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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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2285 registered gamers and 3255 games. 7787 GameLogs with 13264 journal entries. 5110 games are currently being played.
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most recent entry: Saturday 26 January, 2008
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Gameplay Session 2
[Gameplay]
During the second round of gameplay, I found the game more enjoyable than before. The increasing complexity of the game is revealed as your character progresses through missions and side-quests. Although the game is mostly linear, the method of which you get from point A to point B is almost entirely up to you. I chose to continue doing the main missions, and progress through the storyline for this gamelog, however. Doing Drive-Bys and killing drug-peddling "Ballas" ("Ballas are your rival gang) is what most of the early missions entail, although you don't get the respect of your friends, or the responsibility to do big missions (with big cash payouts), until later on. While not every mission requires you to be a tough guy, there are plenty of other types of missions. The first alternate mission you do is a DDR-esque mission where you bounce your low rider to the beat of directional arrows. You can also do racing missions Carl's sister's boyfriend (who happens to be in a Mexican gang) told you about. Later on, you get a sneaky-style mission, which is I really didn't enjoy, because you have less than three minutes to SLOWLY walk in and out of a guy's house and steal crates of weapons, but it is a good change from the run and gun life of Carl Johnson.
The driving in San Andreas at times can be difficult, especially if you're being shot at. Several missions have you driving a big truck that handles like a cruise-liner up and down hilly streets and back alleys, which can be frustrating. The police have also been upgraded to a better AI system, and no longer just try to ram your car off the road, which was very annoying. The police also randomly chase people, as they would in real life, which adds a tad of realism to this game.
[Design]
One of the many innovative aspects of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the unique genre of the Grand Theft Auto name. There have been few, if any, games that are as open to exploration as GTA: San Andreas. In a quasi-realistic world where you (Carl Johnson) exist, you can do things that normal people wouldn't do in real life. You can eat a lot and get really fat, and rampage through town on a motorcycle in your underwear, or you can dress up like a gangsta and parade through town on your newly stolen car with your crew.
The level design of GTA: San Andreas is quite amazing, with few holes in the game, and no areas where you are stuck forever. As I mentioned before, the new-found ability of Carl to climb over walls and fences granted a new challenge for level designers to make sure you can't glitch your way through certain missions, or exploit the ability to fly into nothingness. Also, having three distinct sections of the game brings an amazing level of detail, with everything from house design and pedestrian traffic to billboards and store fronts matching the real-life counterpart of these three fictional cities.
One of the most annoying parts of GTA: San Andreas is the save system, which requires you to make your way halfway across town and enter your house (later on you will get more spaces, but it would be so much easier to save via a menu. Just today I managed to get busted trying to make it across town while the police was on my back. Which brings up another annoyance of this game, where if a police officer winds up being even close to opening your door, you are screwed. Even if you drive away, you basically have to run him over (which is somewhat easy to do)
GTA: San Andreas has a dynamic time system, with some characters only accessible during off-work hours, as well as missions that must be accomplished during night time only. The game runs at roughly one real life second equals one minute in GTA: San Andreas. One of the mini-missions which you can get lots of cash are nighttime robberies, where you must once again sneak SLOWLY in and out of the victim's house before sunrise.
Overall, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is an amazing game, with great dialogue (supposedly, over 4,000 lines of dialogue were included in the game), exciting gameplay, a well-written storyline, and new features that make it just that much better than the last installment of the Grand Theft Auto series. It is easy to see how this relatively new game wound up on the classics list.
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