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Jun 22nd, 2020 at 12:15:38 - Stick Fight: The Game (PC) |
Got this for free in a multiplayer bundle and tried it out a few weeks ago with a friend. It was hilarious fun. The game's name is accurate. You are stick people and you fight. Fights are on 2d maps. Weapons fall from the sky, ranging from pistols to light sabers to bazookas that shoot snakes, which chase other players around. You jump, punch, and shoot your ragdoll opponents and kill them or knock them off the map. It's fun flailing around, trying to jump and punch and shoot while the obstacles in the level make all of that exceedingly difficult. Levels have ground that disappears, falling blocks, spinning saws, slippery ice, and other hazards.
Levels are over in a matter of seconds and the game switches to the next one. It took us maybe 30 minutes to scroll through every level. I just played online to get some achievements (kill 3 other players in a match, etc.) and the online experience with strangers is way less funny than sitting on a couch with a friend. I experienced some lag, and a couple players seem to be able to avoid falling off. Maybe they're hacking. There is basic text chat. I never got in a game with 4 people that lasted more than a minute before someone left, so it was quite boring, but I did grab a couple extra achievements. I'll save this for couch co-op amusement.
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Jun 18th, 2020 at 17:32:28 - The Banner Saga 2 (PC) |
Love love love. I've stayed up till 1 or 2am playing this for several nights recently. It's absolutely gripping. I liked this even more than I remember liking the first one and am about to delve straight into the third.
The gameplay is the same with expanded combat and more story. Instead of just controlling one caravan, you wind up with two by the end of this. There are a whole lot more units, classes, special characters, more abilities and items, higher levels to reach, and new stat talents to earn. Once you max out any stat, you can start putting points into passive abilities for that stat. Toward the end of the game, I beefed the hell out of some of my characters, in part because I started gaining access to level 8, 9, and 10 items, and I didn't have anyone over level 7. The level 10 items that I got were super overpowered, like they add 3 to all stat talents (so all you have to do is put a point into each stat talent, and then the items bumps them all up to level 4, it's wild) plus other bonuses.
The difficulty curve on this one peaked about halfway or so through the game. Then I started feeling really strong. As evidence of that, I only lost a few units in the last 10 or so battles combined. And the very final battle? I crit the boss and one-shotted him, which I did not anticipate. But to be fair, I think that Iver had like a 50% chance to crit with his item and strength talent at level 4, and he had at least 20 strength anyway. Also, the choices, while difficult to make, did not feel as gut-wrenching every time. The game is still plenty stressful as you manage characters' loyalties, avoid running out of supplies, keep morale in check, and all the rest!
This game also added some training challenges which granted renown (which is what you use to purchase items, purchase supplies, and level up characters--it is a very precious resource). They were generally easy (and completed when you met the objectives; you didn't actually have to finish the battles most of the time!), except for one that was really annoying because you had to chain three enemies with arc lightning. That involved running around the map waiting for enemies to line up properly so that it would hit three in a row. Took a while, but patience had its reward.
I may try to import my save from this game into the next one, but I would like to know which is more advantageous. Narrative continuity is great and all, but I feel like I had a few super strong characters and then mostly weak other characters. New game probably balances it better. We'll see!
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Jun 13th, 2020 at 14:48:55 - Gears Tactics (PC) |
I had never heard of Gears Tactics until I saw an ad for it on the Microsoft Game Pass storefront. Lo and behold, when it came out, it was included for free in Game Pass. Now, I'm wary of spinoffs, free games, and games I've never heard of that are all of a sudden available and appealing to me. But I do love tactics games, and the reviews for this were good-but-not-great (81% critic and 7.7 user scores on Metacritic, 76% "mostly positive" on Steam...and somehow a 4.8/5 on Xbox). I read a lot of reviews because the length appears to be 25 or so hours and I'm not keen on committing that amount of time to something that might be just okay. Plus, I have XCOM 2 and Shadow Tactics, two tactics games that I've actually been excited about for way longer.
