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Jun 4th, 2022 at 14:19:10 - Among the Sleep (PC) |
This was a freebie on Epic around Halloween, where I also got Darq (a hidden gem) and another one or two spooky games. Among the Sleep, not so much a hidden gem though. I played it, despite its relatively low review score, because it was short and people generally said it was worth it for the interesting perspective of playing a scary game from the perspective of a two-year-old toddler. I couldn't help comparing it to Amnesia: Rebirth, which I just played and which will stick with me also for the interesting perspective, but of a pregnant woman instead of a toddler. Among the Sleep does have a creepy atmosphere and it certainly offers a novel perspective on psychological horror and the game's themes of alcoholism and abuse.
However, interesting premise aside, you can't save your game, and if you exit in the middle of a level, it takes you back to the beginning of the level, wiping all progress, even though it will say "saving" in the bottom right. Apparently the "saving" text is only an indication of a checkpoint, which wipes if you close the game. I had to replay a level because of this. Why doesn't it say "checkpoint" or tell you that it's not actually a save state, or tell you that you have to complete the game in one sitting, or something? I had to replay the same level a third time because I clicked on some DLC or something and it overrode my save, so when I went to "continue story," it continued it from the DLC. Super annoying, and if the game was longer, I would have quit.
The "drag" action often doesn't work. You'll have to move chairs and boxes to crawl on them or get them out of the way, and it sometimes doesn't register, or drags the opposite direction of where you are moving. The animations are wonky, with hands going through objects, climbing animations looking like the kid is scaling nothing but air, and so on. A couple times, I did climb onto air, and either got stuck, or, my favorite, bounced super high into the air (?!?), and then the monster in the level appeared beneath me, I fell into its arms, and died. The toddler constantly falls down when he runs, and the screen shakes when you move from crawling to standing and back. I appreciate that this is realistic (a toddler is going to alternate between crawling and standing, and can't sprint for a long time like an adult character would), but it is all really annoying and disorienting. I felt low-key nauseous after playing for a while.
And I could NOT stop thinking about all the safety hazards this poor kid was running into a la the game Who's Your Daddy?, which added some unintentional humor. "No, don't crawl on top of the stove! It could turn on any second!" "No, stay out of the cabinet with bleach! Do not drink that!" So yeah, neat little experience, but I'm glad it's over quickly.
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Jun 4th, 2022 at 14:01:49 - Batman: Arkham Knight (PC) |
I went back and read previous entries for Arkham Asylum (2010!) and Arkham City (2012!), and I realize just how lukewarm I am to Arkham Knight. The first two games impressed me very much, but I can see how the things that I didn't like about Knight were extensions of the direction City headed in and the criticisms that I had for Assassin's Creed II when I compared that and City a decade ago.
First things first though, the combat is still excellent. Combat sequences were my favorite parts, along with the more elaborate Riddler challenges, especially the ones with Catwoman, and every moment spent with Joker. The Riddler is even craftier than in City. So, I cannot convey how annoyed I was when I thought I was finishing his story and learned that, no, you cannot complete his story until you find literally each of the 243 Riddler trophies in Gotham. Why? WHY?! I found, I don't know, maybe 50 through the course of the game. Who knows how long it would take to pull up a guide and hunt the remaining 200 of those things, just to get closure with the Riddler.
This is emblematic of the tedium of side quests in this game. As City was for Asylum, so Knight is for City. The scope of the game is expanded (City took me about 20 hours, Knight about 12 [I did way fewer side things, which is why it was so much less], but Knight took me almost 30, and it felt like it!). There are tons of villains in the game and you can progress through all of their side quests and toss them in jail as you play the main story. For example, Firefly is burning fire stations, and you have to find and put out all the fires. Man-Bat is flying around the city, and you have to find him and inject him with serum a handful of times. Two-Face is robbing banks and you have to stop all the robberies. Some are more interesting, like Mr. Freeze's and Killer Croc's, but most are of the "do this thing 5-20 times" variety. Seriously, like 20 times for some quests: One has you disarming mines all over the city; another has you getting rid of road blocks; another has you finding and saving firefighters, etc. These are so fucking boring, and I feel for the completionists out there who are compelled to slog through it all.
I completed some of the more interesting or low-hanging side quests along the way. But when you've finished the main story, you learn that you don't get the game's ending (like no ending, no credits) until after you have completed like 10 of the villains' stories. I had done 5 and it said something like "you need to finish 5 of these to get the ending." I had 5, but one of them was the main story, so I thought maybe I actually had 4 and needed one more. So I finished one more, and then it said I needed 4. Ugh! So I watched the end on YouTube, irritated that the game was going to make me spend hours disarming bombs in the street and engaging in repetitive and over-long tank battles.
Add to the unwelcome amount of busywork side stories for like 15 villains, the 243 Riddler trophies, the oodles of AR challenges, and so on, and you get a game that feels unfocused and ballooned out of proportion. I mean, it's pretty, there are fun parts, the story is neat, Joker is AMAZING as always (and this time he's in your head; seriously, the best part of the game), but all that didn't lift it. I would give this a hard pass unless you really have a thing for side quests or you can go straight through the story, which is what I would have done if I knew then what I know now.
