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Jun 27th, 2020 at 12:49:38 - The Witness (PC) |
Played this for 4 or 5 hours and am over it. This is a puzzle game from Jonathan Blow of Braid fame. It's set on a big, beautiful island that you explore in first-person. Scattered around the island are a number of "hubs" containing grid-based line puzzles with many different rules. These begin simply enough, but I quickly found myself scratching my head.
A cool thing about the design is that there are no tutorials. Every puzzle follows some logic and you can figure them out by doing other puzzles and observing the world around you. At least, it's cool because you will have great "aha" moments, but it is also maddening because if you get stuck, there is no help.
The first puzzles just ask you to draw a line through a maze. Then, black and white dots appear and the line must also separate the two types of dots. As you complete puzzles, you will usually see a power cable light up that leads to the next puzzle in the area. Eventually the powered cables open doors and whatnot. So although the island is open, and you are free to explore most of it at any time, it does do a decent job of guiding you through easier areas first. That is, until you discover the town in the middle of the map, which apparently contains the hardest puzzles. When I saw the town for the first time, I was so confused, though based on previous experience, I realized that the answer to "what are the rules of these puzzles" must be in other areas, so off I went to explore some more.
Suffice it to say that there are many, many clever takes on the "draw a line" mechanic. Another neat thing that The Witness does is force you to use the environment to solve puzzles. In one area, I realized that I had to draw lines around objects in the background behind the transparent grid. In others, I realized that I had to trace shadows cast by tree branches behind me, or trace a line to an end corresponding to an apple on a tree in front of me.
Despite being periodically like "wooow" and impressed with the puzzles, like I said, they were also maddening because I could not figure out for the life of me how many of them worked. What are all these colored shapes? What do I do with the tetris shapes? I sort of figured out the latter, but only on a surface level because more advanced tetris shape puzzles stumped me. My previous "rules" didn't work, so they must be incomplete. The island is so big that finding where to find a rule can be quite the challenge. Eventually, I discovered a boat, which enabled me to zoom around the island faster and see some things I had not previously seen.
So, that's about where I stopped, just aimlessly looking at new places in the boat and not feeling like I was making progress. Progress toward what? You would expect a puzzle game in a 3D world to have some sort of story, but although I had the feeling that there was a story, I can't tell you what it is. I don't know who I am, what this island is, why there are line puzzles all over it. If someone said what's the story like, I'd say I don't know. My motivation to continue a difficult or drudging game is often bolstered by wanting to know what happens next, but that doesn't happen here. So I quit.
Then I watched this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZokQov_aH0
First, this guy is phenomenal. I will be watching more. But, most importantly, this video confirmed that I made the right decision to stop playing. Watching it, I am certain I would have made some more discoveries, but also certain that I never would have finished because the game is so obtuse. While I appreciate Jonathan Blow's work here on an intellectual level, actually playing it through is not something I would subject anyone to. It turns out that you get no story until you beat the game, and that it's a game about perspective. Like, to get you to think about perspective itself, both in terms of observation and epistemology. Oh man. I don't want to play a 30-hour difficult puzzle game to think about perspective. I'll just think about it!
If someone was interested in the game, I'd suggest playing it, but not pursuing it too hard. Struggle a bit, but if you really want to stop, stop and listen to someone smart talk about it.
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Jun 24th, 2020 at 19:28:13 - Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (PC) |
This should be the last log I write for a minute! My Microsoft Game Pass subscription is lapsing in a couple days and I managed in two months to play most everything on there that I was interested in (that my computer could run, and that I didn't want to own). 2 months, 15 or 20 games, and...$5.99. Frugal victory! I no longer feel compelled to play games with all my free time. Just finished this one up because I had started it before I realized that Wolfenstein II was removed from Game Pass.
This one isn't as good as The New Order, but it's got some neat tricks. You get a new weapon/tool, a pipe that can be taken apart. Whole, you can pry things, pop off heavy enemy armor, and execute enemies. In parts, you can execute enemies and climb some walls using them like ice picks. The story is a direct prequel. Some new enemy types include flaming zombies (which only pose a threat in two sequences near and during the final boss) and giant mechanized supersoldiers that are on rails. It's funny. They're the technological precursors to the armored dudes in the first game, but the Nazis haven't developed the technology to power them free of power lines.
The neat perk system is still here where you unlock permanent upgrades by doing things like "get 50 kills with the shotgun" but there are fewer than in the first game and it was less fun for some reason to try and unlock them all. I think that's a summary of the game really. It's basically The New Order again, but everything is turned down a notch.
EXCEPT the final boss battle. I remember complaining that The New Order could have used more memorable fights. Well, good job Old Blood! There are two boss fights, one against a character I very much enjoyed killing, but the fight itself was easy and not memorable. But the second, it took me 20 tries. I figured out one little trick after another and finally won. And like the last boss in The New Order, there are no tells for how injured the boss is (well, the gutters of flame might be, not sure), so I never had any idea if I was really on the right track or not. Then finally, one time, he died. Yay!
