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Phantom Abyss (PC) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 19:14:27) |
I'd heard of the game's hook (or gimmick if you will) as, everyday it's a different 1st person platforming game/run, and if you die - that's it. Play a different run later.
I'm guessing stuff changed along the way, though the concept is still here - it's a reasonably challenging rogue-like 1st person platforming game. I've had fun, you have a whip to help you climb and each level has different modifiers (the whip has an ability) and you can pick up boons in your run (if you have enough coins to afford them) and hopefully make it to the end. BUT, you see a bunch of ghosts for everyone else who played this level - if someone died, you can collect their spirit or something for a small heal! During each run you collect keys you can use to buy permanent upgrades, and so you go up the progression ladder of many roguelites...
Someone described this as first person temple run, which is close enough? I mean, the levels themselves are a lot more interesting than the "mere" reaction times that temple run goes for, here you can side-step/etc. stuff - and there are different paths, and in all you can be a bit creative for how you approach stuff...I've had fun so far - unlocked all the green levels and I've started on the blue ones!
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Cuphead (Switch) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:37:03) |
I only get to play this when my son comes around - and we play together and I realized, yeah - I need to either start practicing seriously or just give up. And, I enjoy playing it co-op, so there's not much sense in practicing, so I decided to give up.
We did make it to the 2nd island(?), and played some of the levels there - but I was clearly starting to see a steeper path to success. As in, it too us (mostly my fault) more and more tries to make less progress. He's already played it, beat it too? So, not much point for him really.
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Sonic Rush (DS) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:34:08) |
I started playing this from the saved game - with new(?) character Blaze on "area 2" (I don't remember the exact name). And, I just could not beat the level - it was set in the casino world, and everything was moving super fast and on "automatic" - so, you just press move and the character zips along, bounces, etc.
It's actually quite boring! Because you just do this, at some point you hit an enemy (very few enemies in the game!), lose your rings, and then carry on. But, I'd lose because I'd fall into a bottomless pit, lose three lives and then out.
I'd say it wasn't so much frustrating as it was a disappointment. Yes, the point of Sonic is that it's "fast" - that's it's thing. But I find that there's little interaction to the game for most of the levels - you just "go along with the direction". It's neat when sometimes you get bounced around automatically, but for the most part I like to control the character.
So, I deleted the save file and started a new one, this time with Sonic in the equivalent of green hill zone. This level has two areas and then a boss. So, it's like 3 levels make up a level.
And, the experience was pretty similar - run on automatic for a while, lose rings suddenly or die, repeat with a bit more caution...etc. I did make it all the way to the boss fight - which I almost beat one too many times, and I just realized - ok, this is dumb - at least the boss fights have more gameplay ( you dodge, make an attack when the weak spot is open, etc.) - but it's still a pretty boring/uninteresting platforming experience.
So, off to the shelf it goes!
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Secret Files: Tunguska (DS) by jp (Apr 4th, 2025 at 19:16:25) |
I think there's a weird moment in time when everyone thought that point-and-click style adventure games were dead, but they were not. And, I think this game is an example of a game that was under the radar of "mainstream" games press at the time? Or at least under the radar of the average consumer of videogames...
This particular game is also a strange little time capsule - it's a port of what I think was a PC game...also at a time when people where porting all kinds of things to the DS. And, it works! Well, from a UI perspective at least. And it works pretty well. At least compared to another adventure game I played recently on the DS whose name I'm blanking on as I write this. I bounced on that one because it had some character/3D interactions that were awkward and unintuitive. Here, they were much smarter about it (I'm assuming they made UI "concessions" because it's on the DS). So, while you have a 3D character that navigates a static space - you don't actually have to move the character around directly in order to interact with objects/places in each scene. Press one button and all the interactive spots highlight, and you can just tap on them directly. I LOVE this solution - especially because I was never a fun of the "hunt for the pixel" approach that many games had (on PC) - and I'm super glad it didn't come across into this DS version (for all I know, the "here's all the highlights" was also possible on PC).
But, the UI triumph aside, I still kind of bounced off this. I got stuck on a puzzle (how typical!) - and what I had to do was leave a location to visit another location and then continued...this seemed really "unfair" to me - as in, unintuitive - mostly because I had assumed I could not leave the locatio in the first place. It wasn't entirely unintuitive - but it was the sort of puzzle where I was sure I should be able to (in this case) get the key out of the aquarium - but it turns out that no, I had to leave the place, do some other stuff, and then come back. At this point I was well into the tried-and-true "try all the things with all the things", except that I did not know I could leave the location I was at. Sigh.
