12 Labours of Hercules III: Girl Power(4.9 hours): Did the first 3 chapters in one sitting, then half a chapter, then 3 maps, then 2 maps. Less grind compared to Part 2. Everything is pretty much the same except Hercules spends half the game getting rescued by his wife that can only water plants to make them grow fruit. You end up shooting fist up into space so you can punch someone in their stupid face. Finally done with this series forever.
Morphopolis(2.3 hours): Click game that is weird. Some of the puzzles get a little annoying but simply because you think you have it but you don't. Stupid slider beetle puzzle. Half the game I spent trying to understand designs and figuring out the build for the level to only have it destroyed by the next thing I couldn't figure out that I was supposed to click after doing another task. 20 cents and kind of interesting.
Lost Planet 3(11 hours): I played through this in about a week because I needed a break. Run and gun takes such little thought its much easier to sit back and enjoy a story. Never played either of the other Lost Planets but gives me some interest in going back since this is an origin story game. This episode of EDN III's story is supposed to be about the same length as the other two but it feels like they could of had a killer game if there was more time spent to flush out the side stories.
The characters really do have their own personalities despite some of them being designed to hate and love. You get the concept that the designers wanted you to re-explore areas after you cleared them on missions but the plot doesn't give you space except in the first few hours where you don't have all of your gear. There needed to be things to grind for to drive your character back out into the cold. Doing the core and core-side missions gave you all the currency you needed to buy all the weapons and upgrade your rig to the max. Why bother looking for albino Akrid when you have way above the firepower you need to clear the game with moderate skill.
Was funny having cut scenes at lower quality then the rest of the game. This game draws you in and makes you laugh while still breaking the 4th wall in regular intervals. Why does this game make it so hard for me to love it? There is a dodge system that you utilize a lot but you pretty much have to wait for attacks to hit you before rolling away...which is just silly. Then the QTC actions you take have to be predictive since as soon as they are on screen it is usually to late; the opposite of the dodging. Those are just sigh moments that make the gameplay feel cheap so the game is harder to a person. Big gripe being the freaking instructions on interactions are wrong or not present in a lot of aspects of the game....what the heck. "Press w/s/a/d" means tap f.........boss battles are missing instructions so you end up just spamming stuff after 10 minutes and realizing you aren't doing any damage.
The models have fantastic model mapping to the skeleton frame, allows you to walk under everything perfectly.
Star Wars Battlefront(31 hours+): Once the weekend hit for this game people got salty hard. Also, everyone is now gay and a member of every racial minority. You might as well just give up and break both of your arms . Since uninstalling TF2 I have been looking for a FPS grinder to replace my spare time with. This is the game I picked and threw a bunch of money at it to force myself to stick with it. The first night was glorious as I started hitting unlocks and having to plan which ones I would pay to acquire early, knowing the first 20 hours were going to be focused on building a usable play style given the card system. The first sitting ran from 11 pm until 5 am the next morning, 15 levels, and a .98 KDR. Strange how my primary focus was solely on running the Ion Shot, thermal det., and whatever blaster where now I am soo soo cheap. All hail the homing shot/barage combo!
The sweet sweet chuckle watching a homing shot race across the map to find its target after several seconds and pick up 150 points on the kill. Only to be topped later as a jump jetter leaps around obstacles for protection but just caused the rocket to gain enough vertical to curve in on them. People's distaste for that star card is growing quickly but they are also missing the suppression that it gives as enemies have to hide from the rocket propelled homing missile. Now I also just recently unlocked the cycler which became one of the most hated weapons from the PC beta as it allowed players to snipe across the entire map with real accuracy. The gun has been nerfed with a heavy drop but is still extremely usable, I am extremely poor at using it....sigh. But just like watching fools run from a homing shot, getting that sweet across the map kill on a player trying to get to cover is choice. The day of owning my own bowcaster is soon approaching....../chewieSound.
People are really hating on the game due to the total price, north of a c-note($100). I can really understand that but its not like anyone is trying to spin the cost or features. Everyone knows what the game looks like and feels like. This isn't a greenlight lie. For the amount of people that have picked up a Battlefield and dropped it within a year this shouldn't be so far out on a limb that huge swaths of the net decry its birth. The destruction of what people think Battlefront should be is part of the reason why we don't have an HL3 since it will never be perfect. The game is good. It deliveries on the promises it claimed. There are very serious balance issues with just horrible horrible spawns and spawn camping/turtling. Nothing in the game feels unpolished and I have spent some time running around the maps, alot(yes). If you think you want to want to buy this game just go ahead. They just released some more information on the December Jakku release which looks like a good addition before they get into season pass DLC.
Do it and try going pew pew without a smile on your face.
Ryse: Son of Rome(5.5 hours): This game was released back in 2014 and was one of the premier releases for the xbone release. I have been waiting a long time for this one to not be a horrible price, steam sale for $10 which is the lowest it has been. The claim for most is that this a movie with some QTE which is sort of true but not 100%. Being sub 6 hours while on rails means there isn't much beyond that play time you can get. It really is a rails game. Despite that I really liked it because the characters were actually characters and there was emotion. Becoming drawn into the experience was natural and rewarding. Knowing some history of Rome, how the armys were staffed and built, and the different swings of power helps tie everything together but you don't need that.
Funny how a "shinning example of next gen. hardware" is so much like an old school game. You enjoy the pretty sights and when the fighting starts it is just as simple because there are only a few enemy types which always attack the same ways. Once you learn the patterns the only thing that can stop you is a personal screw up that leaves you in a stun lock for to long, which is easy enough when fighting almost 10 enemies. But it harkens back to the arcade days where once you learned how to play a game you should be unstoppable or get really far until you screwed up one to many times. The scoring and point system even falls back to that idea. Fighting is all about breaking blocks and defending, a lot like the systems in AC where attacking head first after the first few levels is a death sentence.
The experience never seems to slow down which is a big draw back to me because it means its hard to play for 2 hours and quit at a good spot. Everything leads directly into something else, that isn't to say the game isn't designed around a chapter build. You should try and play through as fast as possible only because the story is built like you should. After several years the boob physics shine through, why did they make them jiggle on Summer.
The game is good. Maybe not worth $10 given its age but the textures are supposed to be updated. Granted you have zero real settings, might have missed them, so you end up with defaults out side of screen alignment(what the heck are you serious) and brightness. Very enjoyable and I was pissed when I got browned out due to rain resulting in me having to wait 6 hours to finish the last 2 hours
Tales from the Borderlands(9.5 hours): Can't believe how Borderlands this Borderlands game is. The slow constant string of jokes, physical comedy, robots with huge gams, bass drops, romance, flower expulsions. You never miss out of the great things that made you fall in love with the original Borderlands game. The art style that Telltale uses even fits in perfectly for the canon universe of this. I really tried to pack this entire play through into one sitting-ish but that didn't happen.
Getting through the first episode, a short break, and then about half way through the second made it extremely clear that each chapter was going to be a pretty even 2 hours. I cut it down by a half hour across 5 episodes by not looking at every single poster or piece of junk laying around but since the game is a narrative on rails you are stuck at a specific minimum time investment. At 2 hours it can get rough if you get a spell in the plot where you just aren't digging it super hard. Something closer to 1:30-1:45 would have been easier, so 6 eps. That would make it easier to sneak one in before bed time and allow for more breaks. Once everything is rolling you really want to stay with it.
The story telling is great. Everything has two sides and as a result you play as two different characters telling the same story to the same person which allows you view all the holes that would exist if it was just one persons side. You are forced to expel the events to a Sunabouzu type character whom doesn't seem that interested in boobs. Execution feels perfect on this. I just finished up the last episode on the Game of Thrones Telltale game where the clipping of models was driving me crazy, and only got worse as the game progressed(plus the audio sync). Modeling is spot on but the last two episodes character jumps and some snap in were getting progressively worse.
The money aspect of the game seemed forced and poorly executed. This is Pandora lets go FFVII on this and stick 7 0s at the end of everything! The turning points were good and choices carried through to a level that was appreciated. By the end I was wondering why the finalized the story so much but there was even an answer for that. Hint: a season 2 could easily happen and the rumors point to end of 2016. People are claiming it will roll out with Season 2 of Game of Thrones but that worries me as I would wait for something that is extremely polished instead of multi-game launches in the same year. Given that this is all railed game play I want it to look ppuuurrrffffeeeccctttt since the visual is so important outside of the QTE/dialogue.
I screwed up and forgot step 3........CATCH A RIDE!
Dinosaur Hunt: Africa Contract(1.4 hours): Shooting stupid Dinos in their stupid faces after they try and beat up my human sized jack rabbit buddies. The game is built on the source engine so the shooting is very tight except for the bullet physics cause they disappear at 100 meters on some guns. It all looks like someone built something from their dreams but then realized they couldn't make it a good game so they just finished it as is. You don't really hunt anything as the Dinos attack you when you get close and you have to kill a specific one but you end up just killing all of them. This is a game that you buy because its normal price is $1 and plug for 30 minutes then uninstall because it is boring past the awesome rock songs and 30 seconds of Dino killing. But then come one rainy day when FO4 just isn't scratching your itch that day or you are pew pew'd out on Star Wars you reinstall this. But you only last 2 minutes as the boredom floods back into your brain. The DLC for this game is the same cost as the base game which tells you everything.
