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Jul 7th, 2022 at 12:19:23 - XCOM 2 (PC) |
XCOM 2 is brutal and I freaking love it. I have no idea how far I am through the game. Halfway? But I almost LOST and it had me so scared. XCOM 2 has a metagame with a lose state. The aliens are working on something called the Avatar project which, if completed, ends the game. They make advances on the project that fill a progress bar on the top of the geoscape screen. I am not entirely sure of the rules governing when and why they make progress. It seems they randomly build a new facility or complete some research. Right now, there is a "Dark Event" I can see that the aliens have queued that, if I don't address it within the month, will add two ticks to the progress bar. I am also not entirely sure of the rules governing when and why I can decrease the progress bar. I know that by completing (some?) main story missions, attacking black sites, attacking research facilities, and so on, one or two ticks on the bar will go away. This "add two ticks to the progress bar" Dark Event has me worried because often you have to choose which of the Dark Events to deal with, and the progress bar only has three empty ticks left. This would bring me to within one tick of losing. Usually there are three Dark Events queued at a time, and they all introduce problems. This is certainly the most pressing right now, but I have to wait for the game to give me the mission to stop the Dark Event. I don't know if it always does! I've had to let several Dark Events happen. Currently, for example, the aliens have beefed up their encryptions and I am burdened with 100% intel costs, which means that contacting new regions is very expensive. But I need to contact new regions because the aliens have built research facilities there. I need to destroy the research facilities to bring the progress bar down. So, the progress bar will keep going up unless I can make contact with new regions, which currently requires double the intel. Will I be able to gather enough intel to contact the new regions and destroy the research facilities before they complete the Avatar project?! Aaah!
I learned quickly that there are never enough resources to spare. I am always short. I have a laundry list of upgrades to make to armor and weaponry, research, buildings, communications, that all seem urgent. This is a game of baby steps and meeting a hundred little goals along the way, each of which feels monumental. And since you could have used every upgrade last week, everything feels like it comes too late yet just in time. For example, I recently completed research on magnetic weapons technology, which unlocks the purchase of magnetic varieties of common weapons (assault rifles, shotguns, pistols). This was huge, increasing firearms damage by about 33%. Enemies already use these weapons, so finally I am on par again! Well...except that you don't just "get" the weapons. You have to buy the upgrades after conducting the research. I bought assault rifles first since that's the standard loadout for rookie soldiers (all soldiers begin as unclassed rookies) and the Specialist class. That got me through a mission, which rewarded me with enough cash to upgrade shotguns, which I have equipped on my Rangers, who are killing machines. I skipped pistols because they are only used as secondary weapons for Sharpshooters and instead started researching gauss technology, which will let me upgrade cannons (Grenadier class) and sniper rifles (Sharpshooters). They already dealt the most damage (except for my Ranger killing machines), so I figured they could wait. But I also really need to upgrade armor because I do occasionally get one-shot. In the last mission I ran, an Advent Trooper shot my Sharpshooter for 7. One-shot kill! Of course I reloaded. Death is permanent and this game lets you save scum, which I am not above doing. Or at least, I was above doing until I almost lost the game. But I don't have money for any of these upgrades! I'm three ticks on the progress bar away from losing (again), and I desperately need to spend my resources on contacting new regions, recruiting resistance members, and destroying research facilities.
Here is the story about how I almost lost. I've described how you decrease the aliens' progress on the Advent project by destroying research facilities. They had built three, all in regions of the world I had yet to contact. You have to spend intel to contact regions before you can attack the research facility. But let's break down all the things I didn't know until the progress bar had almost filled! I had three ticks left on the progress bar, as I do now. I didn't understand that "regions available for contact" was a resource limited by your communications buildings. You need to build comms in order to enhance your capacity to maintain contact with more regions. When I realized this, I didn't have any free space on my ship to build comms. I had to use engineers to clear debris from empty rooms. This took perhaps 10 days to clear debris. In that time, the aliens filled the progress bar another tick. Down to two! But oh no! Comms cost 3 power to build and I only had 2 power, so I needed first to build a power relay. I assigned an engineer to begin clearing another room and assigned a second engineer to build a power relay. This took another 10 or so days to complete. Another tick on the progress bar. One tick left. I am freaking out. Power relay complete, build a comms station. 10 more days. Comms station is built and I still have one tick left! This might be doable! I traveled to the region I needed to contact, paid 30 intel. 3-5 days to contact the region. Shit, shit, shit. Miraculously, the aliens made no more progress. Region contacted! The research facility is actually one more region over. I knew that, but didn't know that intel costs to contact new regions increase the farther you are from your home base. Shit, shit, shit. I have 30 intel, but not the 60 required for contacting a more distant region. How do I get intel?! I googled this. Some missions, hacking certain enemies, and going back to your home base to scan for intel, which passes time, are all options. I flew back home and started scanning. One day. Two days. *ALERT! The Aliens have made progress on the Advent project!* I thought it was game over. I was ready to start over with all the knowledge I learned during this failed run. But a timer appeared for 20 days. I had 20 days left to delay the Avatar project! I scanned for a few more days to gather enough intel, flew back to the region, made contact, blew up the research facility. The progress bar ticked down by 2 and that seems to have buoyed me. I breathed a massive sigh of relief.
