Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1269https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7932Funny FMV game about working in a TV news editing room over nearly a decade during a period of political change. First off, I read somewhere that this game has the most recorded video of any game (at least at its release). It's impressive how much video content is here to watch. Well, to edit. You WANT to watch the videos, but your job is to edit. It sometimes takes away from the watching that you would rather be doing. The game reminds me of something like a cross between Don't Feed the Monkeys, Orwell, and Papers, Please. You watch people on the TV screens (like Don't Feed the Monkeys) but in doing so can influence the political direction of the country (like Orwell). And since cutting the TV footage is your job, and you have to earn a wage, there's a little Papers, Please in here too because your decisions at work affect your family, finances, and home life. That home life part is more of a simple textual narrative and serves to pass time, connect you to family, and add additional social context to the news broadcasts. So you work at this TV station manning an editing board. The various buttons and things on the control board engage you while the TV show is being filmed. You can switch between four cameras, play commercials, cue sound effects (laugh track, clapping, etc.), adjust volume, and you have to deal with various other distractions or problems (a political group trying to hack the station, power outages, wiring issues, maniacal dolls [in a bizarre dream sequence], etc.). The goal is to effectively edit the live feed to increase viewership. You do this by switching to the correct camera (general rule: focus on who is talking), by changing cameras (general rule: don't linger too long on one shot), by minimizing interference, by cuing appropriate audio (e.g., don't cue the laugh track when something serious is happening), and so on. Doing well increases viewership; doing poorly decreases it. If enough viewers leave the channel, you lose and start the broadcast over. The live news TV show that you'll be editing is so well done. The writing and acting are excellent, the stars of the game. It's so creative. There are news anchors, special guests, recurring segments, and more. The devs have really created a whole universe here, a parody of real-world news, celebrities, and politicians. My favorite actors were the first news anchor and the guy in the first DLC (which was my favorite chunk of the playthrough). In that DLC, the network is airing an old telethon from the mid-20th century. Your job is to edit the broadcast live. The telethon host is this horrible man who is inappropriate with the women answering the phones. They don’t play along with him. When he makes sexist remarks, they roll their eyes, don’t laugh at his jokes, and seem to revel in the fact that his telethon isn’t raising any money. All the guests for the telethon are stuck on a bus in traffic, and so guests are improvised from the telethon staff on hand, including a deadpan Indian performer, a Chinese worker, and a little person. A lot of the jokes rely on the fact that this is race- or body-based humor that we would find offensive today, but was totally normal for the 1950s. So you have fun with the censor button and watching the minorities, man with a disability, and women completely undermine the white male host. Anyway, that is a DLC…the main game is set over like 8 years and has a political story; it’s not a single event like a telethon (which is, for the record, related to the political story, in a way that I guessed about 5 seconds before it was revealed!). Because of that difference, after the main game the DLC felt cohesive and concise. Broadcasts in the main game will regularly occur a year after the previous broadcast. I’d definitely be curious to buy more DLC when it goes on sale. Broadcasts were usually like 30-45 minutes long, so it’d be a couple bucks for a long episode of funny, interactive TV basically. Mon, 08 Sep 2025 20:20:21 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7932&iddiary=13435https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7894A classic, completed! I never had an SNES or a DS, so I never found my way to Chrono Trigger. It's one of Sasha's favorites, and a classic JRPG, so I found the Steam port and played over the past several months, most of which was concentrated in the past few weeks. I know it's 30 years old and was revolutionary at the time for the multiple endings, time travel, side character-focused side quests, detailed sprite work, and so on. I'm playing in 2025 around the time I'm playing JRPGs like Clair Obscur and Persona 5. Chrono Trigger doesn't hold a candle to those games, but those games wouldn't be possible without decades old games like Chrono Trigger paving the way. So, my playthrough of Chrono Trigger was one of trying to appreciate something classic rather than thinking, "This is going to be a great [by today's standards] game!" Indeed, I was often frustrated or bored, going through the motions of leveling up or grinding, making liberal use of the auto battle option, and following occasional walkthroughs to speed things