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Jun 2nd, 2022 at 12:17:34 - Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (PC) |
This was really funny for a couple hours. Then I realized that the campaigns are pretty thin and there's really not a lot to do, so I finished the Adventure campaign, did some achievement hunting, and called it a day. I now have a whole new suite of rare Steam achievements in the 0.70-0.80% range, which is cool! And these are easy achievements too that just require you to beat a campaign level with an army comprised of one of each unit of various factions.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is funny because it's far from totally accurate. You are given a certain number of "points" at the beginning of each map. You can assemble an army, pulling from any of the game's many factions, where each unit costs x points. The campaigns are set pieces with specific enemies in specific configurations to overcome, and in sandbox mode you can just create whatever wacky armies you want and make them fight one another.
The factions/units range from historical (e.g., the Medieval faction with catapults and squires) to fantastical (e.g., the Spooky faction with a grim reaper and skeleton archers). The units all make funny noises that sound like gibberish, and they flail around like ragdolls. This leads to chaotic battles with units launching themselves and one another around the map as they try to kill the opposing army. They'll generally attack whatever is closest. The strategy is in choosing wise formations and choosing a good variety of units that can handle the enemy units that are present. This takes a little trial and error sometimes, but I never encountered a campaign map I couldn't beat eventually. I didn't learn until long after starting that you can push F to take control of a single unit. Not terribly exciting, but it lets you be smarter than the AI and you can save battles that way. I think it's more fun to let the battles auto-resolve though.
There are also hidden secrets on a lot of the maps that unlock special units and factions. I found a few of these naturally, then found a lot more while seeking achievements. One secret, for example, is finding Thor's hammer, which lets you set up a battle between Thor and Zeus (achievement for either of them winning against the other). I imagine some of these are insanely powerful when used in campaign maps.
If I were to keep playing, I would probably start trying to find more secrets to unlock more units. As it is though, I finished the Adventure campaign and played through parts of some others, and feel I've exhausted what the game has to offer me. I've used all the units, got the gist of what they can do, what they are strong and weak against, and have a good understanding of how to defeat a lot of different enemy configurations. If I could add one thing to the game it would be a story mode, or add story to the campaigns. I imagine it would be silly, which is fine, but just something to motivate players to keep going through campaign maps (I finished one; there are like 10).
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May 31st, 2022 at 17:31:00 - Amnesia: Rebirth (PC) |
Just got through with this. Not a great horror game. It's very slow, very dark (visually), and very "trying to be scary but since nothing can really happen to you, it's not." I thought the story might save it since the premise of being alone, "heavily pregnant" (the game's description of Tasi), and following your surviving expedition through an alternate dimension is intriguing. However, the story just gets really convoluted and I found myself walking from puzzle room to puzzle room solving easy challenges (except when I had to look up a couple things online because I didn't see the objects I was supposed to be interacting with) waiting for the thing to end.
Finally, it does end. The final sequences are some of the more interesting in the entire game though. One prior honorable mention is the extended encounter with Leon, trying to find your way through a maze while being hunted by a former expedition mate. But at the end, you get some answers. All the cryptic "wtf" notes and audiologs, the fragments of flashbacks, the mysterious alien light, the answer to this other dimension and their civilization, the mystery of what happened to the civilization, to your plane, to your crew, to you is revealed...sort of. There is a lot unexplained, a lot that doesn't make sense. Why was Tasi's kid sick in the first place? What started this whole thing?
I put my sociologist hat on and started seeing themes of the abortion debate at the end, which I did not expect (and I don't know if that was intended). Tasi wants to choose what to do with her body and her child, but most everyone else (including a god) wants to restrict her choice. It's really important to her that she do what she wants to do based on a prior loss; other people don't understand it. Enacting her choice brings a (moral?) sickness down on everyone; however, relinquishing control to a god may give her child a good life, but she isn't herself anymore to know the outcome anyway. Anyway, in the end, you can choose one of three endings. But again, none of the choices really have great outcomes.
I started thinking about abortion toward the end because this game gave me a unique experience. This is the only game that has ever cast me in the role of a pregnant woman, that has given me a button to check on my baby (hold x to talk to it and calm yourself), that has had my character give birth, and that has had POV breastfeeding. I'm not going to say that it was "worth playing" for these novel experiences, but it was definitely thought-provoking, eye-opening, and is the main thing that made the horror element pop, especially at the end, when Tasi is having contractions. As a man, this is not a perspective I often get to take. It really makes me wonder about gendered experiences during gameplay, or experiences of mothers/parents and people who have not had children. Since most of the stuff related to pregnancy, birth, and an actual baby happens toward the end of the game (or the latter half at least), and that's what I found most interesting, by far, then it feels like Amnesia: Rebirth was a whole lot of nothing for a little bit at the end.
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