I haven't been almost dead since then. Now that I understand power and contact resources, I can plan ahead better, though my soldiers feel underpowered and I have had some terrifying missions, including some painful solder deaths, like my SPARK mech and a pretty advanced Grenadier. Recently, I had to attempt a couple missions while short on squad members. One I had to try with 4 (of 6) soldiers. I went sloooow and steady (luckily it was an untimed mission) and actually beat it with only one soldier getting injured. When soldiers get injured, they take time to recover (sometimes over 20 days!), and you can't use them during this time. This is why I had 4 soldiers to take on that one mission; everyone else was recovering. Playing safe is really important because otherwise, you will end missions with a full squad of injured soldiers. Then on your next mission, if it's thrown at you quickly, you'll have to rely on your benchwarmers and have far fewer options to build a good team for the mission. The biggest factor in playing safe is using cover. Your soldiers are either out of cover, in half cover, or in full cover. Shots have a +20% chance to miss against a unit in half cover and +40% in full cover. Full cover is GOOD. I read advice somewhere that said "half cover is no cover at all." I position units in full cover whenever possible. You can also flank and be flanked, which enhances hit % and critical hit chance. Never end your turn out of cover and do not let enemies flank you. They will ruin you!
Another wrench in my plans is when the game (randomly?) puts a boss in missions. There are three escaped alien science experiments that occasionally appear. They always take me by surprise. The first one is a scripted story mission that sets up these bosses. It is a Viper variant with two full rows of health. I don't even know how much that is. 30? 40 ticks of health? Enemy soldiers right now have probably 7 health on average, for comparison. Oh, and bosses aren't alone. They come out with other enemies too. I actually did a good job against the Viper. After depleting one full row of health, he opened up a portal and ran. The game hints that you'll see him again and finish him later. Well, I did see him again and finished him off. Then I encountered another boss, a hulking Berserker who gets a move after EVERY action you take. Not every unit's turn. Every ACTION. You move. He takes an action. You shoot. He takes an action. You reload. He takes an action. This thing has three full rows of health. He obliterated me the first time and it took me several tries to learn. This may have been the mission where I lost my SPARK unit and/or my Grenadier, and I am sure that everyone else was injured. He also warps out when you deplete a row of health. The second time he appeared was actually when I had a squad of four, but I noticed that he was--as a berserker might do--attacking anything in sight. I just set up an ambush, let him rampage around and kill all the other enemies, then focused fire to quickly bring him down a row of health. Poof, warped away, and I even knocked out a good chunk of his final row as he ran. During my last session, I encountered him again in a mission, but saved and quit there. He's far away and has two enemies patrolling with him, and I've got a strong squad on this mission, so I should be able to take him out pretty easily. But there's a third monster somewhere, and he might appear at the worst possible time! As with everything else in this game, all you can do is methodically prepare and hope that you're ready for what it decides to throw at you.
Hopefully I have a game victory to report in short order!
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Jun 27th, 2022 at 22:23:43 - Post Void (PC) |
Another recently acquired freebie that looked insane. Post Void is a retro FPS, but like in some psychedelic Hotline Miami vein. It's fast and frenetic with bright colors and flashes. Don't ask me what the story is about. There are 11 increasingly challenging levels, but if you die, you die. Enemies are vicious and come charging at you. Every enemy you kill returns a little bit of health. If you don't kill an enemy after a short amount of time, a timer counts down from 3 and you die if you don't get a kill.
