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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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Devil May Cry 5 (PC) by dkirschner |
| Slick! Lots of moves, tough to master so far. ------------ Too many weapons, characters, and moves! Fun game though, slick combat. |
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most recent entry: Sunday 22 October, 2023
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I just went back and read my entries for DMC (12 years ago...!) and Devil May Cry 4. I was surprised at how familiar the writing sounded. My thoughts on those previous games are similar to my thoughts on Devil May Cry 5. Stylish, over-the-top, an absurd amount of weapons and moves, etc., etc. The main difference is that I was less impressed with this one, maybe because I've seen two of these games before (plus Bayonetta 1 and 2, which are similar). OH, and because I played on Amazon Luna for the first time, which I will talk about at the end.
What makes this game different? There are three main playable characters this time: Nero, Dante, and an emo poetry-lover named V. It takes all of 5 seconds to figure out what "V" stands for, and I waited and waited for the inevitable plot reveal 10 hours later. Dante and Nero play more or less how they did in the previous two games, with a couple additional demon forms for Dante and a bunch of different right-arm weapons for Nero. V was my favorite though. He's physically weak and controls familiars. There is a raven-bird-monster and a panther, plus a giant golem you can summon that stomps around the battlefield shooting lasers. Devil May Cry 5 has the same "stylish" combat system as the others, and I figured out that V was the easiest (for me) to score high. Eventually, I figured out how to make Dante score high too, and by the end of the game, I was getting a lot of SSS rank (Super Sexy Stylin'? So Super Sassy? Snazzy Sword Swatting?), especially in his Gunslinger mode. Basically, it's easier to score high if you use range styles and attacks because when you get hit, your score decreases. Stay at range and you don't get hit. That avoids the problem of me having to learn how to avoid attacks!
The story was convoluted as hell, but told in an interesting way. It all revolves around killing this big baddie demon, king of the Underworld guy. You play segments of time around a pivotal battle, some leading up to the battle, some during, and then the story moves on afterward, and you play from the perspectives of all three characters. Sometimes, you get a choice of who to play. I was often unclear on what the hell was going on, but the story could have been about what the King of the Underworld had for breakfast, and I still would have been entertained. The combat is fantastic. And that's really the point. Not whose brother is whose and whose daddy hates them.
Back to Amazon Luna. That's the reason I played this game now. Every week, I check what games are free on Epic and Amazon through Twitch Prime. I recently noticed that Amazon also had a section for Prime members called "cloud games." You can play a handful of free games each (couple weeks? month?) on Amazon Luna, which is Amazon's cloud gaming service. I think I first noticed this when Citizen Sleeper was on there over the summer, but I was already playing it on Game Pass. Anyway, imagine my surprise to see a AAA game that was on my wishlist appear for free on Luna. I decided to check it out. How does Luna work? You literally just click "play now" and it streams to your computer. Like, that's it. No downloads. It was really fast and smooth...for a while. I think I had two or three play sessions with no problems. Then I was playing on Friday, and the game kept freezing. The first time it did it, I didn't understand what was happening. Normally, when a game freezes, it's the software on your computer. You x out of it or ctl+alt+del, or restart your PC if it comes to that. I did all those things and when I booted Devil May Cry 5 up again on Luna, it was still frozen. Turns out you have to exit the game through Luna to fix it. Okay. Well, the game proceeded to freeze every so often for a few hours, probably 10 times in total that afternoon (I persevered). It was really, really, really irritating. Luckily the game was autosaving regularly, but who knows how much time I spent replaying sections. And god forbid this happen during a game that doesn't autosave often. Then I played DUSK for a while today with no freezes...So like, 95% of the time, when I was playing on Luna this past week, it's been great. The other 5% of the time, when it's freezing, it's frustrating. I'd be pissed if I was paying for it, but for free games, I can put up with it. As for Devil May Cry? I feel like I won't miss skipping the next one in the series.
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