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Dishonored 2 (PS4) by jp (Sep 8th, 2026 at 16:17:20) |
Finished playing this last night and I've been chewing on my overall impressions. First thing is, obviously, that I really enjoyed it and I thought it was something quite special how the different missions had their own unique "thing" while all being fully coherent with each other, the game's world, the story, etc. Ok, the time-travel mission might be a bit of a stretch - because you're only able to play around with the mechanic of flitting between past/present in that one mission and never again...but still.
The other thing I really appreciated is how this also applies to enemies and what they do and so on. I vaguely recall from the first game that as new enemies were introduced, they were then THERE for the rest of the game (mostly) - so, the difficulty did sort of go up (even as things got easier because you had more/better powers/abilities). Here I was worried that the clockwork soldiers would then appear everywhere - but they didn't. Or that the witches would show up all the time after being introduced, and they didn't. They appeared when it made sense for them, and this helped keep things interesting and fresh rather than "incremental" if that makes sense.
I did find myself leaning into the same modus operandi as I went about playing the game - lots of blinking around to takeout enemies and for the most part I was pretty cheap when it came to using ammo and equipment. Because the game explicitly encourages you to lean into its' two main flavors (violence vs non-violence) - I felt that I had to commit to one. Sure, I could play differently each mission and sort of flip flop, but then I think I'd be excluding myself from both of the end-game trophies? (I decided to do the non-killing option for the main targets on all the missions, but I assumed that the end trophy would be binary - if either killed them all or did not kill them all, kill some but not others would have NOT resulted in either trophy, but maybe I was wrong).
I noticed a new menu option - for a New Game + and I now wonder if that's what I should experiment with next? I did spend about 30 hours just completing this one - and it's probable that the more violent mode is just faster. But, will I still have to scrounge around scavenging in new game+? That's what took a lot of time on the clock, and I don't think it even counts all the times I just let myself get killed because I inadvertently killed someone without meaning to.
The game's help tips - that appear during loading screens and you can switch between - are encouraging of the player to experiment, try stuff out, and so on - but I always felt cautious about doing that (and I'm not going to try the "never spotted"/full stealth mode of play either) and I've been wondering how they could have encouraged repeat play while still preserving the "this was your campaign"? (while playing it, rather than as an after-you've-beat-it option. I think I can now go back and do any mission, but I would have liked to have tried some earlier ones in that way so long as they weren't "wasted time" for the purposes of end-game trophies.
I guess this makes it all seem like end-game trophies can be a real bad idea for some types of games? (because they force your players to "pick a side" and commit to it, when you want them to experiment and mess around - even finding mixed-modes in between.) I never put points on lots of abilities simply because I knew they were "violent abilities" and so why bother if I would never use them. Similarly with the item upgrades - I spent so much money on the upgrades, for no good reason knowing that I wouldn't be doing any shooting...
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Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2 (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 3rd, 2026 at 15:47:16) |
I played Part 1 for about an hour. Apparently it's only 2 hours long, but I couldn't bother to get through it. It's an Inkle game, received in an Inkle Humble Bundle, and I had never heard of this early effort of theirs, so I was intrigued. I see the Inkle DNA in it, a branching storyline, minimal gameplay, roguelike-ish elements (this has a "rewind" button, so instead of starting a "run" over, you just rewind to a previous decision).
The story is typical high fantasy stuff. You're an unnamed adventurer going to get a magical crown. Choose which way you go on the map, see little scenarios, make little choices, engage in half-baked combat, die a lot. The combat is kind of a guessing game. You have stamina (health), and you can select how powerful your attack is, from 0 (defend) to 10 (a massive slash). The enemy will also select an attack power, but only sometimes reveals its intention in text. So if it hunkers down, then you should also defend, and not waste attack power. If it readies itself for a big attack, you should do a bigger attack, which will overwhelm it. Sometimes, it doesn't say anything, and you can be safe and defend (take 1 stamina damage) or you can try to attack. You take damage based on the difference between the attack power of your attack and the enemy's attack, though I didn't quite work out the math. So if you attack for 5 and the enemy attacks for 7 (whether or not it gave a tell), you take damage. And then there are spells, which is a whole mechanic where you manually enter three-lettered spells (HOT shoots a fireball, WAL forms a protective barrier, etc.).
