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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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    1 : dkirschner's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (PC)
    2 : jp's Phantom Abyss (PC)
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    4 : jp's Secret Files: Tunguska (DS)
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    Random

    Crysis (PC)    by   c0mpguru

    Graphics are incredible.
    most recent entry:   Sunday 13 January, 2008
    SUMMARY:
    In Crysis, you play in the future as a US soldier, Nomad, equipped with a "Nano Muscle Suit" that allows you to have superhuman strength, a cloaking ability, increased speed and enhanced armor. Your primary mission involves rescuing a scientist who is trapped somewhere on an island. She sent out a distress signal so that someone could find her and stop the Koreans from opening an artifact that was discovered underneath Earth.

    GAMEPLAY (Session 1):
    Right off the bat, the graphics are incredible. I played it on the "High" setting and I'm amazed at how well they look. It does lag in certain areas, but other than that, some of the best graphics I've seen to date. So they start you off by jumping out of an airplane to a island. All you know is that someone is alive and they want to be rescued. Then something attacks you and you fall into the water below. This is (of course) the training level as you can do whatever you want before finding some enemy to kill. The suit has different modes and I enjoyed using those modes, especially the cloaking ability although it doesn't last long.

    Nomad isn't the only one who was separated so you have to go find everyone else. The voice-over acting is really well done in this game. It feels real. The chattering, the jokes, it all sounds as if it was really happening in the real world. As the game continued, it was fun sneaking up on someone while cloaked, grabbing them, then beating on them until they died.

    I really enjoyed playing Crysis for the hour that I played it. The story is interesting, but it feels familiar like other games that have something hidden underneath Earth's crust. It's really fun just turning on Strength mode and punching everyone to death, but that will get you killed if there are many soldiers around. Modifying the weapon you are using is pretty cool too but you tend to forget about it after a while because all you are really doing is shooting the same looking enemies over and over. The game does give you good training over the first level because it tells you what you could use each mode of the suit for, but throughout the game that's everything your suit can do...nothing else. They're fun to use (like cloaking) but if you don't want to use them, all you have is a FPS and it's just like other titles only with prettier graphics. It's just funny how they always send you to do missions and not any of the other teammates (although they might have some as well. We just might not see it.) Even with some little gripes (it's really just the training level so there isn't much there), it's a fun game.

    GAMEPLAY (Session 2):
    Continuing where I left off, I'm still in a forest on an island. It all looks pretty much the same except for some houses that you need to enter. This time I have to go rescue another one of my teammates...and complete mission objectives, of course. Mostly I was using the cloak to get past any enemies that I saw. But the AI isn't dumb. Even though you're cloaked, they can still hear you so if you're not careful, they'll start shooting randomly in your direction. It wasn't any different than the last time I played. The only difference was that I killed more enemies this time around...and I died once for being a bit careless...anyway, it was repetitive, but fun.

    Now, I think that the main characters are really well done. The voice acting is great and the graphics make them look lifelike. Right from the beginning you can see that every character has a history together. They are friends and they've been through a lot together, probably training or other missions. There are only four other people who go along with you to the mission, so you feel important. It does move the story along, but only because YOU have to do most of the missions. Pretty much every game does that because you are the main character so I don't think anyone is bothered by it...I'm not really.

    DESIGN:
    Crysis is not the best game out there, but it is really good. The modes on the suit add some changes to the gameplay, which makes it fun because with Strength, you can punch down buildings and kill anyone who is inside (always fun!), or become faster (kind of fun, but never really use it...). If you're like me you might cloak yourself a lot to sneak up on enemies. It's fun to through them at a wall.

    The levels of Crysis are not very different. You're in a forest for most of the game up until the alien species gets release (toward the end of the game). Don't get me wrong, the forest looks really, really good. Some nice foliage, trees, vehicles, houses, and the water looks incredible. All of this is really well done (even inside the alien territory, although it does look the same and I got confused a couple of times). This is one of the downsides of Crysis. I know that it IS set on an island and there is so much you can do with forests so I can see why they couldn't do so much.

    One of the things I enjoyed about Crysis were the cutscenes. The characters looked really well. DirectX 10 was suppose to be an improvement in gaming and although still new, Crysis looks really good while running in DX10. They have a DX9 version as well, but I haven't tried it. The textures on the faces and the suit look incredible. The details give the characters a realistic feel to them. Crysis is pretty much a system killer because you need a really good PC to play it on the high setting. My computer lagged somewhat during the cutscenes, but only when there was snow. Other than that they were smooth and the emotions on the characters' faces were in sync with the voice acting. Really well done cutscenes in my opinion.

    The game is really good. I would recommend it to a friend and I'm pretty sure that playing online gives more replayability to the game. I haven't tried it online though. Overall, really good game.

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