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Portal Stories: Mel (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 26th, 2024 at 17:11:51) |
I had some Portal 2 mod sitting in my Steam library and then saw some other one released recently that was highly, highly reviewed. I thought, "I wonder what are some other fully self-contained Portal story mods with great reviews," and Portal Stories: Mel jumped out. Downloaded it, played it. It's ridiculously impressive, basically a full prequel to Portal 2. But man, is it challenging! I made it most of the way through without using a walkthrough, but eventually caved in and then relied on it to solve four or five levels. Initially, I had luck putting the game down and coming back to it later, seeing the puzzles fresh, but after a while that quit working.
It's hard in part because it begins where the difficulty in Portal 2 ended. It's a full game, but not in terms of introducing mechanics. That is to say, it doesn't introduce mechanics. It assumes you know everything and are a portal genius. That's fine as a mod. So its puzzles are difficult, and they are really clever. You have to learn new tricks, not used in previous Portal games, that it doesn't teach you. You just have to figure out, for example, that "destroying a cube" is occasionally what you need to do to solve a puzzle. It never would have crossed my mind that I would need to purposefully destroy a cube for any reason, but it pulls that trick a few times. Other times, you need to move a cube from afar using an excursion funnel. In the second level I caved in for the walkthrough, you combine these tricks, using an excursion funnel to destroy a cube, so that you can get a new cube in a different spot.
In the third level I used a walkthrough for, there is actually a decoy button and panel that you don’t need at all. I spent a lot of time messing with that button and panel! That level honestly felt mean! There is also some guesswork involved in some levels in shooting a portal where you can’t see, which was also kind of a mean trick. One trick (that I figured out, go me!) that I saw a lot of people stuck on involved sliding a cube down a slope to break the paths of a series of lasers, which opened up a series of red laser grids so that you could get to the next area. That one took a while because, annoyingly, you have to slide the cube down the slope and get it to land in a portal. You have to open the other portal after you pass the red laser grids and get the cube. But getting the cube to slide into a good spot to be able to pick it up was a pain. All these super hard levels made me feel brilliant when I solved them (typical Portal!), and like an idiot when I saw the solution online ("Ah, of course!" Or actually in this game's case sometimes, "What the hell?!?").
The story and production values are great. You play as another test subject, there is another maintenance core, and there is another AI trying to kill you. It's a direct prequel to Portal 2, which you learn after the credits. Very cool. If you're a Portal fan, it's worth playing, but just know that it'll really test you!
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Wandersong (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 26th, 2024 at 16:46:54) |
This was a freebie from somewhere or another, and it is totally worth playing. I picked it up because it looked like it had an interesting "singing" mechanic. You use the right stick to navigate an action wheel, where each of eight directions is represented by a color and produces a note. Your character is a bard, so you're basically singing with the right stick. It's pretty simple, but it is implemented in a variety of ways throughout the game. For example, you don't select dialogue options like in most games. You use the right stick to choose the option on the action wheel and the bard "sings" the dialogue option, one click on the wheel per syllable. So, "I'm a singing bard" would be like right, right, left, up, down-right. For dialogue, it doesn't matter which notes you sing, just sing the syllables. Other times, you'll have to match colors like in a typical rhythm game, or during some very cool boss fights sing notes according to colors of projectiles and environmental cues. Like I said, it's not terribly difficult, but it is such a different take on how a character interacts with the game world, and it's done in such a playful way, that it's consistently fun. I smiled through most of the game.
The entire game has a playful tone, not just the singing mechanic. The story itself plays with the typical RPG hero narrative. You aren't a hero; you're an overly positive little bard who thinks he can sing a song to save the world. There is a hero with a giant sword who calls lightning from the sky, and constantly foils your adventure, saving the world in the traditional way by killing all the bosses, but she's a jerk. The game is all about "believing in yourself" and "friendship" and "being positive" and etc. In most RPGs, you learn special moves, gain equipment to better kill enemies, get money (the bard never has any money), and so on. What does the bard find hidden throughout his adventures? A man in a mask who teaches him dances. Very silly dances. What purpose do the dances serve? None whatsoever, except to entertain you. You can dance-walk (instead of regular walk) at any time, and it is pretty funny.
The writing is also consistently funny, and there are many characters to meet. The game is broken up into seven acts, some of which are more interesting than others. They generally have a "talk to all the people" phase, then a "complete the area (side)quests" phase, then a "puzzle platform" phase, then an encounter of some sort with a fairy or a boss or the hero or someone. Admittedly, there is a lot of dialogue, and yes, I read all of it because it's good. But the characters are talkative. And admittedly the quests are not always that exciting. And admittedly the puzzle platforming leaves something to be desired in terms of how well the bard controls and in terms of length (they almost always feel too long). But damn if the whole package isn't a 9 out of 10!
It's definitely a little rough around the edges, which only added to its charm for me. The bard sometimes glitched into the terrain, so I'd have to exit and re-enter a screen. The pirate ship occasionally just refused to move in one act. Also, for some reason, when the camera was zoomed out, the dialogue could become unreadable. I assumed this had to do with the fact that the game ran in a low resolution on a TV, but it was the same on my laptop. I've watched videos where it looks fine for other people. I mean, it was like 1% of scenes that were unreadable. Most were fine, and at worst, some scenes were like looking at one of those "did u kno u can raed tihs senentce bceause the frist and lsat ltetrs are the smae??" things, which was...honestly kind of fun, like word puzzles. Obviously not ideal, but it didn't detract from how much I liked the game.
