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May 29th, 2020 at 17:30:39 - Frostpunk (PC) |
Finished this (okay, almost almost finished this) in a mega-session last night. I usually don't care much for city builders or 4x games, but this one is special. It straddles the line between those and various "difficult choices weighing resources and humanity" type games like the studio's previous effort, This War of Mine. It also reminded me of Banner Saga (probably the snow helped), Prison Architect (damn Londoners!), FTL (fires everywhere), Sunless Seas/Skies (the writing and tone of the game), and other such games where everything goes horribly wrong.
The premise is that some global climate catastrophe is sweeping the world, freezing it and burying civilization in ice and snow. Survivors fight among each other, flee large cities, and head for the wilderness to try and eke out a living in the warm shadows of huge generators. You are the leader of one such band of survivors and must guide them in building a settlement. Gather and manage natural resources, manage your populations' hope (good) and discontent (bad), quell rebellions, keep people fed and healthy, and most importantly, keep people warm. The weather is your biggest enemy.
You can see a 5-day forecast and know when the temperature will rise or fall. The temperature has 6 different levels, from comfortable to freezing. The colder it is, the more likely your people are to get sick and require medical attention. If it's really, really cold, they will either die or get frostbite and need amputations, which makes them unable to work. The weather in a video game has never induced such dread.
As I said, the game is at its core about surviving through cold snaps. You want your population inside warm buildings. Some buildings can't even operate if it gets too cold. So, you will need to research insulation and heating technologies. The central generator can provide a lot of this warmth. It warms more space hotter with upgrades, but guzzles coal. The colder it is, the more dangerous it is to send people to work. So how will you get all the coal you need? Tough question.
I bungled my first playthrough. We arrived at the generator, and I spent time learning the basics. Meanwhile, the clock ticked away and night fell. I had done almost nothing. No one had any houses and 24 of my 80 people died in the night. Woops. This made completing one of the early game objectives nearly impossible and I never did it, which means subsequent objectives never triggered. I had no guidance! I was eventually exiled for poor leadership.
In my second playthrough, I dutifully built housing and lost not a soul for days. The mistake I made though was to center my entire settlement around the main generator for heat. I never even researched power substations, which are smaller sources of heat you can build elsewhere. By the time the temperature dropped to 100 below 0, I realized I had made a grave error. I had the generator running as high as I'd upgraded it and I was just burning through my coal reserves. I actually managed to hold out until sooo close to the end of the game! I mean, I had about 15 real-time seconds before I would have won, but alas, I was ejected again from town. Better city planning is required.
Frostpunk has so many cool elements to it and is absolutely worth a look. I've never played anything quite like it. It hooked me in a marathon session and I stayed up way too late. As soon as it was over, I wanted to start again to survive the storm at the end. I immediately know like 20 things I would do differently. The game also comes with several additional scenarios, and, in the main scenario at least, there are two "paths" for the kinds of laws you can enact (another neat feature). I chose Discipline and Order this time, but there is also Faith and Spiritual Strength. So, I may give this another shot with the other path and best the storm, but I'm going to keep trying to burn through these Microsoft Game Pass games first. This is the longest a dollar has ever gone to fund my gaming. Once I get done with all the ones I want, if I still have time, I'll return to this, or maybe buy it on sale on Steam.
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May 28th, 2020 at 15:44:33 - Gears 5 (PC) |
Aside from the luscious visuals and superbly detailed environments (that hid its many collectibles), Gears 5 didn't wow me as much as Gears of War 4. The game is less cohesive overall both in narrative and pacing. Half the game is about Kait and the COG's secrets, and the other half is about assembling the Hammer of Dawn to...to...destroy a hive? I was never quite sure until the end and I don't think the characters were either. The AI is worse and it had more technical issues. There is a "choice" at the end that has no impact on the game's outcome and probably required a few extra lines of dialogue, though I wonder which choice will be canon. The main new enemy type is a swarm (appropriate) of leeches that flies through the air. These are very easy to deal with though. You also get some new Juvies that sprout explosives and are fun to blow up. There are some new mega bosses, which were all spectacles to fight. I particularly liked the Matriarch fight (and the whole secret laboratory chapters). There weren't any new weapons of note, just some variations on lancers, and I was sad there were no giant mechs to control this time around. Thankfully, The Coalition did away with the glorified Horde mode in the campaign. Those were the only parts of Gears of War 4 I didn't like, and I must not have been alone.