Teddy Floppy Ear - The Race(2.5 hours): This is the third game in the Teddy Floppy Ear universe, an interesting change from the adventure style games. Physics do exist in this game as can been seen in a players ability to cause their car to do an actual barrel role then land correctly. You spend a lot of time drifting in this game to keep your speed in the corners without being stuck grinding the rails. There is several hours worth of game play from time trials, slalom, cup, and career racing. They build a multiplayer for this game that didn't even want to click on but assume it is local since the game had a bug fix for split screen. AI racers aren't horrible but aren't friendly and only on two maps does the AI catch-up feel rather bad. A very good little racer that can build almost mario kart level anger. Couldn't quickly figure out how to get the steam controller to work in game thus I was stuck on kb.
Teddy Floppy Ear - Mountain Adventure(68 minutes): A bit of string is all you need to strangle your uncle to death! Nothing like starting a game where you are visiting a small town and your uncle wants you to get a camera out of the basement. But the camera is at the bottom of a hole you can't climb out of until you take a few pictures of your junk for your uncle's special photo album that you can't tell anyone about. Get rekt you beret wearing fruit bat Teddy Floppy Ear owns this mountain and that means I own you......-_- take your own dang photos I am catching the train out of this shit hole.
The length and minigames in the original game of Teddy Floppy is very solid for a children's game. Simple lessons and snappy response makes Kayaking look like an attempt to be a little more main stream which results in introducing some negatives and more frustration. Only had one silent load crash but I found myself to close a lot of the time to be able to talk to other characters as you have to walk up to and snap in place before the conversation starts. I would have played this as a kid several times and enjoyed it as I worked on playing it faster and faster since everything is scripted. Math blasters for life.
Almost all of this game was played with the steam controller. It worked well enough for everything except for one mini-game that had detection problems even when I was using a real mouse. The pads on it feel just a little out of place for where I am naturally resting with the controller. I can jump from the bottom to top of the screen regularly but can never make it from the right to the left of the screen without picking up my thumb and moving it. Its not hard to get the pointer where I want it when the buttons have some size but using a small scroll bar with the controller takes accuracy. My thumb feels funny after rolling it around the right pad for an hour, will take some time to adjust to the feed back on it since I can still feel it while typing this.
Mini Ninjas(6 hours): I bought this game after another member reviewed it. Its not new but the classic features mean you should. The bosses or mob fights aren't hard but the fact it carries on for a while means don't screw up. Its fun in the fact that everything is rather systematic and you can either speed run parts or explore and shoot for 100%. Simply playing the game results in a rather pleasurable experience. If it had achievements or cards it would be top notch but as such 5/7
The Stanley Parable(1.2 hours): You are never done you simple tell the same story over again. Very much a game that you can play as much or as little of and it still is beat. A great little piece of art that will distract you for an hour at a time once a month.
The Deer(5 minutes): I paid 50 cents for this, for a reason. The entire game can be seen from the store page video. This is meant to be a learning game but it is closer to an interactive displays in a museum. You walk around as a deer to read some facts that are floating around the forest. Then you get to play 3 games which consist of a memory game, picking food for a deer, and reconstructing a skeleton with an outline underlay. Simply bought it because its 50 cents, absolutely strange since deer can't use under water breathing apparatuses, and steam badge. My meta game is strong.
The Walking Dead Season 1+DLC(11.9 hours): Wow the jump in quality from episode 1 to episode 2 was rather drastic. Once this major shift the quality was rather stagnant until the last two episodes where more and more animations jumps were introduced from conversation choices. The art style and environments were fitted perfectly to how Telltale stylizes everything. There was the same pacing issues that I saw in Telltale Borderlands, though the culprit seemed more like 25% of your wait time was due to reaction shots to almost expressionless faces. 2+ hours per episode really feels to long for how how slow the action is and minimal QTEs. This idea that your choices affect the game is slowly grinding on me since half of the conversations branches don't seem to have a real change on outcomes. You should be able to tell everyone to f--- off at any part of the story and kill branches since some many characters in this season were just annoying. Now I understand why it is the walking dead...no one bothers to run cause they are lazy and love having 20 minute fights while being attacked. UGH I JUST WANT TO Y'ALL TO GET EATEN! DLC was 80 minutes of game play so main is 10.5 hours roughly. Duck, no one likes you.
Grow Home(2.7 hours): This was two sittings in the same day and 100% with the steam controller. My thumb isn't as number at the end of this game as the first time using it despite heavy usage of the right pad. The game is intended to be 2.5-3 hours long but the achievements on steam indicate they want to you to keep playing for 12 hours. You can unlock skins by completing achievements but you can also do almost nothing besides the main objectives and still finish the core game. Having to hold two triggers constantly was slowly hurting my hands as the controller was driven back by the pressure required. The games usage of YXAB buttons demonstrates the spacing issue with the controller as I kept hitting the wrong button or swearing I should be over A but I was hovering on B instead. Occasionally I would tap A, jump, and my glide leaf would deploy, Y, to which I could not figure out even when I was watching what buttons my fingers hit.
You are silly little robot thrown on to a planet to grow a plant and collect its seed, think WALL-E but the roles are reversed. No scratch that, WALL-E and Clamps from Futurama had a gay love child and this is the main character B.U.D. You are born in a procedural environment with some wonky physics and little momentum control. Your real power comes from your clamps which allow you to climb around on anything which is a god send as you walk down a slight hill and can't stop, you just splash into the ground and GIVE IT THE OLD CLAMPS! In the beginning you are low on power and are told to collect crystals that increase your energy level but the idea that you are about to turn off without these crystals isn't real, they simply power you up farther to unlock your robot super powers. The camera can't zoom in/out until you unlock the ability which just feels silly because you can just be given that once you grow the plant to a certain size, this is my only real problem with the game.
Now growing the plant is where things get fun and interesting because there might be no limits. You just need to clamp on the balls.....no bulbs of the plant and tell them to grow with your magic robot powers. While they are growing you can direct the branch by means that is never explained. Some times things take off on their own and require some fighting, but for the most part this is all player controlled. The branches need to be grown into rocks that have grow power goop in them. At this point in the game you start to realize that this is a CGI Plant Tentacle Hentai Game.........you spear rocks with tentacles and pump stuff out of them to get your massive stalk to get bigger.......yeah.
There is a lot of exploring that can be done or not done as you only have one goal. As the game progresses distances get bigger and mistakes cost you more. At several points you will have to grow a branch off a branch off a branch to get away from the main trunk enough. This puts you in a position to get creative on how you grow and why you grow branches. Climbing is not always the fastest means. Its a good $4 game right now that you might play again or might not.
Among the Sleep(1.8 hours): Paid $7 for this game and the regular price is $15. Not sure if it is at a fair price right now or not. That said the game design in Among the Sleep is out of this world. You are shown an element and what it means then it is used in the game later so the player learning mechanics are just spot on. I just couldn't believe how it just checked all of the boxes for what a game should do.
This was originally a kickstarter game with so many backers I just skipped the credits because it was going to take 10 minutes. It was billed as a VR oriented horror game but then they pretty much finished the game and told everyone no VR support despite this game would be ripe for it. You play as a freaking baby from first person with hands and feet. There is the swish of your onesie if you are running!
It just feels right in regards to how an adult playing a child should act and be afraid. Throughout the game pictures and drawings and markings litter the environment with the vague abstract portrayals you see in every child's drawing partly because they suck at drawing and also because of the concepts that they are attempting to convey. This is where the game really gets you because all of the horror elements are things as an adult you can relate to but also know to be afraid of. Then as the game progresses you start to pick up clarity on what is going on and maybe why this child is frightened. The level of ambiguity leaves several choices to where the conclusion will take you. But then the finish slaps you in the face.
The child never pooped their pants the entire game. 5/7
The Walking Dead: Season Two(7.7 hours): Now this is how you make a narrative game. "You shot my dick off!". Its hard to review this game without spoilers. There were several changes from season 1 to season 2 but only the visual ones were good. Character models improved a bunch as the outlining and shadings lines were dropped. A minimal approach was used that gave everything a cleaner appearance which in turn helped as the color pallet became brighter with greater contrast. In all visually the game is great to look at as a direct result of everything being easier to look at and differentiate. Now interaction was severally alter to, as it appears, be more in line with standard console design resulting in frustrating clicks attempting to click specific actions on an object or person due to the user only able to click on small icons attached to an action wheel where in the console universe you could lock the joystick on target and do a direction choice. I got over that as the game went but I would continue to miss click frequently. My biggest gripe in the design change being disallowing number selection of conversation choices. Why? You just made me click on everything because you moved to a 2x2 grind instead of a list. Poor game design because of budgeting choices.
I was invested in this season within the first 15 minutes of episode 1. The pacing is better, stronger use of QTE, and shorter episode lengths had me wanting to get home so I could play through an episode after work. This season I came in trying to kill everyone else. You continually get forced into groups and then can't leave no matter actions you take and here is where stories on rails get hung up. No matter how much you sway choices from one second to the next you always end up in the same spot, nothing every really changes. Season 1 I tried to pick sides and realized that didn't get me any where special, thus, I changed to be in it to win it. No points for second place baby! Once the ball really gets rolling in this season it stands out the designers main plot device is everything just being dicks ALL the time. "Oh thanks for being so understanding. Shut up you are just a kid and need to respect me!" As my inability to not play as a paragon increased I simply stopped responding to chat choices but it didn't seem to matter I was forced to like people and agree to plans. Hell characters started repeating information only I knew because I made sure not to tell them. The last two episodes I found places where I repeated lines because I had to agree despite in action or characters repeated lines to make things fit. So in the end everyone has to die. No one expects the little girl *POP**POP* MotherF*^&@# !