So, a big hit for me that I never would have heard of had it not been offered for free. Definitely recommend for those who like RPGs and quirky indie games.
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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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2158 registered gamers and 3105 games. 7607 GameLogs with 13098 journal entries. 5072 games are currently being played.
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Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) by Rhibecka |
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most recent entry: Thursday 21 February, 2008
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Entry #2
GAMEPLAY
I found that after playing for a few more hours the game controls became easier. Now I can quickly control the camera as well as the horse during the battle sequences. (However, I think that getting a grasp of camera angles and controls should take a lot less than a "few hours" ).
In my earlier entry, I was impressed that the none of the colossi proved too difficult, or left me wanting to give up. After getting further in the game though, I feel I must change my mind. Since all the battles play like puzzles, it isn't much surprise that the player can get stuck; and I certainly got stuck. This is truly a frustrating feeling. With one of the colossi, I simply could not figure out how to bring him down. However, after about ten minutes of wandering, the game knew I was stuck and a voice from the heavens gave me a hint on what do to next. I really appreciate that the game has this built in hint system that doesn't stray from the game play. The game designers realized people may get stuck, and thought it fitting that "god" should give them some help. However, although "god" was trying to help, I found his hints too vague. Only after I accidentally stumbled upon the solution did I understand what the hint had actually meant. Thank you game designers for trying to point me in the right direction (I really appreciate it), but is it too much to ask to be a little more direct?
More evidence against my original opinion of the game "not being frustrating enough to quit" involves a navigation problem. We can all agree there is plenty of room to get stuck during a battle, but once I found myself completely stuck before I had even reached the beast!
[The light reflected off your sword is supposed to "guide" you to the beast's location. However after following the light, I ended up at a blank wall. After 45 minutes of wandering around and being frustrated, I decided to "cheat" and look up what to do online (I wasn't prepared to spend all night just looking for the monster). I was glad I looked it up because, wow, I would have never gotten that. (I was supposed to go completely around the map in order to reach a place far far behind the original wall I kept running into.) ]
On a more positive note, I realized I hadn't mentioned much about the music during my first entry. During all the parts where your character is traveling to the next beast, there is no music at all. After my friend pointed this out to me, I could clearly see how this small aspect truly changed my game play experience. The lack of music created such a desolate feel, and added to the melancholy tone of your entire mission. The music only begins once the colossus is reached. This change in setting is really effective at enhancing the "epic" tone of each battle. As the fight climaxes, so do the instruments. I can really appreciate this creative addition to the game, which is very unique to this game (and also brings me perfectly to the subject of my DESIGN section.)
DESIGN
Simply put this game is in its own class. Many aspects of this game (the pace, use of sound, story, segmentation, game mechanics) are unlike any other game I have played (in some very good ways, as well as some more negative ways). My first observation on what made this game unique is it's lack of attention to simple game mechanics.
I believe both the frustrations from my second game play entry are good examples of the game simply not being mechanically intuitive. It took me a second time of playing to realize that many of my initial frustrations could be linked to this problem. This game fails to address simple game mechanical issues from the very start. For example, the controls were very clunky and took hours to master. This is not a very good starting place for a game. Also there were small aspects of the game that I felt should have been conveyed to the player more openly. For example, I found out that the light reflected off your sword will also point to the monster's weak points by trial and error on the third or fourth colossi. Why did the game not tell me this in the beginning? Also the storyline drags at a very strange pace unlike any other game I have played. (Very little information is revealed during game play besides the first cut scenes.)
It was a strange realization that this game had problems (such as terrible camera angles, clunky controls, and unhelpful hints) that most game designers have already mastered addressing. Why does such a simple game still struggle in pointing the player in the right direction, or even allowing the player to properly ride a horse?
Another more negative aspect I found unique in this game involves the story (although I'm sure this wouldn't bother most people). The game begins with hardly any background and fails to reveal much more than what we initially see at the beginning. In this aspect, I feel the game story runs like a foreign film. (When comparing a foreign film to what we see everyday in America, there are often differences in pace or changes in formula). I have come to believe that the storyline is just not a fundamental part of this game (note: I have not finished the game, perhaps there is an amazing heap of storyline at the end that I am missing out on). Not having a strong storyline is fine, but also strange for a game of this genre (adding to my statement that this game is simply different than anything else).
On a more positive note, I was extremely impressed at how well the game defined the colossi. I feel the designers did a great job making each beast unique (in terms of physical experience as well as the different levels of game play they provide). This really adds to the game's replay value (for example, you may have a favorite battle that you would wish to endure again). In no other game have I seen such creativity in terms of just a battle. Every battle I have encountered is extremely different, and although they can sometimes be frustrating, I can always appreciate what the game designers put me through from a creative standpoint. They test your character mentally and physically as he is pushed to swim the oceans, climb the beasts, and even fly to victory.
So yes, perhaps the pacing is strange and the controls difficult to master, but I believe that the uniqueness of this game truly makes it a game worth playing. The feeling of solving the puzzle and defeating the colossi singlehandedly is worth the tricky camera angles and the occasional frustrations. I would suggest this game to any gamer looking for a new way to feel epically heroic.
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