up. The story and characters were less serious than I thought they would be. I was thinking that this would be more on par with FFVII, but the "silliness level" of this was a middle ground between FFVII (which could be profound) and Earthbound (which was often funny). The characters and story weren't that interesting to me. Chrono could have been a jug of milk. The 65,000,000 BC cave woman (whom I so creatively named "Wolfy" because she wore animal skins) made me laugh because of how dumb she talked, and at the end because she basically says she's ready to have a lot of sex with her boyfriend. The frog was over-dramatic. I named him Queen (I don't remember why), which became really confusing because there are actual queens in the story. Characters also often referred to the frog with his original name instead of what I selected for him. But what was cool was the centrality of Lavos, this ever-looming threat across time. I liked that you could challenge Lavos whenever you wanted. By the time I was ready to give him a serious attempt, I was around level 50 and he annihilated me with a magic attack right off the bat. I changed my party composition and used the three characters with the highest magic defense, which worked like a charm...until he used a massive physical damage attack. Turns out characters with high magic defense often have low physical defense. I only had two characters who were fairly balanced with defense (Chrono and the frog), so I figured I should do some of the side quests that the game offered me. That would get me some more levels and probably some better gear. Turns out I had done a few of those side quests already, and I did almost all the rest. Yes, better gear and a few more levels. Now we're around level 55 and have significantly improved defense and attack, having gotten ultimate weapons for most characters. I annihilated Lavos and saved the world. Hooray! This is something very "classic JRPG" about Chrono Trigger. If a boss defeats you, you can just go grind away for a while, come back, and smack it to death. I did this two or three times during the game. And given that you can turn on auto battle, the grinding feels almost automated. I would just sit by Sasha, watch an episode of something, and run back and forth through whatever area auto-battling my way to higher levels. It took no thought. I think that's a larger critique of this game for me, is that I didn't have to think much. Sure, some enemies have strengths and weaknesses, and bosses often had a trick to figure out, but that was such a small percentage of battles. I'm comparing it to something like Clair Obscur where EVERY battle could go horribly wrong, where you could parry and dodge. Or something like Persona 5 where the combat system is predicated on enemy strengths and weaknesses that you need to pay attention to (plus 10 other combat mechanics). Chrono Trigger (understandably) feels basic in 2025. It was really cool getting to experience a classic, basic as it feels today. Next time I play a game with time travel, I'll compare it to Chrono Trigger! Next time the hero's mother steps through a time portal at the end of the game (cue laugh track), I'll also think of Chrono Trigger! And the next time someone refers to Chrono Trigger, I will confidently say that yes, I have played Chrono Trigger (instead of being shamed for having no gamer cred)! Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:02:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7894&iddiary=13430https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7931Okay, this was REALLY good. It's from the people who made The Red Strings Club, which I also liked. Deconstructeam has a knack for thought-provoking philosophical narratives, strong writing, diverse characters, and novel mechanics for a point-and-click. I don't even know if I'd describe this as a point-and-click because most of it takes place in one two-story building and you don't really move your character anywhere in the sense of typical point-and-click adventures. It's more of an interactive visual novel with cards. But it's not a card game either. Let's back up... In The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, you play as Fortuna, a witch with the power of divination. You've been exiled for reading in your Tarot deck that your coven will be destroyed. 200 years into your 1000-year exile, you summon a Behemoth (very illegal), who helps you reflect on your circumstances and regain power. Regaining your power involves learning to create your own (non-Tarot) deck of cards. As the story unfolds, you end up being allowed to get visitors whose futures you can read with your cards. So, depending on the cards you create, which are imbued with different elements that have different affinities (i.e., fire is fear, earth is power, water is emotion, etc.), your readings are flavored differently. For example, if you create a ton of fire-heavy cards, your readings will be related to fear, lust, violence, revenge, and so on. Now, there is a huge and awesome narrative twist that I will not give away that makes the divination system so interesting and makes an already cool game even cooler. This is contextualized in the overarching story of your exile, regaining your