Games Completed: 109
Time: 5 weeks .42 hours
PS. Hit 5 weeks of unique game play, going to close out 1,000+ hours this year.
It came from space, and ate our brains(3.3 hours): There are only 12 levels to this game and I couldn't believe how much game time I actually had when I finished. Played this on easy because my big boy pants were in the wash, hard must be insane. Just a birds eye view shooter that in concept is very retro as a simple wave based shoot'em up. You kill enemies to get points and money. Then you use that money to buy a new weapon or upgrade. On top of that there are items you can buy but there is also a SWAT flying car that instead of shooting things drops items, temporary upgrades, and money for you to maybe pick up. The idea around this game isn't new, especially with the blockie pixel oreiented art, but the styling is very much its own. There are only a few colurs used in the game which gives it a distinctive air on top of the constant shadow play trying to keep you on edge since the only way to see some things is to catch them in the light. Since the general mechanics never change the levels are the key feature as you have to play some of them slightly different and knowing the choke points to use as you slaughter waves of aliens is important. More complex levels general make things easier to survive while simple levels are a big PITA since there aren't good places to camp or circle. The missteps in level design, BS in aiming with precision weapons, and hit detection when enemies attack you are leveled out by the slack the player gets in movement speed and actually getting hit. One side without the other would mean a big imbalance but have cheap stuff on either side gives a good balance and the desire to go at the level again because you feel like you just go unlucky not that things are impossible.
I have gotten zero of my card drops for this game. Drop system from Steam is all over the place with working correctly. Guess all those $.02 handling fees on the community market or mucking up the internet pipes.
Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power(4.9 hours): I was all for the 3rd Trine. Loved the experience from 1 and the desire the developers had to build puzzles that you could solve correctly, brute force several ways, or glitch in solutions. Trine 2 wore on me a little as the puzzle solutions were geared more towards a co-op play. Trine 3 had me all set to fall back in love as it was built on the Frostbite engine and the puzzles were more single player focused. In the end I felt let down and will most likely not buy the 4th game in the series.
Trine 3 stuck with a fairly side scroller feel but with several 3D elements. Your view generally only progressed from one puzzle section to the next, granted this could be side to side or front to back. I feel this concept could have been great if it was more of a paper mario/fez approach. Hit a hot key and rotate the players view 90 degress so your side to side action is now moved to the plane of your old front to back. What you get instead is a side scroller that has depth without camera control that destroys your depth perception. Jumping up that wall?! Nope, you are to far into the foreground and just landed in a death pit. Pontius felt OP for solving the puzzles this time around but this is a funny issue to me as Trine 1 I leveled Amadeus to brute force puzzles while Trine 2 Zoya seemed to be the go to for clearing most "I almost got it but am getting frusted" situations. You have a side missions that don't add to backstory or plot development the way they start out. You are also forced to collect X number of triangles to unlock levels because they removed leveling characters, dumping the character customization felt like a very positive choice for how the game was built. Most of the bossish battles felt dull and tedious due to the 3D issue. The final boss felt very solid. All pattern based with standard escalation, this was the best part of the game.
uuuuuhhhhhhh guys?! Whats with this story? Everything ends like this is Trine 3 episode 1......and there is a reason. Seems the series will most likely be dead. Call me crazy but pulling a weird one and switching to episodic releases work but would take $20-$25 launch prices. hhhrrrmmmm this has really left me with a weird feeling. Kind of fun and kind of annoying.
Firewatch(3.3 hours): Wow I am not the best looker in this game. I honestly feel the hype machine was spun to the max on this game. The devs claim of 6 hours is a lie any way you cut it. Everything stinks of budget/time issues that seems similar to I Am Alive except Firewatch was aware from the start and reshaped the game to account for it. I Am Alive tried to build the game they wanted and then realized there wasn't enough money and pulled a cop out ending with the remaining dollars and weren't shy about the reason. That makes a bunk feel at the end acceptable because they really tried, almost met their goals, and weren't going to stand any where else than besides where they were.
You get this nice story little story about a man that is trying to get away from his past and parts of life by hiding in solitude up in the national forest system. You get to pick some plot elements that pop up later and some elements are fixed. The game is supposed to be more a narrative game than exploration or thriller. Everything is focused on a relationship that your character develops with another Firewatcher that is kind of your boss. Effectively you walk around your section of the park doing errands, exploring, finding manbearpig. The scenery is really good but the high saturation and light rays didn't impress me after the first few chapters. Slowly all the small elements that were off and basic level design really was grinding my gears. For $18 I can live with the experience especially since it caught some heat from the user base but critics had to go change their pants after just launching the game. Honestly bought it because of steam cards and enough people having varied ideas on it being good or bad. Firewatch = poor dating sim. I wonder if I can sell these panties.
I am just going to lay into it. People talk about how fantastic the character relationships are and they really were drawn into the experience because of it........these people need to get out of the house more. The dialogue tree is ok with the usually 2 of the same responses and 1 response that results in getting bitched at for not following the plot. If thats the fantastic thing about this then its only mediocre, overall the game is ok and I think the price point is within the limits of the product on launch. Don't buy the soundtrack. Why are there so many dust clouds every where? What is up with my hand when examining things? Why do I have to jump up and down all the time for no reason because LEVEL DESIGN? Why can I spend 5 minutes stomping out a fire? Why am I not affected by all the smoke in the air? Why did thrones grow over that path I just came out of prevent back tracking? Why do I trigger plot movement without completely a required objective? What is the deal with the player model? What is up with that dudes face under his mask? Why do you put a timer on responding when you only ask questions while I am busy doing a non-interruptable action? Why have plot points if its about two characters talking? Why do I make dust clouds every where I walk? Why do I have to stop and then press space instead of being able to perform and action while moving? Why does that light only shine in a grid pattern if there is nothing overlaying on top of the source? Why do you use that control scheme? How do you make a 3 hour game that is semi-on rails and have all these things off?
With a 3 hour game that is "open world" you find little issues with things and slowly become fixated on them since the scope isn't large enough to allow them to pass into the background of your experience.
Space Run(10.9 hours): A frustrating game because I think tower defense games are something I have a slight knack for but it felt as if the game was the office flirt that keeps friend zoning you at the bar after work....come on!
Having played a fair share of tower defense games I was amazed on my first run through a map. Sitting here staring at the graphics and thinking this is Defense Grid. But this game is made by a one man shop in France. Everything in this game is a trope. Names are silly, characters are silly, mid-match phrases are silly. There is a lot little things to add to your experience in a very positive manner. Just from the voice acting, graphics, and, and plot I consider this a must have for tower defense players and a fantastic game for everyone on the cheap.
I keep saying "tower defense", however, this is a reverse tower defense game. The skinny for Space Run is that you are a freighter pilot in space, game is derived from Galaxy Trucker, that does odd jobs for 5 different companies. Your basic job is to fly from space station to space station while blowing up asteroids of different types, competing companies's ships, pirates , and boss pirates. Every mission you are given a ship with a new design. Each company has a different type of cargo and thus different types of obstacles. This also breaks all the missions into 5 difficulty levels that sort of run parallel since your overall campaign doesn't require finishing all of the jobs from one company to unlock the jobs for the next company. A level progression like this helps entice replays of older levels as you learn new skills. There is a double down effect with this as well since you earn credits to unlock new tower types and new powers on tower types. Couple all of that with also needing prestige to unlock jobs means you will be redoing some of the earlier jobs to destroy the level or try and finish it without looking like a total noob.
Gameplay in the end game can get stale as you quickly realize that success means following some basic rules. Don't build any towers until you know enemy flight patterns around your ship and what kind of enemies you have to destroy. You always have to keep money in reserve and slots open for more rockets so you can make the deliver dead lines. Oh did I forget to mention that? Time limits on every mission to complete them, no longer do you just have to survive until the end but you have to get there on time or early. sigh. A large amount of micro management for a tower defense game, similar to the level in Anomaly but not quite. Game controls don't help this issue since you can't zoom and to move the camera around means using the arrow keys.
Stress and reward balance felt decent but do expect to replay levels until you have unlocked all of your attack towers. Rather glad I have this game under my belt. The people who haven't played this game in Icrontic surprised me, y'all should fix that next time it goes on sale or in a humblebundle.
Bit Blaster XL(2.5 hours): Saw the dev post that they published this game via reddit and bought it before I got home. This thing is only a dollar and very arcade oriented. Be space ship, shoot the asteroids, dodge the missiles, keep shooting. Controls are very simple because there are only two. Use the thumb stick to fly the space ship around the screen while your ship auto fires and then if you need an extra speed boost press that button. Yeah press THAT button, don't worry we don't need to tell you which one it is. Goal is to live as long as you can but you need to shoot objects and collect ammo as you are constantly depleting your supply. Power ups float through the screen but you have to guess what they do since there is no key but half of them are obvious.....guess what H or L is. You can pick from 6 different ships that eventually unlock using coins you collect from random enemies but after you have all the ships the coins don't serve a real purpose any more. I sat down and played for almost an hour at one point without realizing how long it had been.
The game gets a little frustration once you have everything and score is the only goal because the level of degree control while turning feels a little low in conjunction with the ships speed and firing rate. I played at minimum of an hour with the steam control and the 36 controller. 36 felt a little harder to hit things while the steam controller gave me a sense I could stop a turn and nail my target but you could just as easily blow your uber important shots.
