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Apr 1st, 2019 at 11:00:40 - Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (PC) |
Completed Dream Daddy! What a great game, wow. I first heard of this around the time it came out when I was working on stuff related to GamerGate, and that semester had a student who wrote me a paper on its depiction of sexuality and fatherhood. She would rave to me about how it handled gender and insist that I play it. My immediate comparison is the only other visual novel/dating sim I've played, Hatoful Boyfriend, but genre is really the only similarity. Nonetheless, Hatoful Boyfriend (the pigeon dating sim) prepared me for Dream Daddy. Thanks Hatoful Boyfriend.
What is Dream Daddy? It's a dad dating sim. You create a dad and begin the story. I made mine look like Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force and named him Carl McDad. The similarity is uncanny. You and your daughter, Amanda, move to a new town, to a house in a cul-de-sac where every other resident is also a dad. Some dads live with their kids, some are married, some are single. Some are more openly gay, some are in heterosexual relationships. They welcome you to the neighborhood, and you begin the process of meeting the game's 7 dads. This is essentially the prologue.
Once you meet all the dads together at a barbecue, you sign up for Dadbook (like Facebook, but for dads). It's unclear whether Dadbook is only for dads or whether anyone can join and it's just called Dadbook because Amanda and other kids will pop up on there. It's also unclear whether it's more of a dating site or more of just a messaging app. Anyway, through Dadbook, you ask the other dads to hang out or go on dates, and they will occasionally message you too.
The game flows like this: You choose a dad to message on Dadbook and go on a date. The date usually has two or three activities, and you get to know the other dad better. The date ends, you get a score based on a dialogue options you chose (the "best" dialogue option triggering a hilarious animation of hearts and eggplant emojis emanating from the wooed dad) and mini-games you completed, and you go home. You usually chat with Amanda, go to sleep, and repeat. You can initiate three dates with each dad (that's 21 dates). On the third date with any particular dad, as we found out last night, you can end the game by choosing to start dating that dad. You probably have to make correct dialogue decisions during the date, and I assume you can be rejected or choose not to date any of the dads (We will verify this later!). We went with Hugo, an English teacher and closet wrestling fan. Our other choices, in order, were Robert (mysterious, hunts cryptids), Mat (cool coffee shop owner, post-hardcore and emo fan), Joseph (married, youth minister), Craig (athletic, cool, but seemed too busy for us), Brian (competitive), and Damien (goth dad).
"Being a dad" is the main thing the game depicts, believe it or not, and so your relationship with Amanda often takes center stage (and the other dads' relationships with their kids are important too). Amanda is a high school senior planning to go to art school. She is a great kid and is going through some of the issues of teenage life--boys, friends, college applications, etc. You and her have a wonderful relationship, and the father-daughter scenes were some of my favorite in the game. The game does not hyper-focus on sexuality, which I had sort of assumed before playing. It's a game about dating dads, yes, but the emphasis is on relationships, romantic, sexual, or otherwise. Carl never comes out and says he's gay. He's just attracted to the dads that the player guides him toward. The other dads don't identify as gay either. Hugo was married to a man, and that statement is the closest we get to a statement about sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is conveyed more through thought and behavior (e.g., Carl sees Brian shirtless and notes that he's hot or Carl flirts with Craig by making a joke about kissing). I'll keep thinking about this. At first I was disappointed that the game was avoiding talking about sexuality, but the more I think about it, I think it's really clever how it doesn't focus on identity, but instead focuses on relationships, sexual fluidity, and performance. There's a paper in there somewhere...that has probably already been written.
I really liked how dates were not all one-on-one affairs, but involve other dads, kids, and are wrapped up in other aspects of daily life. For example, for one of the Hugo dates, he invites you to help chaperone his class on a field trip to the aquarium. I had to figure out how to get some mischievous kids out of the penguin enclosure. One of the Brian dates was a fishing trip that your daughters (who get along really well) tag along for. I always found the Brian dates funny because Carl and Brian's relationship was so competitive. Brian would always one-up Carl. If Amanda got straight As, then Brian's daughter got straight A+s. If Carl caught a 20-pound fish with his father, then Brian caught a 40-pound fish. Some of the dates involved mini-games. Sitting in Robert's truck overlooking the city, he teaches you to whittle wood, and you carve increasingly silly objects. You get separated from Mat at a punk concert and try to make your way to the front of the crowd where he is by avoiding moshing teenagers. To catch fish with Brian, you play a match-three game lining up the same kinds of fish. These were always fun little diversions.