There are two main things that Gears 5 adds that made it feel unique in the series (but not at all to the genre): the skiff and Jack. The skiff is the means by which you traverse the new open-ish world environments in the ice and desert levels. The ice parts are stunning with huge looming crags in the distance and shining icicles always threatening to drop on your head. The desert, unfortunately, is basically a re-skin of the ice levels that makes Sera look like Mars. But the skiff! It's kind of like parasailing and waterskiing. You use the sails to catch the wind and skim along the ground's surface. Ride it around to explore and find and complete secondary missions (a series first?). You'll help Outsiders secure their water source, investigate downed Condors, and through the few secondary missions you'll find items that upgrade Jack...
...Jack is a cute drone that is, well, a jack-of-all-trades. He's with you the whole game and has a handful of useful active and passive abilities that you can deploy. Often, you have to use one to get past an environmental hazard (Stim) or power a generator (Shock). The more "components" you find, the more you can level up his abilities. By the end of the game, Jack can give you invisibility, shield you, freeze enemies, mind control enemies, set traps, and more. He's fun to use and nice to have around. Your crew isn't nearly as chatty or funny as in Gears of War 4, so Jack's beeps and blips helped make up for some of the missing charm.
I left unexplored the myriad options for online play, customization, account leveling, and microtransactions. One could play these newer Gears of War games for ages and never unlock everything. Campaign and done! It sets up for a Gears 6, so I'm sure we'll see that roll out right on schedule. In another couple years, I'm sure it'll be as enjoyable as these games always are.
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May 24th, 2020 at 10:44:03 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps (PC) |
Another breathtaking game. This takes everything from the previous one and adds layers. The levels are bigger and more distinct, there are more enemy types, more abilities, more upgrades, they added quests, tons more characters, etc., etc. It's Ori turned up to 11.
All that is to say that bigger is not necessarily better, as the game feels a bit bloated. An example: quests. The game has a heavier story focus, adds a handful of named characters whom you encounter, and adds quests to tell you about the characters. Quests are nearly all of the "fetch an item and return it" variety. You'll complete most of them just in the course of playing, but it necessitates looking in all the nooks and crannies (I generally did that anyway for pickups). For one, you find seeds and return them to a gardener so he can plant things. For another, someone asks you to find a hat for him.
One big quest is to help a character build a village. To do this, he needs ore, which is hidden throughout the world. In total, there are probably 50 pieces of the stuff, and I'm pretty sure that you need to find every piece to complete every building project (I completed all but one). Finding and returning ore to complete building projects generally yields light conversation with another character, some spirit orbs (experience), and maybe a life or mana fragment. These interactions and quests are all kind of cute--the characters and creatures are very likable--but they're very shallow too.
One huge improvement over the first game that I didn't know I wanted is 3D backgrounds. Stop and look as you play, or look at a screenshot. Every frame looks like concept art. It's beautiful. Sometimes, especially early in the game, the 3D backgrounds can be a little distracting or obfuscate what you are looking for (I used a walkthrough at the very beginning of the game because a movable stone blended so well with the environment that I couldn't see it), but you get used to it after a while.
Another neat improvement is varied environments. In the previous game, the environments looked differently, but generally played the same. In this one, there are new movement abilities that make sense for each environment (e.g., a drill to travel through sand in the desert level; a fireball to warm braziers in the ice level). This means that, to some extent, each level forces you to think a bit differently. This could be annoying, but I think that's only my "I just want to use what I already learned!" brain talking. Really, it makes you figure out new abilities and ways of progressing through a level. At the very end of the game, you can go in an extra area or two, which I declined to explore, but my guess is that it (is really hard and) forces you to use all the abilities you have learned to master tough challenges. At least that's what I hope it was.
So, if you're like me, you loved the first game and are happy for more. Most of the additions are welcome (I've talked to other people who disliked the combat addition, but, although combat was generally easy, I enjoyed it), but some are unnecessary and make the game feel overly packed with things. To that point, it took me 50% longer to finish this than the original. Maybe in another 5 years there will be a third!
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May 17th, 2020 at 10:26:52 - Dishonored 2 (PC) |
Great game, totally immersive. I don't remember a whole lot about the first one. What I do remember most is using a controller and the Reach ability being annoying to aim. So this time around, mouse and keyboard! Reach works much better with a mouse to aim.