powers, reconnecting with witches in your coven, meeting witches in other covens, and dealing with the political upheaval in your coven. Without discussing that twist, I really can't talk much more about the game, except just mechanics stuff. Suffice it to say, if you like playing politics, you'll be surprised. The game does a lot of interesting things in its relatively short time and confined space. One interesting thing about this game is that it takes place wholly (except for some flashback sequences) in the place of Fortuna's exile, a two-story home in the middle of space. There are like four things you end up being able to click on in the house, so nearly all interaction happens via dialogue windows and the card creation and selection screens. Despite the simplicity, nothing ever got boring or repetitive. The game regularly changes up what you are doing and the story moves at a good pace. At the end, I find myself curious about a second playthrough, or seeing if my girlfriend is interested in it so I can watch her play. It seems like your choices have massive impact on how the game unfolds, but sometimes this can be deceptive. I would like to see how much things change if you make different choices. HIGHLY recommend!Fri, 29 Aug 2025 06:56:47 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7931&iddiary=13429https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7887I'm most of the way through the third case and retiring this one. I played most of it (about 10 hours) while walking on the treadmill over the past 4 months or so. I do walk on the treadmill more often than that! The first thing that struck me about Ace Attorney is that it totally inspired Paradise Killer, which I really liked. I had never played anything quite like Paradise Killer, and now its pedigree is obvious. It even uses some of the same sound effects, like the chime noise when something is suspicious. I liked the first two cases; they were a good introduction to the game and its characters. The detective work does get tedious, moving the magnifying glass around the screens to hear Phoenix's comments and to try and find clues. This gets worse as there are more places to explore. By the third case, which involves moving around a movie studio, the detective work was getting boring. The trials were more fun, but even those were getting boring by the third case. I think the trials suffer from the problem of being too scripted. You listen to witness testimony, cross-examine the witness (wherein you hear the testimony again and yell "objection!" [always amusing] when you want to press the witness), successfully press the witness, listen to their revised testimony, cross-examine the revised testimony, and so on. If you mess up on any of these parts or want to hear something again, you have to click through all the dialogue from that part again. The third case is more complicated than the first two, so I have been listening to testimony over and over trying to figure out when and how witnesses are lying. If you accuse them too often by presenting incorrect evidence, you lose and have to start over, which is annoying. So, you can't just guess over and over, even though the game's logic is such that you'll have to guess sometimes. Sometimes, you know when and how the witness is lying, but it's unclear what dialogue option is the correct one. For example, I have been cross-examining a child in the third case. He witnessed fight that ended in a murder, but didn't actually see the murder. He didn't see the murder because he was fiddling with his camera, which I had figured out. When you press him on this, there are three options. You can claim that he didn't see the murder because he couldn't see it, because he was looking at something else, or you can present evidence. Well, if he was looking through his camera, you could imagine that he couldn't see the murder because he had it pointed in the wrong direction or something. If he was messing with his camera, you could also say that he was looking at something else (the camera). Or, you can present the camera as evidence. These all seem reasonable to me, but the game is so scripted that you have to present the camera as evidence; the other two are wrong, even though the second one especially makes sense: he didn't see the murder because he was looking at something else, his camera. Other times, you just have no clue what you are supposed to guess. Like, now this kid is talking about how he took photos but deleted them. I've pressed him on every part of his revised testimony, but don't know what I'm supposed to present as evidence when. I presented the camera a couple times because it seems to me the photos might still be on the camera. I presented the photo of the Steel Samurai because like somehow that might be his photo (even though it came from security footage, who knows?!). I presented the spear (murder weapon). I was wrong enough that I got a game over. This has happened enough times that I'm just going to call it quits on Phoenix Wright. I like the game. It's funny. The character animations especially are great. I love watching the witnesses get all bent out of shape. I like the absurd narratives. But that does make it hard to impose logic to solve a case! The