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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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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.
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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: Tuesday 1 December, 2020
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Semester from hell is over.
1 month of Xbox Game Pass for PC is beginning.
First game: Demon's Tilt, a satanic looking pinball game that I thought would be more of a spectacle than it was. Turns out I don't care about pinball PC games, no matter how neat they look. Lesson learned.
Second game: Carrion.
Verdict: Being the murderous alien lifeform escaping a science facility is awesome. You start out as a cute lil guy that can't do much besides fling a tentacle out to grab humans and bash them to death. Over the course of the game, you find bits of your DNA in containment, reabsorb them, grow, and gain new powers. I cannot stress how fun using powers is, especially when the levels become more puzzly later on.
Your powers are tied to your three sizes (small, medium, and large, like a pizza). When small, you can shoot a web and become invisible for a short time. When medium, you CANNOT do the small things; instead, you can smash through objects and create spikes all over you that shred enemies. When large, you can pull things (basically a beefed up "smash things" except pulling lets you navigate to new areas) and you can create a super shield, which was useful to turn on and just tear through a room.
So here's an example of how this might work. Enter a room and see a switch behind a permeable wall. You need to shoot a web at it. You're big, so you need to become small. Go find a pool and deposit some mass. Go back, shoot a web at the switch. A door opens. There are some humans with guns and flamethrowers. You have all these power options to either directly assault them, be more defensive in an assault, slink through some vents that are present and pick them off, and so on. One thing you can do later on is possess enemies. I often possessed enemies with guns and used them to kill everyone else in a room. You'll need to do this to access some switches and buttons too.
One thing I liked about Carrion is that you are not a total badass all the time. When you are small, you are closer to death and feel vulnerable. When you are large, you have more health but lack invisibility and some other useful abilities. The times when you can rampage through rooms are awesome, but so are the times when you have to stop and consider what you are doing. Enemies are not limited to scientists and grunt soldiers. Some have electric shields, there are big mechs, turrets, mines, drones, and some other things that each are easier with some finesse. This actually makes the idea of the creature far scarier because the creature is sentient, like the player. It stops, thinks, and learns. Indeed, by the end of the game, you realize just how dangerous it is.
There are two drawbacks to the game. One is the aiming control. As you get bigger, it becomes more difficult to aim your tentacles at small objects, to grab what you intend to grab. I'm not sure why it should become more difficult to do this (maybe that a big monster is supposed to be unwieldy, and if it's purposeful for this reason, then okay I guess). Moving while large can also become difficult when attempting to squeeze through small spaces. Somewhere in your writhing mass of flesh there is a "center" where the controller is mapped to, but when you get big, it is hard to tell where it is. So your body will slither to the right halfway through a vent, then you will push right on the analog stick, and you will actually go DOWN back out of the vent because the "center" of your body was still in the shaft not through the vent yet. This did get annoying.
The second drawback to the game is that it can be difficult to navigate. There is no map and the game is sprawling and interconnected. As long as you remember what barriers have opened and pay close attention, it's not bad. But, at the very end of the game, before the very last area, I got SO turned around! I had to go to the internet and find user-created maps to figure out how in the world to get back to where I was supposed to be. It was like a 30-minute detour. So, if you make it to the end, DO NOT wander without a map! You can easily get even more turned around than I did.
Overall, I loved Carrion. The concept is excellent and the execution nails it, with just a couple gripes. Visuals and music are phenomenal as well. Worth a play through for something different.
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