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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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We Love Katamari (PS2) by neo31003(eddie) |
| The game was easy to pick up. After a few tries i got the hang of it and it became very addicting really quick. The odd sound track fits perfectly for this odd game from the animation to the dialogue. Either way its easy for anyone to pick up and now with the 2 player versus mode its easy to play with friends and family. |
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most recent entry: Monday 14 January, 2008
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#1
Summary:
In We Love Katamari you play as the Prince the main character from the previous Katamari game. In We Love Katamari the controls are the same and so is the objective to make your Katamari as big as possible. The Katamari will stick to objects smaller than itself and as it continues to grow the Katamari is able to pick up bigger and bigger things which range from pencils, balls, cats, cars, houses and even planets. Throughout the game you perform tasks for people using your Katamari. After each task is complete the Katamari created is turned into a star, planet, or stardust. The game play mechanic is much like the original Katamari Damacy but what separates this sequel is the versus mode. In this versus mode you play head to head in a race to see who can make the better Katamari which you can now play against friends and family.
Gameplay:
Since I have never played the Original Katamari game I wasnt used to the game controls. But the Tutorial in the beginning helped a lot. I felt an adrenalin rush especially when times almost up and I didn't have a big enough Katamari. The game was very exciting because the Katamari dynamic it was fun seeing how big of an object you could actually roll up. I always tried to go bigger and bigger. I think the simplicity and the curiosity of how big you could go got me hooked for hours. What made it fun also was the interesting levels which were all very different. Your smaller in some levels over other levels which made it scary in away to see how small you were. They were really small and what was cool was that once you hit a certain size you could leave the area you were in to go to another area which you can only access once you reached a certain size. This concept made me feel anxious to discover all the areas and get my Katamari bigger. The new feature the 2 player versus mode was intense. Me and my brother went at it and its fun because you can smash into others and knock things off their Katamari making it very competitive.
#2
Gameplay:
What changed for me the second time I played was my understanding of the maps and objectives. The were some tasks with the Katamari that didn't involve making it as big as possible but to eat certain things or get it to a certain size. Sometimes I didn't know where certain items were on the map and took multiple attempts to beat certain tasks. Over mastery of the controls took time as well because the bigger the Katamari the harder it is to move so know how to change camera perspective is very important so that you know where to move. Knowing where to go is important because when your Katamari gets to a certain size the things around you wont give you as much growth for your Katamari so you need to find a better place to pick things up. If you don't know where your going then you waste time which means that you most likely wont meet the size you were aiming for. So by know how to control the camera and memorizing levels makes it easier to meet the tasks that you were faced with.
Design:
For design I am going to start with the bad then shift to the good. There isn't much bad to say about this game except that I felt the cut scenes were a waste. They didn't help explain much about the purpose of the game and why certain things occur in the game. Like why is the Katamari so important? Also whats the story behind the Prince's cousins that you find in some of the levels. Other then the cut scenes which were animated beautifully still made no sense to me. Maybe its because I didn't play the first Katamari game I am not entirely sure but its a fun game regardless. One of the good and probably most important things about this game next to the innovation of the Katamari ball is the level design. Each level is not only different but are divided into different levels which can be accessed through the size of the Katamari. You can only go to certain areas if your Katamari is a certain size. This concept in the level design was cool because it keeps the player interested or curious about the possibilities of the Katamari. I feel curious about how big could I actually get the Katamari and what were the hardest areas to reach in the game. The level design is what kept me interested into the game. The graphics were nice I think it was cell shaded but don't quote me on it. I also thought that the idea of rolling a ball around that picks up everything it touches was a very innovative idea and thats what made the game initially appeal to me because I haven't seen a game like that before. The game keeps players interested by setting theses goals or the player him or herself setting their own goals like my goal was to get the katamari as big as possible. One of the coolest things I liked about the game was how at the end of every level the Katamari you made was turned into a star, stardust, or a planet. This was cool and a nice touch because on the last level where your goal is to roll up the Sun you use all the stars and planets you created to make this HUGE and ultimate Katamari. What also made this game really fun to play was that its a very simple game and that anyone can pick it up without any previous experience with the game and be pretty good at it.
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