Blogging the experience of gameplayhttp://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7847I started this about a year ago on a PS Plus subscription and dove back into it for a while on this current subscription. If I recall, it was about 6 hours last time and another 12 or so this time, so I had some really in-depth sessions last week. My initial notes last time just read "hard, grindy, neat vibe." I can say after another 12 hours that these three descriptors are still accurate! Returnal is a third-person shooter / roguelite / bullet-hell game made by Housemarque, who is known (to me) for shoot-em-up / bullet hell type games like Outland, Resogun, and Nex Machina. The move to a AAA third-person shooter somehow works and retains the insanity of a typical 2d bullet hell. You play as an astronaut named Selene who crash lands on an alien planet after following a mysterious signal, and then finds herself stuck in a time loop. There's the set-up for a roguelite then. When you die, you restart at the crash site, slightly better off than the time before thanks to a slow-and-steady drip of persistent unlocks and upgrades. Selene explores various biomes, following objective markers. The biomes are pretty big and have randomly generated layouts, so every run is a bit different (though after 18 hours, biome 1 was getting really fucking repetitive). Layouts are also branching: there are main and optional paths. Following the main path will eventually get you to whatever objective marker you're following, the boss, and the way out. Optional paths feature all manner of special rooms, which can have everything between great loot to deadly minibosses. The randomness in the design makes runs ridiculously intense. You constantly have to make decisions where one outcome could help (from slightly better than neutral to overpowered boon) or hurt (from a slight annoyance to dooming the run). Such decisions can involve whether to open a chest, use an item, go into a room or not, switch weapons, acquire a parasite, pick up a health kit now or later, spend more time in the current biome or leave it for the next, and so on. Here is the anatomy of my 18 hours so far: 0-6 - Learn the basics in biome 1, die die die. Not sure if I ever even made it to the boss. 6-12 - Re-learn the basics in biome 1 after not playing the game for the better part of a year, and feel like I'm starting to get a good grasp on mechanics, enemies, strategies. Make it to Phrike, the biome 1 boss, a few times. 12-16 - Have a godly run where I finally kill Phrike, and then proceed to one-shot biome 2 and nearly one-shot biome 3. I would have one-shot biome 3 except that I FORGOT TO USE A HEALTH KIT during the battle! Uggggggggh! The boss and I were both almost dead. Like 3 more seconds and I would have killed it. I was so engrossed in the battle that I forgot I had purchased a major health kit that would have restored me to full life. I cannot believe I did this. /cry 16-18 - Demoralization makes me suck at the game. Never make it back to biome 3. Cry some more over the unused health kit. I learned that when you beat biome 3, then you forever after can start your run in biome 4. Since I failed to use a health kit, and therefore did not beat biome 3, I had to start back in biome 1 AGAIN. This was really demoralizing and after playing a couple more hours, I decided to start another game instead of beat my head against this one. Although, I know that I can best Returnal! I just need more time. The run where I did so well (and every run before that), I meticulously explored the maps, killing lots of enemies (and therefore leveling up my weapon proficiency, which makes you find stronger weapons), getting lots of good parasites and artifacts, and boosting my max HP. After the run where I forgot to use a health potion, I was just zipping to the next biome as soon as I found the teleporter, but as a consequence, my weapon proficiency was lower, my max health was lower, and I didn't have many good parasites or artifacts, which meant that everything was relatively harder. Although my skill had increased, it didn't make up for having like 25% less proficiency, health, etc. So, I need to (a) continue getting better at the game and/or (b) continue moving slowly and completely exploring biomes as I go so that I will be strong enough to tackle the challenges that the game springs on me. Since I'm on a PS Plus subscription, I have other games I want to play, so I don't want to spend too much on this one, as it could potentially take quite a long time to beat. If I have time left after finishing the others I want to play, then I'll come back. Or I might just buy this next time I see it on sale, or perhaps I'll just wait for its spiritual successor to come out next year. dkirschnerTue, 28 Oct 2025 15:53:42 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7847&iddiary=13447http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7944I played this for a few hours. Mostly I wanted to see where things were at with Super Monkey Ball. I wasn't expecting to find a wildly different or