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Aug 8th, 2016 at 21:11:17 - Transistor (PC) |
Well, I didn't anticipate Transistor taking only an afternoon to complete. As a follow up to Bastion, this is excellent. It didn't immediately grip me in the same way, probably because it uses several of the same elements that Bastion did; the narrator and the difficulty system, for example. But after I figured out the combat and got into the flow of the game, it had its teeth in me. Like I said, I played the whole thing this afternoon.
The biggest departure from Bastion is the combat. It's in real-time, but also has a turn-based mode that you can trigger to set up combos and whip around the arenas, gaining backstabby rear positions on enemies or sprinting to safety while the enemies stand there. I very much enjoyed it. You unlock a ton of "functions" (which are like attacks) and place them into various slots. You can have four functions equipped at any given time, one in each "active slot," but each active slot also has two "upgrade slots," and you also get four "passive slots." Now, each function can go into ANY of these slots, and the functions do different things depending on the slot AND depending on which other function you equip it alongside. There are a whole lot of possible combinations, and it's a lot of fun experimenting and learning which combinations are good for which types of enemies and environments.
Take the function Crash for example. Crash is a basic melee attack. If you equip it in an active slot, then you can run up to an enemy and swing at it. If you put Crash in an upgrade slot with another function, it will usually add some sort of stun effect. If you put it in a passive slot, you take 25% less damage and are immune to stun. One big combination I used a lot at the end of the game was Ping (fires a bolt of energy) in an active slot with Mask in one of its upgrade slots. Mask most upgrade slots raises damage from backstabbing, so my Ping did 125% damage from behind. Then I put Tap (life steal) in Ping's other upgrade slot, so I stole 2% HP every time I shot an enemy. Then I put a massive attack in another active slot, called Cull. I upgraded that one with Purge, which adds damage over time. In my passive slots, I usually had Load, which drops a mine every 10 seconds that you or enemies can blow up, and Spark, which spawns a copy of myself every time I get hit, and Bounce, which gives me a passive damage reduction shield. Note that if you place these functions in other types of slots, the bonuses change! So if you want to automatically drop a mine, Load has to go in the passive slot. If you want your Ping or any other attack to shoot more bullets, you must equip Spark in its upgrade slot. And you can only put a function in one spot (you can rearrange at save points), so every choice eliminates many other uses for the function.
Finally, I made sure to have Jaunt (a dash) in an active slot because only in an active slot can you use Jaunt during Turn() recovery. What is Turn() recovery, you say? Well, Turn() is your strategic planning mode that you can enter when the Turn() meter fills up, which it does naturally and fairly quickly. When it fills up, you can press RT and then cue up as many actions as will fit in the Turn() bar, where some actions cost more than others. When you press RT again, your character does whatever you told her to do. It's risky though because the more of your Turn() bar you use, the longer it takes to recharge, and you can't use your abilities at all unless the Turn() bar is full, either in the real-time or turn-based mode. This is why Jaunt is so amazing in an active slot, because you can take your Turn() actions and then get away while the bar recharges. And if you put Jaunt in an upgrade slot with most other abilities, it makes that ability usable even if the Turn() bar isn't full.
Wow, long explanation. The combat system is pretty great, and I wish there were more! You can play the game again on New Game + and keep your levels and functions, which is nice.
If you played Bastion, honestly the feel of the game is familiar despite it being in a different place with a different story. It's still a world destroyed and you're trying to stop its destruction and bring it back to life. And there's also a sort of twist on that idea, the titular Transistor. There's a narrator, like the old guy in Bastion but not as good, although he's a lot more of a character here, which was good, since Red (the main character) carries him around with her. (The narrator is a guy trapped in the sword, the Transistor). It's got the same sort of difficulty system, which is still brilliant. It rewards you making the game harder with bonus XP. I was running 3-5 of the difficulty upgrades the whole game to make it more challenging. I'm sure the game is simple without any of them turned on. There are also some time trials and other challenges, and I beat all that are available on the first play through (yay!).
The ONE thing I disliked was the ending, which is weird, because I usually am very accepting of endings, even those that other people hate. It was very abrupt and I feel it weakened the Red character. I can't say much without spoiling, but I think it was an easy and quick way to wrap it up. I don't buy it, and have questions! Nonetheless, the game is worth playing for sure, and I recommend it.