game has its own logic and I'm tired of trying to follow it. I did look up rankings for cases, and it seems that cases 4 and 5 in this game are among the best ones. Of course I got tired of it during the 3rd case! I can't imagine another 10 hours of this though, even if the next two are supposed to be really good. I've got other "treadmill games" lined up to try.Fri, 22 Aug 2025 15:46:42 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7887&iddiary=13427https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7923This was a good indie with some strong points, though a little rough around the edges. It's like a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, the original dark version. There's suicide, ritual sacrifice, baby murder and other disturbing things in this story about a boy trying to rescue his sister from the titular Mountain King. Patrick kept saying, "Aaah, why are they showing us this?!" Then he made a joke, something to the effect that Germans tell horrifying children's stories. Like, a little boy was wandering through the woods and came upon an owl. "Hello!" the owl said. "Hello!" the boy said. "What are you doing in the woods?" And the owl swooped down and ripped the boy's face off. Germans tell horrifying children's stories. The game has moments of great camera work that show off some beautiful environments. It also does well with scale, especially when you are foregrounded against a big enemy or stuff happening in the background. I’m thinking of one time where in the background there is a big troll pushing a handle around in circles to work a smelter or something. It occasionally causes a great thunder and sparking of electricity. You are in the foreground platforming right to left, hiding behind objects to avoid the electricity. In this, Bramble definitely reminded me of Little Nightmares, itself a legacy of Limbo. Bramble has more 3d sections though. The platforming could be a little frustrating. The character sometimes doesn’t like to jump very effectively or grab on to where you are trying to go. There were a handful of sections that we did over and over trying to get the finnicky platforming right. Annoying, but overall not all that frustrating. So, fun little indie, not too long. It’d be great if a sequel had a bigger budget! Wed, 13 Aug 2025 09:58:13 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7923&iddiary=13425https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7891I beat this like a week or 10 days ago or something. I wish I remembered when! But I've been too busy to sit down and write about it, though I have given it some thought. Most of my thoughts relate to the story, tied as it is for me with the HBO show. I played the first game alongside watching the first season of the TV show, which was a fascinating way to experience both and heightened my appreciation for both. I tried the same thing this time, but wasn't able to keep my playing up to speed with our watching the second season (I think we were watching around the end of the semester and my Game Pass month, the former of which meant minimal gaming and the latter of which meant bingeing Game Pass games). Therefore, instead of experiencing them together, they were more sequential. I did go back and forth with the show until Ellie and Dina arrive in the TV station in Seattle. Then I finished the show, and a month or two later finished the game. It turns out that this is a decent way through the show, but only the earlier hours of the game. This is because the second season of the show stops a little more than halfway through the second game. This was frustrating (a) because the season alone felt unfinished even before I knew that the game kept going and (b) now I have to wait however many years to see how the show compares to the second half of the game, and there's a decent chance I won't care by then. Anyway, I won't spoil anything related to the story, but will note that the show and game continue to be really similar; I had expected more differences, as typically the longer an adaptation continues, the farther it strays from its source material. Granted, there were a couple large parts of the show that were created for TV, such as the entire first chunk in the town or introducing the Scars early to develop them (early) as an antagonist, but most of the differences simply involved a character in the show doing something that a different character did in the game. I think the biggest of these "character swaps" happened toward the end of the show/game (and you'll know that the same character can't do the same thing at the end of the show and the game once you get there). These swaps were generally to expand Ellie's character or her relationship with Dina, which was fine, but I worry that it will diminish Abby's characterization in season three. I preferred the game's characterization better. It's hard for a six-episode TV show to create the same depth of character as a 25-30-hour game. And given how the second season of the show pulled material from the second half of the game, the third season of the show might have less punch; they'll have to create more content not currently in the game to fill space. This is fine if they write some excellent new material, but the old