innovative game - just super monkey ball... which is what I found, though I did spend more time on the minigames. I've never been a huge fan of Super Monkey Ball - and I'm sort of surprised by how little love it gets in the context of people who like to play games that are really hard. This game is like Super Meat Boy (oh wow, I just realized they're both SMB! Which is also Super Mario Bros...). I mean, clearing some levels isn't THAT hard - but to get all the bananas AND record times? This is some serious dedication IMO. Lots of practice and real finesse. Cool stuff? Well, I quickly unlocked Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza series), Sonic and Tails, and "Jet"? (the skater from Jet Set Radio). I thought it was a nice touch that when you pick these characters instead of bananas you get pill bottles, rings, and spray cans! (like in their original games). The sounds are even different! (with the Sonic ring sound being particularly memorable for me). I then played all the mini-games. Some are more fun than others - and the be fair I was either playing solo or against AI, which is probably the less ideal way to play. I was surprised by how hard some of the games were! There's one in which I was only able to score once! (forget the name, but it's the one where you roll down a ramp and then up into the air - you're supposed to open the capsule to glide/drift to a target to get points. I only landed on a target ONCE. Everything else was a splash into the water because I fell far, far, short of the intended target. So, clearly there's something going on that I didn't understand - how to glide or whatever. And, many of the games have more sophisticated/complicated control schemes than you'd expect for a "mini-game". I thought it was interesting how they're all adapted to "your character is in a ball" - while still being "true" to the original game they're riffing on (lots of sports mini-games - the baseball one was interesting because it's sort of like a pinball in that you have to hit targets to get on base and stuff like that) Anyways, it was fun - but I decided I wouldn't spend all this time on it either...jpTue, 21 Oct 2025 12:33:36 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7944&iddiary=13446http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7943I'm slowly dragging out the PSVR games to play them. Strangely this one was a more recent addition - it was cheap, and the back of the box lists all sorts of awards. But... I must have played for 30 minutes or so? Didn't finish the tutorial. I started to get nauseated - not uncommon in VR. But, the game wasn't really working for me either, which was a shame. Especially since it took me a while to get everything ready since I had to charge up both move controllers (one at a time!). The premise is simple, and fun enough, you're a wizard! And you cast spells with your hands doing different motions. I only got to see three things - the teleport action, creating and throwing a fireball, and summoning a protective shield. This was fine. The bigger problem I had was that I was never able to figure out how to adjust the facing. It always felt like I was facing to the side (90 degrees away from the TV) and never re-centering. And, since I was mostly facing away from the TV - lots of the hand gestures worked poorly because my hand/arm was obscured. Weirdly, this seemed like the default setting! So, I'm sitting, facing ahead, and the game then instructs me on how to do the fireball with "ghost" hands - that are off to the side... I went into settings and stuff and couldn't figure it out. This might be a "user error" situation? Anyways, the nausea was enough of an excuse for me to just uninstall the game. A shame really. I wonder if the version that won all these awards was on a different platform?jpSat, 18 Oct 2025 19:08:11 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7943&iddiary=13445http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7941Bought a new TV (old one died two weeks after moving), ditched the aging surround sound system (waiting on a sound bar for replacement), and upgraded my HDMI cable so that the PS5 can output 4k at 120hz. So naturally, I subscribed to PS Plus to bask in my upgraded setup and promptly selected a PS1-style game that could probably run on a toaster. Crow Country is better than it has any right to be, a totally adept and captivating survival horror game. You play as Mara, a woman investigating a derelict amusement park near Atlanta, Georgia. I was so surprised to see it set there that I thought the devs might have been from there, but no, they are British. I am still curious if they are familiar with the old (unfortunately named) Dixieland (now renamed "Fun Spot") in Fayetteville. Anyway, the park has been closed for a couple years and there are rumors of monsters. Mara discovers that, yes, there are monsters, and that there is quite the mystery to uncover. None of this sets up Crow Country to be particularly great or anything, but every aspect of the game clicks just right. It's like a small-scale Resident Evil or