So, from glancing at my list of DS games I still need to play...well, I wasn't THAT interested in the story so far and the puzzles didn't feel particularly interesting either..so, it was an easy game to put on the shelf.
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Shogun Showdown (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 4th, 2025 at 18:33:00) |
Clever little tactics roguelite. It reminds me of Into the Breach and other tactics games where you are given clear information about what enemies will do each turn. It's also reminiscent of Into the Breach because of the small play space. Basically, the game takes place on a 2d plane that is divided into like 8 or 9 spaces. Any given character occupies 1 space and can move left or right. You build a "deck" of "tiles" that include attacks and other special abilities, many of which involve movement (e.g., a forward dash that moves to the nearest frontal enemy and deals 1 damage). Your goal is to build up your tiles and progress stage by stage until you kill the Shogun.
During each run, you can purchase and upgrade tiles, mostly increasing their damage or decreasing their cooldowns, purchase passive abilities, use items, and other standard roguelite stuff--make yourself stronger by strategically handling whatever random things you get.
Most every action you do takes a turn, and all characters take turns at the same time. So, you move right (1 turn) and all the enemies do a thing (one might move left toward you, one might queue up an attack). Then you queue up an attack, and those two enemies might queue up an attack and attack, respectively. Actually, it also reminds me of Crypt of the Necrodancer, which works like this, where all characters act simultaneously. In that game, when you move, everything else moves. Shogun Showdown is like that. When you do something, the enemies do something.
I beat the Shogun for the first time this evening, which was maybe my fifth run or so. I had what felt like extremely overpowered weapons, a sword that I'd leveled up to deal 5 damage with only a 2-turn cooldown. I also had a bow-and-arrow with 4 damage and a 3-turn cooldown. The kicker though was a curse that doubled the next damage on an enemy. So, I'd just queue the curse, the sword, and the arrow. That took literally half the Shogun's health bar. Did it again, dead and into phase 2. No problem. Did it two more times. Dead. Easy. When you beat the Shogun, you unlock "day 2", which is the next difficulty level. You can also unlock additional characters with different skills, and you can keep unlocking new tiles and stuff. I consider it beat after taking out the Shogun once. It's a fun game, really tight, and makes you think ahead. It doesn't do much that you haven't seen before though.
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Homefront (PC) by dkirschner |
| Heard it's supposed to be short --------- and it is! But it's pretty fun, despite too many ads and southern stereotypes. |
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most recent entry: Monday 17 September, 2012
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Homefront, Homefront, Homefront. At first I thought, Wow, you are a serious game. This will pull my heartstrings and make me hum the national anthem as I shut down the computer post-play. I will break out my American flag bed sheets and go to bed warm knowing that I am safe and that North Korea will never invade the country I love...
And then I got to what I will refer to as the Product Placement level, which was the most ridiculous piece of crap I've ever had to put up with. The Product Placement level is otherwise an interesting level, as is most of the game, except that there are approximately 5 blatant product placements. Let me list the ones I caught (both up to and including the Product Placement level):
1. At least 2 Pabst Blue Ribbon ads
2. White Castle billboard
3. NOS energy drink machines
4. I'm pretty sure there was a different energy drink earlier that I don't remember, before I started writing these down.
5. Fender billboard
6. Coffee Beanery building
7. The Product Placement level takes place in and around a GIANT TigerDirect.com megastore and a Hooters. A HOOTERS. Are you kidding me? My FAVORITE part of the game was in this level when my squadmate continues to yell at me, "ENEMIES IN THE HOOTERS!" The first time I heard it I almost fell out of my chair laughing. "ENEMIES IN THE HOOTERS!" I just wanted another character to yell so bad, "I HEAR THEY HAVE GOOD CHICKEN WINGS!"
Like, the number and prominence of the ads was just stupid and I almost quit the game right then. I'm okay with small ads in games here and there, like on a can or like a small thing. But these were giant billboards and buildings, the only things on the horizon, and the freaking level took place in the freaking TigerDirect.com store with like 1000 TigerDirect.com decals plastered everywhere. For like 20 minutes I looked at TigerDirect.com and listened to "ENEMIES IN THE HOOTERS!"