material was great where it was in the game, and after playing and looking back on the show, the absence of that great game content could really be felt in season three. Story, story, story. How did it feel to play? Great. It's got a nice rhythm back and forth between combat-heavy parts and exploration parts, and these weave together seamlessly. I liked and actually used all the guns, though I didn't bother with all the tools (bombs and traps went ignored). Enemies are tough and there are multiple ways to approach many encounters. I used both stealth and guns-a-blazing. There are lots of buildings and places to explore off the main path; this game definitely had a bit of an open world vibe compared to the first one, especially when you first arrive in Seattle and are exploring the city on horseback. The crafting system returns and is really useful. I was always crafting new shivs, silencers, health kits, deadly melee weapons, and so on. I know that a game is doing something right when I engage with the crafting system and "optional" tools (even though I ignored the bombs and traps)! The only gripe that I have about the entire game is that (but yay useful crafting system!) there are so many crafting materials to pick up. Exploring a building became me methodically running up and down aisles, scouring bookshelves and cabinets, going in every corner, looking for a little highlighted thing to pick up. I didn't look at the environment, just head down, scanning the shelves for crafting materials. I would have to pull myself away from scrounging around to actually take in the building! This is partly a "me problem" but when there are items all over the place, it's hard for me not to become very instrumental in my exploration; I don't like being so instrumental, but am compelled to do it. So, A+ for The Last of Us II. Now I can give it to my friend to play, hooray! Wed, 30 Jul 2025 06:57:30 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7891&iddiary=13421https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7925Short and sweet beat-em-up that is very reminiscent of old TMNT games. I used to love going to the arcade to play Turtles in Time. They nailed the retro feel of those old ones and added lots of fun animations. There are more modern elements here like a bigger move set and subtle leveling up, but at the end of the day it's pretty button mash-y. I liked the music, but the audio quality of the voices wasn't great. I often couldn't hear/tell what the character was saying; voices would be lo-fi and drowned out by music. One time the audio went all choppy cutting in and out. I understand that they got some good voice talent, so I'm not sure why the audio quality wasn't better. One thing I did that I usually don't do was play online co-op. Me and some other person (and a couple third people) played through about 5 levels. Someone had already beaten the game because they'd unlocked paths between levels and we took a shortcut from level 5 or 6 to level 11. So technically I skipped a handful! It was fun playing with a few random strangers, all beating up foot soldiers and bosses. You can cheer on teammates, which gives them some health, and you can revive fallen teammates too. There are a handful of characters who vary in power, range, and speed. I chose April O'Neil because she smacks people with a microphone, which was funny. There's replay value here for big fans to explore all the characters, but this is definitely a one and done for me. Fun little nostalgia trip.Sun, 13 Jul 2025 17:13:35 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7925&iddiary=13419https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7917Not going to write much for this. It's as amazing as everyone says. Best JRPG I've played in many, many, many years. Like, jaw-droppingly good. Beautiful art, incredible original sound track, excellent writing, interesting characters, compelling world and story with twists and turns, engaging combat with parry and dodge mechanics, lots of discoverable side quests, dozens of challenging optional fights with "chromatic" enemies, mimes, and world bosses, etc., etc. The main things that need attention are improving the map (indicators for what you've explored, level info for areas, some ability to add markers or something, would all be nice) and improving the pictos organization options and equip screens. But like, it is so good that I'm going through my wishlist and just deleting most other JRPGs. It's a must-play.Mon, 07 Jul 2025 07:46:43 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7917&iddiary=13416https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7918This one is reminiscent of Post Void, but with a subversive '90s anime aesthetic rather than a psychedelic horror one. You are an angry man (a "strong silent type") with a mullet who contracts with a company through an app to kill robots and rescue an influencer. The big boss robot makes you climb a building to get to her for the final showdown. On the way, you go through 70 or 80 stories of the building, in sets of 10. After every 10 floors, you fight a boss, or hit a story sequence, and get a checkpoint. If you die before doing that, you go back to the beginning of that set of 10 floors and lose any