I cannot gush enough about the dialogue. The writing is outstanding. The tone turns serious or heartfelt when it needs to and is often laugh-out-loud funny. Additionally, there are a lot of dad jokes and dad puns. There is a certain type of humor that the game has, and I think we were a target demographic. People who were children of the 80s and early 90s, teens in the 90s and early-mid-2000s will find a lot of shared cultural references. Another SUPER WEIRD thing about the game is that it is like it has been listening to our conversations. We joke all the time about cryptids and starting a cryptid podcast and interviewing my dad, whose favorite story is of hearing a Bigfoot in the woods. We even recently went to a Bigfoot museum and are bummed to miss the first ever Georgia Bigfoot Conference because it falls on the same weekend as the World's Biggest Fish Fry in Paris, TN. Anyway, Robert is into hunting cryptids, and during one date he tells a story (I think he's kidding) about seeing this one, and then y'all spot something in the woods, get really scared, and drive away. My girlfriend and I also like to go see monster trucks, and that is discussed in detail in the game. There were no joke like 6 or 7 other even more specific things that we say to each other or that we had just talked about and that then were in the game. One thing my girlfriend always says is "You'll see..." like in a jokey-sinister way. Like about April Fools Day today, she says she's going to do something to me. I ask what she's going to do. "You'll see..." THE GAME ENDED WITH "YOU'LL SEE"! That was the last piece of dialogue between Carl and Hugo before the credits! What a coincidence.
Okay okay, I've gone on forever about Dream Daddy, but it's not a perfect game. There are pacing issues and issues regarding what the game "knows" about your interactions with other dads. Like I said before, you can go on three dates with each dad. Sometimes, in between dates when you log onto Dadbook, another dad will message you for some sort of outing. These totally stopped before we had gone on one date with everyone, and we were then trying to figure out how the game might have expected us to date. Did it account for the player going on three dates in a row with one dad (and will this end the game after literally three dates)? Did it anticipate the player going on one date with each dad, then a second date with each dad? We assumed, once the other Dadbook messages stopped, that the meta-narrative (like the progress through the school year as Amanda applies to art school, learns she gets in, other time-sensitive events in other dads' lives, etc.) would progress once we went on one date with every dad, and that it would progress again after two dates with every dad. But after one date with every dad, nothing happened. Still no meta-narrative advancement, still no new Dadbook messages. And nothing happened after completing a second date with each dad. Why? It's like the game front-loads you with a variety of social interactions and narrative events over time, but then completely stops before you are 1/3 through dating around. After the third Hugo date, it's like time sped up to wrap up the entire story. All of a sudden Amanda graduated from high school. I thought it would follow her off to college, but it didn't.
The other issue is what the game knows about your interactions with other dads. For example, at the end of the prologue, you are re-introduced to all the dads you've met at a barbecue. Then, as you go on dates and outings with other dads, even if you've seen dads three times since the barbecue, Carl will still think things like, "When we met last at the barbecue..." or someone will message Carl saying, "I had a great time at the barbecue! Let's go do such-and-such..." And we're like, but we just went to the art gallery with Damien, Hugo, and Craig yesterday! Why don't you remember?! This kind of thing happens enough to be noticeable. There was another glaring error last night after a Mat date. Carl was at Mat's house after shopping for records, and Mat has a lot of instruments around his house. He was in a touring band with his late ex-partner. Carl asks Mat to play the piano, and Mat doesn't want to. It dredges up memories. You have the option to push the issue and get him to play or to drop it. I dropped it. Then later that night, Carl tells Amanda about the date and says that Mat played the piano and goes on about what I assume would have happened if you push Mat on the piano issue. But Mat never played the piano! Either the game has an error in the narrative or Carl has revealed that he is a dirty liar and makes up stories to tell Amanda. I wish these issues had been ironed out.