Fast paced game play where rounds only take a few minutes while still being rewarding make this a great pick up and play game. The joy of shooting the gap of incoming missiles while you go pew pew.
The Typing of the Dead/The House of the Dead(5.9 hours): Technically this is two games but I am counting it as one. Typing of the dead is a eduitainment title. You are playing through The House of the Dead by typing words or phrases to shoot enemies. This is kind of fun and kind of annoying. The game comes out of a series of arcade light games that were pretty much quarter burners because they were designed for only two players and had several points where you ended up taking damage no matter what. These facts never stopped me from dumping a couple dollars into the game any time I saw some and my parents gave me thirty minutes. Dude these games were dark.......
The typing game is pretty darn hilarious between the constant jibber jabber among the characters and hilarious phrases that show up on screen; "cock socket". You can load custom dictionaries in so you get phrases like "cock socket" or "by the power of grey skull". The custom dictionaries impact game play in a negative way because the phrases are normally longer which means to get a few chuckles in you will be taking more damage. Balance between the standard scripted game play and typing interactions is really good. My only real complaint is that the characters are walking around with guns instead of keyboards like the original.
Replaying The House of the Dead brought back all the memories of House of the Dead 2, Carnevil, and Area 51. Man the bane of the arcade for just the cheap crap they did to kill you is relived in the modern age. Detection and models don't match, dmg isn't linear, guns have recoil AND the screen moves itself, enemies pop up to do snap dmg, RELOAD RELOAD!! There are so many things wrong and right with this game. You climb through a window and the screen rotates like if you had to actually climb through. There are pocket universes in every room so as soon as you turn your back mutants spawn. Game engine and Graphics engine aren't in sync a lot of the time. WHAT? I JUST SHOT THAT POWER UP GIVE IT TO ME! But this game has a story it needs to tell you, one that will stay with you forever. You could be playing solo at an arcade slowly watching your hit points disappear in a boss battle only to have a complete stranger run up, drop two quarters in, and come in for the rescue. All of a sudden you are both calling shots and swinging on the other side of the screen when the waves get heavy. This is a person you don't know and will never see again but for 10 minutes you are best friends slaughtering everything in your path attempting to save the world.
METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE(7.3 HOURS): THIS GAME FUCKS! And is all caps for some reason. Funny enough my play time is 4 hours 30 minutes so there is 3 hours of cut scenes, phone calls, and game crashes on start-up in my play time. Also, who makes an unskippable credits roll that takes two songs to make sure you see a hidden scene?
The first metal gear game I have ever played besides watching someone play over the shoulder for hours because he is a bastard that loves playing single player games all night with friends. Hard to decide if this game should be placed in action, action comedy, or dank memes. You play as Raiden whom loves a really close shave on only his chin and is super tired of people talking about memes. He gets so mad about the overuse of memes he decides to kill hundreds of people until one little boy sings him the song of his people:
The boy's wicked rhymes and off the chain beats move his heart so much Raiden decides fighting the memes is pointless and his efforts would be better suited becoming a small business owner that takes battle damaged cyborgs and finds them low level positions at companies that have great advancement programs. But just like uncle same does, he throws regulation after regulation on this simple man's ideas so Raiden once again picks up his sword to kill the council chairman of the federal labor committee; with reason and following bureaucratic procedure. Strangely enough these meetings are all held in Pakistan once every four years just like the Olympics. The chairman almost outwits Raiden's well written request for a deferral on specific rules that would hinder his business by imploying college football stories and how Mexico is going to pay for a border wall. In the end Raiden gets a probationary period that allows 6 months of deferral so his company can start a test program and see if that trial period should be extended for one more year.
That is how Jack the Ripper learned to live the American dream despite having very small hands.
The Division(22.5 hours): The story is done 100%. My max level is only 28 and I didn't even bother with the dark zone PvP. I can't find the will to even launch this game any more. Once I hit level 20 the grind started to get worse which meant the main story took longer and longer to progress forward in. Just can't grind this any farther, especially since this was a free game with a spare 970(which has turned in a couple million points for Team 93).
The install of this game is around 40GB and runs through UPlay so have fun with always on DRM, this is important. If you have grown up watching 90s spy movies this game might just be for you. Everything kicks off when a horrible virus spreads around New York killings lots of people. The government rolls in trying to control this unknown outbreak but an extreme percentage of the population still dies. Eventually this "first wave" of government intervention fails and chaos really takes over. Now huge sections of the city are controlled by gangs who steal supplies, try to burn everyone alive, and just want to be all around dicks to anyone left.
You come in as part of the second wave to attempt to bring order back to what emergency personnel are left and seek a resolution to the situation. But you aren't some lazy grunt running errands for the CDC and getting basic services back up for the citizens still alive, you are a super secret military delta seal team 6 black ops group called......The Division. Your job is to figure out what happened to the first wave of people, which did include Division agents, and stop the virus.
Everything in this game is about how to build a character and spec out guns. Very much oriented to raid game play and optimal builds. Follow the meta for quick runs and drop percentages. The game is beautiful and difficulty scales so picking up randoms into a 4 person team isn't insanely difficult. The scaling seemed to be BS with a 4 man team and running in groups of 2/3 felt as though the difficulty scaled correctly because at 4 people there always just seemed to be too many enemies on the field at once preventing anything besides a sniper fest.
The city is broken into regions that are for designated levels with their own independent shop keepers and safe houses that allow quick travel, most major elements allow quick travel after you find them once. There is a pretty great HUD overlay that gives you turn by turn to find elements you marked on the map but the grinding and just mass of repeating instances even ruins this a little. Slowly I just kept wishing for an auto-follow to allow me to set the character to run some where so I didn't have to deal with running for 5 minutes to spend 10 minutes shooting the same guys trying to steal the same supply drop again.
Eventually you finish off the main story and all that is left is leveling to 30 and respec so you don't get slaughtered in the dark zone where you can PVP other people playing The Division. This just feels like WoW with guns and lamer quest. Several expansion DLCs are planned and have been announced to finish up the story, bring in new features, and increase level cap. As is the game feels complete and not like content was cut out. There are graphical bugs galore and you really never know what you will find as patches hit and mess 1 thing up and fix another. Funny how ubisoft still has the same basic vector draw issue in all of their games, what is it about their engines they can't get straight but everyone else can.
I might play it a little more if skill counted for more over build but its a game I still see a lot of FPS plays sticking with since most of the game is centered around replayability.
Antenna(33 minutes): A free game on steam that is interesting and a slightly frustrating puzzle game. Looks a lot like LIMBO but is very restricted and more conceptualized. Everything centers around radio transmissions and antennas. You simply walk around getting antennas deployed and locating broadcast mixed in with "human" transmissions, static, and morse. Worth a half hour since it is free. The game closes itself after you finish.
The Legend of Korra(3.5 hours): This game feels really disjointed and under budget. Graphics are on point and the fighting system is good enough. Though the over use of the same special enemies highlights where things just got phoned in. Only a few characters from the show make it into the game.
The game follows the basis for the show. You have powers, you loose powers, and you beat someone up that comes from left field. One big let down is Korra doesn't get to go home with her girlfriend at the end since she isn't in the game. Would have liked to see some kind of health gen system outside of combat but they made a store system instead which you need to use to carry health potions. The very first stage in the game you get locked out of areas which means forcing the user to replay which always grates on me. Make the game good enough to replay. With it being 4 hours you can just sit down on an afternoon and finish the entire thing. Not bad given who owns the IP and the cost I paid for it.
Rocket League(19 hours): I now get why people play this game. Loaded the game during a free weekend, the most previous one, and played almost 10 hours in 2 days. If you have been living under a rock with no internet for the past few months Rocket League is a game where you play as a rocket powered car. But the car is also playing a hockey, soccer, or basketball game. The result is everyone trying to do cool soccer moves online in a car but utterly failing 30 percent of the time, which is great to watch in its own right. After playing for hours and hours though you start to notice some issues which nag every time they crop back up. The frame for all the cars and ball is off in a couple places, in a physics game like this it means the ball will do really strange things from time to time when multiple vehicles slam it at once.
The game is extremely simple, looks nice enough, and plays really smoothly. But the thing that makes the game so awesome is that you feel like you did something. Totally nail that bicycle kick for a goal after a bump in from the sideline. Then get to watch it again via replay, dang. Great plays that get pulled have a feel to them instead of the joy of winning. The cooperative reward in team play is notches above most games. Matches are short so a high stress level in matches is sustainable due to do those mini-breaks as you find the next match. This is a game you need to play.
Comments
12 Labours of Hercules III: Girl Power(4.9 hours): Did the first 3 chapters in one sitting, then half a chapter, then 3 maps, then 2 maps. Less grind compared to Part 2. Everything is pretty much the same except Hercules spends half the game getting rescued by his wife that can only water plants to make them grow fruit. You end up shooting fist up into space so you can punch someone in their stupid face. Finally done with this series forever.
Games Completed: 94
Time: 4 weeks 72.8 hours
Morphopolis(2.3 hours): Click game that is weird. Some of the puzzles get a little annoying but simply because you think you have it but you don't. Stupid slider beetle puzzle. Half the game I spent trying to understand designs and figuring out the build for the level to only have it destroyed by the next thing I couldn't figure out that I was supposed to click after doing another task. 20 cents and kind of interesting.
Games Completed: 95
Time: 4 weeks 75.1 hours
Lost Planet 3(11 hours): I played through this in about a week because I needed a break. Run and gun takes such little thought its much easier to sit back and enjoy a story. Never played either of the other Lost Planets but gives me some interest in going back since this is an origin story game. This episode of EDN III's story is supposed to be about the same length as the other two but it feels like they could of had a killer game if there was more time spent to flush out the side stories.
