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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,
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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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Dead Space (PC) by dkirschner |
| Pretty cool so far, scary, neat HUD, atmospheric as hell and great sound design.
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most recent entry: Saturday 2 April, 2011
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Almost done with Dead Space, and I don't want it to be over! Such an awesome game. Funny how I have such polar thoughts about two games in the same day. I don't know how many points of comparison there are between Dead Space and Machinarium, but I prefer Dead Space 100%. Just a couple things before I take a short break.
Ammo drops only for the weapons you have equipped. You can load out 4 weapons (out of 8 I think). This means you can use whichever 4 weapons you like best, and you won't ever get ammo for that crappy weapon you hate. I've been using (and upgrading) my standard pulse rifle and plasma cutter. Then I've been toting around the contact beam and the force gun. The contact beam is fantastic for knocking enemies back and for killing little groups of parasites and headcrab things. The force gun fires a crazy strong blast. I use the ripper for fun sometimes because bonesawing enemies to death is enjoyable.
In chapter 9, I found a Zero-G Basketball game. It was an interesting diversion where you use anti-grav boots and the gravity gun thingy to jump from little free-throw area to little free-throw area and shoot basketballs into some hoops far away. I beat all 6 levels and got a bunch of items. Items and ammo, by the way, increase in number big time as the game goes on. Makes sense since my suit can hold like twice as much as it used to be able to.
Enemies have gotten harder. There are darker versions of some of the same ones that take about twice as many bullets. The craziest ones so far are these hyper-speed enemies. Slowing them down with stasis helps. There is this persistent boss-type monster that regenerates such that you cannot kill him. He's been terrorizing me here and there for like 5 levels and I finally got the chance to kill him! There's a part where you have to get the shuttle engines online, and you can test the engines. Well, dismember his legs behind the shuttle and sprint to the controls to test fire the engines. Toasted monster. I'm sure I had a huge grin on my face as he writhed in flame.
The story is cool. The religious aspect is fleshed out. There is a cult, which according to some in-game reading is an accepted Earth religion, called the Church of Unitology. They remind me of your typical cult wherein aliens will come, but you have to drink the kool-aid before you can see heaven. There's an insane scientist in charge who is one of the only ones left alive on the ship. He's killed a handful of people that I've watched, and has just given himself up to ascendancy byyyy...letting the monster-type that converts corpses to monsters do that to him. His live feed went off when that happened, and I'm sure he turned into some mega-boss that I get to fight later.
There's another scientist on board, and we lack mutual trust, but he says we have to return the Marker (the alien artifact that started the mess) to the planet, that the Marker was sealing this hive mind of the Necromorphs (the alien monsters) inside that planet. So I'm helping him do that. My female teammate doesn't trust him either, and I'm not really sure what she's up to now. My male teammate died a horrible death in front of me at the hands of one of the giant gorilla things.
Break time, then finish..
HOLY TWIST in chapter 11...I did not see that coming. And now Isaac's...girlfriend? is back again. I'd been having visions of her, her pleading with me through TV screens to 'make us whole again,' and I'm still pretty sure she's not real. All the crew started hallucinating and seeing people, although my female teammate was too, but she...well. The doctor trying to send the Marker back to the planet knew who I was. I think something strange is going on, like I was on this colony or on this ship sometime before the events of the game. I've got some history here. Well, following my (imaginary) girlfriend's instructions now. To the grand finale!
So wonderfully gory. I thought I saw an item in the distance in a zero-g area, so I force pulled it to me, and it was just a severed head. Shudder.
Final boss silhouetted against a giant asteroid and a burning yellow sun is magnificent to see. Way too easy of a fight though. After the fight, there is one more thing, and I may have had a minor heart attack.
Final words: This is one of the most intense 11.5 hours of gaming I've ever experienced. I loved every minute. Highly, highly recommend.
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