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Aug 8th, 2016 at 10:49:02 - Valiant Hearts: The Great War (PC) |
Excellent game with mostly really high highs but also some pretty low lows.
Highs: (1) The art and sound are top notch. It's done in some sort of comic book style, and given the (2) historical accuracy of the material, I wouldn't doubt if the style is based on WWI-era comics or artwork. I might be wrong, but again I wouldn't be surprised if the collectibles that you find are actual digitized images of real objects. I know the photos are, but like the letters you can find from soldiers on the front, I bet they are real letters.
(3) Yall, this is a war game where you never shoot anything. That's pretty cool. You do throw some grenades and get people killed, but (4) killing soldiers is usually an upsetting experience in Valiant Hearts. For example, (5) I had tears in my eyes at the end of the game. I had been sitting on the couch next to my girlfriend playing the last few missions, and as Emile was walking with the officer in leg chains, I told her, in disbelief, how I thought this game was about to end. I was right. So, (6) girlfriend gets satisfaction of watching me cry.
Some of the scenarios/missions in the game were amazing, especially (7) the ones where you are driving and dodging missiles/avoiding traffic/fighting a boss set to music like the can can. The first one of those I was like "wtf is this" and then I was pretty soon like "this is awesome." I like that I played this so soon after Spec Ops: The Line because it's similar thematically just about war being hell. (8) The story is excellent. I really enjoyed the 5 characters, especially the main character Emile and the dog that joins him. (9) The game does a great job of showing that war is hell, that it tears apart families, creates alliances and social divisions, and destroys the environment. Through the (10) really interesting historical facts, I learned all sorts of things about weapons development in WWI and military culture, as well as how everyday people survived through it all. And despite how profoundly moving the game is, (11) it contains much humor, joy, and whimsy, and in that way reminded me of the film Life is Beautiful.
Lows: This is sort of a puzzle / point-and-click adventure style game in terms of the actual gameplay. (1) The puzzles for 90% of the game are really simple, which and the longer ones can get monotonous and really drag the progression of the game to a halt. I remember this one in particular where you are trying to advance under enemy fire and you get to a tree with a mine cart hanging from it. You have to break the tree limb to drop the mine cart so you can continue the advance. Well, there is a box of bombs way back at the beginning of the level, and so you have to sloooowly go back to the bomb box to get a bomb and back to the mine cart to toss it in there, three different times to break the limb. And if you get shot, which I did a handful of times, you have to go get the bombs 3 times again. Why not just make me do it once? I get it the idea and doing the action over and over is tedious!
(2) Oddly, the puzzles at the end of the game jump in difficulty, which is weird because that's when the story is at its most urgent. So the puzzles really throw the pace of the game off. I get the desire to increase the challenge, but it just isn't necessary in the context of the story and given how the puzzles for most of the game are very easy.
(3) The dialogue in the diaries is cheesy and feels inauthentic juxtaposed to the excellent "historical facts" and history that the game is steeped in. Also, I understand this was made by Ubisoft Montpellier, but there are tons and tons of odd uses of English words. First world problems, right?
(4) My game has a terrible bug where the "up" key doesn't work when digging. I'm not sure if you can normally dig up, but if I want to dig, say, up and right diagonally, I can't. The game doesn't register the "up" key and so I can only go right. This was really really really irritating because this first became an issue during a part where you have to dig up and right. I couldn't figure out what to do. I died 20 times either suffocating from gas in a tunnel or hitting a buried explosive. I could see that I might be able to dig around the explosive, up and right, but just couldn't do it. I'd die, try again, reload, run around the level, try to get the dog to do something, look at the in-game hint system, but I could not figure it out. So after probably half an hour, I went online to a walkthrough and they all just say to dig around the bomb. So I checked some forums, and lo and behold, some people experience a bug where the game doesn't register the "up" key when digging. You have to go into options and rebind it to another key and then it works fine. Then there are about 5 more times in the game where I had to rebind the "up" key in order to effectively move past obstacles because it doesn't register the default up arrow as up when digging. Really annoying. Not sure why that's not patched.