But I powered on through my ill feelings about the ads and beat the level. Oddly, there isn't hardly any product placement after that level. They just got it all out of them right there.
So this game was quite fun. It's an extremely guided experience and the set events were really exhilarating at times. You get to take control of several vehicles and use a couple special weapons throughout, all of which I enjoyed. The chopper mission guarding the oil tankers was probably my favorite of all. I actually got a special achievement on it for not dying once! It feels very old-school because there is no cover system, no RPG elements, no sound or line of sight mechanics. For there to be no cover system, there sure is a lot of cover. You just crouch and pop out and shoot and crouch again. It's like Homefront ignored many of what I consider advances in the FPS genre over this generation of games. Same thing for no RPG elements. In a day and age where like every game has something that levels up, Homefront feels oddly pure. And for the sound/visual mechanics, what I mean is that you don't sneak. One mission, we were 'sneaking' up a tower, and I didn't even realize it until my squadmate assassinated an oblivious guard. I was like, wait, we were sneaking? There's no sneak button! Shouldn't he have heard us? But that doesn't concern Homefront. There is another mission, the stealthy farm mission, and several instances in other missions, where you must make your way from A to B without being detected. In the farm mission, I CLEARLY made eye contact with numerous enemy soldiers, but because the whole of Homefront is so completely scripted, it seems that if they weren't supposed to see me, they wouldn't. The scripting is sometimes irritating because it so limits the player's freedom. You pretty much can't move anywhere unless the game says "go there," but even then 95% of the time you're following an ally and you inexplicably HAVE to follow. You will hit all kinds of invisible walls if you try to go ahead of them, or climb a ladder before them. So it's a hell of a simple game. The plus side is the shooting feels awesome.
My least favorite part of the game, gameplay-wise, was going through the Utah farm. This level was very slow-paced compared to the rest, and rubbed me the wrong way like the Product Placement level. I will call this one the Southern Redneck Stereotype level. In this stereotype, most Americans who love guns and are kind of crazy will be given a Southern accent and portrayed as a racist hillbilly, especially in games. This is why Southern accents are way overrepresented in military games. So even though this farm was in UTAH, at least 1/2 the characters there talked like they were from Georgia. "We gon' kill them stupid Norks y'all. Jes gimme my gun and watch 'em dance!" Like seriously, so annoying. As someone from the south, I hate it when Southerners are portrayed this way. Yes, we are all dumb, racist, gun-toting, freedom-loving backwoods retards who wear flannel and talk funny. Thank you Homefront for reminding me of my roots.
The game is quite graphic too with its depictions of violence, in the beginning especially. It totally preps you with a school bus ride through occupied Main Street where you watch a lot of civilians die in various disturbing ways. There is also a scene later on that is definitely one of the most disturbing scenes of a game ever, somewhere up there with sticking a needle in Isaac's eye in Dead Space 2, except more of a genocidal kind of way. But I'll let it surprise you...
It also attempts to have you empathize with the characters, but doesn't do a very good job. It's mostly a little laughable, in part due to all the cursing and the far far stretch that is the story. It's a cool idea, don't get me wrong, but come on. The little home away from home in suburbia was a notable eye-roller. "It's our little piece of America" the guy says as the kid swings on the playset and the woman cooks a meal in the kitchen. Makes me all teary-eyed! Hey wait a minute, all the children in the game look like Bobby Hill. And the (adult) characters curse like sailors. It's a little over the top. But I won't lie. I felt oddly patriotic running through suburbia defending Joe Everyman from the invaders, and finally at the end, assaulting the Golden Gate Bridge. That's a whole different question too. What exactly did my rebel group accomplish? We blew up a couple tanks, one Goliath, a helicopter, and killed maybe 100 troops on the Golden Gate Bridge...and freed America? Ummm. I thought North Korea had a bigger army than that...
And seriously, a big 'what the hell' goes out to the length. I beat this sucker in under 4 hours. What a joke! You want to make a AAA FPS and you're going to have a 4-hour campaign? Fail. Did they run out of time? What happened there? I would have been pissed if I'd paid more than a few bucks for this. Oh well. I don't not recommend Homefront. If you want a short, action-packed, scripted shooter, grab it on the cheap. It's got some cool things going for it.
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