The characters really do have their own personalities despite some of them being designed to hate and love. You get the concept that the designers wanted you to re-explore areas after you cleared them on missions but the plot doesn't give you space except in the first few hours where you don't have all of your gear. There needed to be things to grind for to drive your character back out into the cold. Doing the core and core-side missions gave you all the currency you needed to buy all the weapons and upgrade your rig to the max. Why bother looking for albino Akrid when you have way above the firepower you need to clear the game with moderate skill.
Was funny having cut scenes at lower quality then the rest of the game. This game draws you in and makes you laugh while still breaking the 4th wall in regular intervals. Why does this game make it so hard for me to love it? There is a dodge system that you utilize a lot but you pretty much have to wait for attacks to hit you before rolling away...which is just silly. Then the QTC actions you take have to be predictive since as soon as they are on screen it is usually to late; the opposite of the dodging. Those are just sigh moments that make the gameplay feel cheap so the game is harder to a person. Big gripe being the freaking instructions on interactions are wrong or not present in a lot of aspects of the game....what the heck. "Press w/s/a/d" means tap f.........boss battles are missing instructions so you end up just spamming stuff after 10 minutes and realizing you aren't doing any damage.
The models have fantastic model mapping to the skeleton frame, allows you to walk under everything perfectly.
Games Completed: 96
Time: 4 weeks 86.1 hours
Star Wars Battlefront(31 hours+): Once the weekend hit for this game people got salty hard. Also, everyone is now gay and a member of every racial minority. You might as well just give up and break both of your arms
. Since uninstalling TF2 I have been looking for a FPS grinder to replace my spare time with. This is the game I picked and threw a bunch of money at it to force myself to stick with it. The first night was glorious as I started hitting unlocks and having to plan which ones I would pay to acquire early, knowing the first 20 hours were going to be focused on building a usable play style given the card system. The first sitting ran from 11 pm until 5 am the next morning, 15 levels, and a .98 KDR. Strange how my primary focus was solely on running the Ion Shot, thermal det., and whatever blaster where now I am soo soo cheap. All hail the homing shot/barage combo!
The sweet sweet chuckle watching a homing shot race across the map to find its target after several seconds and pick up 150 points on the kill. Only to be topped later as a jump jetter leaps around obstacles for protection but just caused the rocket to gain enough vertical to curve in on them. People's distaste for that star card is growing quickly but they are also missing the suppression that it gives as enemies have to hide from the rocket propelled homing missile. Now I also just recently unlocked the cycler which became one of the most hated weapons from the PC beta as it allowed players to snipe across the entire map with real accuracy. The gun has been nerfed with a heavy drop but is still extremely usable, I am extremely poor at using it....sigh. But just like watching fools run from a homing shot, getting that sweet across the map kill on a player trying to get to cover is choice. The day of owning my own bowcaster is soon approaching....../chewieSound.
People are really hating on the game due to the total price, north of a c-note($100). I can really understand that but its not like anyone is trying to spin the cost or features. Everyone knows what the game looks like and feels like. This isn't a greenlight lie. For the amount of people that have picked up a Battlefield and dropped it within a year this shouldn't be so far out on a limb that huge swaths of the net decry its birth. The destruction of what people think Battlefront should be is part of the reason why we don't have an HL3 since it will never be perfect. The game is good. It deliveries on the promises it claimed. There are very serious balance issues with just horrible horrible spawns and spawn camping/turtling. Nothing in the game feels unpolished and I have spent some time running around the maps, alot(yes). If you think you want to want to buy this game just go ahead. They just released some more information on the December Jakku release which looks like a good addition before they get into season pass DLC.
Do it and try going pew pew without a smile on your face.
Games Completed: 97
Time: 4 weeks 117.1 hours
Ryse: Son of Rome(5.5 hours): This game was released back in 2014 and was one of the premier releases for the xbone release. I have been waiting a long time for this one to not be a horrible price, steam sale for $10 which is the lowest it has been. The claim for most is that this a movie with some QTE which is sort of true but not 100%. Being sub 6 hours while on rails means there isn't much beyond that play time you can get. It really is a rails game. Despite that I really liked it because the characters were actually characters and there was emotion. Becoming drawn into the experience was natural and rewarding. Knowing some history of Rome, how the armys were staffed and built, and the different swings of power helps tie everything together but you don't need that.
Funny how a "shinning example of next gen. hardware" is so much like an old school game. You enjoy the pretty sights and when the fighting starts it is just as simple because there are only a few enemy types which always attack the same ways. Once you learn the patterns the only thing that can stop you is a personal screw up that leaves you in a stun lock for to long, which is easy enough when fighting almost 10 enemies. But it harkens back to the arcade days where once you learned how to play a game you should be unstoppable or get really far until you screwed up one to many times. The scoring and point system even falls back to that idea. Fighting is all about breaking blocks and defending, a lot like the systems in AC where attacking head first after the first few levels is a death sentence.
The experience never seems to slow down which is a big draw back to me because it means its hard to play for 2 hours and quit at a good spot. Everything leads directly into something else, that isn't to say the game isn't designed around a chapter build. You should try and play through as fast as possible only because the story is built like you should. After several years the boob physics shine through, why did they make them jiggle on Summer.
The game is good. Maybe not worth $10 given its age but the textures are supposed to be updated. Granted you have zero real settings, might have missed them, so you end up with defaults out side of screen alignment(what the heck are you serious) and brightness. Very enjoyable and I was pissed when I got browned out due to rain resulting in me having to wait 6 hours to finish the last 2 hours
Games Completed: 98
Time: 4 weeks 122.5 hours
Tales from the Borderlands(9.5 hours): Can't believe how Borderlands this Borderlands game is. The slow constant string of jokes, physical comedy, robots with huge gams, bass drops, romance, flower expulsions. You never miss out of the great things that made you fall in love with the original Borderlands game. The art style that Telltale uses even fits in perfectly for the canon universe of this. I really tried to pack this entire play through into one sitting-ish but that didn't happen.
Getting through the first episode, a short break, and then about half way through the second made it extremely clear that each chapter was going to be a pretty even 2 hours. I cut it down by a half hour across 5 episodes by not looking at every single poster or piece of junk laying around but since the game is a narrative on rails you are stuck at a specific minimum time investment. At 2 hours it can get rough if you get a spell in the plot where you just aren't digging it super hard. Something closer to 1:30-1:45 would have been easier, so 6 eps. That would make it easier to sneak one in before bed time and allow for more breaks. Once everything is rolling you really want to stay with it.
The story telling is great. Everything has two sides and as a result you play as two different characters telling the same story to the same person which allows you view all the holes that would exist if it was just one persons side. You are forced to expel the events to a Sunabouzu type character whom doesn't seem that interested in boobs. Execution feels perfect on this. I just finished up the last episode on the Game of Thrones Telltale game where the clipping of models was driving me crazy, and only got worse as the game progressed(plus the audio sync). Modeling is spot on but the last two episodes character jumps and some snap in were getting progressively worse.
The money aspect of the game seemed forced and poorly executed. This is Pandora lets go FFVII on this and stick 7 0s at the end of everything! The turning points were good and choices carried through to a level that was appreciated. By the end I was wondering why the finalized the story so much but there was even an answer for that. Hint: a season 2 could easily happen and the rumors point to end of 2016. People are claiming it will roll out with Season 2 of Game of Thrones but that worries me as I would wait for something that is extremely polished instead of multi-game launches in the same year. Given that this is all railed game play I want it to look ppuuurrrffffeeeccctttt since the visual is so important outside of the QTE/dialogue.
I screwed up and forgot step 3........CATCH A RIDE!
Games Completed: 99
Time: 4 weeks 132 hours
Dinosaur Hunt: Africa Contract(1.4 hours): Shooting stupid Dinos in their stupid faces after they try and beat up my human sized jack rabbit buddies. The game is built on the source engine so the shooting is very tight except for the bullet physics cause they disappear at 100 meters on some guns. It all looks like someone built something from their dreams but then realized they couldn't make it a good game so they just finished it as is. You don't really hunt anything as the Dinos attack you when you get close and you have to kill a specific one but you end up just killing all of them. This is a game that you buy because its normal price is $1 and plug for 30 minutes then uninstall because it is boring past the awesome rock songs and 30 seconds of Dino killing. But then come one rainy day when FO4 just isn't scratching your itch that day or you are pew pew'd out on Star Wars you reinstall this. But you only last 2 minutes as the boredom floods back into your brain. The DLC for this game is the same cost as the base game which tells you everything.
Games Completed: 100
Time: 4 weeks 133.4 hours
Teddy Floppy Ear - The Race(2.5 hours): This is the third game in the Teddy Floppy Ear universe, an interesting change from the adventure style games. Physics do exist in this game as can been seen in a players ability to cause their car to do an actual barrel role then land correctly. You spend a lot of time drifting in this game to keep your speed in the corners without being stuck grinding the rails. There is several hours worth of game play from time trials, slalom, cup, and career racing. They build a multiplayer for this game that didn't even want to click on but assume it is local since the game had a bug fix for split screen. AI racers aren't horrible but aren't friendly and only on two maps does the AI catch-up feel rather bad. A very good little racer that can build almost mario kart level anger. Couldn't quickly figure out how to get the steam controller to work in game thus I was stuck on kb.
