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Please, Don't Touch Anything! (PC) by jp (Sep 20th, 2026 at 13:12:20) |
It's weird for me to think/write that the most important "contribution" this game has had for me is how useful/intriguing it's been to show students in experimental games class. The game is strange and quirky and funny and genuinely interesting as a puzzle box style game, especially once you've peeled back a few of its layers and understand how the game's support to work.
Over the years fewer students have heard of it, or played it, which is both good and bad. Good means there's more room for it to be genuinely surprising to them, bad means it's also increasingly more "strange" - I've found that students have a lot less to go on with this game since it is so exploratory in the beginning. Hmm. it would have also made a good addition to the "thinky games" cycle when we did the game design seminar...
Now that I'm at a new place with a new group of students, I wonder how it would go with them?
It's been a while since I've played it - and I don't recall which endings I got or anything like that, but it seems like I did make decent progress since I've only got 5 locked achievements. One if for every ending, the other for ending 25 without unnecesary buttons being pressed. 3 are hidden.
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Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (NSW) by jp (Sep 20th, 2026 at 12:41:02) |
I'd been playing until I got stuck on a fight - it's a two-parter boss against a soldier guy. The second part is against a sort of zombie/ghoul version of this soldier guy who spews green venom and turns into toxic clouds.
After scouring the map for missing things - found a few new upgrades (not interesting ones at this point) and filled in the map a bit more which was nice - I finally realized that I could buy more than one health potion (up to 10!) and I've come to better appreciate how the magic select menu works. So, I devised a new strategy for the boss fight. I'd get to the 2nd phase and swap out the spell with healing potions and try to use those to stay alive. And it worked! I was down to 3 or so...but still.
Yay!
I'm now in Stage 6. I think this might be the last chapter?
So, I kept on moving through new areas...and went back to older areas too - found a few secret areas as well (null space on the map)...and then I hit what I hope does NOT become a new wall.
Maybe this is the end/last battle? It's basically been - so far - a gauntlet of all the bosses (I think all?) in the game. And, while I don't think they've been scaled in difficulty (meaning some are way easier than when I fought them originally), it is quite tiring.. I did quite well until I got to the boss fight I'd just been stuck on earlier. My hands were cramping up and I just...couldn't.
Thankfully after I forget which boss there are items between them to heal up and such...but still. I think I lost this one from nerves and cramps more than difficulty? Though, I dread to see what happens AFTER this one. Will there be another boss? Sigh. I hope not.
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The Silver Case (PS4) by jp (Sep 20th, 2026 at 12:26:42) |
As I was installing the game I wondered why I had picked it up in the first place. So, I flip the case over and read the back - nothing really stands out until I look down and see "Grasshopper Manufacture".
Ah. Ok.
Grasshopper's oeuvre is interesting in that it's always weird, and strange, and they somehow manage to stay in business which makes it also surprising to me. I think the last game of theirs that I played was "Sun Flower..something..something". A strange DS game that was strange and creepy and I don't think I ever finished. I won't open a separate tab to check my gamelog for that one...but whoever reads this might want to.
Anyways. The game has a really striking visual style - and it's really "noisy" i the visual UI sense. Lots of text coming on, and pictures of the characters in different places on the screen (not always the same place), and words that sort of float around in the background...and little animated effects. It's all very busy, attention grabbing, and just - to me - visually noisy in a way that made me less interested.
Apparently the version I have is a remaster of an older one, so I wonder if the low-res poly graphics (e.g. car driving down an embankment at night) and such are kept in smaller windows because it wouldn't look good today and all the rest of the decorative screen stuff is what's been updated?
Anyways. There was lots of reading. Watching stuff, more reading and very little gameplay...and when the gameplay started it was "fine" (moving around a 3D environment in first-person view, but grid-based, like the old CRPGs Bard's Tale or the dungeons in Ultima and Wizardry). It didn't feel interesting - story least of all - so I finished the first chapter and called it quits.
I just bounced off the writing, the story/context seemed strange but not intriguing...so, time to move on.
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Pokémon TCG Pocket (iPd) by jp (Sep 17th, 2026 at 20:24:16) |
Hmm, still "playing" though I would very often forget to "check in" when I first arrived in Rochester. So, for a hot minute, I though I might have been done with it.
The other night I played the card game - demo at a store - and was surprised to learn that the card game is basically a super set of this game. I guess I didn't have a real conception of the difference between them - I thought that the cards were all the same, but they're not! This actually made me a bit less interested in this game, since it really is a watered down version of the regular card game.
I do think it's an interesting approach that I don't know of other examples? Because it really does seem like a subset rather than a "new" or "different" or "variant" version. I wonder if someone's looked closely at them?
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Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (PC) by jp (Sep 17th, 2026 at 20:19:59) |
I feel bad that I didn't keep on playing this one. At this point all of my handwritten notes and reminders and things I'd figured out are long gone...and this doesn't seem like the kind of game you can just pop back into. I think there's too many things going on. So, I'm just going to call it my loss and close out the game log...
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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 3384 games. 7923 GameLogs with 13434 journal entries. 5112 games are currently being played.
