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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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Age of Empires II: Conquerors Expansion (PC) by jat247 |
| Best RTS of all time. I recommend this to anyone who loves RTS games. |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 29 March, 2011
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Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion – Tuesday, March 15th (Games One and Two)
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion is a single and multiplayer RTS game published by Microsoft on August 24th, 2000.
= Game Play =
You choose a civilization and control a kingdom and all of its corresponding resources (wood, food, gold, stone, and your population limit in this case). You typically strive to advance through four ages; the Dark Age, Feudal Age, Castle Age, and lastly the Imperial Age. Each age of advancement unlocks more technologies in your civilizations technology tree which, for a price, can be researched. You control villagers that do all the collection of resources and create buildings, as well as any military units you choose to create. There are a variety of buildings that can be created. Town Centers allow you to create more villagers, while houses increase the population limit (the max limit is typically 200, but can be changed as a game setting). There are also military buildings like the Barracks and Archery Range for creating military units and doing corresponding military unit research and upgrades/enhancements. In fact, most buildings have research tied to them. For instance the mill has research tied to it to increase the productivity of food collection, universities include various technological advancement research, and castles provide protection and a place to safely house a king inside depending on the win conditions that were set for the game. When I play I change settings to where I always start off in the Dark Ages with fog of war on, with the minimal amount of resources and only a Town Center and a few villagers. I set the win conditions to Conquest mode. You have to destroy all enemy units as well as all enemy buildings that are capable of creating new units. There are several win conditions that can be set however. You can choose to destroy the enemy king as one option. As a second option you can choose to build a Wonder which require a ton of resources to build and keep it from being destroyed for a certain period of time. As a third option you can choose to have a time limit, and by the end of that time whoever has the highest score wins (which is determined by many factors, a couple being the amount of resources collected and units/buildings created etc.). The last win option you can choose to capture all the relics on the map (which are randomly scattered around the map) and hold them for a period of time in a monastery you have created.
There are two main modes of gameplay; one is strictly single player while the other can be either single player or multiplayer. There are Campaigns that you can play (strictly single player, the tutorial teaching you how to play is also campaign style) and there are Random Map games. The Campaigns start a player out with a story from ancient history (Like William Wallace and how he defied the British, and his defeat at Falkirk), and then the player must set out to complete goals that are laid out for them that follow the story. Random Map games can be single player with you fighting against NPC(s) or multiplayer over LAN or GameSpy Arcade (Unfortunately Zone.com no longer hosts a server as of June 2006). Random Map games allow a player to choose a ton of options like teams sizes and team difficulties (5 levels of difficulty if an NPC is chosen), as well as win conditions, general starting resource amounts, max population size, and what map is chosen and how big it is etc. For team matches, you can also choose the option Diplomacy where teams aren’t locked but you can forge and break alliances with players in the game. This is great because it’s always fun to play mind games with players and backstab a player or two when the benefits for you are right! You can even choose to have a Death Match where the resources are (almost) exhaustless and you can start a full-fledged war from the very start of the game. I personally almost always choose the Regicide type of game where you start out with almost no resources and build your kingdom custom from the ground up. I never got into the King of the Hill (control the middle of the map for a time period) or Wonder Race (first person to build a Wonder wins) game types.
= Audio & Graphics =
Microsoft was able to choose soundtracks for the background music that somehow never seemed to get old no matter how long matches lasted, or how many games you played back to back. Their music selection was impeccable. Their sound effects were decent, like for arrows being fired, or catapults damaging a castle or other building. They had sound effects for units when they were damaged, or wolves that were randomly placed on the map with the purpose of killing your villagers if you weren’t careful. The graphics were decent for the game when it was released. They don’t match up to the graphics now of course (the gold on the maps kind of look like lumps of messed up butter), but even so I’m so distracted having a blast playing that the graphics are more than adequate for the job. You basically have an isometric bird’s eye view of the map. Additionally you have a mini map in the corner which is crucial to help you navigate and keep track of unit movement on the map more easily.
= Analysis =
This RTS game really captured my attention and held it until they brought down the game’s online server at Zone.com in June of 2006. There were so many different kinds of strategies to play by, all dependent on the many customizable options within the game, and the many different technology trees each different civilization offered. I was always absorbed with how best to balance my strategies and tactics amongst not only my own team, but against the enemy team as well. With proper planning and strategy no defense was impenetrable, just as no attack was impossible to repel. The combinations players came up with and utilized in game matches were unending even after so many years of playing. Playing this game again brought back many fond memories of amazing adrenaline rushing fights to the bitter end; no game was the same as the next!
= Final Thoughts =
I absolute LOVE Age of Empires II: Conquerors Expansion! If not THE best RTS game I’ve ever played, it’s one of them. I got the game as soon as it came out! I would definitely recommend it for lovers of RTS games. It’s a great way to let loose with friends online, and guarantees many hours of action packed fun. Speaking of time, for anyone that does decide to play it, here’s some advice. Try not to spend too much time trying to research everything. Research what you need. While it’s great if you can research almost everything, I’ve found you have to be especially careful with your time management. Resources do run out on the map in this game if the match ends up being too drawn out. When you collect that wood you needed so much of, the trees do disappear once they’ve been used; if you’re not careful and don’t win quickly enough then eventually you’ll run out of trees!
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