Silent Hill. The story is interesting and leads you deeper and deeper into the park. The characters are intriguing, each with their own motives related to the story. The Crow Country amusement park itself is detailed, well laid out with several distinct areas, and creepy. The enemies are gross and dangerous. The puzzles are relatively simple yet clever (I got 8/15 secrets). The combat is very old-school-survival-horror, frustrating as that can be. Aiming can be a pain in the butt, but the thing I liked least about the combat was that enemies can corner you. I died probably 5 times, usually from getting cornered (though one time from ignoring a warning about pulling a book from a shelf that was titled something like "Sudden Death" and getting a spike to the face) and each time, you go back to your last save, which could have been a while ago, thanks to some old-school design. I'm most impressed by just how tight everything felt. There are "staff memos" all over the park that give you clues as to how to acquire items or solve puzzles, and I was never truly stuck. If I thought I was, I'd go back to the collected staff memos and flip through them for a reference to something I hadn't done yet, then focus on that. A couple times, not knowing where to go after getting a new key, I stumbled on a room that needed that key. Locked doors are marked on the map, and unsolved puzzles are circled, but there is never any indication of what items are to be used where (i.e., all locked doors are red on the map; there is no differentiation between those that need a silver key or a gold key or whatever, even after you have discovered the doors). Luckily, the map isn't very big, and there is, if not a "fast travel" system, a "faster travel" system that you gain access to later on. So being stuck means there are only so many places you can look. Definitely recommend for a short survival horror experience. It doesn't reinvent the genre or anything, but it's just so solid. dkirschnerWed, 15 Oct 2025 16:25:14 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7941&iddiary=13444http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7935I beat this a couple weeks ago and haven't sat down to write about it because I've been busy with the move. Long story short, it didn't really land with me. I like the premise. You play as a girl in the Scottish Highlands traversing the hills to meet her uncle. You have to reach her uncle in a lighthouse before Beltane (though I arrived one day late, and I don't know what would have been different had I arrived on time). It's more or less a narrative exploration/platforming game. You run and climb through the hills, defying the rain, cold nights, and exhaustion. Occasionally, you discover objects or odd characters, and these piece together lore, a lot of tales of the mountains and the people who lived there. One reason the game didn't land with me is that these were small snippets of story, connected only through the fact that they relate to the Highlands. The narrator (the uncle) pipes up to speak for a few sentences to talk about whatever it is you've found, and then is gone again. These pieces of narrative feel disconnected. The main reason the game didn't land for me though is the platforming and navigating, both of which I found frustrating, and are what you spend most of the game doing. Your character runs and climbs, but quickly loses stamina. You often have to stop and let her catch her breath. Running out of breath while climbing results in a fall and a hit to your health. Since you are racing the clock to arrive to your uncle in the lighthouse before Beltane, it is frustrating to have to stop all the time. But you do have to stop, at least to sleep, and it's often a good idea to wait out rain, especially if you are tired or it is dark. Pushing through exhaustion increases your chance of injury. If your health is depleted, you automatically rest and wake up the next day, which wastes time. You have a map to navigate. You will find postcards and other things that mention various mountain peaks. You have some minimal zoom function to scan the surroundings to try and figure out where a particular peak from a postcard or whatever is. When you reach a peak, you can guess its name and have a wider view of the area to plan your next move. The goal here is basically to move from mountain range to mountain range, getting closer to the ocean (and the lighthouse) as you go. But you never quite know where you can move between mountain ranges. You are always looking for paths; sometimes, you'll think you see one, but you'll get there and there will be no path. Other times, you'll find a path but it takes you backward. I appreciate the exploration here, but again, doing this against the timer was frustrating, as was the fact that traversing the mountains can be so time consuming because there usually isn't a straight path left or right. You have to take higher or lower routes, winding through whatever mountain you are on, to try and get to where you are trying to go. You can see passable and unpassable routes on