As per my shit talk, I beat Final Fantasy 1 over the weekend and started delving into FF2. The first game was a lot harder than I remember, so took longer than I expected. Hopefully 2 will be as easier and quicker.
Outside of that I also played through all of Monument Valley in a couple days (it's beautiful and great), beat Costume Quest 2 in about three days (not as good as first one), and have been dabbling with the Amplitude remake. It is just like old Amplitude, which is great in theory as I loved that game back in the day, but I think these days I'm kind of over rhythm games in general. Same reason why I'm not picking up Rock Band 4 despite putting hundreds if not thousands of hours into the previous iterations. I wouldn't say that I'm burned out on them, I'm just ready to move on.
Played about 3 hours of Rocket League due to snow weekend. I'm a session or two away from having put what I consider to be a significant chunk of time in (10+ hours), as I almost never hit that mark with video games. I feel myself getting slightly better, but I know I'll never get to the point where I'm playing serious competition in this game. I'm never going all-in on Rocket League, but it sure is hell fun to mess around with from time to time.
Beat Undertale, which was all sorts of awesome, and beckons for a proper alternate-route replay, but it's not happening anytime soon. Also beat Octodad, which was a co-op effort with a childhood best friend who comes over to play video games two or three times per year. Odd similarities in the ends of both of those games.
Lastly I started the fifth Layton game and put it back down. I just don't have another Layton in me.
Lastly I started the fifth Layton game and put it back down. I just don't have another Layton in me.
I didn't have one Layton in me. I started to get real bored of the first one for whatever reason. I tried the first 3DS one and barely got through the first couple puzzles.
I started playing The Witness. Really liking it so far. It's got a fair amount of that Myst ambiguousness where you just have no idea what is even happening. But the puzzle designs are really well honed, and it rewards you for catching on early (or I guess going back once you understand later).
I started playing The Witness. Really liking it so far. It's got a fair amount of that Myst ambiguousness where you just have no idea what is even happening. But the puzzle designs are really well honed, and it rewards you for catching on early (or I guess going back once you understand later).
Looks like a very beautiful game, how does the environment affect the puzzles?
I started playing The Witness. Really liking it so far. It's got a fair amount of that Myst ambiguousness where you just have no idea what is even happening. But the puzzle designs are really well honed, and it rewards you for catching on early (or I guess going back once you understand later).
Looks like a very beautiful game, how does the environment affect the puzzles?
I'll say this, The game is purely a bunch of mazes. Everything shows up on a monitor. You click in a circle, and you can move a line through a maze. Sounds kinda lame on paper. But then it starts to slowly incorporate both new elements in the mazes themselves as well as the environment itself. I'm trying to be a bit ambiguous here because, while I subscribe to the Scott Rubin philosophy on spoilers, I think it's really cool when you discover how the dimensions of the puzzles start to unfold around you. I'm not super far into the game yet but I've gotten far enough where I've started to see some crazy shit. And it's pretty awesome.
Just started playing helldivers after getting it in the steam winter sale and I'm having a great time. Cool Ghosts did a LP if you want to see what's up.
Played a ton of Downwell on the plane to and from PAX South. I had one crazy-ass run where I went from a previous best of level 2-3 all the way to level 4-1 in one shot, but that was using Boulder mode (6HP, 1 less upgrade choice). I later went back and got to 3-2 on normal mode.
At one point on the way home, I had gotten the knife & fork and the jetboots as my first two upgrades, and was rocking almost 2,000 gems in the bank when I had a crazy sequence of events put me down early in world 2. That could have been the magical run.
Downwell update: I got to 3-2 on regular mode but did not survive. I'm confident I can get through world 3 on a good run, but I don't see myself beating this without hours and hour more dedication. Still don't think I'm getting past 4-1.
Decided to pick up Elite: Dangerous from the sale. Didn't do much with it, but played some of the tutorials. Skipped the more challenging combat tutorials, but I think I did enough to go out there and do space. Although the training mission for long distance travel caused some trouble as in my first try I was totally unable to find the hole to get in the space station, so I just crashed my ship against it in frustration.
Decided to pick up Elite: Dangerous from the sale. Didn't do much with it, but played some of the tutorials. Skipped the more challenging combat tutorials, but I think I did enough to go out there and do space. Although the training mission for long distance travel caused some trouble as in my first try I was totally unable to find the hole to get in the space station, so I just crashed my ship against it in frustration.
I did exactly the same thing. Until you have a better handle on, well, handling your craft - and especially when you're just rolling in your sidey - you're better off just running.
As for the station(the ones with the holes, not the outposts, which are just flat pads in space), there's three ways to do it.
