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Dec 3rd, 2023 at 08:58:07 - The Walking Dead: A New Frontier (XBX X/S) |
Looks like Patrick and I started this way back in March! I remember he downloaded it on a whim, and I was concerned that he made a poor choice for us to spend our precious co-op gaming time. I've played a bunch of other Telltale Walking Dead and other franchise games--the highly reviewed ones--and loved them. This spinoff had a mediocre Metacritic score and, turns out, is a mediocre game. To be fair, it took us eight or nine months to complete, and I'm sure we would have enjoyed it more had we been more consistent, but it's not terribly compelling.
A New Frontier introduces new characters with new relationships to explore, and features Clem, but felt like a mishmash of scenarios from previous games, choices that didn't matter all that much, and characters whose shoes it was hard to step into and who often acted illogically. By the end, we were just laughing at what the characters were doing. For example, there is a scene in Richmond with the main character, Javier, and his brother, David, hitting baseballs in a batting cage (you know, a typical zombie apocalypse activity). You see, Javier was formerly a baseball player, and you know this because he wears a baseball jersey in every scene throughout the game, including flashbacks, and people recognize him and remember him for playing baseball (including a young kid who asks him for an autograph, even though this game is set four years after the beginning of the apocalypse, so the kid would have been like four years old when it started, and why would a four-year-old have been so obsessed with a baseball player, unless we are to believe that Javier was like Babe Ruth level famous). Anyway, David, whose successes were obscured by Javier's fame, remains bitter, and becomes more and more irrationally angry in the batting cages as Javier hits baseballs and says things like, "And the crowd goes wild!" You can miss the balls on purpose, which presumably doesn't remind David that Javier overshadowed him, but David becoming irate at this was so absurdly funny. As the game goes on, there are more such absurd interactions.
And at the end of the game, when Telltale breaks down your choices and tells you what kind of relationships you had with other characters, I'm not sure their conclusions were accurate. I wish I remembered which one I am specifically thinking of, but there was one that was the opposite of what it certainly should have been. This isn't the scenario, but hypothetically, it was something like "You acted romantically toward Trish," after being mean to her in every interaction. Yeah, this was definitely a weak entry.
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Nov 24th, 2023 at 21:44:24 - Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) |
This one was outstanding! You don't need to know much about Spider-Man to enjoy. It drops you in the middle of some action and gives a great first impression, letting you swing through Manhattan and offering a seriously impressive initial mission, culminating in a boss fight. My first thought was, "Holy shit, the movement is incredible." And swinging through Manhattan somehow never got old. It's functional enough, varied enough, challenging enough, and just looks cool.
My second thought was, "Holy shit, the combat is slick." Of course it reminded me of Batman, the Arkham games, with its dodging and stealth sections (or "hunter" mode, as Batman called them). I think the Arkham combat is more nuanced, but Spider-Man's is certainly fun and stylish. My go-to thing, which worked for 90% of the game, was just to pop enemies into the air and beat on them mid-air, then yank another enemy into the air, beat on them, yank another enemy, etc. I could usually knock out about four enemies like this before touching the ground, and it consistently worked (adding some mid-air dodges in the mix to avoid bullets and rockets, adding some web throws in there once I unlocked the ability to grab rockets and weapons, and eventually learning to swing kick to keep those combos going). Toward the end of the game, there is an enemy type who will yank you out of the air, and at the very end, some flying jetpack guys who are difficult to fight in the air, but besides those very few situations, air combat is the way to go. Plus it builds focus faster than on the ground.
Spider-Man has access to a lot of gadgets, most of which I never used. The web shot and the impact web did come in handy when fighting tougher enemies, but like the spider bot, the concussive blast, the...I don't even know what they all are! Most of them were totally ignorable. He also gets a bunch of suits (I mean a BUNCH, like 30 or something), each of which has a unique suit power. It's cool that you can equip any unlocked power on any unlocked suit, so you can look how you want and have the suit power you want. Suit powers were also ignorable, but they were useful. I just forgot they were there. The ones I always had equipped were just area of effect powers that knocked enemies down in a radius, useful for crowd control.
How do you unlock all this stuff, you ask? Well, this is an open-world game packed with all sorts of shit to do and collect. Manhattan itself isn't big, and Spider-Man's fast movement through the city makes it feel even smaller. But like real Manhattan, it's densely populated. You can collect like 50 backpacks, take a bunch of photos, stop literally hundreds of crimes, complete research tasks for Dr. Octavius and for Harry, clear enemy bases, complete challenges, and on and on and on. Each type of activity gives you a specific type of badge, and you use the badges to unlock and upgrade suits and gadgets. Some unlock just by level or story progression, but if you want to unlock everything, you'll really need to devote time to these side activities.