That's it. I was yawning after half an hour. I mean, I found the style and setting kind of interesting, but the combat was frustrating, and it was just...reading high fantasy text. I have 10 better fantasy RPGs and fantasy books sitting around that I'd rather engage with. Pass. Sorry, Inkle! I'll try Overboard! and Expelled! soon.
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GRIP: Combat Racing (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 3rd, 2026 at 15:34:09) |
Really poor "combat racing" game. I played for under an hour. Tracks are uninspired and were already repeating themselves. The tutorial immediately made me skeptical because it would progress quickly through tooltips before I could read what the information said. It also had one part where it wanted you to use an item with R1, but the tutorial said use L1. And it was really confusing with the controls, calling L1/R1 something else, and also giving keyboard controls, because the tutorial didn't change based on whatever input was detected.
Anyway, it's a combat racing game. There are like 4 weapons only, a speed boost, a shield, and I guess a couple other things. In the campaign, you just race around the same boring tracks over and over through like 12 different tournaments, each of which (so far) has 3 different races. It's like the game has an hour of content and was like, "We'll just have the player do that 12 times," Difficulty seemed weirdly varied, like sometimes, I would be dead last forever after wrecking one time, whereas other times, I would wreck and no one would pass me. There's also a weird thing about manually resetting your car on the track if you crash/go off course. It doesn't just reset you like in any normal racing game. Instead, you have to reset yourself, and half the time I would reset myself backwards, like going the wrong way, and would waste like 15 seconds trying to orient myself. Totally unnecessary!
Yeah, really poor experience...but, it was in some Humble Bundle, and I can't resist a racing game with missiles and stuff. No real time or money lost on this one.
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Spelunky 2 (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 2nd, 2026 at 16:31:29) |
Gonna go ahead and retire this one, too. I realize there's a reason that these two extremely difficult games (Baba and Spelunky) were sitting in my "playing" category for years. Any time I picked them up, I'd go, "Nah, not right now, I'll come back to it when I have more time to devote." And I'd pick it up later, it would be hard, and I'd postpone again.
Spelunky 2 is like the first one. It's a hard as nails roguelike platformer. You die constantly. I made it to the first shortcut and I think last time I was playing (before this), I made it to the boss of one of the next levels. But today, no chance. I played for 20 minutes and don't think I lasted more than 2 minutes in a run. One thing I notice that's different about this one is that there are branching paths you can take. That is, once you get to the first checkpoint, you can go one of two ways, and sometimes those seem random? Or are they always a choice between the jungle and the volcano? Not sure.
Anyway, I as with Baba Is You, I really do like Spelunky 2, but it's bested my patience and precision, and I don't want to play it anymore or look at it sitting, judging me, in my backlog. On to something else! I'm playing the lowest rated and oldest games in my backlog next, then clearing out all non-Steam/PS5 games (i.e., freebies on Epic and GoG).
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Baba is You (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 1st, 2026 at 17:19:17) |
Ooookay, I started this years ago, have come back to it a couple times, and always set it aside again because it breaks my brain. Last week, I decided I was going to tackle Baba Is You for real, and I beat the level I had been stuck on really quickly. "Great!" I thought, "I've got the hang of it!" A few levels later: "What in the world...?" And thus a pattern was born. Get stuck. Either figure it out or watch a video and copy it. Solve a few more levels. Get stuck. Figure it out or watch a video and copy it. Solve a few more levels. Get stuck. Etc. Decide I don't want to do continue this pattern for the duration of the game. Write GameLog. Close GameLog.
I had reviewed a couple papers about Baba Is You, so I was really excited to get back to it, thinking that somehow reviewing papers on problem-solving strategies in a notoriously difficult puzzle game would give me an edge. It did not. Also, those reviews were a while ago.