Looking forward to The New Colossus at some point. I'm sure it's a romp.
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Jun 24th, 2020 at 15:43:53 - Goat Simulator (PC) |
I do not know what I expected. This game doesn't need to exist. It amused me for 5 minutes, then I rounded out the half hour trying to find some hidden depth or meaning and, well, it's not there.
You're a goat. You can sprint, headbutt things, lick things, and do flips. You're given two tiny levels with some people, cars, houses, a Ferris wheel, and all sorts of silly set pieces (Stonehenge, an art show, a castle where goats worship you, etc.). You run around and cause mayhem. Get points for headbutting things and blowing up things. Cross off a list of achievements for doing double-backflips or headbutting something really far or destroying Stonehenge.
The game was released on April Fool's Day and it's clearly a joke. Coffee Stain Studios made the excellent Sanctum FPS/TD hybrids and, I just read, surpassed all sales of Sanctum 1 and 2 with Goat Simulator. I just remember it being hyped. Now I think it must not have been honest-to-goodness hype but like joke hype. Like it's-so-bad-it's-good hype. It's purposefully buggy and the ragdoll physics are exaggerated, and it can be kind of funny flying, twirling, through the air after getting hit by a swerving car, then landing and headbutting through the glass of an art museum and disrupting the hipster show going on. People must love it because aside from the two levels, there are at least 5 paid DLCs. Is there anything substantially more interesting in there? I wonder.
I think that Untitled Goose Game must have gotten inspiration from this. Also, I was thinking about Mister Mosquito the other day, which is a bizarre old PS2 game where you are a mosquito who harasses a Japanese family. Is there a long line of "animal harasses humans" games? Should this be a genre?? I wish.
Anyway, weird. Glad this was on Microsoft Game Pass so I could check it out, even if it seems pointless.
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Jun 24th, 2020 at 15:27:22 - No Man's Sky (PC) |
I had a friend who was STOKED about No Man's Sky back in like 2014. I followed it with mild interest. Hello Games' previous series, Joe Danger, never clicked with me, and I wasn't sure how they would go from a little stunt-based motorcycle game to one of the most ambitious games I'd heard of. Well, many years and a giant scandal later, I finally got the chance to find out!
To preface, I know there is a lot going on behind the scenes regarding the infinite procedurally generated universe, and I'm sure that is very cool and whatnot. You start off on a planet and quickly fly to another one, which I learned no one has ever discovered. I even got to name it (Nachtluz). I also got to name my eventual base (David's Turf KEEP OUT or I will throw durian).
I toyed around with No Man's Sky for a few hours and while it is certainly wonderful on paper, I was quickly bored and felt no real purpose in advancing further. On the planet on which you begin, you must fix your space ship. The game expertly teaches you its systems, first the basics like how to manage your space suit, repair tools, use tools, use your inventory, craft something from materials, and so on. You follow a mysterious signal to whatever planet was generated for you and proceed through the missions, which drip feed you new tutorial information. This is basically what I did for the duration of my play.
You're instructed to build Thing A, which you need to do Activity B. Once you do Activity B, you must build Thing C. To build Thing C, you need to collect Material D and Material E. Once you have these, you must build Thing F to combine the materials and form Material G. Only then can you build Thing C. Once you build Thing C, you are instructed to build Thing H and Thing I so that you can do Activity J. This requires Materials K and L. And so on.
In the process of this mindless, sometimes-enjoyable-because-it's-relaxing tedium, you start learning about some alien races ("knowledge stones" teach you alien words, for example), discover flora and fauna on your planet, explore the technology tree for building, and start learning to terraform and construct buildings. These latter bits I didn't know were a part of the game. You have a mining laser that drills into the earth. You use the laser on everything else to get raw materials too. You use those materials, or resources, to build shelter from weather anomalies, teleportation devices, and later an entire base to call your own. This is cool, but I usually don't care to build things in video games or to create my own spaces. This is probably why my real-life abodes are always so minimalist and, as many friends have commented, "looks like a serial killer lives here."
Occasionally space ships flew overhead. Are these other players? How DO you play with someone anyway? There's a more game to understand, but it does seem like the first few hours introduced me to the gist of the experience. I imagine that you go to other planets and essentially do the same kinds of things I have done on this planet, explore it and mine its resources. The story is really bare and, from what I've read, continues that way. I also wonder how varied the planets are. Are some very dangerous with many wild animals? Are some incredibly beautiful? Or do they all pretty much look the same with minor differences?
I could see myself playing around in No Man's Sky because it is pretty and relaxing and (at this point at least) mindless. If I ever sign up for Microsoft Game Pass again and it's still there, I might jump back in for a little while.
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