After each level, you choose a perk from among three options. Perks include faster reload speeds, new guns, slower enemy bullets, a compass pointing toward the exit, and so on. I always liked to get the one that slows their bullets, gives more health, and get an Uzi. Not sure what is optimal though. I can reliably make it to level 4 after about 45 minutes of practice, but get annihilated by various enemies that I haven't been able to clearly see yet. They kill me so quickly!
This is fun and gets my heart rate up. I watched someone finish a run on YouTube. This has me curious about other modern retro FPSes, as that's a genre I haven't dabbled in.
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Jun 27th, 2022 at 19:18:03 - Bridge Constructor Portal (PC) |
This was a freebie at some point and I tried it out because of the Portal theme. The Portal mechanics are cleverly integrated with the building in Bridge Constructor. You basically build bridges to guide little workers and their carts through portals to the exit on each level. At first, I was pretty enamored with it. It's cute, they got GLaDOS to voice.
I got stuck on level 20 though (of 60); the challenge really ramps up! I think my struggle with it is that I know what I need to do, but I can't execute. Rather, I can execute, but it takes a lot of fiddling to do it. For example, on this level 20, you have to use panels to redirect some orbs into their holes so that cubes drop on the turrets, such that your carts can pass safely. Okay, so I had the idea figured out quickly! But getting the orbs to hit the surfaces at a specific angle to start a chain of bounces so that they go where you want them to is like...tweak, run test, tweak, run test, tweak, run test, tweak, run test, forever until you get it just right. Granted, my solution (when I looked it up) wasn't ideal, but it was going to work.
I watched levels 20-60 on YouTube, and there is no way I would have kept with it. The difficulty ramp happens around where I stopped. The game continues to add Portal mechanics, from speed gel and bouncing gel to laser grids to launching panels, and requires evermore elaborate bridges. I feel like I had a good understanding of the Portal bit, but not the Bridge Constructor bit. I shouldn't be an engineer.
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Jun 27th, 2022 at 18:17:31 - Far Cry 4 (PC) |
This had been on my wishlist since it came out in 2014 and the price never dropped low enough for me to grab it. But then it was a freebie through Amazon Prime last month. I had Watch Dogs 2 queued up to play soon, but I downloaded this to play first. Keeping my Ubisoft open world games in order! I hope that Watch Dogs 2 is sufficiently different from this and Assassin's Creed (Odyssey is next after Watch Dogs 2) so that I don't get Ubisoft-open-worlded out.
Being Ubisoft-open-worlded out is a real concern because I feel like I've played Far Cry 4 five times before. It plays the...exact...same as other open world games where you capture the towers to reveal the map, liberate the bases, explore the question marks, do the zillion side quests and "activities", etc., etc. I suppose this makes sense and is somewhat forgivable here since this was made in 2014 and helped solidify these genre features. I don't remember exactly when open world games started including 10000 collectibles for you to find and cluttering your map with icons.
So I was really playing this for the bad guy, Pagan Min. He always looked intriguing, with his pink suit and fashion haircut. He doesn't disappoint. What a cool bad guy. He took over Kyrat (the Himalayan country the game is set in) in a coup and runs it with an iron fist, very Kim Jong Un, but with more personality. He's got a few lieutenants whom you mow down before confronting Pagan Min (unless you follow his instructions in the beginning of the game and complete it in 15 minutes). Most of the characters have eccentric personalities and are fairly amusing, but they can border on the annoying (the radio DJ, for one). One of Pagan Min's lieutenants is an American expat who lies to his family about where he is. He says he's on a business trip. He'll be torturing a soldier, his phone will ring, he'll stop and pick it up and talk all lovingly with his wife and daughter for a few minutes, then say he's got to walk into a meeting, hang up, and kill the soldier. It's pretty funny. I got a kick out of the two stoner guys as well, who use Ajay to experiment with drugs. Their side missions were trippy and some of my favorites.
The BEST missions though were the Shangri-La ones. This is an optional side story that, along with the trippy drug missions, reinforce that the coolest thing about Far Cry is when it goes all fantasy on you. You seek out five parts of a painting depicting the story of a warrior seeking paradise. Each time you find part of the painting, you "enter" it and play the part of the story. You have a bow and a knife, but can also command a tiger, fly on wind tunnels, and ride a rampaging elephant, as you free bells and get closer to defeating the evil spirit that is trying to take over Shangri-La. Where did Far Cry 4 go? Who cares! This was the best part.
