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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: Monday 14 January, 2008
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SUMMARY:
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the latest first-person shooter I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing. The game consists of both a single-player and multi-player mode. In the single-player mode, Campaign, you alternate between two main characters and their storylines: the American (USMC Sergeant Paul Jackson) and the British (SAS Sergeant "Soap" Mactavish). The goal of the Campaign mode is to get the player to complete certain objectives throughout each level to progress onto the next one and ultimately save the world from a complete nuclear disaster. In the multi-player mode, the player has many different gametypes to choose from. Ranging from Free-for-All, where it’s every man for himself and the objective is to be on top of the leaderboard with the most kills, to Team Search and Destroy, where the objective is to either successfully bomb one of the opposing team’s sites or to protect your site from being bombed.
GAMEPLAY (Session1):
The game does a very nice job intertwining and connecting the storylines of the two main characters, which seem to draw from the current middle-eastern conflict and a few references to the Cold War in Russia.
The level and storyline I got to experience pits the Americans just outside a Russian facility, with the objective being to hold your position and to fend off the Russians until air support arrives. This level was probably the most thrilling because you have soldiers dropping in from helicopters, a building you have to secure, and most intriguing a main character you have to witness either live or die. The whole level just puts quite the twist on the storyline of the game because your character is presumed KIA after the helicopter that rescues you is shot down. Now I haven’t played far enough to know whether the character is truly dead or if he comes back later somehow, but it really puts the player on edge and in shock of the true outcome.
Also, throughout the game you have many social interactions, much of which is mostly orders and info on the objectives, but they really make you feel like you are actually there because you have team members yelling and barking out such things as “GRENADE!,†“Enemy UAV inbound!,†and “COVER ME!†All of which would be things you would hear on an actual battlefield.
The storyline itself makes this a game I could definitely play over and over again with all the twist and turns it seems to take. The game and the AI is enough to keep the player on his toes the whole time and it’s just a tremendously exhilarating game to play and experience.
GAMEPLAY (Session 2):
This time around I had a chance to play the multiplayer mode. I played two main gametypes: Team Deathmatch and Team Search and Destroy. In Team Deathmatch your team’s objective is to have the most kills at the end of the round which is calculated in points (750 total points is the goal in this particular match.) In Team Search and Destroy the objective is to either bomb the opposing team’s territory or to defend your territory from being bombed.
What I found interesting about Team Search and Destroy compared to Team Deathmatch is that in Search and Destroy each player only has ONE life, while in Deathmatch the player has an unlimited amount of lives. What makes this distinction interesting is that it forces the players to be more strategic about how they go about things in Search and Destroy because once you die it’s all over, there is no coming back. This game dynamic makes the multiplayer mode very social and interactive because the players have to be in constant communication as to where the enemy is in order to survive.
Overall the multiplayer mode allows for great socialization and is a great way to meet interesting people throughout the world.
DESIGN:
Call of Duty 4 is probably the best first-person shooter I have come across (Halo 3 being a close second). The game’s attention to detail is phenomenal. From the ripples in the water to bullets flying through walls to the gleam of the sun off your weapon, the game is just a visual masterpiece. The closest thing I can think of as to the amount of detail shown in the actual gameplay would probably be the visuals in the CGI cutscenes found in the Final Fantasy series.
Not only does the game have stunning visuals, but the gameplay itself is just astonishing. The player has to deal with and has to be able to manage gun recoil and the character’s breathing when using a sniper rifle. The fact that the player has to make his character hold his breath to steady his shot is just something you don’t see in many games and really makes the game that much more skill based. Even the way the characters throw grenades and lose their hearing and vision from smoke and flash grenades is incredible and really gives the game a unique feel. It just makes you feel like you are actually there on the battlefield and is what makes the game so intriguing and fun to play because something new is always happening and just waiting to be discovered (blowing up cars would be an example).
Overall Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a visually stunning game and definitely a one-of-a-kind first-person shooter that will be very hard to top for future FPS games.
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