Play this game. I want to use it for my game-based learning SOCI 1101 course somehow. It's smart, funny, deals with gender, sexuality, parenthood, and other issues in a thoughtful way. And it might be listening. Also, the theme song is a real ear worm.
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Mar 10th, 2019 at 16:41:12 - Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii) |
Simple game with cute, creative art and a neat "yarn" mechanic. Instead of sucking up enemies like Kirby usually does, he tosses out yarn (like Scorpion in Mortal Kombat: "Get over here!") to unravel enemies and pull objects around. This is because in the story, Kirby has gone to yard land or something because the ultimate boss, Yin-Yarn (pun, +10 points), is turning Dream Land (Kirby's home) into yarn. It's extremely gory with blood and guts and spine ripping and everything. Oops, still thinking about Mortal Kombat. Kirby is totally kid friendly.
This kept me entertained for about 6 hours to breeze through the single-player story. You can play co-op, though I'm not exactly sure what that adds besides the joy of playing with a friend, as you can do everything alone and there don't seem to be mini-games or anything requiring two players.
Anyway, the selling point of this game is the yarn gimmick. You don't just use yarn to grab enemies, but you use it to swing from attach points, to shapeshift into cool vehicles in a lot of the levels, and to literally reconfigure parts of the level (always neat). Like I said, it's kid stuff, so it's not going to blow your mind, and it's nothing you haven't seen similarly before (usually with grappling hooks in other games), but it's cool, it's slick, it's fun, it's relaxing, and it's charming to play. Worth the purchase.
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Mar 8th, 2019 at 21:36:36 - No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Wii) |
Meh Wii game with some highs and lows.
Style. The game's got this B movie aesthetic with over-the-top sex and violence. I was into the violence, but the sex stuff was mostly jiggly boobs and stupid one-liners. The main character, Travis Touchdown, is pretty irritating too. He's supposed to have bad-boy attitude. You save the game by going into the bathroom and pooping, and when you play as a woman character, by taking a sexy shower. It feels like the game is for 12-year-old boys and I would be embarrassed to play it around anyone. The cel-shading looks great.
Combat. Fun, but overstays its welcome. The game is broken up into fights where you climb the ranks (through 50, though you probably actually play 15 or so) of fighters to make it to #1. It makes very cool use of the Wiimote and nunchuck motion controls. When you deplete an enemy's health, you do an execution by swinging the Wiimote in whatever direction pops up on screen. This decapitates, disembowels, splits in half, and chops off limbs. Wonderfully gory and slick. You can also, when enemies are stunned, get in close and do piledrivers and things, by swinging the Wiimote and nunchuck together. The combat overstays its welcome because there are some seriously long sequences fighting regular enemies on the way to bosses. One time I thought the game might have been stuck in a loop. It was like 15 minutes of wave after wave after wave.
Bosses. Fights are generally very easy. A couple of them have little tricks to figure out, and these were my favorite ones. Bosses are very weird and imaginative. A couple of my favorites were fighting the cosmonaut ("the entire fucking space program," as Travis says) and the spider-girl. The trick to the latter is to time rolls when she shoots at you so you can close in and attack her. The final boss is a rich child at the top of a tower who looks sort of like the Riddler riding in a flying car. The second phase is him bulked up looking like a super hero. The third phase is him like a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade float. Yeah, I have no idea.
Story. The story makes little sense, aside from the "climb the ranks of fighters" thing. It picks up where the previous game left off, and makes a lot of references to events and characters from the previous game. It seems that some of the bosses you fight were in the first game (or their parents or siblings were or something). Travis has a protege who you get to play a couple levels with. She's basically there to be objectified. Then there's Travis's brother, who you rescue (I forget when or how this even happens) and do a fight inside of a dream, which was weird, with some anime girl in a robot suit. There's the head of the fighters' association, a woman with more personality, but also sex appeal. Then there is this mystery woman (Travis's girlfriend from the first game?) who talks on the phone, telling someone about various enemies you will fight, and the camera only shows her mouth, breasts, legs, and up her skirt. Yikes.