Games Completed: 101
Time: 4 weeks 135.9 hours
Teddy Floppy Ear - Mountain Adventure(68 minutes): A bit of string is all you need to strangle your uncle to death! Nothing like starting a game where you are visiting a small town and your uncle wants you to get a camera out of the basement. But the camera is at the bottom of a hole you can't climb out of until you take a few pictures of your junk for your uncle's special photo album that you can't tell anyone about. Get rekt you beret wearing fruit bat Teddy Floppy Ear owns this mountain and that means I own you......-_- take your own dang photos I am catching the train out of this shit hole.
The length and minigames in the original game of Teddy Floppy is very solid for a children's game. Simple lessons and snappy response makes Kayaking look like an attempt to be a little more main stream which results in introducing some negatives and more frustration. Only had one silent load crash but I found myself to close a lot of the time to be able to talk to other characters as you have to walk up to and snap in place before the conversation starts. I would have played this as a kid several times and enjoyed it as I worked on playing it faster and faster since everything is scripted. Math blasters for life.
Almost all of this game was played with the steam controller. It worked well enough for everything except for one mini-game that had detection problems even when I was using a real mouse. The pads on it feel just a little out of place for where I am naturally resting with the controller. I can jump from the bottom to top of the screen regularly but can never make it from the right to the left of the screen without picking up my thumb and moving it. Its not hard to get the pointer where I want it when the buttons have some size but using a small scroll bar with the controller takes accuracy. My thumb feels funny after rolling it around the right pad for an hour, will take some time to adjust to the feed back on it since I can still feel it while typing this.
Games Completed: 102
Time: 4 weeks 137.03 hours.
Mini Ninjas(6 hours): I bought this game after another member reviewed it. Its not new but the classic features mean you should. The bosses or mob fights aren't hard but the fact it carries on for a while means don't screw up. Its fun in the fact that everything is rather systematic and you can either speed run parts or explore and shoot for 100%. Simply playing the game results in a rather pleasurable experience. If it had achievements or cards it would be top notch but as such 5/7
Games Completed: 103
Time: 4 weeks 143.04 hours
The Stanley Parable(1.2 hours): You are never done you simple tell the same story over again. Very much a game that you can play as much or as little of and it still is beat. A great little piece of art that will distract you for an hour at a time once a month.
Games Completed: 104
Time: 4 weeks 144.24 hours
The Deer(5 minutes): I paid 50 cents for this, for a reason. The entire game can be seen from the store page video. This is meant to be a learning game but it is closer to an interactive displays in a museum. You walk around as a deer to read some facts that are floating around the forest. Then you get to play 3 games which consist of a memory game, picking food for a deer, and reconstructing a skeleton with an outline underlay. Simply bought it because its 50 cents, absolutely strange since deer can't use under water breathing apparatuses, and steam badge. My meta game is strong.
Games Completed: 105
Time: 4 weeks 144.32 hours
The Walking Dead Season 1+DLC(11.9 hours): Wow the jump in quality from episode 1 to episode 2 was rather drastic. Once this major shift the quality was rather stagnant until the last two episodes where more and more animations jumps were introduced from conversation choices. The art style and environments were fitted perfectly to how Telltale stylizes everything. There was the same pacing issues that I saw in Telltale Borderlands, though the culprit seemed more like 25% of your wait time was due to reaction shots to almost expressionless faces. 2+ hours per episode really feels to long for how how slow the action is and minimal QTEs. This idea that your choices affect the game is slowly grinding on me since half of the conversations branches don't seem to have a real change on outcomes. You should be able to tell everyone to f--- off at any part of the story and kill branches since some many characters in this season were just annoying. Now I understand why it is the walking dead...no one bothers to run cause they are lazy and love having 20 minute fights while being attacked. UGH I JUST WANT TO Y'ALL TO GET EATEN! DLC was 80 minutes of game play so main is 10.5 hours roughly. Duck, no one likes you.
Games Completed: 106
Time: 4 weeks 156.22 hours
Grow Home(2.7 hours): This was two sittings in the same day and 100% with the steam controller. My thumb isn't as number at the end of this game as the first time using it despite heavy usage of the right pad. The game is intended to be 2.5-3 hours long but the achievements on steam indicate they want to you to keep playing for 12 hours. You can unlock skins by completing achievements but you can also do almost nothing besides the main objectives and still finish the core game. Having to hold two triggers constantly was slowly hurting my hands as the controller was driven back by the pressure required. The games usage of YXAB buttons demonstrates the spacing issue with the controller as I kept hitting the wrong button or swearing I should be over A but I was hovering on B instead. Occasionally I would tap A, jump, and my glide leaf would deploy, Y, to which I could not figure out even when I was watching what buttons my fingers hit.
You are silly little robot thrown on to a planet to grow a plant and collect its seed, think WALL-E but the roles are reversed. No scratch that, WALL-E and Clamps from Futurama had a gay love child and this is the main character B.U.D. You are born in a procedural environment with some wonky physics and little momentum control. Your real power comes from your clamps which allow you to climb around on anything which is a god send as you walk down a slight hill and can't stop, you just splash into the ground and GIVE IT THE OLD CLAMPS! In the beginning you are low on power and are told to collect crystals that increase your energy level but the idea that you are about to turn off without these crystals isn't real, they simply power you up farther to unlock your robot super powers. The camera can't zoom in/out until you unlock the ability which just feels silly because you can just be given that once you grow the plant to a certain size, this is my only real problem with the game.
Now growing the plant is where things get fun and interesting because there might be no limits. You just need to clamp on the balls.....no bulbs of the plant and tell them to grow with your magic robot powers. While they are growing you can direct the branch by means that is never explained. Some times things take off on their own and require some fighting, but for the most part this is all player controlled. The branches need to be grown into rocks that have grow power goop in them. At this point in the game you start to realize that this is a CGI Plant Tentacle Hentai Game.........you spear rocks with tentacles and pump stuff out of them to get your massive stalk to get bigger.......yeah.
There is a lot of exploring that can be done or not done as you only have one goal. As the game progresses distances get bigger and mistakes cost you more. At several points you will have to grow a branch off a branch off a branch to get away from the main trunk enough. This puts you in a position to get creative on how you grow and why you grow branches. Climbing is not always the fastest means. Its a good $4 game right now that you might play again or might not.
Games Completed: 107
Time: 4 weeks 158.92 hours
Among the Sleep(1.8 hours): Paid $7 for this game and the regular price is $15. Not sure if it is at a fair price right now or not. That said the game design in Among the Sleep is out of this world. You are shown an element and what it means then it is used in the game later so the player learning mechanics are just spot on. I just couldn't believe how it just checked all of the boxes for what a game should do.
This was originally a kickstarter game with so many backers I just skipped the credits because it was going to take 10 minutes. It was billed as a VR oriented horror game but then they pretty much finished the game and told everyone no VR support despite this game would be ripe for it. You play as a freaking baby from first person with hands and feet. There is the swish of your onesie if you are running!
It just feels right in regards to how an adult playing a child should act and be afraid. Throughout the game pictures and drawings and markings litter the environment with the vague abstract portrayals you see in every child's drawing partly because they suck at drawing and also because of the concepts that they are attempting to convey. This is where the game really gets you because all of the horror elements are things as an adult you can relate to but also know to be afraid of. Then as the game progresses you start to pick up clarity on what is going on and maybe why this child is frightened. The level of ambiguity leaves several choices to where the conclusion will take you. But then the finish slaps you in the face.
The child never pooped their pants the entire game. 5/7
Games Completed: 108
Time: 4 weeks 160.72 hours
The Walking Dead: Season Two(7.7 hours): Now this is how you make a narrative game. "You shot my dick off!". Its hard to review this game without spoilers. There were several changes from season 1 to season 2 but only the visual ones were good. Character models improved a bunch as the outlining and shadings lines were dropped. A minimal approach was used that gave everything a cleaner appearance which in turn helped as the color pallet became brighter with greater contrast. In all visually the game is great to look at as a direct result of everything being easier to look at and differentiate. Now interaction was severally alter to, as it appears, be more in line with standard console design resulting in frustrating clicks attempting to click specific actions on an object or person due to the user only able to click on small icons attached to an action wheel where in the console universe you could lock the joystick on target and do a direction choice. I got over that as the game went but I would continue to miss click frequently. My biggest gripe in the design change being disallowing number selection of conversation choices. Why? You just made me click on everything because you moved to a 2x2 grind instead of a list. Poor game design because of budgeting choices.
I was invested in this season within the first 15 minutes of episode 1. The pacing is better, stronger use of QTE, and shorter episode lengths had me wanting to get home so I could play through an episode after work. This season I came in trying to kill everyone else. You continually get forced into groups and then can't leave no matter actions you take and here is where stories on rails get hung up. No matter how much you sway choices from one second to the next you always end up in the same spot, nothing every really changes. Season 1 I tried to pick sides and realized that didn't get me any where special, thus, I changed to be in it to win it. No points for second place baby! Once the ball really gets rolling in this season it stands out the designers main plot device is everything just being dicks ALL the time. "Oh thanks for being so understanding. Shut up you are just a kid and need to respect me!" As my inability to not play as a paragon increased I simply stopped responding to chat choices but it didn't seem to matter I was forced to like people and agree to plans. Hell characters started repeating information only I knew because I made sure not to tell them. The last two episodes I found places where I repeated lines because I had to agree despite in action or characters repeated lines to make things fit. So in the end everyone has to die. No one expects the little girl *POP**POP* MotherF*^&@# !