I generally enjoyed myself while playing. Exploring the map, completing quests, liberating bases, it's all very methodical, and I get into doing that kind of thing, even if I am aware of mundanity and repetition. But there were a lot of really, really, annoying things about the game. I rolled my eyes a lot upon dying. I'll list some at the top of my mind:
1. Healing - You heal in two ways, by using a healing syringe (takes a second, heals all the way with upgrades), or by manually using bandages, setting bones, and so on (takes a few seconds, heals up to one-third of your health, upgraded). The thing that drove me the most nuts is that you can't choose. If you have a healing syringe (which you have to craft from gathering plants), then you will use the healing syringe. Often, I didn't want to use the healing syringe. If there are no enemies around, if it's not urgent, why would I use a syringe? I can just manually do it. But no. It forces you to use the syringe if you have it, which is wasteful and makes you have to go pick so many green flowers. The second thing is that it takes so long to heal manually. I got shot dead so many times while the healing animation played. Super irritating.
2. Rampaging Enemies - There are, of course, enemies roaming the map. No problem. There are also, though, enemies roaming where they would not roam (e.g., enemy trucks leaving outposts that you've captured--how did they get in there??), or seemingly endlessly spawning and attacking you and bases that you've liberated. I "failed" to protect outposts probably 30 times, as enemies would randomly attack them. When that happens, the game removes your current waypoint and changes it to the outpost. At first, I thought I had to go defend the outposts, like the enemies would take them back over if I didn't save them. But one time I ignored it, and it just said I failed, and life went on. Nothing happened! Then what's the point?! It draws you out of whatever you are doing, deletes your waypoint, but then if you ignore it, nothing happens.
3. Climbing and Wingsuit - Oh man, I hated climbing and I hated the wingsuit. You press spacebar near a specific type of vertical ledge to climb it, which usually just made you jump (spacebar also jumps) until you line it up better. The main character, Ajay, seriously needs to work on his ability to scale a rock as tall as he is. He will not jump over ANYTHING unless it's a nice vertical rock wall about 8 feet tall. A sloping rock? Nope, he won't walk up it. The game, being set in the mountains, also features rappelling, but your rope gets stuck on rocks all the time and you have to reset the rope. Now, the wingsuit. You activate this by pressing shift and jumping off a cliff. The problem is that shift is also the sprint button, which you are always holding down. The other problem is that the wingsuit doesn't just activate on tall cliffs; it activates on anything that is like 6 feet tall or higher. Which means that you will unintentionally deploy your wingsuit constantly. Ajay doesn't know how to safely land in a wingsuit. He has to deploy a parachute to land and not die. So, you will often run off of a low rock with no intention of flying, the wingsuit will deploy, and Ajay will immediately crash into the ground and die. You were just running three seconds ago; now you are dead. I cannot complain enough about how bad jumping, climbing, and the wingsuit are.
4. This doesn't have to do with dying, but also made me roll my eyes. The Golden Path (the good guy rebel army fighting Pagan Min) is led by two people, a man and a woman. You occasionally choose which of their methods to use to complete a given task. For example, the enemy has poppy fields that they use for drug production. The woman wants you to secure the poppy fields to use to fund the resistance; the man wants you to burn them down. Eventually, only one of them will lead the Golden Path, so your choices theoretically matter (they don't actually matter until the last one). But I eventually realized that the choices are ridiculously artificial. For example, the woman always wants to utilize Pagan Min's production facilities or whatever to fund the Golden Path. She wants to modernize. The man wants to return to tradition and wants to tear down everything Pagan Min has built. I sided with the man over and over because I didn't want to produce drugs. Destroying heroin production seemed like a good idea. The woman starts making their rivalry a gender thing, which I suppose is suppose to tug on the player. She wants a progressive society with equality. He wants to go back to tradition and maintain Kyratian culture. This is when I started switching sides because it turns out that "tradition" includes men taking child brides. Great. So I can either choose the woman / drug lord (but feminism!) or I can choose the man / child brides (but tradition!). I switched my allegiance after the child bride thing and after talking to a would-be child bride, who "didn't know who she wanted to be the leader." Girl, you're telling me that you're cool with being married off at 12 years old to a much older man? Nah. So I sided with the woman and killed the man.
And of course, I let Pagan Min live.
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