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May 19th, 2023 at 08:23:25 - Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4) |
Finally finished this last night. It has its ups and downs, and I probably shouldn't have played another open world game with stealth, crafting and etc. after playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey. My girlfriend called it "jank Assassin's Creed." It's different, of course, notably for the unique worldbuilding, story, and the giant robots. Well, any robots. Assassin's Creed has no robots. But Horizon Zero Dawn has no Templars. But it does have a cult. The comparisons are endless.
Anyway, you play as a young woman named Aloy, an outcast from her tribe with a mysterious connection to the past. If I say too much about the plot, I'll spoil things, but suffice to say that the overarching story is really, really interesting. It's revealed bit by bit, such that I often thought I understood what was going on, and then it would reveal another layer. In the latter quarter of the game, you get a ton of answers and learn so much about the history of the game world. The way you learn about the world must mirror the way that its inhabitants, or humans in general, knew nothing, and then made discovery after discovery that illuminated the darkness.
The sense of discovery isn't just the story, but the gameplay as well. Yes, the open world is beautiful, etc., etc., but there are giant robots everywhere! They are like "species," meant to resemble animals: some have herd behaviors (like horses), there are robot crocodiles, robot bulls, giant robot killer sandworms, robot pterodactyls, robot T-Rex, robot velociraptors, and a giant spider mech that looks like something out of Metal Gear. As you progress through the world, you encounter ever more dangerous robots and, if you're brave enough, can learn how to override them to make them fight each other (very entertaining).
Combat is largely bow-and-arrow-based, with various types of ammo that have various effects. There are other weapons, bombs, traps, and so on, some of which have novel uses. For example, you can lay down trip wires, then herd robots into them. Honestly, I barely used anything except my bow and arrow and my spear. The spear is useful for stealth. You can hide in tall grass, lure enemies, and stealth kill them (humans or weaker robots) or override them (robots). I guess I played the game a lot like it was an Assassin's Creed game. But I generally found the crafting, looting, and upgrading systems tedious, so I didn't bother. Another neat thing about the combat with robots is that you can shoot off parts of them. Robot firing missiles at you? Destroy its rocket launcher. It might even pop off for you to pick up. Need materials for crafting fire arrows? Shoot the incendiary containers off the backs of robots. It was fun to slowly dismantle the bigger robots like this.
Overall, it was neat to play Horizon Zero Dawn. I enjoyed the overarching story the most, but the moment-to-moment gameplay was fun too, with combat being an intense affair, especially against the more challenging robots. Segments where you have to clear human bandit camps were less inspiring. Side quests and characters were also pretty uninspiring, and I did stick mostly to the main storyline. There is a sequel out that I don't think I'll play, though I wouldn't mind reading about it.
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May 19th, 2023 at 08:02:20 - Signalis (PC) |
Signalis is a really great retro survival horror game with strong Silent Hill vibes. The presentation is pixelated, artsy, and stylish. The story is creative and confusing. If it weren't told with such slick presentation, the story would be less enjoyable, but I was rather curious to sort my understanding of what was going on (note: I did not understand what was going on). The gist of it is that you're a Replika, an android created from an original human personality. Because humans are flawed, so are Replikas, and, long story short, the Replikas all go insane in the mining facility where most of the game (supposedly) takes place. You encounter nightmare after nightmare, attempting to survive, trying to find a Gestalt (human) who you have some connection to. You'll also encounter other Replikas who are not quite dead or insane, like the facility administrator, none of whom are helpful.
The gameplay is classic survival horror. You have some guns and melee weapons, limited ammo, a couple tools, and solve a lot of puzzles. One unique thing is that enemies can "reactivate" after being downed, but you can permanently kill them with fire. I did this exactly twice, and it was during a boss fight against the Mynah unit. The Mynah activates two basic Replikas, and will keep activating them throughout the fight no matter how many times you shoot them down. If you set them on fire, then the Mynah can't reactivate them. I cheesed the fight, actually. After burning the Replikas, I just stood behind a pillar while the Mynah tried to shoot me, got tired, and became vulnerable. I shot it until it got back up, and I blocked line of sight again behind the pillar while it fired into the pillar, got tired, became vulnerable, and repeat until dead. It was generally easy throughout the game to run circles around slow enemies, especially when there was an object in the middle, and I was surprised this Mynah boss was dumb enough to fall for it too.
In these kinds of games, you usually have a small inventory, but in Signalis, you have a REALLY small inventory. Six items. At save points, there is a chest that stores infinite items, so you will find yourself often, especially toward the end of the game, running back and forth between save points swapping items from your inventory to the chest. There is a lot to pick up for how limited your inventory is. It added to the tense survival mood for most of the game, but became tedious toward the end when there were a lot more enemies, no maps, and elaborate puzzles. Indeed, the latter one-quarter to one-third of the game has no map, which presents an additional challenge. Prior to that, the map was really useful and well designed, with color coded doors for "been there," "haven't been there," "locked," and "broken." I liked the level layout a lot of the mining facility.
So yeah! I wouldn't have played this but it sounded really solid from reviews, and when I signed up for Xbox Game Pass, there it was. Definitely a standout in this genre. Enjoy trying to figure out what the end means.
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May 13th, 2023 at 14:31:29 - Weird West (PC) |
I 1,000% thought I would adore this based on the description, but I 1,000% do not. So disappointed! Weird West pitches itself as an isometric immersive sim with twin-stick shooter and action-RPG elements. It looks like a CRPG or tactics game, like Desperados III or Divinity, but plays like a janky version of its influences. Which is too bad because the setup for the story and the world seem really cool! It's the "weird" part of the weird west, a Wild West setting but with witches, cannibals, pigmen, crazy miner monsters, werewolves, and all manner of mystical thing. It seems appropriately dark fantasy.
