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Before Your Eyes (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 14th, 2024 at 13:51:13) |
I've been looking forward to playing this, especially after playing One Hand Clapping, which had a singing mechanic. That game activates your mic and you use your voice, raising and lowering pitch, to interact with the game. Before Your Eyes was similar in that the game activates your webcam and uses your eye blinks as input. Before Your Eyes works WAY better than One Hand Clapping, and it's the better game all around. I figure that detecting blinks (yes/no) is easier than detecting notes along the range of human vocal pitch, so kudos to One Hand Clapping for trying.
Blinking in Before Your Eyes doesn't do anything unless you do it over a prompt (mouse over the prompt, then blink to interact) or unless you do it when the metronome icon is visible, which progresses the story to the next scene. The rules are simple, and it became a game in and of itself for me to blink strategically. I imagined that at the end of A Clockwork Orange, Alex's eyes are forced open so that he could successfully complete this game. At times, I felt like holding my eyes open with my fingers. This is because your eyes will get tired/dry/itchy while playing and you will screw up and blink when you don't mean to, skipping dialogue or ending a scene early. That's frustrating enough. Make sure you do the blink calibration, but I think that no matter how well you do it, it will still occasionally register some non-blinks as blinks. This really didn't happen much for me; through calibration, I think I turned the sensitivity way down, and I wonder what effect wearing glasses had. But like I said, it works surprisingly well.
So, the game itself is narrative-heavy. It's an obvious play on the idea that a life can pass in the "blink of an eye." You're picked up by a ferryman of souls who asks you to tell the story of your life. Back in time you go to remember it: your childhood, your parents, your career, etc., blinking your way through each scene. I won't spoil the story, but there is a twist that I absolutely did not see coming (though I should have paid more attention to the mysterious dark scenes) that changes the narrative and the tone of the game. This is one you can spend time reflecting on.
Aesthetically, it's got a simple visual presentation, sort of painterly, with some really nice piano music. The voice acting is good, with the exception of the girl-next-door (who sounds the same at 10 as she does at 40). For some reason, they also used the same voice actor for your dad and her dad, which made the one scene with her dad calling her very confusing ("Why is my dad at her house?!"). But I liked the dad and mom's performances. I was wondering through the whole game if your character was mute and/or on the spectrum because he doesn't talk--only through a typewriter later in the game--and otherwise expresses himself through his prodigious musical and artistic talents. But I think he's just a silent main character, not actually mute.
Anyway, the game won a BAFTA for a reason. It didn't blow my mind, but it's a neat experience that's worth having. It's short too, doesn't waste your time. I'm considering incorporating it into a class.
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Stray (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 13th, 2024 at 12:00:39) |
Patrick and I have been playing this together this semester, and finished it a couple weeks ago. We were talking after beating it about despite how simple and straightforward of a game this is, it manages to be something new. Playing as a cat (and being able to do cat things like curl up and sleep, scratch things, knock objects off tables, etc., so cuuuute) was novel, and the setting and story were interesting. But really, playing as a cat. I smiled a whole lot throughout the game. The lil companion robot was cute too.
On the other hand, I was often tired and bored while playing, and literally fell asleep during several sessions. Patrick would be making dinner or something in the kitchen, and I'd snap awake, cat walking into a wall, and I'd pretend I had not fallen asleep, and that I was just watching the cat walk into the wall and thinking. Like how my dad always used to claim he was "resting his eyes" when he'd fall asleep on the couch.
I would not call the game exciting. It was a lot of wandering around the city and talking to robot NPCs, fetching things for them. The city is a really good-looking dystopia, and the robots are quirky, but I wish they had more dialogue. You don't get a sense that many of them have personalities besides whatever one-note thing they do. I mean, the lack of dialogue makes sense, and it's not really "dialogue" since the cat can't talk. The fact that you are a cat adds a whole layer of silly to the game. Like, why has this lil robot befriended a cat? Why are all these robots putting all their faith in a cat to save them? Cats don't understand what we're saying to them, and cats do whatever they want! Playing as a cat in a game where you're doing fetch quests (fetching is dog stuff!) and doing things to help people is very un-cat-like.
