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Aug 10th, 2016 at 15:40:54 - Defense Grid 2 (PC) |
What's up with all these short games? I beat Defense Grid 2 in two days. I was looking forward to this so much, but it is not the sequel that the excellent Defense Grid deserves. I checked my Steam account, and I spent 43 hours on Defense Grid. Defense Grid 2? 9 hours, and that was with replaying part of the story for some extra achievements. Part of the shortness of course is that DG had some awesome DLC, but DG2 has no DLC. Man, what the hell happened?
DG2 isn't a bad game. It's pretty much more of the same of DG1, with some new enemy units thrown in the mix and a couple new things for the player's arsenal. None of it is game changing. Surprisingly, there are no new towers! I expected a couple innovations. There are "boost towers" (they aren't really towers though!) that are basically blocks you can build and then build towers on top of them. Then you can upgrade the boost tower to make the tower on top of it do more damage, or see stealth enemies, or reward more points for nearby kills. That was neat, but unnecessary. Then there are new "tower items," which aren't really explained. Sometimes I would get one at the end of a mission, and they are basically passive enhancements that you can equip on tower types before a level, like making the laser fire in a 10-degree cone, or adding a slow effect to the cannon. Again, neat, but I never noticed that they did very much.
On the enemy side, they took away flying aliens for some reason, so you don't even have to think about ground vs air. They added a "dropship" that spawns right near the core housing and starts spitting out smaller aliens. I thought that was neat because it forces you to have the core housing covered. You can damage the dropship, but not kill it; however, the % of damage you do to it is automatically applied to any aliens it spawns, so if you drop its health to 0, aliens will spawn and basically drop dead. Then there was some new enemy that blows up when you kill it and temporarily disables your towers, but honestly I never even saw it happen.
The story is actually really cool, and that was one of my favorite parts. Instead of just Fletcher (the AI from the first game) you accumulate like 5 or 6 different AIs who travel with you. Their code all becomes corrupted at various points, and there's this crazy story of someone who is either working with the aliens or using them to get what they want, but you're not quite sure until you get a suspicion as to who it is, and then there's a big reveal and a confrontation, and it was all suspenseful and mysterious. Most of the other characters are not interesting though. Fletcher is still awesome.
Mmm, what else? Oh yeah, the game is very easy on normal difficulty. I never died except when I was trying to get a few achievements (like beat a level in chapter 4 or 5 with only inferno towers, yikes). There aren't any crazy maps like there were at the end of DG1 or its DLC, which was disappointing. Again, I don't know why the game is easier and the maps less complex, but it's worse for it. There is a ton of replayability in terms of level modifiers, but I think I'm good. This just didn't feel that it had the same amount of love poured into it that DG1 did!
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Aug 9th, 2016 at 18:33:22 - Lovely Planet (PC) |
I'm very impressed that i made it 3/5 of the way through Lovely Planet. That game is hard. Lovely Planet is basically an FPS speedrunner's dream come true. It helps if that speedrunner likes Katamari Damacy too because the art and the music remind me of it.
You have a gun that fires purple squares, of which you have infinite ammo with no reloading. There are various "baddies" around the level, and new varieties come with each new world (5 worlds, roughly 20 levels per world). In the beginning, there are some innocent blue block people (don't shoot them, or it's level restart), some easy stick-like enemies, some red blocks that shoot purple squares at you, and maybe some other things that show up, can't remember. In each level, you have to kill all the baddies and reach the end without triggering a level restart (i.e., dying). If you get shot, it's a level restart, if you finish the level but leave a baddie alive, it's a level restart, if you fall off the ground into the abyss, it's a level restart, and there are other ways of failing later.
I made it pretty easily through the first world. The second one gave me some trouble near the end, as it introduces some serious acrobatic feats. There are these "tomatoes," for lack of a better description, that launch on your movement (when you move past a certain point, the tomato launches), and you must shoot the tomato before it hits the ground. So toward the end of the second world, it introduces tomatoes that don't launch until after you run past them, which means, in this one crazy instance, that you have to run past this grounded tomato, jump toward a faraway platform, TURN AROUND in midair, shoot the tomato, TURN BACK AROUND, bounce off the platform to the next platform as a second tomato launches in front of you, bounce off the second platform and nail the second tomato before it hits the ground. That one took me a while, but I felt amazing when I got it.
Lovely Planet is full of those moments that make you feel amazing for accomplishing some fantastic feat of dexterity. It's very Super Meat Boy-ish in that regard. The third world introduces some blocks with hats that shoot homing missiles at you, as well as some energy field triggers that will cause a level restart if you are in the energy field about 3 seconds after it triggers. Took me a few minutes to figure out what was killing me on this one level, then I realized what those triggers were (they look like yellow dandelions or something). Note that the game provides no tutorial or hint or instruction. You have to figure out what's killing you and what the rules are for yourself. It actually works and feels rewarding.
On to the 4th world! It's a swamp, and this is where I threw in the towel. The swamp world is filled with fog, so you can't see very far ahead of you. For the whole rest of the game, my success was due to my reactions and developing skill, as well as a little bit of learning where baddies are. In the swamp, learning where baddies are becomes the main thrust. That's too bad because it minimizes what I thought was the great part of the game, my reaction to seeing what's ahead and my skill at handling what I can see being thrown at me. Introduce fog, and you can't really see what's ahead. So it becomes about going forward bit by bit, memorizing what's beyond in the fog, and then just following your memory. Yeah, your reaction is still tested, but it feels straight up unfair now, and the focus has to win by memorization.
I watched the rest of worlds 4 and 5 on YouTube, and I definitely wouldn't have made it much farther in world 4. There's a video of someone doing world 4 and world 5 perfect (that is, complete the stage with 100% accuracy and under the goal time limit, and these two videos show the person completing many 3-star levels quite close to the tip top of the global leaderboards, geez). World 5 introduces teleportation and blue "innocent" baddies that shoot at you, but you still can't shoot them. Parts of those last two worlds look insane. I think my head would explode. Fun game, the free price tag!
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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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