So the pros certainly outweigh the cons, and despite quantifying everything, my qualitative evaluation is that this is a must-play game. It's beautiful, has an important presentation of a war and its effect on people, and is generally a joy to play. Plus you learn something and might go read a book or look up more about chlorine gas or early tanks or flamethrowers or whatever on Wikipedia.
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Aug 1st, 2016 at 11:36:18 - Legend of Grimrock II (PC) |
I’m absolutely loving Legend of Grimrock II (LoG), and I'm totally annoyed that school is starting and I won't be able to finish it for a while. Oh summer, I will miss you dearly.
One of my absolute favorite things about LoG is that I'm always learning something (often after being stumped by a puzzle). It's interesting playing this after coming off of Grim Fandango. The latter follows that bizarre adventure game logic, while LoG is highly rational. It's more rational than I am used to thinking. For example, I was stumped yesterday on how to gain entry to the Crystal Mines. At the entrance were three pressure plates in a line and two statue heads flanking the last plate in front of a gap in a stone wall. Obviously you are supposed to go through that gap to reach the Mines. I stepped on the first pressure plate, and a gate sprouted from the ground, sealing off the gap. Crap. I stepped on the next pressure plate. Nothing. And walked to the third. The two statue heads shot a poison bolt at me, ew.
No worries. There's always some trick to the pressure plate puzzles. But it seems that this one triggered that gate when I stepped on the first plate, and the gate won't go back down. Maybe I should place an item on each pressure plate. Hmm, these are a bit different. It seems only my weight will trigger the plates (usually you can place rocks and other items on them, but not always). What to do, what to do? I suddenly remember finding a hint some time earlier about how to get in the Mines. It said something about walking the path of the snail. Hmm. I went and stood on the first pressure plate for a minute. No click of a mechanism, nothing. Hmm. I'd put a snail figurine on a pedestal for another puzzle in another area, so I went and retrieved it. But what do I do with it? I walked across the plates with the snail in my inventory. No luck. I put the snail down on each plate. No luck. Hmmmmmm. No other snail-related items around...
So I did what I do in these situations in LoG: turn to the walkthrough. I've used a walkthrough about 5 times to help me when I'm out of places to go. I've always failed to get a key puzzle. One time, I knew I had to do something with pressure plates on the other side of a gate, but I couldn't figure out how to get to them or how to get objects on them. I'd try to throw a rock through the gate, but you can't throw things through gates. I eventually looked up the puzzle because I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. And do you know what? You have to *drop* an item through the gate, not throw it. Who knew?! Well, I should have because when I was reading my entries for Legend of Grimrock 1 which I played last year, and I quote: "I admit to looking at a walkthrough one time only, and that was because I didn't realize I could drop items through a gate (hint: you can drop items through gates)." I also didn't realize in the previous game that you could put items into sacks that you picked up (and I wondered why my inventory was always full), but I figured that out quickly this time.
So back to my snail story. I said that LoG was highly rational in its logic. To get the gate to open, you have to walk...really...slowly...across the pressure plates, standing on each one for a few seconds before progressing. Omg. So literal. I was close. I would have figured it out if there were some audio cue like a switch sound when I stood on the first plate for a while thinking, but there was no audio cue, so I didn't know I was on the right track. Such a clever little puzzle! And as it has been with LoG II, I'll explore the Crystal Mines, and hopefully solve the important puzzles and make my way to new areas, but will probably peek at a walkthrough after another few hours of unaided exploration.
A couple other odds and ends: LoG II is HUGELY expanded over the first game. The first one was set in one dungeon that you went down, down, down into. LoG II is set on an island and there are many dungeons and caves and locations (30 in all, versus 13 in the original). There are so many secrets, hidden paths, items to find, puzzles to solve. It is really fantastic level design. Since a large part of the game is outdoors, there's a day/night cycle, which is of course key to some puzzles and secrets and things. Carry plenty of torches until your mage (I hope you have a mage!) learns the Light spell. I feel like I've learned a lot of spells, though I have mostly relied on the basic fireball spell for most of the game.
