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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)
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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: Friday 8 February, 2008
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Summary
Gears of War is a fast paced, realistic third person shooter with a tactical twist. The fighting style of this game is unique and unlike any other shooter I’ve played. Similar to paintball; it’s all about having cover and flanking your opponents. You have the option of playing campaign by yourself or with a friend or competing online against players around the world in various gametypes. Gears of War is one of the most hardcore and sickest games I’ve ever played. Its brutal graphics, unique fighting style, and extreme details really make this game great.
Gameplay 1
For my first couple of hours of gameplay of Gears of War I played the campaign mode. This game has everything a good campaign should have, great graphics, AI, physics, characters, storyline, etc. It has it all. This game is so detailed, there are so many effects that make the campaign great. It is very hard to put the controller down once you start playing Gears.
Gears of War has one of the coolest storylines I’ve seen in a video game. You play as Marcus Fenix and the game starts off with you being released from a prison cell in a prison that has been taken over by the Locust Horde. It turns out that years ago, the Locust Horde gathered under every major city and launched a surprise attack killing many . And rather than allow the Horde to keep the spoils of their aggression, humans used chemical weapons and orbital particle beams to neutralize them, along with the cities and bases they controlled.
The more you play single player the more hooked you get. There are 5 Acts with numerous chapters in each act. And in each act you have the option of taking different paths, split up your squad, and give your squad commands. This adds a replay value to the game. You get so into the story and characters with each cinema scene you get to as you progress through the story. The music in Gears is sweet; it really helps you get lost in the game. With every new wave of enemies you encounter the music picks up, and once you kill them all it dies down again.
The characters in this game are all hardcore. You and your squad are all huge, and completely decked out with armor. Your character has phrases that he says during combat that people can relate too. Its always awesome to hear Marcus yell “Bring it†when under fire and “Oh yeah†when you get a head shot. It’s appealing to know that your character is a badass, it makes you feel like a badass too when you rip through your enemies. And all of your enemies are demonically fearsome, evil, and ugly.
The only thing that I disliked about the campaign was that at times you were forced to walk. Who wants to walk. The faster into battle the better.
Gameplay 2
For my second couple of hours of Gear of War I decided to play some online matches. Gears of War’s online play is very competitive which makes it a lot of fun. There are ranked matches and player matches with various gametypes like Annex, Warzone, Execution, and Assassination with multiple levels to play them on, you can find yourself playing online for hours.
The online play is much more fast-paced than the single player mode. Don’t expect to last long without cover. Winning games online requires a lot of skill, Gears isn’t one of those games that you can just pick up and be good at. It requires a steady thumb and a lot of strategy to be a great player. Its defiantly a game aimed towards the hardcore gamer. This is good because a lot of games today try to appeal to too many different types of gamers. It’s nice to see a game dedicated for the skilled gamer.
A cool feature that Gears of War has is a statistics record. The game keeps track of your headshots, grenade kill, wins, losses, etc. It makes you want to play better and achieve a better record.
Although Gears of Wars online play is better than most online games, it still has some flaws that it could improve upon. It is a big pain to find games because of how long it takes to refresh the list of available games. For example, when you load up a list you see a game with 6/8 players in it and select it, you often get denied access to the game because the 2 spots were filled while you were refreshing your game list. And when you are denied access to a game you have to completely refresh your gamelist. This gets rather annoying.
Something I feel that Gears of War could add to its online play, is a ranking system where you are matched up with people of equivalent skill and games that aren’t just 3v3 or 4v4. It would be nice to see 2v2 and battles containing more than 8 players.
Design
The way Gears of War is designed is what really sets it above most games out today. The fighting style is unique because of how realistic it is. Most shooters are nothing like real firefights, circle strafing, running out into the open, and jumping around would never be a strategy used in a real firefight. In Gears its all out getting cover and flanking your opponent. You have the ability to get into cover, jump over low cover, dodge roll in all directions, swat turn from cover to cover, and roadie run. Which is what your more likely to see in real combat firefights. Its style is very innovative and not seen in games of the past.
The weapon design in this game is so sick. The Lancer and Bow are by far my favorite. The Lancer is a machine gun with a chainsaw attachment, so instead of just beating your opponent down, you saw him in half, and there is nothing more satisfying. You would think that a bow wouldn’t stand a chance in a game full of big guns, but the sick think about the Bow is that it shoots explosive arrows. So when you do nail someone, they explode into bits. The sheer brutality of all the weapons make this game very visual stimulating.
This game is designed to be very graphic, and I love it. The more gore the better. When your seer through the locust in half your chainsaw is revving loud and his arms are failing while blood is shooting everywhere. Even though it’s a third person shooter, slightly transparent blood splats against your screen, it’s a cool effect that adds a level of intensity. When you get shot mid range by a shotgun there is the same effect except much more blood. I have to say the coolest gory feature is the headshots, if you nail someone enough times in the head with the pistol and hit them in the head with a sniper, the head explodes.
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