Minigames. These deserve a mention also for being super weird. You can play these to earn money to purchase upgrades and new weapons (all of which seem pretty unnecessary). I upgraded my strength to like 3 of 7 and my stamina maxed 7 of 7. I did purchase two weapons, which looked like that was it. Anyway, the mini games are all like retro arcade style. In one, you have to grill steak for customers to their desired done-ness. In another you have to collect scorpions that have infested a field. If you get stung, you have to go find anti-venom. Another sees you collecting coconuts by kicking trees and catching coconuts in a basket. The minigame NPC says "I wish my wife could handle coconuts as good as you." Har har. In another, you have to collect objects from outer space, bring them back to your shuttle, and avoid asteroids. In another, you have to lay pipes to control the flow of water. The more pipe you lay (e.g., the longer route you make the water flow), the more cash you can earn. These are silly and unnecessary, an odd diversion.
Jeane. The best part of the game is your cat, Jeane. Jeane begins the game with a weight problem at like 25 pounds. You can play with her in between missions to help her lose weight. You also need to feed her food to keep her happy. But you can give her the cheap shit for $10 or supreme cat meals for $1000, which of course I purchased. The best cat minigame is giving Jeane a massage. You have to move the analog stick back and forth, up and down, clockwise, or counterclockwise as the prompt appears on screen, and Travis rubs Jean's belly accordingly. It's pretty funny and cute. Jeane now weighs about 10 pounds and is happy and healthy. Yay!
Overall, this game was easy to play. It didn't really spark joy, but was relaxing and the right kind of weird, despite its often juvenile humor and objectification of women characters, for me to enjoy clicking through. Very glad to have experienced the controls.
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Feb 24th, 2019 at 23:40:39 - Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii) |
Done and done. Plowed straight through, using shortcuts and eventually not worrying about collecting optional puzzle pieces or KONG letters. Silly and fun game that reminded me of being a kid again playing old SNES Donkey Kong and other old platformers.
Donkey Kong's and Diddy Kong's (both playable characters) island has been overrun by some sentient tiki instruments, who have enslaved local fauna to do their bidding, which seems to be collecting the island's bananas, much to the chagrin of our DK heroes. Platform your way through 8 zones, defeating a boss at each one, until you beat the tiki king.
Donkey Kong can perform a handful of actions -- pounding, blowing, jumping, grabbing. Pounding is the most frequently used, and is fun because you shake the Wiimote up and down (like you're beating a drum). Pound to break things. Blow to blow things (pinwheels, dandelions, stun some enemies). Jump to platform and bonk enemies on the head. Grab to do some climbing and throw barrels. If you have Diddy Kong, who rides on Donkey Kong's shoulders, you get two additional hearts and can briefly glide after you jump. The game is significantly easier if you also have Diddy Kong, but you've got to find him in barrels and not let him die to keep him around. I recall one boss fight on a mine cart where you have to play whack-a-mole. Being able to glide lets you be much more precise about which mole to stomp on. That was one of my favorites.
The zones are fairly distinct with some unique enemies and platforming elements, especially as you get farther in the game. There is a mine (with some mine cart levels), a jungle, a factory (this was hardest), a volcano (with lots of fireballs to dodge), some cliffs, a pirate themed zone, and more. I especially enjoyed the perspective shifts when you'd get in a barrel and shoot into the background of a level, then shoot back to the foreground. A lot of the "set piece" type platforming sections were among my favorite.
Overall, the game was not difficult, although there were a couple difficulty spikes. The last boss probably took me 40 tries, but with Donkey Kong, what was once difficult becomes simple. I recall the level 5 boss, this poisonous snake-like creature that follows you around the level, which is comprised of four or five large wheels covered in grass that you can hang on. You have to climb around the moving wheels and pound a particular spot on each. This is when I learned that you can pound while hanging. I didn't realize this for a while, and spent half an hour trying to only pound the designated spot when I was on top of it. I wound up being perplexed at how I could do it in time, and decided to try pounding while hanging, which worked! I think I beat it after a few tries next.
There's plenty more to do in the game, such as playing co-op, doing speedruns, getting all the hidden puzzle pieces and tricky to grab KONG letters in each level, and unlocking something called the Golden Temple, which I've no idea how to do. But I'm satisfied just going through the silly story and moving on to the next thing. Good clean fun.
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