But, you know what? The ability to play as a cat and do cat things trumps how little sense it makes, and I would play as a cat in this dystopia again. Idea for next time: more cats. And what do you think? Were there cats at the end?! Optimistically, I think so.
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Hadean Tactics (PC) by jp (Apr 7th, 2024 at 13:32:36) |
This game is supposed to be a deck-building tactical game and it sort of isn't, but very lightly is - at least in my experience so far.
So, like CD2: Trap Master this game REALLY wears it's Slay the Spire inspirations on its sleeve. Again, there's a path you that branches and you need to pick which nodes to visit - and there's fights, boss fights, resting spots, stores, artifact/rewards, and shops. Oh, there's also "story encounters" where you make a choice that often results in a benefit and a drawback. VERY Slay the Spire - though I noticed the way the events are distributed is different and that it's much more important to plan your way through it since the paths intersect a lot less and you can, for example in my last run, set yourself up with 4 rest/upgrade a card spots in a row!
In addition to a deck of cards you have the character you chose and two "minions" (they're all monsters) that exist on a 2D grid that's quite typical of tactical games. The enemies will spawn, you have energy to cast your cards - generally you cast your cards, unpause and wait for the timer to pause the game when it hits the threshold (7 seconds) for your hand to flush, a new hand is drawn, and you get more mana to cast spells. What isn't really tactical about it is that all the fighting on the tactical grid (which includes everyone having abilities they cast once their mana is full) happens automatically. You can't (afaik) give orders to anyone. At best, if you have the right spells, you can move creatures around (your own or enemy), but they then move back to whatever it is they want to do (e.g. attack the nearest enemy).
One of my runs used a character that had access to "trap" cards which are pretty neat since you lay them on the grid and then have to trigger them (with a different card) and ALL the trap laid will trigger. Some do damage, others heal your allies, and so on. So, the game isn't tactical at all in the turn-by-turn combat and movement decision-making sense. Yes, you choose whom to roll into a fight with, which spells to cast on whom, and when to cast things. But, since you don't directly control your combat units it all feels pretty indirect.
Where the game goes pretty wild (and above/beyond what Slay the Spire does) is that once you've cleared a run - you gain access to making your own hero - choose skills/talents from a list AND choose which spells will be available (again from a list, which only has the ones you've unlocked). So, in this sense the game has a lot, lot more options/replayability and that sort of thing. But, I'm not sure it's that much more interesting?
Oh, there is a meta-progression. When I beat my first run a giant death/reaper creature appeared and said "ok, now you can start to make progress towards winning - you have to collect wings". And I've collected a few since, you get them from killing the stage end bosses (which is nice in that you don't have to get all the way to the end). I need to get 7 - so I wonder if I'll just have to play over and over until I randomly get the right bosses or will the game feed me different ones until I get them all? I've also unlocked a new (third) character...but I kind of don't want to use it because I want to get all the wings with the character I've made some progress with.
I've played about 4 hours and I've really enjoyed the "decay" and "trap" mechanics... we'll see how it goes!
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Deathloop (PS4) by jp (Apr 4th, 2024 at 11:14:36) |
Argh. The longer you go without playing, the worse this game's experience becomes. This is almost entirely due to me forgetting both how to play, but also all the localized information and knowledge you pick up - like who is where, when, and so on.
I love the idea of a "clockwork" game where you deftly navigate your way through things that happen and certain times and places - there's a sense of beauty and elegance to the choreography you develop and create (sort of like when you watch those time loop movies and see a character weave through people and places because they know what's going to happen when and they've just learned it). BUT, that beauty also creates an entry barrier - at least a psychological one for me, because the game's on-ramp is past and now you're in the thick of it. But you've forgotten everything...