The game is brilliant though. It's so simple, but combines basic commands into complex strings. You start with two rules: "Baba is You" and "Flag is Win." You are Baba. Move to the Flag and Win. Each element--words and objects--can be moved around. You can reconfigure those first two rules to say "Baba is Flag," which turns Baba into a Flag and is game over (because "You" have to be something). But "Flag is You" works just fine. Suddenly, Baba becomes inert and you control the Flag. Move "Win" over to "Baba is..." (now Baba is Win), touch Baba with the Flag (which is now You), and You Win.
The level I am stopping at has the following rules at the beginning:
Water is Sink (anything that touches Water Sinks)
Baba has Rock (if Baba goes away, there is a Rock in his place)
Wall is Stop (can't pass through Walls)
Baba is Move (Baba moves when You do [note that You are not Baba here])
Rock is Push (You [whoever You are] can Push Rocks)
Flag is Win
Keke is You
Some commands are behind Walls, so You won't be able to touch those. Others are in the open, so those are the ones You figure out how to manipulate. In this level, Rock is Push and a combination of Baba has Rock and Baba is Move (where one "Baba" is used in both commands) are in the open. There is a Flag in the a space in the middle of a bunch of Water. Baba and Keke are in the open, too. So, the question is how to get You (currently Keke) to the Flag without Sinking in the Water. I actually figured it out. I have to move the words so that Rock has Rock, which means that after Baba Sinks in the Water, the Rock he leaves behind will also have a Rock. Keke can Push that Rock, Sink it, which produces another Rock, which Keke Pushes, Sinks, and produces another Rock...continue until a path is cleared through the Water so that Keke can get the Flag. Easy enough.
Often, levels build on each other. Not just new words ("has" is new in this level), but iterations on the same level. So, once I beat this level, it might give me some variation where, I don't know, the Water is Sink and Float, or something. Then you have to deal with that new property. It's going to get harder and I'm going to get stuck and the pattern will repeat.
So, in the end, I appreciate Baba is You, but I don't want to play it anymore!
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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
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)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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2323 registered gamers and 3382 games. 7921 GameLogs with 13423 journal entries. 5122 games are currently being played.
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Arkham Horror (Other) by Fluffyal |
| Hard to pick up, but very fun to play |
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most recent entry: Wednesday 1 February, 2017
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Arkham Horror: 2 sessions, Friday Jan 27.
Arkham Horror is a multiplayer, cooperative card game for 1 to 4 players. The game is one campaign which covers three scenarios. Each scenario feeds into the next and provides a timeline over the course of an entire game. Each player chooses one of five investigators to play as. The investigators are trying to uncover the secrets of Arkham and defeat the eldritch horrors directly from H.P. Lovecraft's works.
-Players-
Each of the investigators has four stats: willpower, intellect, combat, and agility. They also belong to two of five classes, with one being a primary class. The classes are Guardian, Seeker, Survivor, Mystic, and Rogue.
Every class has a set of cards associated with them as well as a set of neutral cards. Each investigator can include cards from either class and the neutral set up to a maximum of 30 cards. There are two additional cards unique to each character included in the deck, for a maximum count of 32. These are a weakness card and one item card with unique effects.
Throughout the game players will need to make skill checks to accomplish things or avoid negative effects. Players may positively modify a skill before they draw a Chaos Token. Chaos Tokens are almost always negative, ranging from +1 to -4 in uneven amounts. This spread only accounts for normal mode, harder difficulties remove any chance for a positive draw. If a player matches or exceeds the required skill check number, they pass the check.
On their turn, a player may perform any 3 of the following actions: move, attack, engage, evade, draw a card or gain a resource, investigate, or play a card. Playing a card takes a certain number of resources depending on the card.
-Rooms-
Rooms are the different areas the players may move to during their turn. Each room is connected to another, and may be connected to multiple rooms.
