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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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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)
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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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Call of Duty: Black Ops (360) by dkirschner |
| Intense action explosion extravaganza. And a lot of profanity. |
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most recent entry: Thursday 13 January, 2011
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Black Ops is down. What did I think of this best-seller? Yeah, it was fun. It's even more stupidly action-packed than the previous one I played, which was Modern Warfare. The story is way more convoluted, involving brainwashing, flashbacks, multiple playable characters, tons of other story characters, 'Nam, historical fiction, and...zombies? I literally had no idea what was going on except for the biggest picture idea. The story seemed very pointless, as in, I'm sure it would make a good book, but since most of the story is explained in these fuzzy Saw, Clockwork Orange, Manhunt 2-esque cut scenes that mostly involve a lot of yelling and cursing, I was having a hard time paying attention and following it. The rest of the story unfolds during gameplay moments, and I preferred these because they fit nicely within the action context. I would have enjoyed a simpler story that didn't have to try and be so deep and twisting. The simpler story would allow the game to focus on what it's best at: action. The story as it is made the action infinitely more confusing, although still entertaining in and of itself.
Overall though, I enjoyed the single player campaign more than CoD 4. I have a feeling it's because of the way objectives were handled this time, and just the faster pacing of the levels. In each level, there are a lot of objectives, and constant waypoints, so you are constantly moving toward a small goal. It kept me very focused on what I was doing and how I was moving forward. I seemed to complete an objective every 5 minutes, and it felt like a big victory because this game I found to be more difficult than CoD 4. I died a lot, had to replay a lot, and despite the numerous objectives, had to do a good amount of trial and error in learning how to take down enemy helicopters (my biggest cause of death), learning how to push back enemy troops with barrels of napalm (the one I retried the most), and so on. I liked the difficulty. There are too many stupidly easy games out there. So, the objectives, and the NPCs that always accompany you, make each level and each moment very dynamic. I never really knew what was going to happen next and always felt right in the thick of things. That's another way this differed from CoD 4. In 4, you were always just with your squad, one squad or another. In Black Ops, your allies are way more varied. Sometimes it's you and one other person. Other times it's you and like an entire army. The flow of the levels and the presence of all the other characters just makes everything feel so right.
Black Ops had one stand-out level. That was when you, as one character, give RTS-like orders (move, attack, stand ground, etc.) to a squad on the ground from inside a helicopter. From time to time, for important acts, you take the role of one of the ground units that you were controlling, and you go clear out the barracks or whatever. Then the role shifts back to the sky, and you order the ground units around some more. I thought that was a very cool way to play a level, but the part was actually really short. Other than that, I didn't feel there were too many 'wow' moments where the game was doing something I hadn't seen before.
CoD, of course, is really a multiplayer game, and I've been having some fun there with James. We've been playing on Xbox Live every night, getting our asses kicked all over the internet. Alex leveled up James' profile since Christmas to level like 30 (out of 50), so the game thinks we're waaaay better than we actually are. Thus, we consistently bring our team down and are directly responsible for bad losses. It's pretty funny when we get matched as the 'high' ranked players on our team. It'll be like us two at 35, then a 30, 25, 15, 5, 5 vs like 50, 40, 30, 10, 10, 10 or something, and it's like...yeah, our two 35s are actually like 10s. But it's still a lot of fun. I really like some of the maps. One is called Nuketown, and it's a small map modeled for ABC street in suburbia with pastel houses, manicured lawns, picket fences, and mannequin white families. Another is Firing Range, which is a massive firing range with moving targets and a lot of tin-roofed buildings to run through. Really great multi-player levels.
I went back and played some CoD4 online in hopes of that helping me with Black Ops online performance, but it didn't really work. It's kind of hard to translate mouse and keyboard expertise to a gamepad. I did consistently better than James though, but that's not saying much. We found out that on hardcore mode (less health, no regeneration, no attachments, no radar, friendly fire on), that we could kill one another. That's after he shot me to death. I got him back with a knife, and then we called a truce. I also found out you get negative points for friendly kills.
But but but the coolest thing about Black Ops that I discovered tonight is the zombie survival mode. It begins with JFK, Robert Macnamara, Richard Nixon, and Fidel Castro all sitting around a table. The zombies start busting in and JFK yells something like "they're breaking in!" and Nixon responds something like "there's no break-in! what break-in?!" ha-ha. You begin with a pistol in a room. Zombies bust through windows and walls. You get points for shooting zombies and barricading broken windows and holes in the walls. You can spend points on weapons and on progressing through the level (500 points to open this door, 250 points to ride the elevator, etc.). I assume there's some goal at the end, but we never made it too far. We got as far as realizing we had to cut the power on in both the zombie levels, but never actually cut it on. It seems like a cool game mode though. Zombies aren't actually part of the story unless I missed something, so I guess they're just having fun with the zombie craze. Maybe the next CoD game will have vampires...
One final note is that the multiplayer is designed even better than CoD 4 to make you want to play forever. There are near endless things to upgrade. I can't imagine how much playtime it must take for people to acquire all the guns and all the attachments and stuff. Then now there are challenges to beat, and achievements to unlock, and all this stuff with each and every gun and each and every attachment. There are also contracts, endlessly repeatable money-rewarding tasks like Get 20 Kills in 40 Minutes or Win 3 Domination Matches, etc. ,etc. And there are the equivalent of daily quests every day, just randomized challenges that reward extra CoD points (to buy weapons and things). MMO design meets online FPS. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Considering I'm a rank 9 on CoD 4 after like 3 months, I don't think it matters to me personally, but shooters aren't my favorite thing. I suppose the more designers can figure out how to reward 'dailies' or just more play time, the more people are going to keep playing, if it's fun of course. I wouldn't be surprised to see the dailies idea popping up in more and more types of online, or even single-player, games in the future.
So, CoD, glad I played it, and I hope James is able to smoke me on Xbox Live next time I'm home.
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