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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,
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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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Death Stranding (PC) by dkirschner |
| Intriguing world. Package delivery game? --------- Unique for sure, fun traversing the landscape, but combat and other elements are often okay at best. |
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most recent entry: Friday 27 December, 2024
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I should have been writing entries for this as I was playing (same with Disco Elysium…) so that I could chronicle the weird journey. I got this for free on Epic a couple years ago, but was waiting to play it until after I’d played Metal Gear V, which preceded Death Stranding in Hideo Kojima’s gameography. I wondered if there would be some noticeable evolution in game design or anything, but although similar in some respects, they are very different games. In fact, I’ve never played anything quite like Death Stranding.
I will not even attempt to explain the story. There is a good synopsis here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathStranding/comments/vdj26q/the_story_of_death_stranding_explained_in_a/. If you’ve played Metal Gear games, then you’ll know what to expect in terms of “wtf is going on.” Suffice it to say that you are a courier. You deliver packages. The setting is a post-apocalyptic North America. As you move westward across the continent, you connect cities to a network. You’re essentially rebuilding the United States of America by putting cities online. Your work is, of course, complicated! Mostly, it’s complicated by the fact that there is another “reality” of sorts that is bleeding into ours. This reality is related to something called a “beach,” which is something like a bridge between the real world and death. Other beings come from the death-reality and from the beach and wreak havoc, there is something called “timefall,” which is precipitation that accelerates time for whatever it touches, there are terrorists, there’s World War II, there are couriers who are obsessed with getting “likes,” and so on. And, of course, you’re carrying a fetus (a “BB”) for reasons. There are twists and turns, and a good portion of the plot that will help everything make more sense is delivered after the credits, as the game keeps rolling for like two more hours.
So, there’s a lot going on…but you’re delivering packages. Mostly on foot. Gameplay largely consists of piling up packages on your back, then running from Point A to Point B, pressing “RT” and “LT” to steady yourself as you traverse fields, slopes, rocks, rivers, mountains, snow, and so on. It sounds boring, but it’s oddly engaging. If you aren’t careful delivering packages, they will get damaged, which can ruin the item and negatively affect your rating (positive ratings = more gameplay bonuses). Sometimes you have to stealth through sections where BTs are (hostile things from the beach) or avoid the rogue couriers. There is combat, especially later on, with a host of grenades and guns, and there are plenty of items to craft (a la Metal Gear). I actually barely touched crafting and minimally engaged in combat, only really enjoying it during the spectacular boss fights (which were easy, but visually stunning). The hardest parts of the game are dealing with delivering packages through BT-infested areas, and it’s less hard than annoying, because you have to slow down, and if they catch you, then tar bubbles up from the ground, BTs try to drag you under, packages fall from your pack and get damaged, and you’ll lose a vehicle if you’re traveling with one. Going around BT areas is more trouble than it’s worth, though.
There are so, so, so many mechanics that I didn’t touch. Death Stranding has this online feature whereby other players affect your game. And you’re encouraged to do things that will help other players. You can put ladders down to help people cross a river, put signposts that encourage players and refill some of their stamina, put signposts that alert players to BTs, leave equipment, build roads, and so on. I do not pretend to understand how all of this works. But it was neat whenever I was able to use something that someone else left, or when I was notified that someone gave me “likes” for something that I did that benefited them. This gels with the theme of the game of connecting people.
Trying to write one coherent summary of my experience after beating the game is challenging because there was so much going on. This hodgepodge of elements mostly works well together. You can (as I did) safely ignore what feels like the majority of stuff. For example, I rarely delivered “extra” packages, didn’t bother about my rating, rarely fought, didn’t craft hardly anything, didn’t engage in any of the extra social layers of the game, and so on. I went straight through the main mission. And it was quite the journey. If Death Stranding 2 is much like this one, I’ll probably skip it. Sasha asked me if I liked Death Stranding, and I said “most of the time.” I liked the “dull” moments traversing the landscape with packages the best (especially the ambiance when the soft music starts playing). And the boss fights were cool. The story is confusing, the combat is fine, and a lot of the game is avoidable. It’s wildly creative and something different for sure, though, which is why even though I only liked it “most of the time,” I’m glad I played it.
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