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Not for Broadcast (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 8th, 2025 at 20:20:21) |
Funny 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.
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Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4) by jp (Sep 7th, 2025 at 15:20:59) |
Is it weird that the first hour or so of this game had me thinking of God of War? (the remake not the old PS2 games) It might just be the tribal costumes and the snow? Anyways, this game is certainly not that - probably predates the remake as well, but I've been having a lot of fun so far.
I think I'm past the tutorial and prologue parts of the game where things have opened up and we've hit Ubisoft-Open-World design levels of "icons on maps for you to follow up on". I am torn between trying to focus on the main quest quickly and exploring the world and environments which takes time...and I also get distracted by inconveniences like running out of inventory space so I have to hunt wildlife to get the resources to upgrade that!
Is it weird that I really enjoy hiding in the tall grass and taking down robot dinos? I think it's the same pleasure I got from Ghost of Tsushima.... I guess it's the pleasure of appearing skillful while not really being skilled? Ha!
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The Room (PC) by jp (Sep 7th, 2025 at 15:07:29) |
I played the first chapter of this way back when. (it looks like I never wrote a gamelog about it either, oh well)...and this semester I thought it would be a nice game to play in the context of "tactile" thinky games since it has a real sense of physicality to the puzzles and the manipulations - sliding switches, pressing buttons, spinning wheels, etc.
I thought it was interesting how, while playing the first chapter, I vaguely remember some of the things I had to do - it was familiar in a way I did not anticipate (it's been, what 15 years at least?). It's not like I knew the solutions - it's just that I remembered, "oh, there's a secret switch I need to find" and "oh, this thing rotates".
I love how self-contained the game is, you're mostly rotating a giant puzzle table and looking out for changes, etc. - and it's also reasonably linear in the sense that you don't have multiple puzzles going on with bits and pieces that might be required for one but not the other. One of the chapters is a giant puzzle table - and the game does tell you to focus on the sides if you start poking around on the top. So, I appreciated that!
I don't remember the ipad version having a hint/clue system - this one does and it's rather surprising how quickly it "dings" to let you know you can get a clue if you need. From what I can tell there are three levels of clues - with I'm guessing the third one telling you what to do (though you probably still have to do it yourself, which can be a bit tricky in the viewing-puzzles, the ones where you need to rotate stuff and adjust your view to form/create a picture).
I'll admit I was a bit worried going in to the last chapter (the Epilogue) since it seemed like there would be music-themed puzzles. Uh, oh! There's an interesting tension in these kinds of games which has to do with the amount and kind of external knowledge you required (or expect) the player to have. I'm thinking of stuff like escape rooms where you're supposed to go "oh, this is in morse code!" and then use that knowledge to decipher something. I was worried that reading music might be something required. Thankfully that was not the case - at most there was some pattern matching which was pretty easy and the musical thing happened to be more of a theming thing than a gameplay thing. Phew! (I'm sure there's an extra layer of meaning to the music in terms of the game's story - but this wasn't something I was paying any particular attention to to be honest.
Overall I was done in less than 2 1/2 hours, which was perfect. Bonus is this might be the only game on Steam for which I have ALL the achievements? (simply by virtue of finishing the game...)
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LOK Digital (PC) by jp (Sep 1st, 2025 at 12:29:20) |
Really enjoyed it, got to the end - only to learn, there's MORE!
So, I've been slowly whittling away at the game - I still don't have the 8 keys, so who knows what THAT will unlock, but I've been doing the red birds.
I think what's so amazing - especially in the context of the red birds, is that the carefully tuned puzzles sometimes serve more than one purpose! So, tuned for the puzzle within it's world/area, but there's a 2nd puzzle on top (is there a secret red bird here?). I think that's pretty wild!
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Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4) by jp (Sep 1st, 2025 at 12:25:34) |
Really, really enjoyed it. So much that I decided to go for the "all items and secrets" trophy just because that would scratch the exploration itch this game had been scratching for me. I'm also thankful for the "easy mode" - which was, as advertised, easy - but like I said, I was really into exploring the levels, finding secret stuff and just enjoying the places.
I was reminded of Bungie's level design for Destiny - more precisely Bungie's art direction for its levels. Destiny levels tend to be super, super linear (which is fine) even if they twist around in interesting ways. This games' levels are much less linear - Zeffo in particular is a nice version of a contained sprawl... I even had fun trying to remember how to get to different parts of the level I wanted to re-visit because I was missing a chest or secret.
The only thing I wish I had was, once you've finished it, some indicator of whether you had all the Jedi memory things - I'd sometimes stumble across ones I'd missed (and some were secrets) - but a counter for that would have been nice. I get that you may want to hide them away - since many are about the game's story - but once you beat the main story, why not give people the chance to know what things were missed where? (you know which ones you're missing, because of counters in the encyclopedia thingie - but you don't know in which parts of which map if that makes sense).
I'm now genuinely excited and interested to play the next one!
(not so much for the story/characters to be honest - the addition of the night sister at the end felt odd and forced, but the action was great, and the environments as well)
(ok, now that I think about it, and because of the surprise appearance of one Lord at the end...what happens in the sequel? I also forget when in the Star Wars timeline the game takes place? I mean, I know it's before Return of the Jedi...but is it before A New Hope? I think so?)
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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)
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2303 registered gamers and 3301 games. 7834 GameLogs with 13316 journal entries. 5114 games are currently being played.
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Conan (360) by ItsaMystery |
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most recent entry: Thursday 6 March, 2008
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(Gameplay Session 2)
[GAMEPLAY]
As I progressed through more of the levels, I found the core game mechanic of killing anything and everything in your path fairly satisfying, especially when limbs or heads came off. I can assure readers that I'm not truly supportive of going around lopping heads off, and although some may not appreciate the violence in the game, the game was originally based of a series of short stories created in the mid 20's. Thus, just remember that the books came before the game!
Getting back on track--since Conan lost his armor, he seemed to have "forgotten" all of his cool combos. By killing enemies and destroying destructible environment objects, I was able to earn red experience runes that I could save and later spend on learning different sword-shimmering combos. Not only was it fun, but it was satisfying as well to dispatch of the different enemies by cutting of limbs or a head and receive experience runes as a result.
For the most part, the levels and game flowed smoothly. There were certain points where I'd find myself become stuck due to difficulty of getting past certain stronger characters, but once past that small hurdle, continuing on with the game was no problem.
[DESIGN]
One of the really interesting and engaging aspects of this game is the depth of the skill tree and weapons system. Conan is able to wield three weapon types: single sword, dual-wield, or two-handed broad sword. He is able to switch between these on the fly at will based on what kind of sword(s) the player picks up off the ground dropped by fallen enemies.
For each weapon type, there is a very large skill tree. Unlocking different skills requires that the player has enough experience runes to spend on each skill. Also, certain skills are not available for purchase until an earlier skill item is unlocked/bought. This system allows for supporting and encouraging the player to continually try to do well and earn as many experience points as possible so that they can unlock lots of new combos. The player will try to perform to his or her best so that they not only survive, but also earn more experience runes as well.
The levels in Conan seem to follow a similar format. For the most part, the levels are primarily hack-and-slash your way through until you get to a boss or beat the level. Certain levels here and there, however, have minor puzzle elements embedded in them that the player must solve in order to continue. The puzzles seem to be surface-level though; if the puzzles were more frequent and pushed further, the game could potentially compete more with a similar title such as God of War. Overall though, Conan does a really good job of performing as an action-adventure title with a solid weapons and combo/skill tree system, as well as does the Conan title justice.
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