the map, so at least you can plan your route, though again, paths to the next range are something you have to discover. The game reminded me of another climbing game I played last year, Jusant. I remember feeling in a flow state playing Jusant, focusing on the motions of climbing. There is one type of sequence in A Highland Song that did something similar, and I wish there was more of it. Those were the musical rhythm sections when you come upon a deer. The deer will run and you chase it. Rousing folk music starts playing as you chase the deer, and you time button presses to make the character jump. These sequences were engrossing. Honestly, I had thought that there would be more music in A Highland Song. I would have liked more of these sequences! Perhaps they could have been worked into navigation to make finding paths or reading the map clearer. Anyway, this is a short game, so I don't feel like I wasted my time. My least favorite inkle game, but still with its charm. dkirschnerWed, 15 Oct 2025 15:46:38 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7935&iddiary=13443http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7940I'm 7 and a 1/2 hours in...and the game gets more interesting the longer I play. By interesting I really mean stylish and with cool effects and ideas. I had been lamenting that we hadn't played a "typical" point and click adventure game when this one came up on the docket. (previous game was Creaks, which I thought was a point and click in that sense, but it wasn't). So, lucky me! This one is a "traditional" point and click. At least in the sense of having an inventory and having to figure out when to use which items. But, there isn't really much in the way of conversations with characters and you get the items mostly as a result of solving a puzzle (like opening a locked door and the room inside has the item) and where to use the item isn't really a challenge...it's just getting the items in the first place that is tricky! And wow is this game tricky. LOTS of puzzles - all kinds, logic and word, and visual, etc. The hardest thing so far is not knowing when you have all the info to solve a puzzle and when you don't..which sort of sucks and it's been sort of trial and error for me so far. There IS a logic to certain kinds of rooms and things like that - for example the wonky movie posters are all clues to a number lock that will open the door. So, those are all nearby. But, I just solved a year room - and the insides of that room were clues to a puzzle box that's in a totally different room. Id forgotten about that so it took a while to figure out where to go. Sigh. Curiously I feel like there's never a MILLION open threads to pull on - I seem to get stuck and can then pull on a different thing, or am able to open a new door, then open some shortcuts and so on. The biggets "mega(?)" puzzle/theme so far is this giant maze I need to solve - and I've done it three times! First as the main maze (the red maze), then in a portable videogame cartridge I bought in the game (even in videogames I buy more videogames, lol), and the third was when I found quiz club - which has the same maze again - but in 1st person view (the first time was 3rd person, then 2nd person, and now 1st!). Cool stuff, and creepier the more I play. Supposedly it's an almost 20 hour game? I'm not sure I'll have the brainpower to keep going! But, maybe so? We'll see...jpSat, 11 Oct 2025 21:51:10 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7940&iddiary=13442http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934After trekking across the entire map (that took a while) - which was fun in that I ran across a bunch of new creatures...I decided to give up. Not out of boredom or frustration, but mostly because I think I've seen most of what the game has to offer systemically, I'm not particularly engrossed in the story, AND I have a drawer full of other PS4 games I really want to get into... I feel like I played enough of this one (over 12 hours I think) that I gave it a fair shake and can say I played it well enough. And yes, I was having fun - but I feel I have to find new fun elsewhere...the pile of shame has slowly continued growing...jpTue, 07 Oct 2025 18:35:32 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934&iddiary=13441http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7939I finished this in one sitting! (literally, because I played it on PSVR while sitting down). I enjoyed it. Didn't get nauseated (from the VR, not the game...) and also had some fun. I think it helped that I recently (last year?) played some Psychonauts - and that the platforming experience there was...pretty bad, so perhaps I wasn't expecting too much. But that seems unfair, and this game was clearly designed in a thoughtful way with regards to the common issues in VR. So, there's no locomotion - you jump from character to character by "possessing" them (I forget what it's called in the game), and the entire first area (you're on a plane with some of the characters from the first game) serves as a tutorial for the different