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Halo 3 (360) by The Ferro |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 29 January, 2008
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Summary
Halo 3 is one of the most fun first person shooters today. It is the conclusion of the very successful Halo trilogy. You play as a Master Chief who is supposedly the last super soldier left from the Spartan project, who is genetically enhanced and equipped with MJOLNIR armor that allows your character the ability to jump higher and hit harder than a normal human, plus it gives you a rechargeable shield. The goal of Halo is to save the world by shooting up opposing Covenant aliens and the flood. But once you play online the goal is to shoot your way up the ranks of the Halo 3 online community.
Gameplay
The campaign of Halo 3 is stunning. With such a captivating story and intricate levels, its hard to stop playing until you beat the game. I enjoyed every second of Halo 3’s campaign, each level full of action where you are always fighting outnumbered. Each level offers something different, while some levels consist of close range firefights, others will be filled with massive vehicle wars, and others with boss battles.
There are many ways to play Halo 3’s campaign. You have the option of playing campaign on 4 different difficulties with up to 4 players. Having 4 players on campaign is only possible via Xbox Live because only 2 players can be on the same Xbox playing campaign. The campaign is a more fun with the more people you have playing with you. On top of multiplayer campaign, Halo’s story mode also has the option of adding skull effects. Skulls effects can only be applied after you find the skull located someone in levels. There are 2 kinds of skulls, white skulls and brown skulls. White skulls make the game more fun but do not add to the difficulty of campaign, for example, the grunt birthday skull makes grunts explode into confetti when you get a headshot. Brown skulls make the game harder by making your enemies stronger, smarter, drop less ammo, etc.
Something cool that none of the other Halo’s campaign’s offered but Halo 3’s did was a scoring system. You get points for kills, and are deducted points for deaths. You earn more points per kill the higher your difficulty setting and you get more points per kill the more brown skulls you have on. You are also awarded extra points for getting headshots, plasma grenade sticks, combo kills (plasma pistol charge up + headshot), and consecutive kills. You have the option of having a free-for-all scoring system where each player has their own personal score, or a team scoring system where there is an accumulative team score. This adds a competitive element to campaign, where the goal changes from just beating the game to achieving the highest score possible.
The story of Halo is very captivating and kept me interested throughout the entire Halo trilogy. The story takes place in the 2500’s and the Covenant are a group of alien races (Elites, Hunters, Brutes, Jackels, Grunts, and Prophets) lead by Prophets that are on a mission to destroy the human race. The Covenant are far more technologically advanced than humans, so you are always fighting a battle in their favor. On top of the overwhelming Covenant force, you are faced with Flood. The Flood are like zombies, they infect living, bring back the dead, and are on a never ending quest to consume all life. Referred to as “demon” by the Covenant, you play as Master Chief who is the last hope for humanity and has to single handedly defeat the Covenant and stop the spread of the Flood.
Gameplay 2
Although the Halo’s campaign is great, the true Halo experience lies in its online multiplayer. Online you can have up to 16 players in one game. You can compete in various game types, ranked, social, and custom, against players all over the world. Once you start playing it’s hard to stop, especially if you keep winning matches.
Over Xbox live you can compete against players all over the world by yourself or as a team. Online you have an overall rank, and leveled rank per ranked game type. The levels range from 1-50 in all the game types. When you and your friends get a team together, go online and play matches it’s a blast. When you play ranked games you are paired up with players of close or equivalent skill and win, you take experience from your opponents’ rank, when you lose, your opponent takes experience from your rank. It is very competitive which makes the game more fun.
What is cool about Halo is that if you don’t feel like trying hard in a ranked match you can play a social match. You are matched up with players randomly and your rank isn’t affected. For the experienced player social matches are nice, its always fun to pown some noobs and they serve as a good warm up for ranked matches. And if you get bored of social matches, you can play custom games, where you have the freedom to create the rules of the game, including: game type, weapon types, vehicles, health, speed, etc. for some plain old Halo fun.
Design
Personally, I feel that the Halo 3 and the other Halo games are some the best designed first person shooters out. Halo can be played by people with all different skill levels, but it is a game that requires skill to be good at. Unlike a lot of first person shooters, it isn’t easy to get the kill your aiming for unless you execute it properly. You can’t just shoot wild and expect to get the kill, headshots are key. This makes it hard for new players to fight against more experienced players. This is a good thing; there is nothing more annoying when you play a game where skill has little effect on the outcome of multiplayer battles.
Halo 3 did a really good job with its guns. The assortments of weapons in Halo 3 are balanced and simple. There isn’t a weapon in the game that is obscenely better than all the rest. This helps keep the game less based weapon control and more on skill. If use your arsenal of weapons properly there isn’t one gun that can’t take out another.
The matchmaking system in Halo 3 is the best matchmaking system I’ve seen to date. You can find a game within seconds of signing online. With so many different game types like free for all, team slayer, team objective, 2v2, etc. there is always something to play. The only setback to the Halo matchmaking is that you can only match up with a player or team with 10 levels of your level. So if your level is in the high 40’s, it could take a long time to find a match, or you may not even be able to find a match in less common game types like lone wolves and team objective. I think that if there are no opponents within 10 levels, you should match up with the next closest person.
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