 |
|
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.
read all entries for this GameLog 
- add a comment 
|
|
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.
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
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).
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
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!
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
Dishonored 2 (PS4) by jp (Aug 29th, 2026 at 12:35:25) |
Finished the Dust District - and yes, it took me a while because I discovered a (to me) fun new ending. Since I've been trying to play non-violently, I've been focused on trying NOT to kill the main characters - just render them unconscious.
The setup for the Dust District is that your trying to get into this house with a crazy puzzle lock. There are two factions in the area and if you deliver the leader of one to the other, the other will help you out. Well, I solved the puzzle - so I could have moved on to the house, but I thought I'd take out both leaders! And then I came upon this additional plot to send some people hidden in these crates - and I got a new objective, pack up the leaders of each faction instead! I thought this was pretty fun and funny...so I did that.
Now, this area wasn't small - and I was taking a long time, but it turns out the house is another level entirely! So, not like the Clockwork mansion where you make your way through other parts of the city with the mansion at the end. Here, the house is another level entirely.
I'll see if I can finish that one some time soonish!
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
|
|
|
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.
[latest site fixes and updates]
[read more]
|
view feed xml
|
 |
|
2323 registered gamers and 3381 games. 7920 GameLogs with 13422 journal entries. 5121 games are currently being played.
More stats
|
 |
|
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) by JGAGLIAR |
| No comment, yet. |
|
most recent entry: Monday 4 October, 2010
|
I got bored driving around and doing random things to I decided to just do story missions. The next one I did involved going to a fast food joint and watching Smoke pig out. Hilarity ensued when suddenly I was in a car chase while Smoke just kept eating instead of shooting. The mission was pretty funny, but I still had no idea who I was chasing down. They kept saying it was some rival gang, but it seems like all I've done to them was to spray over a few of their tags. Granted, I did spray two of them in the face, but is that really so bad? Sarcasm aside, I didn't like not really having a sense of who the main threat in the game is supposed to be, and I still didn't find out in my play session today. Maybe it's revealed later on, but I like it when games immediately let you know what the overall goal of the game is, and who the opposition is. For now, it seems it's just random shenanigans, which is fun, but gets old fast without this main driving force behind it. Anyway, after I destroyed their car and easily avoided the cops, I went on to the next mission, which just involved a shooting tutorial and buying clothes. This could have been one of the first missions, but instead I was left to figure it out on my own since I had already stumbled across an uzi randomly hidden under a bridge after the first mission. And I've been walking around in a white tank top the whole time, which slightly annoyed me. After that, I wound up picking up some guy named Jeffery, er, I mean, OG Loc, from prison, and doing an EXTREMELY annoying motorcycle chase to kill some gay guy who stole Loc's rhymes. By this point, I didn't even question why the cops didn't bother to chase a guy who sped past their car while shooting at someone. Instead, they politely waited until I was done chasing this guy all over town and finally killed him. I guess the cops really hate it when criminals get killed...
[read this GameLog]
|
|
|