Games Completed: 109
Time: 5 weeks .42 hours
PS. Hit 5 weeks of unique game play, going to close out 1,000+ hours this year.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit(11.8 hours): This is not a tech demo but an ad. Then you see the ads in the ad. Burn in a fire.
Games Completed: 110
Time: 5 weeks 12.22 hours
It came from space, and ate our brains(3.3 hours): There are only 12 levels to this game and I couldn't believe how much game time I actually had when I finished. Played this on easy because my big boy pants were in the wash, hard must be insane. Just a birds eye view shooter that in concept is very retro as a simple wave based shoot'em up. You kill enemies to get points and money. Then you use that money to buy a new weapon or upgrade. On top of that there are items you can buy but there is also a SWAT flying car that instead of shooting things drops items, temporary upgrades, and money for you to maybe pick up. The idea around this game isn't new, especially with the blockie pixel oreiented art, but the styling is very much its own. There are only a few colurs used in the game which gives it a distinctive air on top of the constant shadow play trying to keep you on edge since the only way to see some things is to catch them in the light. Since the general mechanics never change the levels are the key feature as you have to play some of them slightly different and knowing the choke points to use as you slaughter waves of aliens is important. More complex levels general make things easier to survive while simple levels are a big PITA since there aren't good places to camp or circle. The missteps in level design, BS in aiming with precision weapons, and hit detection when enemies attack you are leveled out by the slack the player gets in movement speed and actually getting hit. One side without the other would mean a big imbalance but have cheap stuff on either side gives a good balance and the desire to go at the level again because you feel like you just go unlucky not that things are impossible.
I have gotten zero of my card drops for this game. Drop system from Steam is all over the place with working correctly. Guess all those $.02 handling fees on the community market or mucking up the internet pipes.
Games Completed: 111
Time: 5 weeks 15.72 hours
Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power(4.9 hours): I was all for the 3rd Trine. Loved the experience from 1 and the desire the developers had to build puzzles that you could solve correctly, brute force several ways, or glitch in solutions. Trine 2 wore on me a little as the puzzle solutions were geared more towards a co-op play. Trine 3 had me all set to fall back in love as it was built on the Frostbite engine and the puzzles were more single player focused. In the end I felt let down and will most likely not buy the 4th game in the series.
Trine 3 stuck with a fairly side scroller feel but with several 3D elements. Your view generally only progressed from one puzzle section to the next, granted this could be side to side or front to back. I feel this concept could have been great if it was more of a paper mario/fez approach. Hit a hot key and rotate the players view 90 degress so your side to side action is now moved to the plane of your old front to back. What you get instead is a side scroller that has depth without camera control that destroys your depth perception. Jumping up that wall?! Nope, you are to far into the foreground and just landed in a death pit. Pontius felt OP for solving the puzzles this time around but this is a funny issue to me as Trine 1 I leveled Amadeus to brute force puzzles while Trine 2 Zoya seemed to be the go to for clearing most "I almost got it but am getting frusted" situations. You have a side missions that don't add to backstory or plot development the way they start out. You are also forced to collect X number of triangles to unlock levels because they removed leveling characters, dumping the character customization felt like a very positive choice for how the game was built. Most of the bossish battles felt dull and tedious due to the 3D issue. The final boss felt very solid. All pattern based with standard escalation, this was the best part of the game.
uuuuuhhhhhhh guys?! Whats with this story? Everything ends like this is Trine 3 episode 1......and there is a reason. Seems the series will most likely be dead. Call me crazy but pulling a weird one and switching to episodic releases work but would take $20-$25 launch prices. hhhrrrmmmm this has really left me with a weird feeling. Kind of fun and kind of annoying.
Games Completed: 112
Time: 5 weeks 20.62 hours
Firewatch(3.3 hours): Wow I am not the best looker in this game. I honestly feel the hype machine was spun to the max on this game. The devs claim of 6 hours is a lie any way you cut it. Everything stinks of budget/time issues that seems similar to I Am Alive except Firewatch was aware from the start and reshaped the game to account for it. I Am Alive tried to build the game they wanted and then realized there wasn't enough money and pulled a cop out ending with the remaining dollars and weren't shy about the reason. That makes a bunk feel at the end acceptable because they really tried, almost met their goals, and weren't going to stand any where else than besides where they were.
You get this nice story little story about a man that is trying to get away from his past and parts of life by hiding in solitude up in the national forest system. You get to pick some plot elements that pop up later and some elements are fixed. The game is supposed to be more a narrative game than exploration or thriller. Everything is focused on a relationship that your character develops with another Firewatcher that is kind of your boss. Effectively you walk around your section of the park doing errands, exploring, finding manbearpig. The scenery is really good but the high saturation and light rays didn't impress me after the first few chapters. Slowly all the small elements that were off and basic level design really was grinding my gears. For $18 I can live with the experience especially since it caught some heat from the user base but critics had to go change their pants after just launching the game. Honestly bought it because of steam cards and enough people having varied ideas on it being good or bad. Firewatch = poor dating sim. I wonder if I can sell these panties.
I am just going to lay into it. People talk about how fantastic the character relationships are and they really were drawn into the experience because of it........these people need to get out of the house more. The dialogue tree is ok with the usually 2 of the same responses and 1 response that results in getting bitched at for not following the plot. If thats the fantastic thing about this then its only mediocre, overall the game is ok and I think the price point is within the limits of the product on launch. Don't buy the soundtrack. Why are there so many dust clouds every where? What is up with my hand when examining things? Why do I have to jump up and down all the time for no reason because LEVEL DESIGN? Why can I spend 5 minutes stomping out a fire? Why am I not affected by all the smoke in the air? Why did thrones grow over that path I just came out of prevent back tracking? Why do I trigger plot movement without completely a required objective? What is the deal with the player model? What is up with that dudes face under his mask? Why do you put a timer on responding when you only ask questions while I am busy doing a non-interruptable action? Why have plot points if its about two characters talking? Why do I make dust clouds every where I walk? Why do I have to stop and then press space instead of being able to perform and action while moving? Why does that light only shine in a grid pattern if there is nothing overlaying on top of the source? Why do you use that control scheme? How do you make a 3 hour game that is semi-on rails and have all these things off?
With a 3 hour game that is "open world" you find little issues with things and slowly become fixated on them since the scope isn't large enough to allow them to pass into the background of your experience.
Games Completed: 113
Time: 5 weeks 23.92 hours
Space Run(10.9 hours): A frustrating game because I think tower defense games are something I have a slight knack for but it felt as if the game was the office flirt that keeps friend zoning you at the bar after work....come on!
Having played a fair share of tower defense games I was amazed on my first run through a map. Sitting here staring at the graphics and thinking this is Defense Grid. But this game is made by a one man shop in France. Everything in this game is a trope. Names are silly, characters are silly, mid-match phrases are silly. There is a lot little things to add to your experience in a very positive manner. Just from the voice acting, graphics, and, and plot I consider this a must have for tower defense players and a fantastic game for everyone on the cheap.
I keep saying "tower defense", however, this is a reverse tower defense game. The skinny for Space Run is that you are a freighter pilot in space, game is derived from Galaxy Trucker, that does odd jobs for 5 different companies. Your basic job is to fly from space station to space station while blowing up asteroids of different types, competing companies's ships, pirates , and boss pirates. Every mission you are given a ship with a new design. Each company has a different type of cargo and thus different types of obstacles. This also breaks all the missions into 5 difficulty levels that sort of run parallel since your overall campaign doesn't require finishing all of the jobs from one company to unlock the jobs for the next company. A level progression like this helps entice replays of older levels as you learn new skills. There is a double down effect with this as well since you earn credits to unlock new tower types and new powers on tower types. Couple all of that with also needing prestige to unlock jobs means you will be redoing some of the earlier jobs to destroy the level or try and finish it without looking like a total noob.
Gameplay in the end game can get stale as you quickly realize that success means following some basic rules. Don't build any towers until you know enemy flight patterns around your ship and what kind of enemies you have to destroy. You always have to keep money in reserve and slots open for more rockets so you can make the deliver dead lines. Oh did I forget to mention that? Time limits on every mission to complete them, no longer do you just have to survive until the end but you have to get there on time or early. sigh. A large amount of micro management for a tower defense game, similar to the level in Anomaly but not quite. Game controls don't help this issue since you can't zoom and to move the camera around means using the arrow keys.
Stress and reward balance felt decent but do expect to replay levels until you have unlocked all of your attack towers. Rather glad I have this game under my belt. The people who haven't played this game in Icrontic surprised me, y'all should fix that next time it goes on sale or in a humblebundle.
Games Completed: 114
Time: 5 weeks 34.82 hours
Bit Blaster XL(2.5 hours): Saw the dev post that they published this game via reddit and bought it before I got home. This thing is only a dollar and very arcade oriented. Be space ship, shoot the asteroids, dodge the missiles, keep shooting. Controls are very simple because there are only two. Use the thumb stick to fly the space ship around the screen while your ship auto fires and then if you need an extra speed boost press that button. Yeah press THAT button, don't worry we don't need to tell you which one it is. Goal is to live as long as you can but you need to shoot objects and collect ammo as you are constantly depleting your supply. Power ups float through the screen but you have to guess what they do since there is no key but half of them are obvious.....guess what H or L is. You can pick from 6 different ships that eventually unlock using coins you collect from random enemies but after you have all the ships the coins don't serve a real purpose any more. I sat down and played for almost an hour at one point without realizing how long it had been.
