Strangely I'm not a huge fan of the imm-sims, mostly because I try to go stealth, get caught, and die a lot. Generally their gunplay isn't that "great" (I've probably played too much Destiny - so there's lots of muscle memory to undo).
I've played enough Deathloop to where the game opens up to the "real" game - so, all the intro tutorial and first few missions where you get everything set up such that you're now doing dull day runs. More importantly, I got to the point where the stuff you collect you keep - rather than having it all reset.
It's an interesting way to do it - the good is that I felt like I understood they why of certain things and it made me feel more involved. You're like Cole - have no idea what's going on and learning along with him. The bad is that I spent lots of time exploring and discovering things, that then got "reset" and that made me sad. Especially when on later visits to the same location, the special things (trinkets?) weren't there anymore. So, the rest made them disappear entirely? Maybe it's a bug?
I also died a lot more than I liked in the beginning. I think this was mostly me getting accustomed to how much damage enemies do, how to aim the weapons, and so on. I felt like later on I got a bit better or at least had a better handle of how things were supposed to go. Again, this meant that I wasted a lot of time early in the game, not having that much fun, and having to restart.
So, now I should be in a better position?
It seems like this is a sort-of-semi-rogue-like, but not really. Each run (day) is, as far as I can tell, a sort of "intel" gathering mission. You pick up clues and stuff until you've got it all mapped out. And only THEN can you do the "win the game in a single day" run - assuming it all goes well of course.
I was surprised by the fact that there's an entire upgrade system for weapons and such - and I don't understand how you keep what you want or not - it seems like the weapon you hold when you leave is what you keep? It makes sense - but again, sometimes there's a cool weapon I've dumped because I ran out of ammo...
This game's part of the seminar - so there are reasons to move on to other games, but I also kind of want to play this some more...
This one's more interesting than I thought it would be - the tactical game worked really well and it was fun to "navigate" the world - run into random story events and such. I'm not sure if I ever beat it? I definitely did get to Mordred a few times - but I'm not sure I can say what happens when you win. Sorry, it's been a while and I really should have written this log a few months ago.
One of the things I liked is how careful you really need to be as you move your characters around on the map - the have different move/attack patterns and since it's pretty easy to die, you have to be extra careful. Changing stances (to get different attack patterns) also matters. It felt very much like a chess game - watch where you go, where you land, and so on. In an interesting way, this wasn't the sort of game where you have/want to use all your characters. Sometimes, it was better to leave one further back, not use them at all, simply because they'd get into trouble or mess things up. One of the things I didn't like is how sometimes enemies would just appear (as a sort of triggered event) on certain parts of the map and so on. It felt a bit like the game cheating.
Oh, there was also some thing about "painting" the squares of the map - I don't remember what that did/why it mattered, but it was also pretty cool. Also, the game's interface would let you know if you were about to make a move that might result in your character dying! (but sometimes it didn't - it was like a risk thing, but if you chose that and died, well, you'd been warned)
I picked it because it's supposed to be a "boomer shooter - which I take to mean either (or both) it's an old school shooter for "boomers" (like myself, in the videogame context I'm old) OR it's an old school shooter in the big explosions and lots of enemies (like Serious Sam from back in the day). I'm not sure which it's supposed to be - and the boomer-ness is probably the least interesting thing about the game!
So, it turns out it's a rogue-like! Each run is a pyramid - and you must navigate the different floors trying to find a stair case up. I've only made it as far as the 4th floor - but I guess there's a few more and then a boss. And then you can start on a new pyramid. The starting area reminds me of Rogue Legacy - you can go to a place to buy upgrades (permanent ones, small boosts to health and stuff like that) and once you've spent your money whatever is left you lose when you start a new run. So, try to spend to maximize!
One of the things I really enjoyed is that occasionally (I think it's random? perhaps it's tied to certain enemies on a floor?) enemies drop scrolls that are mostly good - some are bad - and they serve as permanent modifiers for the rest of your run. My favorite is one that gave me infinite ammo until the next floor! But I've picked up others that are interesting/weird. Take more damage from behind, do more damage in the air, do more damage but only carry one weapon, etc.
Oh, you can also find new weapons (my favorite is the machine gun crossbow!) including a HL crowbar and a potato gun. Ha!
The levels are essentially small rooms - some are multi-floor, in which you must defeat all the enemies in order to continue (unlock the door).
You can also unlock new characters that have different abilities, weapons, and stats. Each character also has a special ability, but I keep on forgetting to use it. Huh.
I got this so long ago that I had no idea what the game was about when I put it in. I had a vague, and incorrect, idea that it was a narrative adventure/puzzle game...but it's actually a turn-based tactical game.
It took me a while to wrap my head around the interface (it's good - it just took me a minute to get used to it) since it uses the trigger buttons a lot to switch between actions, and also to switch between characters.
As for the story? It seems like a post-apocalyptic snow-covered world...possibly earth? and stuff is bad but I have no real idea what's going on or what I'm supposed to be doing.
I made it all the way to the 3rd mission - but not without issues. Missions have different steps, and dying on any resets - which is ok, except that, for the 3rd mission at least it seemed really hard to get into a position where you could actually do something. You wander into a room - and then you're in the middle of it, got shot a bunch of times and one of the characters died. I tried three times and realized that this was starting to feel more like a puzzle (find the correct place and actions) instead of a tactical game where you (or at least I prefer) have some leeway to figure out how to get the enemies with minimal damage to yourself. It didn't help that in earlier missions I almost ran into the same problem (died a few times but eventually won) in situations that felt more contrived and limited than interesting. It didn't help that the gray look of the game made it such that I had a hard time spotting enemies, only realizing they were there when they moved and shot at me. Oops. That's sort of my fault, but maybe not.
I guess the game didn't feel that interesting? Curiously the back of the box says "Exploration and Resource Management" which makes me guess that perhaps after the first few missions I get a base and there's a map you can choose to explore on? I'm not that excited or curious to see - too many other games on the pile to look at and play. If anything I might look at some videos just to see what I'm missing.
