 |
|
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (PS4) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:26:13) |
This game is way more interesting than I initially gave it credit for (and I might even play all the cases, I'm that curious!)
There's a bunch of cases, you're Sherlock and you gather clues, investigate locations, use your special "eyesight", interrogate suspects, and more. So far, this is what you'd expect.
Some clues become more important and they show up in your "brain" where you can pair it up with another clue (if it's the correct one) to deduce something. Once you have enough of those, you can reach a conclusion. ALSO, once you've reached a conclusion you can decide how to act on it (usually it's either call the cops or call Mycroft - i think...).
What's really wild is that in the brain-connecting clues interface, you can reach lots of different conclusions! (I think it's 4 per case, at least it has been that so far and I've completed two cases). OH! And, as far as I can tell, the you can get it wrong! And, you just move on...the game calls some of them moral choices - which I'm confused by. But the idea that you could arrive at an incorrect conclusion and the game just moves on to the next case is pretty wild. So far, I've gotten both right (because there's abutton you can press that even warns you - like "spoiler alert" and it shows my result in green - which I assume is that I got it right).
Anyways, that's super cool!
Oh, and the game haslots of little mini-games that you play once, and they're part of the story (e.g. taking sherlock's pulse, or arm-wrestling with a sailor)..
The 2nd case is pretty neat - it takes place in the UK, there's a missing train...and there are rich Chilean (and Mexican) businessmen involved! Whoah.
read all entries for this GameLog 
- add a comment 
|
|
Fights in Tight Spaces (PC) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:19:38) |
This one's a bit weird and I'll confess I didn't play it that much (just played one mission - which is like 1/5 of a full run?). It looks like it wants to be SuperHot, but it isn't - that's ok. But, it has a "play the movie" of what you just did in a level that you would think would play fast and smooth and super action-y. But now, it's slow and it even pauses between card plays...so it looks rather boring, which is a real shame.
As for the game, there's interesting stuff going on, but I haven't fully understood everything:
a. There's a typical energy system for casting, but a secondary system (combo) that lets you play some cards with a combo cost. If you move in your turn you lose combo so it's sometimes tricky to get everything to pull off.
b. While playing I was disappointed (because it seemed unfair) that there are objectives (bonus ones) in each level - and I wasn't getting any because I didn't know what they were! Apparently they're actually shown on screen, but in a place I did not see or notice.
c. The game seemed a bit slow - I was just moving and getting out of the way as I waited to draw into a good hand of cards. This cuts the momentum for sure and also made it hard/impossible to accidentally hit the secret (not really secret) objectives. So, I'm curious to go back and try again with awareness of the objectives. They should help a lot - in that I'm more likely to try to "solve the puzzle" of each turn and hopefully get the bonus objectives.
d. It's strange that you have to pay to heal, but I thought it was neat that you can upgrade several cards (if you have the money) and that some cards are cheap to upgrade - there's different pricing for them!
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
Hadean Tactics (PC) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:11:34) |
Ok, I've now cleared the game (not unlocked everything, of course) and it really is quite fun and interesting. The 3rd character (which I was waiting on to try out because I wanted to clear the game with the 2nd one) is pretty neat as well though as I write this all I can really remember is that it has an orb mechanic similar to one of the characters in Slay the Spire.
The harder ending is basically another 3 levels, but they get shorter! The last one, if I remember correctly, is just the boss. I don't remember what deck I was running, but it was pretty good - in the sense that I had picked up some good combos..traps and all.
I'm going to stop playing, for now, mostly because the list of games too look at keeps on growing - one a week - because of the design seminar I'm teaching.
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
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.
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
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.
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
|
|
|
GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
[latest site fixes and updates]
[read more]
|
view feed xml
|
 |
|
2157 registered gamers and 3105 games. 7607 GameLogs with 13096 journal entries. 5074 games are currently being played.
More stats
|
 |
|
Watch Dogs 2 (PC) by dkirschner |
| Really interesting so far! Open world like GTA but hacking things. ----------- Fun and playful. |
|
most recent entry: Wednesday 30 November, 2022
|
This is GTA with hacking. Overall, I enjoyed it, found it a breath of fresh air in open world games. Although the GTA formula is nothing new, the hacking kept me engaged; actually, I became more engaged over time as I unlocked new abilities and wrapped my head around the hacking puzzles. This was a freebie on Epic. I never would have bought it, but am glad that I played it (though it subjectively felt like forever, took me all semester, yet told me in the end I clocked only 29 hours).
By far my favorite aspect of the game was the setting. San Francisco is beautifully depicted. The game starts you—a Black character named Marcus—by the ocean, a pride flag waving in the breeze. Immediately, representation matters. There is a city councilwoman who is trans. The Watch Dogs version of The Church of Scientology attempts to blackmail her by releasing her gender reassignment surgery photos. There is also a hacker in a rival organization named Lenni, who is a masculine-presenting woman. I don’t recall references to her sexuality, but apparently it used to list that she “appears to be a lesbian” on a fan wiki I’m looking at (https://watchdogs.fandom.com/wiki/Lenora_Kastner). There are strings of comments with people asking that “appears to be a lesbian” be removed since the author is assuming sexuality from gender presentation, and of course counter comments that are as ignorant as one could imagine. The city is full of what makes San Francisco cool, and the developers take a firm stance on the side of diversity and inclusion. Case in point: the corrupt politician in the game is obviously a reference to Donald Trump. His name instead is Truss. He wants to “Make the Bay Area Stronger!” And, humorously, he tries to rig the election, the very hill Trump chose to die on four years after the game’s release.
