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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: Tuesday 15 January, 2008
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Summary:
This expansion pack for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, a real time strategy game, furthers the storyline of the world of Azeroth after Archimonde's death at Mount Hyjal, and the Burning Legion's defeat. The player returns to Azeroth, a world where the player can control one of four factions, the Human Alliance, the Orcish Horde, the Night Elf Sentinels, and the Undead Scourge. The player can either play through The Frozen Throne's campaign mode to experience more of Warcraft's storyline, or can compete online in battles controlling one of the factions in teams of 1 versus 1, 2 versus 2, 3 versus 3, 4 versus 4 or free for all for domination of the map and winning the battle. The goal for each map played on is to defeat the enemy computer or player by killing their army with your army, but there is the freedom during online play to attack anyone on the map if you so choose, friend or foe. There also exist modded custom maps, with user based rules. A popular custom game is Defense of the Ancients.
Gameplay 1:
I opted to play the Undead Scourge in 4 versus 4 ladder play, and testing out a simple, yet rather ineffective straegy against skilled players, based on massing a swarm of a single unit, such as a footman or a ghoul. Playing on a new account in a low bracket I did not find success with my initial strategy of massing ghouls, the most basic light ground melee/lumber harvesting unit of the Undead Scourge. My ghouls did not survive very long in a battle field of higher tier units, even with my death knight hero healing them. I was very attached to my swarm of units, and found the overrun strategy to be very rewarding even when ineffective. Even if the other army was victorious, the swarm or "zerging" scenario of deploying many bunch of ravaging creatures attacking an army of more powerful units still wreaking destruction was very fun.
Involving other players online, this style of gameplay within Warcraft III allowed me to be the evil beings bringing forth chaos and causing other players to become frustrated by having to slay many units, all the while sustaining heavy losses themselves to a mindless horde. Furthermore it was fun to watch their strategies for beating the swarm strategy. From their strategies I have learned to deal with other players swarming me, by making use of many area of effect spells to defeat weaker units lacking many hit points.
Gameplay 2:
Making use of the same swarm strategy again using the Undead Scourge in online four versus four play, I decided to instead mass the strongest undead units, the Frost Wyrm. The frost wyrms, skeletal dragons, were even more fun to play with because they both are a more majestic and powerful unit to look at on screen, and because they have a very powerful freezing breath ability that made me feel like i was ramming a battering ram through my enemies lines, from the air nonetheless.
The powerful units, having area of effect breath, destroyed another players swarm of riflemen. In this game I become more connected to my hero, again a death knight, who because of my killing power leveled up higher than in my previous game. The elements of a roleplaying game appearing in this real time strategy really connected me with my army, and made me more involved controlling my units and further increased the fun of the game.
Design:
The frozen throne is a good game because although it is kind of old, being created in 2003. It has a good storyline, simple and accessible interface for game play, with eye pleasing art and the ability to zoom in on settings. The game also has advanced mechanics and the potential for a player to become more skilled and dominate new players online, while still having to devise strong strategies and control of their army on the battlefield to outplay tougher competition.
The game is still very appealing and has a strong player base due to the ever present challanges online with advancing and improving players who provide more and better competition. The reward of defeating one's opponent in a magical world's battlefield with good faction balance and appealing environments is enough to keep me playing the Frozen Throne from time to time.
One nice feature that came up in my gameplay implemented by Blizzard, the software company who created the Warcraft Series, allowed control of another players army if they disconnect from the game, allowing the players on the weaker team the capability to match the team with more players in army strength.
However, one downside to the online play I noticed was the skill matching system for the Frozen Throne's ladder. It places players of all skill levels together, so a very seasoned player will often be playing with or against a much worse player causing games to be imbalanced for good teams to be fighting bad teams.
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