, but compared to other Dishonored main characters, I really wasn't.
I did explore a fair amount, as you can go in houses and poke around stealing things. Though toward the end, it felt like none of that mattered in the way that it did in other games. I read a lot of books and letters and whatnot that were mildly interesting. I did some of the side missions, which you collect from a hub instead of find naturally in the world (mostly), but also stopped caring about them because again they didn't seem to matter. There are fewer upgrades and fewer incentives to do most anything except blast your way through. There weren't even good puzzles! The level design was fine, but I was really missing something like the Jindosh mansion. Cracking the bank vault was the closest thing, but it is a simple arithmetic puzzle (versus the Jindosh lock in Dishonored 2 that took me an hour!), and for some reason these people barely kept anything valuable in their lockboxes (and always a lore book, why?).
In the end, I saw the series' ending, which was fine. That's my summary of the game. It's fine. As I read a reviewer say, "a bad Dishonored game is still a good game," and I agree with that. It was enjoyable, but unnecessary. The other games are so much better! Well, until Dishonored 3!
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