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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)
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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 February, 2011
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I will start with a resounding "Mass Effect is incredible." I loved everything about this game, every little thing. Seriously, best RPG I've played in a long time. I think "epic" accurately describes it. I've also heard "space opera" and would merge the two descriptors. It's an epic space opera.
Now to backtrack. Any negative things I said in my previous entry do not hold anymore. Of bugs, there were a couple at the beginning, and then none until one quest that I couldn't do because this NPC was inexplicably nonexistent. I reloaded my save, reloaded the entire planet, and still nothing. He is a cult leader, and his followers in the compound also had a strange way of telling me no funny business: "Don't try anything. Robot chicken." Seth Green did the voice acting for Joker. Coincidence? The voice acting in the game is high quality with a few superstars like Seth Green and the guy who voiced Captain Anderson. Good voice quality makes a huge difference, and Joker was particularly excellent. The other negative thing I previously said was that the camera freaks out, and Shepherd won't fire over cover, only around it. The camera quit freaking out, and he started shooting over cover. Either the beginning was buggy or I figured out how to do it. Not sure which, but glad it was okay because cover is important! The AI companions still did some dumb stuff like ignore cover, but they started dying less once they got more abilities.
One nice thing about the game is the pacing. The story moves casually along, as in it is up to the player how fast to advance it. There are only like 5 story missions in the game. Everything else is a side mission. I imagine one could beat the game very very quickly just playing through the story missions. It only took me 26 hours and I did just about everything, visited every single planet in every single system, explored every anomaly and pirate base, mined everything I saw, went through all the character stories, read all the codex entries. So not a long game at all, but one that can be lengthened quite a bit relative to the main story missions. So it's quite casual overall, but the story missions are intense. They're generally a couple magnitudes larger and longer than the size/time of an entire typical star system, and they're just very fun. The standout mission is definitely the final one on Ilos, and I think the last couple hours of Mass Effect are a couple of the best hours of a game I've ever experienced. Simply epic. And if I haven't mentioned already, the world Bioware & Co. created is so thought out, and the story is fantastic. There is a bit of a disconnect though between the beginning of the game and the rest, until the very end. You begin at the Citadel, this giant city, running around and doing fetch quests for hours. Then the whole rest of the game, you explore planets and never come back to this place you spent so many hours at at first. It's kind of strange not to ever need to go back, until the very very end.
Another cool thing in Mass Effect is that your choices and actions have a lasting impact on the game. It uses a good/evil system called Paragon/Renegade. Most of the points are earned through dialogue, either being nice or being a jerk. Other points are earned by actions, helping a credit thief steal credits from slot machines or turning him in, for example. This second type is often like a quest reward. (I got nothing from the slot machine quest because I was caught cheating by the owner and kicked out, mission over!) Other choices are far heavier and determine the fates of party members and major story characters. There is a mission where you have to detonate a nuke on Saren's (the bad guy) research facility, where he is creating a cure for the Krogan genophage (Krogan species was genetically modified to be neutered at birth, so they are all dying out). Wrex, your Krogan teammate, is naturally pissed that you're going to nuke the cure for his species' impotence. You can either kill him, let Ashley kill him (because she hates aliens), or talk him out of his fury. Later in that mission, you have to choose to send either Ashley or Alenko with the Salarians for a frontal assault on the research facility. Whoever you send will die a hero's death, or so you think. Right at the end of the mission, it seems you have a chance to change your mind, but this time the decision is final. (I talked Wrex down and saved Ashley because I liked using her in my party.) And then at the end of the game, you make a doozy of a decision, which I won't give away, but damn. Heavy. I played the ending through three times to see all the different outcomes.
The questionable decision the player must make is that of which romantic interest to pursue. Yes, there is a forced romantic subplot in Mass Effect. It's not bad, but it feels rather forced and fake. As the male Shepherd (you can choose a female Shepherd and get different romantic options), I had both Ashley the human and Talia the Asari pining for me. Ashley I found to be a mildly annoying character for a few reasons, but I used her in my party because she was a pure fighter. Though annoying, she had a more interesting backstory than Talia. Talia had the allure of being an alien who would live for 1000 years, and she's smart, so I chose her to see what the game did with being with an alien and to see how upset Ashley got. She took it pretty well, just a few racist remarks (she hates aliens). Talia was quite excited and even had a 30-second alien sex scene with me. I was not expecting that. I wonder if I see them both in Mass Effect 2. Either way, as much as I enjoy the idea of a romantic subplot, this felt unnatural. I didn't think Shepherd realistically developed any relationship with either of them, but they just loved him to death. When they confronted me about who I liked (yes, they corner you after a mission and demand a choice), I thought it was pretty silly and chose the dialogue options about having a threesome, which oddly enough were pro-Talia choices and anti-Ashley choices. I thought I would piss them both off and neither would get with me, but it didn't happen. Ashley just got offended and told us to have fun with that. I wonder what happens though if I save Alenko and kill Ashley in the nuke mission. Talia is the default lover then?
Most of these decisions weren't heavy for me. The final one was, but the others not so much. The romance was a bit silly, I saved Wrex just because I felt bad for his whole race (though I did load and take the other two options to see what happened), and I saved Ashley over Alenko just because she was more useful in my party. It must be difficult to write in these kinds of choices that players will care about since not all players will care about the same stuff no matter what you do. Good effort though. I'd rather see it attempted than not, so long as it doesn't actually detract from the game. It's bold really.
But there is this continuity with choices. Mass Effect 2 imports save data, and thus choices, from Mass Effect. Similarly, in the beginning of ME, you choose this branching background story for your Commander Shepherd. Mine was referenced a lot throughout the game. Very cool. I can tell you, I was heading a mission on a planet called Akuze. Something went wrong and my whole unit was wiped out except me. I'm a survivor and a hero. NPCs will comment on it, and major characters will actually dialogue about it. I can't imagine how much dialogue was recorded for this game. There are so many branches, and then an entire game full of it for the male and female Shepherds each!
One lore eyebrow-raiser: The Council is made up of three races, and the humans are seeking to be fourth. The Council is a wise decision-making body for the good of the galaxy, for all races. So tell me if this makes sense for 'equal power.' Humans live (in the future) to like 100-150 years. Salarians live for 40 years. Turians live for, I don't remember, say 200 years. Asari live for 1000 years. Which one would have the most power? The Asari! She can be on that Council for-freaking-ever. She can make tons of allies, have tons more experience, etc., etc. Who gets the short end? The Salarian, who, if he is elected at age 30, serves for 10 years only! What good is that even? It seems like the Asari really clean up on age, and thus should be ridiculously advanced and know a lot of stuff and have a lot of connections since they're around for so long.
Anyway, fantastic game, really. The planets are all beautiful and I loved driving my Mako around their surfaces and taking screen shots. The music is also superb, especially the galaxy map music. The ending credit song was really good too. I need to find out who did that. I have ME2 sitting here, but I think I'll take a small ME break and put something else in between. Don't want too much of a great thing.
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