So, you begin the game observing some mysterious branding ritual. There are 5 characters being branded (spoiler: you'll play vignettes with all of them), and you begin as a woman who used to be a bounty hunter, but retired to become a farmer, and after some mean cannibal cowboys come steal your husband and shoot your son, you dig up your pistols and go on a journey to find your husband. Unfoooortunately, the story and setting are about the only thing I like so far. So many other elements are mediocre or flat out annoying. Shall I list them?
1. The worst offender is the inventory. Within two short hours, I was micromanaging it, constantly having to drop items and disassemble guns because it was full. Weird West commits the sin of giving you 10,000 things to pick up (irritating in its own right) and no room to store them. You can loot everything: barrels, crates, book cases, chests, bodies, buckets, the ground, dig up bodies and loot those, etc. 95% of the loot is garbage worth (literally) $1, but you also can find ammo, which is extremely useful, and guns on enemies, which can be broken down into ammo. Why do games give you so much stuff to pick up and then not give you inventory space to hold it? I'm suspending my disbelief and accepting this crazy weird west setting; let me have a decent sized inventory!
2. Grinding. Yes, I found myself in the early game grinding for money. The game forces you to cough up nearly $300 for a main quest. At that point, I had less than $200. This is how it teaches you about bounties, though I don't know why it has to teach you about bounties (accept the bounty from the board, go kill the person, come back and claim your reward) because every game with bounties works just like this. Anyway, it forces you to collect gold. But on the way to do bounties, I found a merchant selling the equivalent of a skill point for $200 and bought that instead. Woops. Now I needed $300 for the main quest from scratch. That's like 3 bounties. It pains me to have to wander around the map, getting randomly ambushed, grinding for enough money for the main quest.
3. I grinded through dilapidated towns, partially flooded mines, dilapidated towns, dusty towns, and mines with water in them. The environments are so repetitive! The towns all look the same. The random "encounters" on the way from place to place are pretty much all the same (kill a few wolves, kill a few gang members, occasionally stumble on a merchant or something). I think they could have done better with representing the setting through the environments, making it look "weirder."
4. The combat is also lackluster. It wants so badly to be an immersive sim. You can stealth or you can go in guns blazing (how novel!). Stealth is boring. Guns blazing is much more fun, but it's very basic. You aim with the right mouse and just fire away until the enemy drops dead. Eventually, you get some special moves with each weapon (pistol, rifle, shotgun, bow), but it doesn't change how you play. The most useful special move is one you get for free, and it's a Max Payne style slo-mo shooting dive. Points spent on gun perks carry over across the five characters, while character perks don't. I don't know why you'd choose to do anything other than save points to buy gun perks. Why would you spend ability points on character skills that you won't be able to use when you have to change characters in a couple hours?
To sum up, pretty much everything that Weird West tries to do, it doesn't do well. As with the previous SteamWorld games I played, Weird West's influences do it better. Want to play an isometric Wild West game? Desperados III will blow your mind. How about an immersive sim? Go play BioShock or Dishonored or Deathloop. Twin stick shooter? Okay, I know this isn't "twin stick" but the aiming is similar. I've never played one with aim as poor as this. Try Nuclear Throne. CRPG? Divinity: Original Sin. Action RPG? Path of Exile or any old Diablo game.
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May 12th, 2023 at 18:38:15 - SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech (PC) |
Similar to what I just wrote for SteamWorld Heist, SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech is a basic card-based RPG. There are way better card games out there (e.g., Slay the Spire, Monster Train) and way better RPGs in this sort of JRPG-lite style. I enjoyed it for a while (again, the setting, characters, and story are all very charming, creative, and there is much attention to detail), but ultimately it started feeling same-y and I became bored.
You have a party of up to three characters (I had five when I quit), and proceed from chapter to chapter through small 2.5d side-scrolling areas. Each character has a set of cards, and you choose eight from each character to equip, for 24 total. This makes your deck. In combat, you'll randomly draw like 6 cards from your deck to start, and you can play up to 3 in a turn. You can also re-draw up to 2 cards in a turn if you don't like what you've got or you want to fish for something.
The game is focused on pulling off combos of various types. If you play 3 of any given character's cards in a turn, then they do a special fourth move, depending on their weapon. This encourages you to manage re-draws to get three playable cards of individual characters to pull of their combos. Certain cards also have combo properties. For example, one might say that it'll do x% more damage if played after any card of another specific character. This allows you to get more mileage from cards even if you aren't pulling off single-character combos, and incentivizes experimentation with different party compositions. (This latter thing is unnecessary though. I played half the game with the same three characters without issue.).
As you gain more characters in your party, you realize that Hand of Gilgamech really wants you to play the elemental strengths and weaknesses game. There is fire, ice, dark, electric, physical, and other damage types. Some cards increase or reduce susceptibility to damage types, and enemies become innately strong or weak against various damage types. So, you're encouraged to create and exploit elemental weaknesses. It actually winds up being a lot to bother about. But like I said, using the same three characters and playing basically the same way halfway through as when I started was still working just fine, so all this "extra" stuff seemed to just get in the way. As with Heist, it started to get repetitive and dull, and I couldn't see myself playing twice as long just to beat it.
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