I've had a couple mishaps in character creation. My shortbow-wielding rogue is supposed to also be an alchemist, but I realized probably 10 hours in that I *really* should have figured out how to make potions by now. Turns out I missed picking up a mortar and pestle early on. Oops. Glad I didn't put more than one point in Alchemy. On the bright side, his inventory space is freed up after throwing away 100+ flowers. Then my minotaur fighter was supposed to be dual-wielding two-handed weapons by now, but I misread: the heavy weapon feat to wield 2-h weapons in one hand does not state that you can dual wield these 2-h weapons. You can only dual-wield 1-h weapons. Though I wonder if you get the feat to dual wield 1-h weapons, if you can have a 2-h in one hand and a 1-h in the other. I can interpret the rule either way.
Aaaand finally for now, there are other cool additions, like the rope, shovel, and timepiece. These items are practical. The rope lets you descend into pits without falling and taking the accompanying beating from that; the shovel lets you dig for secret buried chests and items; the timepiece lets you know where in the day/night cycle you are, which is super useful in no small part because night time is scary in LoG. It's nice to be able to rest until you know it's dawn and skip the night.
That's all for now! More...later.
*Edit on 8/4* I ended up finishing sooner rather than later after all. Nothing new to report. Technically, I watched the end on YouTube. The last boss was really hard, but I could have gotten him if I were more patient. Excellent game.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Aug 4th, 2016 at 17:51:05.
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Jul 25th, 2016 at 21:55:32 - Grim Fandango Remastered (PC) |
Funny old adventure game from Tim Schafer. I never played it back in the day, and I'm glad I picked up the remastered version on Steam. It works well with a controller, though there are some directional issues after screen transitions. Grim Fandango's got a quirky story and gets mega bonus points from me for having a lot of references to Marxism.
The plot is basically that main character Manny Calavera is a salesman of sorts in the underworld. The system is corrupt, and he winds up chasing after a girl. He finds himself on the side of some revolutionaries and travels through the underworld across four years to help them dismantle capitalism. Wait no, they don't dismantle capitalism! Manny just gets the girl and kills the bad guy. But he does meet communists and beatniks and striking workers, and carries around what is essentially a pocket Communist Manifesto for a while. It's all very amusing.
In true 90s adventure game fashion, the puzzles are nonsensical. I made it about an hour (halfway through Year 1) before turning to a walkthrough, and shortly thereafter just used it for the rest of the game (thanks Eurogamer!). Here's what stumped me enough to finally quit thinking for myself:
"Sneak into Domino's empty office via the window, then hit the punching bad inside until you get a blue mouthguard [???]. Take it, walk over to the desk, then take the piece of coral from the drawer. Leave the office via the same window you crawled in through. Make your way back to the rope and grab the other end of it [I had no idea there were two ends]. Tie the coral to the rope, then throw it towards the ladder [???]. You can now make your way across to the ladder and climb all the way up onto the roof. Walk along the roof until you come to a ventilation point. Use the cat balloon on the bowl here [why the hell would I use a balloon on a bowl?], then use the bread from the stall by the clown on the bowl. When the birds come over to nibble on the bread, they'll burst the balloon and be startled enough to fly off [who saw that coming?!]. You can now nab their eggs."
Ah, CLASSIC. It doesn't help that a lot of times when you use an object, you're not standing in just the right place, so the action doesn't trigger. That is SO annoying when you think or know you are doing something right, and you get a false negative. Totally throws you off the trail.
I was talking with a friend about video game hint lines from back in the day. She never used them; my parents never let me, but I totally would have been on the phone with Nintendo about The Legend of Zelda and LucasArts about The Dig and Full Throttle, and would have wasted a lot of money, I'm sure. Were we smarter back then? More patient? Easier to play these games if we think like kids and don't bind ourselves with logic? You can get into the logic of these games and it makes them more doable, but man, it's some serious effort. It's easier to read Foucault than figure out these puzzles.
But that's what walkthroughs are for! Making old games fun! I really enjoyed my playthrough of Grim Fandango. The writing is excellent, and yeah the plot and puzzles are weird, but it's funny and got a lot of love put into it, you can tell. Looking forward to the Day of the Tentacle remaster next time.
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