I actually spent a long time, especially early on, playing with side activities. I collected every backpack, took every photo, completed every research task, stopped every "thug crime," cleaned out Fisk's and Li's men, and so on. But as the game kept...on...introducing more and more of these things, I started feeling like I was wasting my time. I fell into the open world trap of being distracted by shiny side nonsense. So, I eventually got to focusing on the main story, which was really good! Luckily, the side stuff, while open world fluff to large extent, was well integrated into the gameplay and narrative, and it really was varied and, I think, well designed. It was legitimately fun, if time consuming.
The story was long and complex, thanks to the thousand characters and timelines or whatever in the Spidey-verse. I kept thinking I was approaching the end of the game, and then another bad guy would appear, another revelation would be had, another plan put in motion. I definitely thought the game was about Li, but then there's...well, not so much a twist, but something that I thought was going to happen, but not in the way it happened. There are actually so many antagonists, from the relatively minor bad guys like Rhino and Electro, to the mid-level ones like Fisk, to the high-level ones like Li and Dr. Octavius. But through it all, you are treated to some great story-telling. For example, you are right there with Dr. Octavius, working with him in his lab, as y'all develop his robotic arms. You see why he turns bad. A similar thing with Li, who goes from (as Spider-Man would perceive) good to bad, but was actually bad for a long time, but you learn about his motivation and connection to Dr. Octavius and Norman Oswald. Yeah, I really enjoyed all the twists and turns of the story.
The story twists provided some AWESOME action sequences, such as the prison break one and all the unique boss fights after that. The game, if it hasn't come across in my writing so far, is gorgeous. Sometimes it feels like you're playing a cut scene, explosions popping off everywhere, Spider-Man swinging around, Electro flying around zapping everything with lightning, and you actually controlling Spider-Man throughout.
Other times though, the story removes you from the action, and this is probably the only real gripe I have about the game (aside from too much genre-standard open world side junk to do). You're busy being a badass Spider-Man, and then you get forced into stealth sequences with Miles Morales or MJ. Sometimes, these were neat when Spider-Man contributed, like when MJ is stealing the Devil's Breath and she directs Spider-Man to web enemies, and control bounces back and forth between them. Or when Miles was trying to steal medicine and had to stealth past Rhino. But usually, it's like, "Ugh." These took me out of the action, slowed the game down, and felt unnecessary. Between all the open-world tasks and the Miles and MJ stealth missions, I do think the game was a little bloated. The story twists that kept on coming also contributed to this, though not in a bad way.
I understand there is a game specifically about Miles Morales, and that Spider-Man 2 just came out. Both are really well reviewed, like this one was. I'll skip Miles Morales and swing straight to Spider-Man 2...whenever I obtain a PS5.
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Nov 21st, 2023 at 17:31:47 - Q.U.B.E. 2 (PC) |
I've seen QUBE and QUBE 2 around the various store fronts for years and always wrote them off as Portal clones. Manipulate cubes (qubes?) in test chambers or some such. QUBE 2 was free on Epic a few weeks ago, so I grabbed it out of curiosity. It's pretty Portal-y, but not as Portal-y as I thought. That is to say, it looks similar and plays similar, but it's definitely its own thing. And it is a strong puzzle game!
There's a vague, but intriguing (and really well voiced) sci-fi story about this sentience called QUBE (or something) that's taken over (or something) Earth, and tests humans to see if they can follow logic, understand the QUBE (it's like a sentient puzzle or something), and choose to either destroy it or learn from it, depending on whether they think it's a threat to humanity or not. I had to read about it after I finished, and some players did great work piecing the story together.
So you are awakened by the QUBE (or just QUBE...I don't know if it needs "the" in front of it, but it is technically supposed to be an acronym--Q.U.B.E.--that I don't want to type) for testing purposes, though you are unaware of what is happening or why. In fact, you are made to believe that you have amnesia or something, but that you will remember what happened in time. There is another person on your comms who you talk to, and who sort of guides you through this QUBE facility thing. The game's tone is totally serious. Wheatley and GLaDOS these entities are not.
You have glove technology that can manipulate the environment. You end up being able to switch between three colors of glove that do different things. Red creates a long block that you can extend; green creates a small detachable block; blue creates a little forcefield that bounces the green blocks. Other mechanics appear as you go on that let you spawn bowling balls, coat objects with oil, and set them on fire. Occasionally, you'll have to smash a cube into a door or use one to set a door on fire to proceed. You get push and pull magnets, have to place cubes on buttons, can "ride" the green cubes (fun), and occasionally will need to figure out how to launch yourself around. So, using combinations of these and a few other mechanics, you solve puzzles in rooms. Solving puzzles generates power, and you're usually trying to power something by solving a bunch of puzzle rooms, like an elevator or a generator, in order to progress.
