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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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Super Columbine Massacre RPG (PC) by KDIESBER |
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most recent entry: Sunday 21 February, 2010
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Traveling south of the parking lot, I reached a cliff that overlooked the city. To the far right stood Dylan solemnly watching civilization. When Eric nears, the two have a conversation about the atrocity they are about to commit, and how it couldn't be any other way, and how it must be done. Afterwards, the two distribute the weapons in the duffle bags and wait for the bombs to explode. However, a hitch appears in the plan as the bombs fail to detonate and Eric and Dylan are forced to proceed with their objective by starting the massive slaughter themselves. Thus the player begins to massacre the entire Columbine student body.
"Speaking of which, we've got to arm ourselves to the fucking teeth and kill as many shitheads as we can today," claims Dylan right before the duo split the armory in the bags. Inside the duffle bags are a parade of various illegal weaponry and firearms, in which how they managed to establish such an arsenal of destruction without someone noticing is beyond me. Inside is sawed off shotguns, semi-automatic pistols, a parade of knives, Co2 bombs, napalm bombs, pipe bombs, small propane bombs, the works. The player really has to question, what was the intent of the developer by showing us every single weapon used in the boy's operation? Surely for simplistic gameplay purposes a few armaments would have sufficed, but instead the player is equipped as a one man army. Why did the developer feel it necessary to add this element? For realism? For authenticity? Was the developer just trying to get the message across that this massacre was indeed horrific? Whatever the case, I believe the term "overkill" is rather appropriate in describing the boy's weapon selection. A few pistols would have certainly been good enough in the face of unarmed schoolchildren. To be angry enough to wage a full on war against a public high school must really mean the boys were either extremely psychotic, or traumatically bullied by the student body. Either way, it is a curious addition to the game.
Stemming off of the boy's weapon load out, comes the confrontations that occur soon afterwards. After the bombs fail to explode the boys decide to continue carrying out their mission by starting to massacre the student body themselves. The battle system is that of a traditional RPG, in which the player must run into one of the unsuspecting students and trigger a battle sequence. Once the battle has begun, the player is granted a menu from which to decide a plan of attack. The player can either use a melee attack, or use one of their guns to attack the opposition. The melee attack is nowhere near as effective as the duo's arsenal, so naturally the player will probably lean on the side of, no pun intended, sticking to their guns. What's so puzzling about this battle system is the difficulty, or rather lack thereof. Due to the powerful damage Eric's and Dylan's weapons cause, the "enemy" usually doesn't even have a chance to counterattack. In fact, even if you don't kill them on the first turn by resorting to a melee attack, aside from the "Jock" enemy, the opposition doesn't even retaliate. Even more astounding is the inclusion of an "auto play" option, in which the battle plays itself out by the boys typically resorting to their armory to finish off the "enemy" in one turn. The triviality of this combat system is perplexing. Why add it if it's not even worthy of a challenge? Sure, in reality the students probably ran for their lives instead of staging a fight, but couldn't the developer have inserted a fleeing mechanic for the AI in the game? After all, a normal human being wouldn't just stand around as they are being gunned down to a bloody pulp. Although part of the "joy" of the battle system would be lost if your opponents just kept fleeing, at least it would have made more sense authentically in recreating the massacre. Nevertheless, shrugging aside this aspect of the battle protocol, it wasn't very much fun gameplay wise when your opponents were so easily mowed down by your tools of terror. What I believe was the game developers intent, was to show how cruel and horrifying it was for the victims of the massacre. As Super Columbine Massacre RPG! illustrated, the opposition to Eric's and Dylan's rampage stood little to no chance against the power of the duo's masochistic arsenal. Perhaps all they could do was stand in fear as they witnessed their lives flash right before their eyes.
Something else I also noticed about the "enemies" roaming the parking lot was their names. Depending on their appearance, the children running around the school parking lot were granted titles based on the groups they belonged to. For instance, there was the "Goody Goody Girl," the "Jock," the "Nerdy Girl," the "Popular girl," the "Church girl," etc. Unsurprisingly, out of all these "enemy types" the only one that actually managed to fight back was the "Jock." Curiously though, he only managed to do minimal damage to Eric and Dylan, showing that even the mighty athletes didn't stand a chance against our "protagonists." Again, it becomes rather odd on why the developer decided to implement this enemy class system into the game, when any other generic name for the schoolchildren would have sufficed. This classification of stereotypical teens certainly brings up a plethora of questions. Could teens simply be classified so easily based upon their likes, looks, and interests? Not to mention the fact I didn't even notice one non-Caucasian walking around the parking lot, it hardly seemed fair for the developer to do so. Although I obviously never attended Columbine High School, I find it hard to believe that the teenagers attending the public school could be so easily categorized into these stereotypes. Civilized society is certainly well aware of the fact that people can be both physically and mentally fit instead of one or the other. Also, as I believe to have some sense of truth, did the developer implement these stereotypes so as to exemplify the kind of "shitheads" the boys believed they needed to wage war against? In the boy's eyes, were these the kind of people who were the source of all of society's problems? In Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, it seems that every aspect of the game's mechanics involved some sort of representation to the real life massacre. From the weapon selection, to the classification of enemies, Super Columbine seems rich with meaningful symbolism, for better or for worse.
Although it's hard to call the RPG "fun," it does certainly bring a lot of questions to mind about the creation of responsible games, the amount of influence the media can hold over a person, etc. Even though Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is classified as a game, I would say that I was more morally challenged rather than intellectually or skillfully, both by contemplating Eric's and Dylan's actions as well as the ones I myself executed. If it was the developers intent to educate, rather than entertain, than I believe it's safe to presume mission accomplished.
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