upgrades you acquired (except the ones that persist across runs). I spent quite a while on floors 60-69, but didn't have to redo any of the others more than two or three times. I'm not sure why 60-69 was so much harder! It is the only boss I died on, and there was a part of the level layout I kept getting (floors are randomized or procedurally generated or something) that stumped me for a while. There was a laser grid with an enemy that kills you if you touch it. To pass the laser grid, you have to jump through it, but that makes it easy to land on the enemy and die. I eventually figured out how to jump through that grid configuration, then quickly back up and kick the enemy. Or, if you have enough time left, you can run through the lasers. After every floor, you get a choice between three or four upgrades--new/upgraded weapons, speed bonuses, critical hit bonuses, invincibility to hazards, etc. Those upgrades stay with you for the duration of the 10-floor set, then they reset for the next 10 floors, with the exception of your weapon, which you get to keep, even if it's upgraded. The only weapon I upgraded to level 3 was the pistol, so I beat the game with the pistol! And if you die, all your upgrades go away and you reset that 10-floor set. So, you get like 9 upgrades before you get to each boss, and the upgrades are pretty important both to get through the floors before the boss and to fight the boss itself. Upgrades are also important because you only have 10 seconds to live, and you need to extend that as much as possible. You carry a phone that constantly counts down in the app. Kill an enemy, get time back. Kill enemies in creative ways (kick them into lava or lasers, launch them off a ledge, etc.), kill enemies quickly back-to-back, and get more time back. Get hit though and lose time. The game emphasizes that it's not about speed, but flow. In that, it's Hotline Miami-ish, where you are quickly reacting to where enemies are and what type they are so you can dispose of them efficiently without getting hit much. There are enough enemies that you don't need to fly as fast as you can, but I generally did. You have guns and you have a boot, so you alternate between blasting enemies and kicking them into things. It's fast-paced and fun. The story is fun too, like a silly dystopian sci-fi anime thing that has a lot to say about consumerism and how people are like robots. It's a short game, with an endless mode and more difficulty settings for replayability. Not essential to play, but worth a couple hours for some high-energy FPS action and creative style!Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:10:58 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7918&iddiary=13414https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7916One and done! I don't think I ever played a Crash Bandicoot game on PlayStation and I don't think I ever need to play another one. It feels like an old-school platformer and is surprisingly retro. You run, jump, and spin your way through various levels. Your goal is to destroy all the crates, get all the fruits, find all the hidden gems, and, in time trial mode, do it quickly. That's it, straightforward. There are "masks" you pick up that give Crash some special powers, such as reversing gravity or slowing time. These change up the platforming. In the last set of levels, where there is a serious difficulty spike, you do these sequences where there are multiple masks. So for example, you pick up the super spin mask, jump, super spin, jump, remove the mask, land on the TNT (because if you super spin on the TNT it blows up immediately), jump, pick up the reverse gravity mask in midair, reverse gravity, float up to the time stop mask, stop time, crawl through the dynamite, jump, pick up the reverse gravity mask, reverse gravity, float up, pick up the phase mask, phase out and go past a laser, phase in and land on a platform, phase out and go past a laser (this is all while falling, by the way), land successfully on the final platform and end the level. Levels are littered with all manner of death traps, from enemies, to exploding boxes, to bandicoot-eating plants, and the platforming is not easy! Part of the difficulty is due to all the things going on on screen, and that's great. It reminded me of something like Super Meat Boy (one of my hard platformers to compare) where you need to learn some muscle memory to get through harder sections. Like, you'll be running and die because a box of dynamite is around the corner, so you die, restart from checkpoint, and remember not to hug the corner. And do that a lot, because in later levels, you will die a lot. I don't have too much else to say, really. There's a story but it's silly. There's fan service with recurring characters from previous games, even some you get to play as, which also changes up the platforming a bit. There is a lot of replayability as you can strive to find all the boxes and gems every level, do all the bonus levels, collect skins, and so on. I had a pretty good time playing, but will probably never play another one. There are better platformers that don't channel the gnarly 1990s so hard.Tue, 24 Jun 2025 10:15:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7916&iddiary=13413