First, the game has a wonderfully dark tone where everything is morally gray. Every character, even the main characters (you can choose to play between two), have faults. I chose to play as Emily, the recently dethroned Empress (instead of her father, Corvo, who is the protagonist in the first game). Emily was a hands-off ruler who didn't take much interest in being Empress and didn't pay attention much to how power was shifting in her realm. Thus, the dethronement. I did enjoy the story quite a bit, though there was one part that didn't make any logical sense. At one point, you can choose to kill the Duke (who orchestrated the coup) or you can convince his body double to become the new Duke. Then you knock out the real Duke and stage a scene so he gets taken to the dungeons. Now, why would a Duke body double make a fit ruler of a country? How does Emily know he'll be benevolent? How does Emily know he hates the real Duke? The Duke has access to all sorts of magic and shady people. How would he not be able to get himself out of a pickle and expose a mere body double? Whatever, Dishonored, I'll ignore that implausible plot thread.
I love that you can always tackle objectives in multiple ways and that there are numerous paths through the environment. The game really does support varied play styles and doesn't seem to favor one over another. I tended, against my initial intentions, to attack everyone and kill a lot of people. I got a "high chaos" ending. Oops. This accidental tone was set during my very first enemy encounter. I choked out a guard, but then pushed the wrong button and threw him off a ledge, killing him.
An example of how surprising navigating the levels can be is when you have to find a way into the Clockwork Mansion (a now famous level that gets 100 level design chef's kisses). You have to figure out how to power a tram line to cross a chasm to reach it. Once I activated the tram and rode across, I noticed a...path...below. I followed it backwards, beneath the tram line, and discovered a hidden broken fence on the initial side of the chasm. Oh my gosh, if I'd seen that, I could have just Far Reached my way across! The downside to taking shortcuts is that you miss any runes (ability points) and bone charms (little stat boosts) hidden throughout the level.
An example where I did take the shortcut was when I had to get into Stinton's bunker. In this level, there are three main areas: Stinton's bunker (your main objective), and the hideouts of the Overseers (religious zealots) and Paolo's gang. You're told to take out the leader of either faction and present the corpse to the other faction to gain their favor. Then they will help you get into the bunker. You're also told that the bunker is guarded by an impossible lock, designed by the genius whose Clockwork Mansion you already infiltrated. If you walk to the bunker, you'll see some safe crackers trying to figure out the enigma. No one has ever figured it out blah blah blah. "Okay," I thought. "I like puzzles." So I spent an hour figuring out the solution and I got in the bunker without attacking a soul! I got a lot of achievements for that feat (but missed a lot of runes and bone charms). The puzzle is one of those where x number of people go to a party and there are y number of other variables that you have to match to the people. In this case, you have to figure out which of 5 heirlooms belongs to 5 women at a party. In doing so, you need to deduce what color clothes they are wearing, what they are drinking, the order they are sitting at a table, and where they are from. It was a doozy and I took up three pieces of scrap paper making charts to solve it.
Another thing I love about this game are the hilarious (and useful!) interactions between your powers and the enemies. BY FAR one of the top 5 powers ever in a video game is called Domino. Like the name suggests, you "tag" multiple enemies, and whatever happens to one happens to them all. It's an easy way to get rid of several enemies at once. So here are a couple of my favorites that happened. Two NPCs were arguing. I Dominoed them, expecting to have to fight one or both to get past. But then one pushed another off a ledge! The one that fell died, and then the other one died too. In a similar case, I learned how to make guards commit suicide. If you Domino some, then grab one in a choke hold, the other guards will still attack you, but they'll hit whoever you're holding too. If they kill them, they die too. So basically, a guard attacks you and dies because he kills the other guard he's attached to. Hilarious. Another way I figured out to use it to clear whole areas of enemies (it felt like running a train in an MMO) was to place some mines in a spot, then run around the area Dominoing enemies and getting them to follow me. When I lead them back to the mines, they all drop dead at once. There are so many other ways to use Domino, and that's just barely scratching the surface of the abilities at your disposal. I didn't even unlock most of them!
And finally, two little gripes that boggled my mind. First, the left mouse button is by default bound to the sword that you carry in your right hand. The right mouse button is bound to your left-hand weapon. !??!! That is so confusing! Why would you do that?! Second, characters vary in how they pronounce the name of the city where most of the game takes place: KarNOCa or KarNACa. It was driving me nuts, especially because I wanted to pronounce it KARnaca. Will there be a DIShonored 3? DisHONored. DishonORED? I hope so. This was a lot of fun.
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