Anyway, the perk of it being free is I can try it. If I'd paid for the game, I'd feel more compelled to finish, but to try for free? Eh, if it doesn't grab me I can put it down. I'm not sure how long I played, but I completed Act 1 (of 3), and I have a good impression of the game. The quick take is that it's XCOM-lite and a Gears game translated very well for tactics gameplay. I certainly had fun with it, but for everything cool about it, there are drawbacks that I know I'll not want to deal with for the remaining 2/3...and about 15-20 more hours...of the game.
Let's start with the cool stuff. If you've played a Gears of War game, you know it's already pretty tactical, as far as shooters go. I mean, it basically invented the modern third-person cover shooter. Just tilt the camera so you see the battlefield from above and, bam! Gears Tactics! Okay, it's more than that, but the franchise feels right at home in this genre. They kept standard enemy types and gun types and added classes. There are 5 classes that each have a couple specializations and quirks that make them feel unique. Some of the classes revolve around a gun type, such as the sniper (this one is obvious), the vanguard and support (which revolve around the lancer), and the heavy (which revolves around the mulcher [a chaingun]).
Each class has a big skill tree that branches off into four directions, allowing you to differentiate multiple characters with the same class. For example, the heavy can spend points around the Anchor skill, which is perfectly mapped from regular Gears games. In those games, you can't move and shoot a mulcher. Thus, in Gears Tactics, when the heavy takes a shot, he gains a stack of Anchor, which increases critical hit chance and damage. For every shot, he gains another stack, up to 3 or 5 depending on how many skill points you've invested. If you move, you lose your stacks. Maybe you're not interested in rooting your heavy to one spot and you'd rather spec your heavy so that shots do explosive damage in a radius. Maybe you want your support class character to specialize in healing individual units, or maybe in healing all units at once, or maybe in giving units other buffs. There are a good number of options here!
Enemies are similarly well translated from the regular games. Hammerburst drones like to take cover and use the Overwatch ability (all your characters can do this too, and it is quite useful), just like they tend to stay behind cover in the other games. Melee units will charge and try to get in range; genadiers become enraged and shoot harder and move farther; and so on. I suppose having played all the other Gears games (and two just recently) makes understanding Gears Tactics a little bit easier, but it's a pretty basic tactics game regardless, so far offering little challenge on normal difficulty. I also think playing two Gears games recently is making me care less about this one. I wonder if I'd be more into it under usual haven't-just-played-Gears-of-War circumstances.
Another way that the game adapts the regular franchise is through the focus on being aggressive. All your characters can perform executions on enemies if they are downed (dying), and some classes have abilities to charge and melee kill enemies. There are always perks for doing this, rooted in some character class's designs. When support class units kill an enemy, they heal all allies for a small amount. My vanguard is specced to gain 20% damage and 20% evasion for the rest of the round when he bayonet charges an enemy. My heavy has a perk where he gains 2 AP when another ally executes an enemy. Also, when you kill a downed enemy, every other ally gains 1 AP. So, the game really encourages up-close-and-personal combat through synergistic class skills. It's like the more you kill, especially with bayonets and chainsaws, the more actions you get. Very cool.
Despite the neat ideas Gears Tactics brings to the table for the tactics genre, the drawbacks are plenty as well. First, this story is so paper thin and uninteresting. The entire game is about you hunting some bad Locust guy named Ukkon. He's really bad, which you know by the fact that he's like an evil scientist, he kills COGS and laughs, he gets shot in the head and lives, he wears a cape and a crown, he uses an Immortan Joe style facemask to breathe sometimes. I mean, he's bad okay? So bad. Nearly every story mission so far has been "search for survivors/more COGs!" or "go to where Ukkon might be."
The story missions' narratives are bad enough, but the side missions are even more pointless. There are four types, which you will repeat over and over again. Or so I've read in reviews. But I've done two types and I already don't want to do any more side missions. The real problem? Side missions are mandatory! You have to complete x number of side missions every so often to progress the main story. They are pure filler to make the game longer. Gears Tactics has really annoying ads touting the fact that there are no microtransactions (what, is this a mobile game??) and asking you to rate it, but it is silent on the sin of padding a game with filler required side missions.