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Devil May Cry 5 (PS4) by jp (Apr 4th, 2024 at 11:09:05) |
So I took a break - and then came back to the game and had forgotten how to play. It took a bit to remember (I purposefully avoided looking stuff up because I wanted to see how easy it was for me to remember). So, some of the fights with V took longer than they should have - because I had forgotten that V has to "finish off" the enemies...lol.
While I often focus (for my own personal interests) on game play and game design aspects of a game - I realized as I was playing this game that..wow, the visual design of the large enemies really is phenomenal. They're both beautiful, awesome, creepy, gross, and disgusting. It's quite the accomplishment and I really appreciated it. And, this is in the context of me playing a game that is ~7 years old and running on last gen hardware. Perhaps I haven't played enough PS5 games yet so I'm still too impressionable? Have things moved that far in terms of photorealism?
I have decided to move on even though I realize, from the back of the box, that I'll miss out on the 3rd playable character. It's no fault or problem with DMC5...it's just that I've got too many games to play and I think I've understood enough about this game to move on to another.
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Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC) by dkirschner |
| Fast, fast, fast. Single-player is really action-packed, but the gruff military men yelling about guns and stuff gets old to me. Also, some missions are disturbing and make me think about actual events going on in the world, which is probably a good thing, but still disturbing.
Multiplayer I would like to toy with more, but I'd prefer to play other single player games and WoW instead as my persistent one. |
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most recent entry: Saturday 13 November, 2010
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I didn't expect to write about Call of Duty yet, but the single-player game is really small and I beat it in just three short sessions over a week. I bought the game over a year ago, maybe even a year and a half ago, and just never got around to it. I suppose I had some sort of expectation for CoD since it's insanely popular, high expectations. As I played the campaign, I was initially disappointed, but by the end I had experienced some shock and awe. It's clear that this is a multi-player game through and through. The single-player portion is all squad-based so you're never truly alone, and I feel like it just prepares you for online action. Of course, the AI is dumber than real players, but the teamwork, the tactics that work and don't work, you can practice offline. I found my teammates to be good role models. They take cover, they crouch and run, and sprint when it's appropriate, provide cover fire, toss grenades, etc. Having played multiplayer and being massacred, and then playing single-player, I feel relatively more prepared to step into the chaos online again.
So why was I initially let down? The game is 100% action-packed, like riding a huge wave, the entire way. But the beginning felt like an action-packed shooter that I've played before. You run through some middle-eastern and eastern European extremist-infested cities. All the countries over there are unstable and going through regime change and power struggles, and they've all got lawless militaries that you've got to gun through to get to the leaders. So you and your squad, in both the characters you play as, one in Europe and one in the middle east, frantically perform mission objectives and kill bad guys. You have to listen to lots of military guys yelling in military jargon and watch a lot of cut scenes with technical parameters of weaponry and such, which is always what turns me off about war games. I don't care about the .22 caliber blah blah with the blah blah bullet rounds that fires x times per minute and can puncture steel with x depth penetration from x meters away in rain but not sleet, or the size engine of military planes and what bombs they all drop. Don't care and not interested. I also tend to dislike just the attitude of war games, which is hyper-masculine kill people, defend your honor and bravado, and always comes across as trying to sound noble and heroic in the face of tragedy and death. I mean, those hint at my views on war and violence and masculinity anyway, so war games can grate on me if they are too typical in that sense.
