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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.
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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!
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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.
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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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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.
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2157 registered gamers and 3105 games. 7607 GameLogs with 13096 journal entries. 5074 games are currently being played.
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Rappelz (PC) by dstomakh |
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most recent entry: Monday 14 January, 2008
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Gamelog Entry #1:
SUMMARY:
Rappelz is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) that has three character races: Deva, Gaia, and Asura, within each of these races are three classes. For Deva there is the Holy Warrior, Cleric, and Breeder, for Gaia there is the Fighter, Kahuna, and Spell Singer, and for Asura there is the Strider, Dark Magician, and Sorcerer. Each class basically has a warrior, a mage, and a summoner; respectively for all races. Initially each race starts out with a basic character which you can later choose to become one of the classes for that race, meaning you don’t have to make a decision about your character until after you’ve played the game for a little while. About halfway through the game you can “job change” the aforementioned classes into their next evolution, so to speak, at which point you gain another skill set to go with the new sub-class. For the fighter and mage type there is a choice of two job changes to narrow the specialty of your character, while the summoner type only has one possibility.
GAMEPLAY:
As I said above initially everyone starts out on the Trainee Island with the basic characters for each race and has to run around doing several quests that teach you the rules, controls, and several nifty features of the game. As in any RPG you have to gain a certain amount of experience to level up, this is done by killing monster and doing quests for NPCs in the towns. (Note: Quests give a lot of experience, so it is definitely worth doing them). In Rappelz, along with experience, you get what are called Job Points these are used to get skills or to level up your Job Level. The job level, not the character level, is what dictates which skills are available for you to use. Hence, you don’t have to worry about messing up your character build by getting or upgrading a skill because you can just gain more job points by killing monster, in effect giving you unlimited job points.
One interesting feature of Rappelz is that your character has stamina. What this does is that, as long as you have some stamina, the amount of exp (experience) and jp (job points) doubles for each kill. On that note, the leveling in this game is really quick (at least for the first 25 levels or so); playing the game for an hour will likely get to level 10 at least.
There really isn’t much of a story for the game, I mean there is a quick background story to the three races are how they came to be, but there’s nothing to follow that and there is no final goal that you have to achieve. The game is definitely fun to play. The quick gaining of levels and abundance of quests makes it so that there is always something to do. The social interaction aspect really depends on the type of character you have. A mage character will need to be in a party to fight higher level monsters, whereas fighters are able to fight higher level monster on their own.
Gamelog Entry #2:
GAMEPLAY:
The style of gameplay doesn’t really change for higher level characters; you just get new skills and equipment. Though at the same time new areas of the game will become accessible to you, by this I mean that you will be able to go to new places on the map and fight higher level monster thereby exploring the world further. One of these places that you shouldn’t even attempt to go to without a strong party are the dungeons. These dungeons house monsters that much stronger than the ones you fight elsewhere in the game.
DESIGN:
I have mixed feeling about Rappelz. It’s a fun game to play, I certainly enjoy playing it but there are certain things that really bug me about it.
Let’s start of with the good elements. One element I really like is the amount of hot-keys that are available. Unlike most RPGs where you are limited to just the F1-F12 keys, Rappelz has F1-F12, Alt+F1-F12, Ctrl+F1-F12, and Shift+ F1-F12 be the hot-keys which really helps when you have a lot of skills, potions, and actions to map such that you don’t have to open your inventory in the middle of battle. On that note, items stack so the amount you can carry is only limited by how much weight you can carry, which is dependant on your items and your character’s strength. In Rappelz, the stats are automatically allocated each level with emphasis on certain stats depending on character class. A feature that I’ve already mentioned before is the stamina effect that doubles the exp and jp received. Also, there is are two items called Force or Soul Chips, which can be used on monsters to double the physical or magical, respectively, damage dealt to them for ten seconds; these items are quite abundant and pretty cheap to buy. I also like how each spell has its own cool-down time, so while one skill is cooling down you can use another one.
Now that I’ve covered good parts it’s time to talk about the bad parts. First and foremost, I really hate the fact that the developers are making this a game in which if you want to have better equipment and a more enjoyable playing experience you have to spend real money. There are some items that they sell in their online shop that simply don’t even have a minute chance of dropping in-game and if you want them you have to buy them; and these items aren’t cheap at all. This really ruins the long-term playing experience because even if you play for a long time you can’t get some of the best items in the game. Another thing that bugs me is that some monsters have a very low spawn rate, so sometimes finding the exact monster you need to complete a quest takes a really long time.
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