Couple this with the fact that your Gears level up so unbelievably slowly and you will be drowning in repetition. My main characters, the ones I've used every map, are level 4. My other COGs are level 2 or 3. I am looking right now at a video of the Act 2 boss (another 1/3 through the game) and they are playing with main characters level 4-5 and other COGs level 3-4. I've read that this is just how it is! People are finishing the game at level 7. Ugh. You only get skill points when you level up; otherwise, all you get are like weapon modifications and some armor, which generally do pretty boring things like just increase damage or evasion.
Speaking of the inventory system, it needs some streamlining. During missions, you can retrieve "cases" scattered around the map for parts, and you'll get some other parts as rewards. To equip something, you have to click through a bunch of menus for each soldier. Say I got a new helmet. I click a soldier, click the helmet slot, and see what they have equipped and the list of what else I have. If that soldier already has a good helmet, I have to click the roster, click the next soldier, click the helmet icon, and then see the list. I should be able to see what helmets all soldiers have on at the same time! Or, I should be able to see all of one character's equipment on the same screen! This clicking down into separate menus for each equipment type for each character is madness.
One of the best things about XCOM is that each of your soldiers matters to you (especially if you name them after your friends). When they die, it sucks. You're sad and have a hole in your team. Gears Tactics' extra COGs are totally dispensable. They can die permanently, but it doesn't matter at all. You have a constant stream of new recruits that, unbelievably, will often be of a higher level than the units you've groomed in battle. Well, time to bench reliable Todd who's been with me for this whole act and recruit Amanda because she's a level higher. Bye Todd. Gears Tactics also has no meta strategy layer. There's no base-building, no flying around the world, no nothing except leveling and equipping your Gears from mission to mission. It makes the game feel shallow (perhaps shallower than it actually is).
So, way more than I intended to write for this. Not a bad game at all! The battles hold my interest for sure. They are well done and exciting, and the one boss fight I had at the end of Act 1 was great. But almost everything else is barely propping it up. I'll wait for another tactics game that I was looking forward to!
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Jun 10th, 2020 at 12:19:11 - My Friend Pedro (PC) |
Quick and slick little 2D shooter with Hotline Miami vibes. The gimmick here is slowing down time (focusing), which lets you do all sorts of cool acrobatic moves while shooting multiple enemies. The feeling of slowing time, soaring and spinning through the air, guns blazing, didn't get old.
Later on in the game though, the genre shifts to almost more of a puzzle platformer with guns. The puzzles are easy and there's still enough gunplay to be satisfying. At the end, the two pieces (shooting and puzzle platforming) come together nicely and you're using all the tools at your disposal to dispense with threats.
Another cool thing are the environmental hazards. Well, they're hazards for enemies, but tools for you to kill them with. They're quite bizarre at times, such as a frying pan, which you can launch into the air and ricochet bullets off of to hit enemies behind obstacles. Other objects you can kick into enemies (like the heads of their colleagues) to kill them. Another fun one is the skateboard, which you can ride through some specially designed parts of levels reminiscent of industrial skate parts, do some tricks, and kickflip it into an enemy's face. Always amusing.
Perhaps what intrigued me most about the game, besides the gunplay, was the talking banana, the titular friend Pedro. He's...weird...I mean the whole game is weird. I thought it would be funnier, but it's more that amusing, chuckling, what-is-this kind of humor. Are you imagining the talking banana? I don't know, but you go where he says and kill who he says to kill. You even get to visit his home and deal with some of his haters in a very random and pointless series of levels. Otherwise, the story is basic. You will want to play to the end though for the final boss battle, which was--surprise surprise--very weird. This is a unique one and worth checking out for the gimmicks, and it's fun through its short play time. It's not hard on Normal mode, and you can unlock some fun modifiers like super speed if you want to screw around any further.
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