Call of Duty 4 looked like it was going down that road, but then it took a nice turn toward the serious when the story picked up somewhere between the nuke going off and the helicopter mission to gun down the enemies using just some technology to detect them, not infrared, but something like that, not with simply sight. The story was heading toward typicality, but as you hunt down a warlord, a nuke goes off, and brings some drama and urgency to the whole thing. You then look to Russia to find out where the nuke came from, which leads you to this older Russian military badass guy with one arm (you get to blow it off in a visceral flashback mission where your commander missed assassinating him just barely). You have to go after his son, which you chase through a village/military complex, at the dead end of which he blows his brains out. In retaliation, the Russian general guy launches 2 nukes toward the east coast US and it's a race against the clock to abort the launches and escape the facility. The last missions, I'd say after the son's suicide, are just awesome. And there were a ton of awesome moments throughout the game too, mostly involving things getting blown up, like helicopters, tanks, and communications towers. The game looks phenomenal, and I was pleasantly surprised that after, what, 3 years maybe, it looks so amazing. It certainly made it more immersive, when it was already there. Even though I poke at the story and triviality of the early game, it was still completely engrossing, like, what it was doing, it was doing great. I actually saw my stepdad playing CoD4 a long time ago, years, and I kept wondering when I would get to the level I watched him being stuck at. Turns out it was the very end when you're racing the clock to abort the nukes. I wonder if he ever beat it.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about CoD4 that I hope other people got out of it, was that it made me think about war, the media, and the world today. Games with nuclear weapons always tend to strike a little nerve because there's always some nuclear threat by some country, and it's like, yeah, someone could launch some nukes, and any other number of attacks, and obliterate a chunk of people. The majority of us actually not being dead is impressive to me. Peace is very precarious. We (in the US, Singapore, the West in general) are very lucky that we don't have to directly deal with, on a daily basis, war and the threat of war that so many less fortunate people do. In these places where our video game Marines are fighting, civilians are dying all the time, but we tend to forget that. CoD actually hide this from us, as it never (or hardly if I'm forgetting) shows civilians, alive or dead. They simply aren't there. We do know they've been killed by nuclear weapons, but we never SEE them or interact with them or have to deal with them in any way. This is where our media comes in. The media can reveal or hide events. I found it interesting at the end of the game after you abort the missiles and escape (and one of the most epic very last parts of a game ever), the news reporter reports on rumors of nuclear testing in Russia. Nothing happened, just rumors of testing. This is the official government line and the media has to report. I can assume that people soon will go do some investigative journalism and uncover some of what really happened, but in this case, the media relays the Russian government or military's assurance that it's all right, it's okay. And of course the player knows that, yeah, it's okay because the international and US special forces saved the say, and their accomplishments are going to go unrecognized by everyone on earth, but it's just part of their duty, and they love keeping the peace and taking out the bad guys. Oorah, right? Which should make you think if special forces can influence such events on the side of good, surely they can do so on the side of evil or moral ambiguity.
This brings me back to that helicopter mission I talked about. It made me really uncomfortable. Why? Because I couldn't actually see who I was firing on. Looking down, I just see a lot of white and gray human-like figures running about, and I have to rely on orders to say who I'm to shoot and who I'm not to shoot. Some people below were flashing, and those were our allies. Others weren't flashing, didn't have tracers, and those were enemies. It was very impersonal, firing a gun hundreds of feet up from a helicopter picking off groups of enemies, or people I was told were enemies. We've all seen stories uncovered where gunners of this perspective and others have killed civilians, bombed churches, and so on, because they were acting on orders or thought they were firing on bad guys. Or worse, we've heard instances of soldiers killing civilians and committing other crimes just because they can. I wonder how many regular people I killed in that mission? All I know is whenever someone died, I got approval and praise from the officer radioing in my ear.
Another point that I'm not sure whether it was a design intention or not, is that I was initially very, and still somewhat, easily confused by who is an enemy and who is a friendly. The enemy soldiers looked really similar to my teammates to me. The thing is, if you stop to look, you get killed, but if you just fire on a hunch, you can live. So what if you see someone who might be a soldier or a civilian? If you shoot, you live. If you don't shoot and it's a soldier you die, so what are you going to do? You do what I ended up doing because I got tired of dying to enemies that I thought were friends. You shoot first, think later. This caused me multiple game overs due to friendly fire, which I think is funny because it's a serious no-no, yet so easy to do! So bravo to the design team if they did that on purpose. I mean, obviously the guys with socks over their heads are enemies, but really, at least in the first half, I was having trouble telling who was who.
And the most important question of all: Why do eastern European bad guys always wear track suits?
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