Each room has two values, a Shroud value and a Clue value. To gather a clue, the investigator in the room checks their intellect against the shroud.
Some rooms may have negative or positive effects on those who enter.
-Enemies and Encounters-
At the beginning of the second turn and every turn after, each player draws an Encounter card. The Encounter could be a monster or negative effect.
Monsters spawn on the investigator who drew it unless otherwise specified. Each monster has health, combat, agility, physical damage, and mental damage attributes. In order to attack a monster, the investigator must pass a combat check against the monster's combat value. Unless otherwise modified, an investigator's attack will deal 1 damage.
-Objective-
The objective of each scenario is to complete the investigators' Acts before the mysterious eldritch Agenda is completed.
Investigators can advance the Act by completing certain objectives in the game, like gathering a certain number of clues.
The Agenda is advanced when the Doom Counter reaches its specific number. At the beginning of every turn after the first, one doom is added to the Doom counter. When the Agenda advances, bad things happen and the investigators are closer to losing the scenario.
Win or lose, the investigators advance to the next scenario and carry the ending of the previous scenario with them to the next.
-Game Play-
The first session I played, I played with one other person. I was Roland Banks, a Guardian Seeker who excelled at killing monsters. My accomplice was Wendy Adams, a Survivor Rogue who preferred to dodge monsters instead of fighting them. She also seemed to attract clues like a magnet. Neither of us had played before, so throughout the session both of us were checking the rule book multiple times per turn.
We began our adventure in the Study of a Haunted house. The door itself disappeared and we had to find our way out. After gathering enough clues, we found our way out to the rest of the house, which had been transformed and infested by ghouls. We began our search of the house to find more clues in the basement. While we were searching the basement, we spawned an elite ghoul. This ghoul was hard to hit and dealt a significant amount of damage, we managed to defeat it after several turns of punching it. We managed to escape and dodge a weaker ghoul after gathering all the clues in the basement. Now we managed to make our way to the attic a little battered. Of course, as is the nature of the game, if it can make life harder for you, it will. We managed to draw the only other elite ghoul in the encounter deck to help us enjoy our stay in the attic. After defeating the ghoul and grabbing all the clues we made our way to the parlor to release the spell that was barring our way.
Promptly after opening the barrier, we advanced the Agenda by drawing two Doom cards, which put the Agenda to its third and final stage. It was now a race against time to finish our last Act. After the barrier dropped, the Ghoul Priest, this scenario's boss enemy, spawned on top of us. We also had the opportunity to recruit an ally which would help us deal more damage on a successful attack.
We had three ghouls on our location. Luckily Wendy was exceptional at dodging the ghouls. I made my way to the parlor to recruit the special ally and Wendy dodged all ghouls and made her way into the parlor with me. I then lobbed a stick of dynamite into the hallway and killed two of the three ghouls. I equipped my revolver and began to shoot the Ghoul priest.
Unfortunately, we were not able to kill the priest before the Agenda advanced to its completion. The scenario ended with us running out of the house in fear.
-Second Session-
For my second session I replayed the first scenario with the same person as well as one additional person. I was Roland Banks, and we also had Wendy Adams and "Skids" O' Toole, a Guardian Rogue. The game progressed much more smoothly now that two of the three of us had a little experience with the game.
We managed to not draw the elite ghouls the entire time, but we did draw many more monster cards than the previous session. After gathering the clues from the basement and attic and mentally preparing for the boss fight, we made our way to the hallway to advance the Act and spawn the boss. While the boss now had 15 health instead of ten, due to the extra player, we also had a much easier time fighting it this time around. We successfully defeated the priest and escaped the house.
RNG is a good part of deciding whether or not you have an easy or difficult time progressing through the scenario. For the most part, the game is designed so that the investigators would not have too big of an advantage, should they ever have one at all.
-Overall-
Arkham Horror is a very fun card game that unfortunately requires a significant time sink to simply understanding the rules and interactions. Each scenario takes about 3 hours to complete. Everyone had a blast playing this game.
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