The game gets a little frustration once you have everything and score is the only goal because the level of degree control while turning feels a little low in conjunction with the ships speed and firing rate. I played at minimum of an hour with the steam control and the 36 controller. 36 felt a little harder to hit things while the steam controller gave me a sense I could stop a turn and nail my target but you could just as easily blow your uber important shots.
Fast paced game play where rounds only take a few minutes while still being rewarding make this a great pick up and play game. The joy of shooting the gap of incoming missiles while you go pew pew.
Games Completed: 115
Time: 5 weeks 37.32 hours
The Typing of the Dead/The House of the Dead(5.9 hours): Technically this is two games but I am counting it as one. Typing of the dead is a eduitainment title. You are playing through The House of the Dead by typing words or phrases to shoot enemies. This is kind of fun and kind of annoying. The game comes out of a series of arcade light games that were pretty much quarter burners because they were designed for only two players and had several points where you ended up taking damage no matter what. These facts never stopped me from dumping a couple dollars into the game any time I saw some and my parents gave me thirty minutes. Dude these games were dark.......
The typing game is pretty darn hilarious between the constant jibber jabber among the characters and hilarious phrases that show up on screen; "cock socket". You can load custom dictionaries in so you get phrases like "cock socket" or "by the power of grey skull". The custom dictionaries impact game play in a negative way because the phrases are normally longer which means to get a few chuckles in you will be taking more damage. Balance between the standard scripted game play and typing interactions is really good. My only real complaint is that the characters are walking around with guns instead of keyboards like the original.
Replaying The House of the Dead brought back all the memories of House of the Dead 2, Carnevil, and Area 51. Man the bane of the arcade for just the cheap crap they did to kill you is relived in the modern age. Detection and models don't match, dmg isn't linear, guns have recoil AND the screen moves itself, enemies pop up to do snap dmg, RELOAD RELOAD!! There are so many things wrong and right with this game. You climb through a window and the screen rotates like if you had to actually climb through. There are pocket universes in every room so as soon as you turn your back mutants spawn. Game engine and Graphics engine aren't in sync a lot of the time. WHAT? I JUST SHOT THAT POWER UP GIVE IT TO ME! But this game has a story it needs to tell you, one that will stay with you forever. You could be playing solo at an arcade slowly watching your hit points disappear in a boss battle only to have a complete stranger run up, drop two quarters in, and come in for the rescue. All of a sudden you are both calling shots and swinging on the other side of the screen when the waves get heavy. This is a person you don't know and will never see again but for 10 minutes you are best friends slaughtering everything in your path attempting to save the world.
Games Completed: 116
Time: 5 weeks 43.21 hours
METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE(7.3 HOURS): THIS GAME FUCKS! And is all caps for some reason. Funny enough my play time is 4 hours 30 minutes so there is 3 hours of cut scenes, phone calls, and game crashes on start-up in my play time. Also, who makes an unskippable credits roll that takes two songs to make sure you see a hidden scene?
The first metal gear game I have ever played besides watching someone play over the shoulder for hours because he is a bastard that loves playing single player games all night with friends. Hard to decide if this game should be placed in action, action comedy, or dank memes. You play as Raiden whom loves a really close shave on only his chin and is super tired of people talking about memes. He gets so mad about the overuse of memes he decides to kill hundreds of people until one little boy sings him the song of his people:
The boy's wicked rhymes and off the chain beats move his heart so much Raiden decides fighting the memes is pointless and his efforts would be better suited becoming a small business owner that takes battle damaged cyborgs and finds them low level positions at companies that have great advancement programs. But just like uncle same does, he throws regulation after regulation on this simple man's ideas so Raiden once again picks up his sword to kill the council chairman of the federal labor committee; with reason and following bureaucratic procedure. Strangely enough these meetings are all held in Pakistan once every four years just like the Olympics. The chairman almost outwits Raiden's well written request for a deferral on specific rules that would hinder his business by imploying college football stories and how Mexico is going to pay for a border wall. In the end Raiden gets a probationary period that allows 6 months of deferral so his company can start a test program and see if that trial period should be extended for one more year.
That is how Jack the Ripper learned to live the American dream despite having very small hands.
GAMES COMPLETED: 117
TIME: 5 WEEKS 50.51 HOURS
The Division(22.5 hours): The story is done 100%. My max level is only 28 and I didn't even bother with the dark zone PvP. I can't find the will to even launch this game any more. Once I hit level 20 the grind started to get worse which meant the main story took longer and longer to progress forward in. Just can't grind this any farther, especially since this was a free game with a spare 970(which has turned in a couple million points for Team 93).
The install of this game is around 40GB and runs through UPlay so have fun with always on DRM, this is important. If you have grown up watching 90s spy movies this game might just be for you. Everything kicks off when a horrible virus spreads around New York killings lots of people. The government rolls in trying to control this unknown outbreak but an extreme percentage of the population still dies. Eventually this "first wave" of government intervention fails and chaos really takes over. Now huge sections of the city are controlled by gangs who steal supplies, try to burn everyone alive, and just want to be all around dicks to anyone left.
You come in as part of the second wave to attempt to bring order back to what emergency personnel are left and seek a resolution to the situation. But you aren't some lazy grunt running errands for the CDC and getting basic services back up for the citizens still alive, you are a super secret military delta seal team 6 black ops group called......The Division. Your job is to figure out what happened to the first wave of people, which did include Division agents, and stop the virus.
Everything in this game is about how to build a character and spec out guns. Very much oriented to raid game play and optimal builds. Follow the meta for quick runs and drop percentages. The game is beautiful and difficulty scales so picking up randoms into a 4 person team isn't insanely difficult. The scaling seemed to be BS with a 4 man team and running in groups of 2/3 felt as though the difficulty scaled correctly because at 4 people there always just seemed to be too many enemies on the field at once preventing anything besides a sniper fest.
The city is broken into regions that are for designated levels with their own independent shop keepers and safe houses that allow quick travel, most major elements allow quick travel after you find them once. There is a pretty great HUD overlay that gives you turn by turn to find elements you marked on the map but the grinding and just mass of repeating instances even ruins this a little. Slowly I just kept wishing for an auto-follow to allow me to set the character to run some where so I didn't have to deal with running for 5 minutes to spend 10 minutes shooting the same guys trying to steal the same supply drop again.
Eventually you finish off the main story and all that is left is leveling to 30 and respec so you don't get slaughtered in the dark zone where you can PVP other people playing The Division. This just feels like WoW with guns and lamer quest. Several expansion DLCs are planned and have been announced to finish up the story, bring in new features, and increase level cap. As is the game feels complete and not like content was cut out. There are graphical bugs galore and you really never know what you will find as patches hit and mess 1 thing up and fix another. Funny how ubisoft still has the same basic vector draw issue in all of their games, what is it about their engines they can't get straight but everyone else can.
I might play it a little more if skill counted for more over build but its a game I still see a lot of FPS plays sticking with since most of the game is centered around replayability.
Games Completed: 118
Time: 5 weeks 73.01 hours
Antenna(33 minutes): A free game on steam that is interesting and a slightly frustrating puzzle game. Looks a lot like LIMBO but is very restricted and more conceptualized. Everything centers around radio transmissions and antennas. You simply walk around getting antennas deployed and locating broadcast mixed in with "human" transmissions, static, and morse. Worth a half hour since it is free. The game closes itself after you finish.
Games Completed: 119
Time: 5 weeks 73.61 hours
Saw this today re: The Division
They are talking about taking action against people using a glitch to farm one of the new instances. Then their CM runs it with a clan of exploiters while they glitch one of their runs.
The Legend of Korra(3.5 hours): This game feels really disjointed and under budget. Graphics are on point and the fighting system is good enough. Though the over use of the same special enemies highlights where things just got phoned in. Only a few characters from the show make it into the game.
The game follows the basis for the show. You have powers, you loose powers, and you beat someone up that comes from left field. One big let down is Korra doesn't get to go home with her girlfriend at the end since she isn't in the game. Would have liked to see some kind of health gen system outside of combat but they made a store system instead which you need to use to carry health potions. The very first stage in the game you get locked out of areas which means forcing the user to replay which always grates on me. Make the game good enough to replay. With it being 4 hours you can just sit down on an afternoon and finish the entire thing. Not bad given who owns the IP and the cost I paid for it.
Games Completed: 120
Time: 5 weeks 77.11 hours
Rocket League(19 hours): I now get why people play this game. Loaded the game during a free weekend, the most previous one, and played almost 10 hours in 2 days. If you have been living under a rock with no internet for the past few months Rocket League is a game where you play as a rocket powered car. But the car is also playing a hockey, soccer, or basketball game. The result is everyone trying to do cool soccer moves online in a car but utterly failing 30 percent of the time, which is great to watch in its own right. After playing for hours and hours though you start to notice some issues which nag every time they crop back up. The frame for all the cars and ball is off in a couple places, in a physics game like this it means the ball will do really strange things from time to time when multiple vehicles slam it at once.
The game is extremely simple, looks nice enough, and plays really smoothly. But the thing that makes the game so awesome is that you feel like you did something. Totally nail that bicycle kick for a goal after a bump in from the sideline. Then get to watch it again via replay, dang. Great plays that get pulled have a feel to them instead of the joy of winning. The cooperative reward in team play is notches above most games. Matches are short so a high stress level in matches is sustainable due to do those mini-breaks as you find the next match. This is a game you need to play.
Games Completed: 121
Time: 5 weeks 96.11 hours