First - if you lock on to the station, you can see the shape of it. It's either the fat end near the wheel, or on the cubic stations(Technically, a Cuboctahedron but fuuuuuck iiiiitttt), you'll see arrows on the surface of your radar picture that point to the docking bay.
Second - the right-hand-rule. Look at the way the station rotates, make a thumbs-up with your right hand, fingers curled in the same direction the station is rotating, and your thumb will be the docking entrance. You'll also be giving a thumbs up - right on, commander.
Third - Buy a docking computer. Soon as you're in docking range - 7.5km - and you request clearance, you can throttle down, and the Docking computer will take over. I don't recommend using it till you've got a good handle on landings.
Firewatch did not hit me like Gone Home, but it's still living with me - a well-told novella. I can't immediately recall another #walkingsimulator that tells its story in past as well as the present.
On Steam, there are a shockingly large number of negative reactions to the ending, to which you must imagine me moving my hand over my head and saying "whoosh".
So now I am at odds with the average "helpful" Steam review for Firewatch, and the praise for The Beginner's Guide. Notably, they both break toward positive Steam reviews in the mid-80% range, but the negative reviews for Firewatch are being disproportionately flagged "Helpful" this week.
I just finished Firewatch. The writing is really excellent. I do think this is the first in-game relationship I've ever actually cared about. Most in-game relationships are treated like optional game play objectives. Not this one.
The ending is great, I don't think the average player of this game can see that it really couldn't have ended any other way. It's a game about imperfect people acting imperfectly.
The actual plot was fairly obvious. I understood what was going on as soon as all the pieces were introduced. So while it was trivial to suss out the ending, that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the experience in the slightest. I still wanted to finish the game and see how these characters interacted.
Basically a very well told novel, with excellent writing. Would recommend.
On Steam, there are a shockingly large number of negative reactions to the ending, to which you must imagine me moving my hand over my head and saying "whoosh".
So now I am at odds with the average "helpful" Steam review for Firewatch, and the praise for The Beginner's Guide. Notably, they both break toward positive Steam reviews in the mid-80% range, but the negative reviews for Firewatch are being disproportionately flagged "Helpful" this week.
I'll give you one hint as to why, and that hint is actually about ethics in game journalism.
Comments
Outside of that I also played through all of Monument Valley in a couple days (it's beautiful and great), beat Costume Quest 2 in about three days (not as good as first one), and have been dabbling with the Amplitude remake. It is just like old Amplitude, which is great in theory as I loved that game back in the day, but I think these days I'm kind of over rhythm games in general. Same reason why I'm not picking up Rock Band 4 despite putting hundreds if not thousands of hours into the previous iterations. I wouldn't say that I'm burned out on them, I'm just ready to move on.
Beat Undertale, which was all sorts of awesome, and beckons for a proper alternate-route replay, but it's not happening anytime soon. Also beat Octodad, which was a co-op effort with a childhood best friend who comes over to play video games two or three times per year. Odd similarities in the ends of both of those games.
Lastly I started the fifth Layton game and put it back down. I just don't have another Layton in me.
Been playing a lot of CS again too.
At one point on the way home, I had gotten the knife & fork and the jetboots as my first two upgrades, and was rocking almost 2,000 gems in the bank when I had a crazy sequence of events put me down early in world 2. That could have been the magical run.
As for the station(the ones with the holes, not the outposts, which are just flat pads in space), there's three ways to do it.
First - if you lock on to the station, you can see the shape of it. It's either the fat end near the wheel, or on the cubic stations(Technically, a Cuboctahedron but fuuuuuck iiiiitttt), you'll see arrows on the surface of your radar picture that point to the docking bay.
Second - the right-hand-rule. Look at the way the station rotates, make a thumbs-up with your right hand, fingers curled in the same direction the station is rotating, and your thumb will be the docking entrance. You'll also be giving a thumbs up - right on, commander.
Third - Buy a docking computer. Soon as you're in docking range - 7.5km - and you request clearance, you can throttle down, and the Docking computer will take over. I don't recommend using it till you've got a good handle on landings.
On Steam, there are a shockingly large number of negative reactions to the ending, to which you must imagine me moving my hand over my head and saying "whoosh".
So now I am at odds with the average "helpful" Steam review for Firewatch, and the praise for The Beginner's Guide. Notably, they both break toward positive Steam reviews in the mid-80% range, but the negative reviews for Firewatch are being disproportionately flagged "Helpful" this week.
The ending is great, I don't think the average player of this game can see that it really couldn't have ended any other way. It's a game about imperfect people acting imperfectly.
The actual plot was fairly obvious. I understood what was going on as soon as all the pieces were introduced. So while it was trivial to suss out the ending, that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the experience in the slightest. I still wanted to finish the game and see how these characters interacted.
Basically a very well told novel, with excellent writing. Would recommend.