One of the game’s (optional) activities is to find local landmarks through an app (like TripAdvisor) and take selfies in front of them. Posting selfies on Watch Dog’s social media app nets followers, which gets you research points to spend on ability upgrades and cosmetic items. I didn’t care about the cosmetic items, had more research points than I knew what to do with by the end of the game, but boy did I love exploring San Francisco’s unique locations. I spent a good chunk of my playtime finding them, and I just remember that I missed one! Argh! It was some people playing as zombies in a graveyard at night; I never returned after dark. You can photograph obvious ones like the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and that really steep road, various murals, sculptures, and other artwork, well-known street performers and restaurants, and so on. I think that if the game’s location was not so cool, I would not have kept playing, because the gameplay took time to grow on me and I wasn’t enamored with the main characters (Marcus was pretty cool, but they descended in coolness from there [note: my opinion would be different if I was a 15-year-old boy]).
I said that the gameplay took time to grow on me. That’s partly because it doesn’t differentiate itself much from GTA in the beginning. You can 3d print a gun, hijack a car, and cause general mayhem within minutes. Your first hacking tools are basic: open doors, hack cameras, hack people’s phones. The latter activity is humorous for a while, until you realize how little sense it makes. By hacking people’s phones—and you can do this to any NPC—you see their mood, job, income, and a random fact. Like, “David Kirschner 😊. Sociology Professor. Salary: $60,000. Eats old food instead of throwing it away.” You can also transfer money from their bank account, listen in on their calls, and read their texts. Interesting for a while, then repetitive. The professions and salaries make me laugh sometimes. I think I did see a sociology professor, but the salary was like $150,000. Wishful thinking. Delivery drivers will make $200,000, while a tech CEO will make $30,000. It seems random. The random facts are all “dirty little secrets” like “likes to wear women’s underwear” or “picks her nose when no one is looking.”
Hacking presents more opportunities for annoying people instead of just killing them GTA style, and over time the puzzles open up. Some of the “annoy people” type missions are pretty funny though. For example, there is a side mission where you hack an ATM and mess with customers: eat their card, donate their money to charity, etc. The people get so mad. Main missions are more serious, and as I came to enjoy the gadgets I had access to (a remote-controlled car and a drone) and learned how to solve the hacking and platforming puzzles, they became easier. Puzzles generally involve (a) using gadgets to (b) get to a high or otherwise unreachable place to (c) bypass security locks. As evidence of the moment of my mastery here, I completed a series of “tagging” missions, which culminated in figuring out how to scale the highest place in the game, the Golden Gate Bridge. Getting to high places often involves finding the machinery to get you there: forklifts, cranes, and the like, which you can hack to transport you from rooftop to rooftop, for example.
The hacking puzzles themselves are neat. They are a bit difficult to explain. Imagine looking at a wall, and on the wall you see a network of cables with various switches. There is a “power source,” and you route the power through the cables, rotating the switches in the correct way to unlock more switches, and eventually channel the power to open a door or whatever is the object of the puzzle. That’s one of the basic puzzles, like some cables in a wall. Now, imagine later puzzles: cables crisscrossing up the side of an entire building; cables going up walls and across ceilings through several rooms in a server farm; multiple of these rooms, connected by satellites, spanning the globe!
You can do other things with your hacking skills too, and you’ll need to, because despite the option to attempt playing this game like GTA, that path will lead to frustration and (character) death. While driving, you can disrupt the power grid, change red lights, make other cars swerve, and blow up manhole covers. All this is mildly effective at deterring the police, and I mainly used these tricks to cause chaos for fun. Although, you’ll rarely be driving long distances unless you want to. There is a generous fast-travel system that’ll get you within a few blocks of most anywhere on the map.
As far as going on the offensive on foot, you’ll make use of disrupting people’s phones so they can’t call for back-up, you’ll turn their phones into remote bombs, zap them with electric shocks, and my favorite, put a hit on people and call in the local gangs to take them out. This latter tactic is hilarious, AND for some inexplicable reason, gang members can get through any locked door, so it’s instrumental for bypassing security! You just follow them in, then watch them murder your enemies. As long as you don’t shoot at anyone, they’ll leave you alone, and you can take a leisurely stroll through the high-security building, to the third floor, into the CEO’s office, hack his computer, or whatever you are doing, and no one is the wiser. Need to leave the area afterward? Just call in another hit and leave amid the chaos. No problem.
This latter phenomenon is an example of Watch Dogs 2 being GTA-lite. It’s GTA with hacking, yes, but it’s also a GTA that doesn’t do anything else as well as GTA. The AI has quirks. Enemies quit searching the area for you, for example, even if you are obviously still nearby; they aren’t thorough. The gang members getting an open invitation to enter buildings is weird. Enemies will go into high alert after you shoot someone with your stun gun, hidden behind cover, while they won’t bat an eye when you turn an enemy’s phone into a remote explosive or otherwise cause environmental damage. In my last play session, I began in the middle of a highway (I guess I stopped in the road before turning off the game last time). A motorcycle approached. A car stopped behind it. I was causing a traffic jam in one lane. The woman on the motorcycle got off and hurled insults at me. Cars swerved around us. Another car got caught in the jam. The woman decided to run down the interstate herself. Another person got out of a jammed car, yelled at me, and ran down the interstate the other way, causing another pileup before eventually getting struck and dying. I could see her corpse in the distance in the slow lane. This was all really funny, and I let the havoc unfold for about 10 minutes. My girlfriend was sitting next to me, and we both became invested in the drama.
I suppose that’s a draw of these kinds of games. They aren’t supposed to be hyper-realistic. The systems aren’t supposed to be perfect. The imperfections create a lot of the humor, the playfulness, and the stories that emerge from gameplay. I think that’s why I kept playing, because even though the characters were kind of annoying, the clear Anonymous vibes from hacker group DedSec were cheesy, and it was way too “cool” for a non-teen like me, it was always fun. What more can you ask for?
[read this GameLog]
|
|
|
