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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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2157 registered gamers and 3105 games. 7607 GameLogs with 13096 journal entries. 5074 games are currently being played.
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Grand Theft Auto V (PC) by dkirschner |
| Amazing so far, catchy story, open world, such detail..........incredible game. |
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most recent entry: Thursday 17 May, 2018
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I used GTA V in my learning community this semester to teach deviance. After a lecture covering basic theory and concepts, I had students play GTA V for half an hour and answer questions about labeling theory, think about how norms, sanctions, and deviance differ in Los Santos vs. the real world, violate in-game norms and identify sanctions, and try to get a bunch of fake achievements I made up to get labeled deviant in various ways in the game. It was a ton of fun, and effective!
I played the bare minimum to prepare for bringing the game to class (though most of them had played before) because I had to spend most of my time trying to get the thing to run smoothly on my laptop and through a classroom projector. I eventually did it well enough, hooray, but I still haven’t got it running perfectly. It’ll get choppy sometimes while driving and shooting. It could just be that this is where my computer begins to show its age. Sigh. But now that the semester's over, I can go back through games I began for the learning community. According to Steam, I've clocked 33 hours, but it's realistically in the low 20s.
GTA V is the best GTA. I played some of the older ones (San Andreas, Vice City), never all the way through a story, and mostly just for causing mayhem. I played GTA IV for about 10 hours and spent most of that time on the fake internet and watching fake in-game TV. I’m pleased to report that the fake internet and TV are even better this time around and that I have resisted watching all of that content, which I bet runs upward of 20 hours if you count radio stations too.
Why is GTA V the best GTA? For me, it’s the characters, missions, and overall narrative. GTA V does this cool thing where there are three main characters whose lives intertwine. You start with Franklin, a sarcastic, dry-humored, practical black man living with his aunt in a poor neighborhood in Los Santos. Then you meet Michael, a wealthy ex-con in witness protection with an extremely dysfunctional family. Franklin starts to work for Michael. Finally, my favorite, Trevor enters the picture. Trevor is quite literally insane. He’s part meth head and drug and weapons dealer, with a low-rent operation out of a trailer in the desert. He has a history with Michael, and all three of them wind up having to do jobs together for the FIB (GTA’s FBI). There’s some larger story going on about a shady corporation or something called Merryweather and a super weapon. Not sure about all that yet, but certainly intrigued.
Each character is fleshed out, and it makes this story more than about stealing cars and killing people. Serious themes exist underneath the GTA parody about family, trust, speeding up of social life, consumerism, drug culture, etc., etc., and I dare say that not only the game as a whole (obviously), but the characters in particular, are real pieces of art. Franklin’s relationship with his aunt, who is into spiritual femininity and magic crystals, is fraught because they simply don’t understand one another’s lives. His relationship with his dog is adorable. Michael’s family, as mentioned, is insane. His wife is trying to be calm in a fast-moving world and is cheating on him with her yoga instructor. One of the best scenes in the game so far is when Michael and his wife get into an argument, and the yoga instructor comes around and makes them do a family session together, so you, as Michael, have to do yoga, which of course, does nothing to calm anyone down. His daughter is vapid and wants to be a reality TV star. His son smokes weed and plays video games all day. They are all entitled. Michael really does see himself as a good guy, but he’s surrounded by crazy people and pressured into crime, which he does enjoy and is good at. Trevor assaults and kills people at will, is secretly from Canada (and becomes enraged if people point out his accent), hates it when people call him a motherfucker, and in one memorable scene, becomes enraged when Michael describes how Trevor is a hipster, or at least what hipsters aspire to become. Trevor is currently dating a woman whom he kidnapped and does not see a problem with it.
Gameplay wise, it’s typical GTA, but missions are far more varied. This is exemplified by the heists, in which you put together a team (some combination of the three main characters and sometimes other NPCs) to do things like rob banks, rob trains, secure witnesses, or steal other huge items. These involve preparation missions where you observe a place, or acquire a getaway car, or do other tasks before the actual heist. For example, the last one I did was to rob a bank. I first scouted the bank and tested its alarm system to see how fast the police response was. It was very fast, and so I made the decision to shoot our way out. Then, I stole a military truck full of armor and weapons from a convoy to prepare for the shootout. Then, I stole a van for Franklin to use as the getaway vehicle. The other characters (Michael, Trevor, and one hired gun) hit the bank, stole the money, changed into full combat gear, and emerged guns blazing at a stunned police force. We shot our way through them, working our way toward Franklin in the getaway vehicle. I forget how or why this happened, but at some point someone stole a bulldozer to help clear the path of cops.
Part of what’s so cool about heists is that you switch between characters to perform all their roles when they are doing things simultaneously (e.g., one character sniping from a rooftop, one causing a distraction, one stealing something). You do this during the game as well, switching between the three characters at will. They all have different jobs they can do, different contacts for missions, different properties they can purchase, different activities they can engage in, etc. And they so frequently weave together. You’ll go to do a mission as Franklin, and it’ll turn out Michael orchestrated it. Or you’ll go do something with Trevor, and the FIB agent in charge will want Franklin too.
This plenty to write at the moment, but suffice it to say that there is so much more that GTA V offers. Tons of random events, side missions, activities (darts, races, Trevor’s rampages, etc.) will keep a dedicated player busy for a really long time. This may be the last open world game you need for a long time. And I'm saying this almost 5 years after it came out. Oh, there's also GTA V Online. Will update again once I beat story mode with some good memories.
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