The puzzles are not terribly difficult, and I was hoping we'd get some really big ones, but they do present a thoughtful challenge. I was stumped a couple times toward the end and, I am ashamed to say, used a walkthrough for part of two rooms. BUT! That's only because when I previously exited the game in the middle of a series of rooms, it made me repeat them all, which was super annoying. And one of those that it made me repeat was tricky and I think I got lucky clicking around the first time. I didn't know what I did, but it wasn't the "correct" solution, and I couldn't replicate it. Thus, the first hint to just finish the room I'd already finished. Then, I was running out of time (i.e., I needed to turn off the game), but I didn't want to repeat all those rooms yet again, so I cheated on one to hurry up. I'm sure I would have gotten it!
There is no teleportation like in Portal, but it nonetheless feels similar. At first I tried to compare it to Portal on every point, but like I said, it quickly became apparent that it is its own game. It's slick. It's got a neat story. It's got puzzles of solid difficulty and some novel mechanics. Oh, BUT! There is no "run" button. You walk agonizingly slowly, which was very annoying. This is a case of "the game would have been 10% shorter if I could run." I just started another game where you can't run, too. What's up with that? Why not include the ability to run? I'm still going to appreciate the puzzle rooms, probably even more since I won't be annoyed by having to trudge around the place!
Anyway, I'm surprised at QUBE 2. I quite enjoyed it. The Epic version that I got for free came with two more DLC chapters, which I read adds a whopping 22 puzzle rooms and new mechanics to the game. I enjoyed playing, but I'm not sure the puzzles are enough to keep me interested for 22 more (probably hard) rooms' worth. I got the story, saw the sights, played the core game, and am satisfied. I'll leave it installed in case I do get an itch for more, but I have Portal Reloaded, Baba Is You, and probably more renowned puzzle games in my library that I'd rather play first.
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Nov 15th, 2023 at 15:59:31 - Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (PC) |
My time with the Homeworld series has been underwhelming. I don't have the nostalgia for it. RTSes are also not my favorite genre, but I've played many that I prefer over these, including Starcraft 2, the last one I played. Homeworld doesn't come close to how much I enjoyed Starcraft 2. I'm glad I finally got to these though, and that I was able to get through Deserts of Kharak since I couldn't stomach the remastered originals. I enjoyed it overall, but it wasn't great. Like a solid C.
Strengths include the story, which I found intriguing. It's a sci-fi tale about a people who discover technology on their desert planet that is jealously guarded by another civilization. There's some religious prophecy involved, and ultimately the technology allows for hyperspace travel, which is where the original Homeworld games began (your people discovered the technology and spread into space, then are punished for it, and then go looking for their origin world). There's a cool cooperative element to the main campaign, as you end up allying with another civilization. I enjoyed the missions where I was defending their base ship, or clearing a landing zone for their planes to refuel my fleet, or where they were diverting the attention of the big bad guys while I flanked them. Another strength was the variety of vehicles and ships at your command, as well as all the abilities each possessed. It was overwhelming for sure, but I liked the control it gave you over how to use each unit.
I especially liked the main base ship, which was badass. You get this monstrosity to command, that moves like molasses, but that can dish out and take serious damage. The base ship has a heating system, and over the course of the game, you find artifacts that grant bonuses, including giving it better cooling abilities or more energy to spend in its four areas: defense (adds armor); repair (heals itself); range (fires longer distances); and power (does more damage). My general strategy for it was to funnel energy to range and power, sit it at the front of my army, and surround it with support cruisers, which repaired it, while it absorbed damage and the rest of my army sat behind it firing away. The base ship is also a mobile hangar, and can launch three types of ships, as well as missile barrages. So it's never alone if you've got planes built because you can launch them to carpet bomb the variety of enemies you'll face. The base ship and all its tricks were fun to play with and very effective.
This latter strength though was also a weakness when taking into account the sub-par movement of units, especially the base ship. Their pathfinding could be wonky, vehicles are generally very slow to turn around, and often will make big arcs to turn (dying in the process; don't think you can run effectively). The base ship can't navigate narrow spaces easily (makes sense), but often will try to go around, or will spin circles, or will do like a 10-point turn, when you direct it to make a tight squeeze. I understand if it can't make it, but often even when it can, it will go haywire trying to do it.
The game isn't that difficult on normal (two stars), and one reason is because everything (resources, units) carries over from level to level. If you spend time mining resources on each level, you’ll have a lot of resources to spend to keep your fleet at max capacity. Every few levels, I'd stop and mine everything, and it would see me through a few more levels. For example, in the last two levels, I only mined one area because I had so many resources saved up from exhausting the previous few levels. I was able to hurl my army at the bosses, building new units the entire time as old ones died. Strategic? Not really. Fun? Definitely.
So yeah, overall, I enjoyed my romp through the desert(s of Kharak). I definitely got tired of seeing nothing but sand in every environment. It looked good, but was monotonous. It's not a long game, but it's action-packed, yet simultaneously slow. I hear that Homeworld 3 is on the horizon. I wonder what it'll be like? How much will it stick to the Homeworld formula and what will it update for 2024? Curious, but not dying to know. Eyeing it from afar...!
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