interactions (read, powers) you'll have to use later on. The plan you're on crashes - and everyone is scattered so you need to make your way around (outside of your own brain, because you're captured/tied to a chair) and rescue them, all the way until you get to the final baddy. As expected it's all puzzles, and there's humor (it wasn't terribly funny, but that's not a complaint), and a few clever uses of VR - for example there's a moment when you need to lean forward to peer into a periscope - and from there you can see another character you can possess (and thus continue making progress). Most of the puzzles were pretty straightforward with two exceptions. One took me a while - you had to possess a flea and "get inside" (I don't recall how this worked - but I did it) inside the music box to fix it. The second I had to look up - this was partly a UI thing I didn't understand, because I knew what I had to do, just not exactly how to do it. It involved a cow. And a haystack. Used separately. I think what I enjoyed the most - again, this is not a complaint, I thought it was really nice - was the intro. It's done in a James Bond intro style - with different creators names projected onto fish and stuff... the theme song is even done in that style - it's not the Bond theme but it evokes it. Curiously the game ends - in the final credits - with a message stating that Psychonauts 2 was coming. Huh. No cliffhanger thankfully, which I appreciate. I also appreciated the game being short and not overstaying its welcome. I'm going to guess that some people complained about it being too short..but whatever. Short and good is better than longer and less good.jpTue, 07 Oct 2025 18:32:22 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7939&iddiary=13440http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7938I love pinball. I'm not a particularly good player, but I do enjoy playing on real (and virtual) tables. So, I really enjoyed browsing around in this collection - there's lots of old tables, weird tables that are hard to play on their real-world counterparts, and more. Favorites? Ugh. It's so hard! Playing Black Hole was neat - though I think I had the chance to play it in Las Vegas? (or maybe that was another one). I am surprised that this collection has games from four different companies - I have no idea if that's because of current-day rights consolidation or if whoever put this together was able to convince lots of people? I don't think it's that common to have a (legit) pinball collection with tables from Bally, Stern, Williams, and Gottlieb! (of the older companies, who's missing? I'm not sure)jpTue, 07 Oct 2025 13:44:59 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7938&iddiary=13439http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7936I felt I was close enough to the end that I might as well see it through. I was also curious about the giant monster! And so, 6 hours in, I can say I finished the game! (picked up all the trophies along the way as well - which wasn't too hard tbh, but still worth it - you have to pay a lot of attention so as not to miss some of the secret rooms, but since you can go back to any scene, it's not too punishing really. Also, the interactive paintings were a nice change of pace. As for new things? Well, there were three new enemy types! A female version of spiky-head (I don't remember what I called in my last post) - this enemy does the opposite of you: if you go left, she goes right, and vice versa (I know they're male/female because there's a puzzle in which you're able to bring to of them together and they embrace and it's romantic with hearts and all). Then there's the goat - that runs away from you to another patch of grass and can also, sometimes, jump up to higher/lower platforms, and the "elephant trunk". The goat turns into a chair you can stand on and the elephant trunk turns into a pipe from which water flows. The trunk comes up to "sniff you out" which is how you get it to change position before turning on a light. The last two aren't used in that many puzzles (good thing, I was starting to get a bit antsy tbh), and the game's ending was interesting.. a. You get a final light crystal that's used to take care of the giant boss 0- this area is deep underground - and you see a flower-headed creature! It's just there, chillin', which was intriguing, but nothing else happens...sort of teasing a future game? b. There's a lot of cut-scenes at the end, which was a bit tiresome - but the fun part is you basically (by following one of the bird creatures) ride a elevators/platforms all the way back to the top where you started. This is all following routes you can sometimes see on the way down, and it was neat to move past all these puzzles you solved! I enjoyed the trip back only for that! c. There's really no more puzzles - so, no final "boss puzzle" Which would have been a bad idea? it would have to be real-time? I don't know, I'm glad there wasn't another puzzle to work on...jpSat, 04 Oct 2025 18:49:17 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7936&iddiary=13438