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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I played some Loop Hero this weekend.
It's an interesting conceit, but I think I'm going to give it up soon. As a friend put it, Loop Hero is basically just a stat diffing game; yes there is some strategy here, but once you have a strategy setup, you're just spending time micro-managing stats.
It is hard to tell whether I like playing it, or whether I'm addicted to making numbers go up; I suspect it's the latter, and I tend to give up grind games quickly.
I agree with your analysis of the technical side of things; it's pretty simple in-loop to just manage your stats (though I will say that I'm doing much better in Chapter 3 now that I think more about card placement priority and timing.) For me, a lot of the technical challenge is on the deckbuilding/citybuilding side. What resources do I need? What cards do I need in my deck to get those resources? What secondary cards have good interactions with the primaries? What class should I play to take advantage of those cards so I can have a good run? You can find a deck and class and stick with it forever, but then you're depending on alchemy to convert the materials you get into the materials you need to build your town, and that's a very lossy conversion.
I definitely think there's a lot of strategy involved! The core question is how often I'm making interesting choices vs. rote ones. At the rate I go through the loop, the deckbuilding/citybuilding phase happens about once every 30 minutes, which just isn't often enough for me to be super into the deckbuilding part of the game.
If the core loop could be sped up 10x faster, I think I'd be far more interested in Loop Hero. It would make it a lot easier to experiment with new ideas and builds. Unfortunately, it's really slow and thus punishes you for trying something new (e.g. I had a choice between seeing the boss of act 2 or taking my winnings and running, and I chose to take my winnings because if I wasn't ready for the boss, I would lose 70% of it).
Agreed about the speed. 2x is nowhere near fast enough.
It's funny because I actually think 1x speed is too fast! :P I would prefer it slower so I could treat it more like a proper idle game and multitask while it's running. Especially since as it stands now, it's way too easy to die from one loop to the next if you aren't constantly upgrading your gear.
If you go into options, there are bunch of toggles for auto-pausing after events. You can basically turn it into a turn-based game.
Yeah, I intentionally left those disabled though, since they're pretty much the opposite of what I want. :P
My solution was to just select my cards very carefully and build my loop in a specific way to ensure my character would be unlikely to die while it ran largely unattended. Once I finally had that all set up properly last night, which took about 5 attempts, and 20 loops, I managed to get about 50 more successful loops after that without me having to do much other than swapping in the occasional gear upgrade whenever I noticed my health dropping too low by the end of a loop. :)
I haven't tested it myself, but I've seen some people mention that you can edit one of the game's config files and set the speed to whatever you want. In the game's folder (inside the steamapps\common one), there's a variables.ini file with this section:
You should be able to change the
game_speedvalue to whatever you like. I think the60value is with it already set to 2x, so 10x would be300.I've seen that as well, according to other reddit posts it makes most of the game faster but it messes up some calculations like health regen speed.
I have been playing Control because it was one of this month's Playstation free games. It's not my usual kind of thing, a sort of horror/mystery/shooter but I'm enjoying it. The styling is really nice, it's got a very strong 70s paranormal vibe to it, with some very slick and appropriate late modernist design touches. I have no idea when it's actually set but that doesn't matter. There is, so far, a nice bit of variation in levels and they seem to be shooting more for spooky/weird scary than jump-scare-y, which works for me. It is, ultimately, still just a shooter although it's so far pretty fun. The story isn't unengaging, I still feel motivated to read/listen to all the various expository bits of media I find lying around, which is rare for me. The main character is flat and boring as so often happens, but the supporting roles, especially the janitor, are surprisingly good.
I'd give it a solid 7/10. Above average, I'll probably finish it, but also I'm quite glad I didn't pay any money for it.
My husband bought the Stardew Valley Board Game and we played two rounds this weekend.
He is much more of a tabletop gamer than I am, so it’s a point in the game’s favor that we both thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it has appeal for the more involved gamers like my husband and the more casual gamers like myself, and since it’s co-op that difference in skill/interest doesn’t play out as a friction.
The game does a great job of incorporating all the familiar elements of Stardew, though it’s honestly a little much at the beginning. Once you get a feel for it though, the play goes smoothly.
The first round we played vanilla, with rules as written, and ended up finishing our objectives with literally only one action to spare. The second we spruced things up with some house rules aimed at making the game slightly easier and ended up torpedoing any difficulty (we finished up all objectives before we even entered Winter). We’re excited to keep trying things out and find the “sweet spot” for tweaks.
I'm away from home right now so all I have are my Switch and 3DS.
3DS:
Pocket Card Jockey - this game had been a staple of mine for quite awhile. It's fun and quick to play with a variety of interesting mechanics. However, it throws me into a range when RNG rules against me from the start of a race and there is no way to turn it around. I also have no idea really how to get better at this game nor know when I have reached end game. Breeding is a mystery to me and I feel like releasing all my horses and starting over on the farm, then follow guides online.
Switch:
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - it's the fifth or sixth time I have made an effort to play and beat this game. Every previous effort I lost interest after the second dungeon. This time is different though, with the help of save states and the Switch's rewind functionality. I know it isn't "legitimate" to play and beat a game like this using those things, but darn it I want to be over this game for good. I have progressed further than I ever have, to the point where I am the Golden Land. I have gotten two of the crystals and am going to try to get the remaining ones tonight and tomorrow. Maybe after I beat this, I will give A Link Between Worlds a shot. Or finally beat Majora's Mask.
Most recently, Bugsnax on PC.
I will say that it’s a relatively fun game, definitely unique gameplay what with catching snacky bugs, but I do find it a little confusing. And yes, there’s something to be said about figuring out how to catch each bugsnack being part of the challenge, but oftentimes there’s no indication on how to even start attempting a catch.
The in-game tips barely help any, and you’re pretty much left on your own, while the developers (in a recent NoClip interview) pat themselves on the back about how intuitive it feels. To me, at least, it doesn’t feel all that intuitive. It can be fun, though I’d love a fast travel option included, with more useful hints.
Maybe that says more about myself than the game, to be honest.
7/10 rating.
Still playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance, still loving it. (See my review in the last post ) Levelling up my character, doing quests, exploring the game world. I am already anticipating that I'll feel a bit sad when I get to the end of the main storyline, if they don't let me keep exploring and wandering the world.
Something I didn't mention in my previous review: The combat system is kind of nice. It isn't just "mash buttons till you win or lose". It isn't just a question of whoever has the highest HP and best equipment will be the winner. There's actual mouse + keyboard skill involved. You have to handle spacing, timing, and aiming (your swings, thrusts, blocks, and parries). There are even combos that you can execute (or, in my case, fail to execute, haha). You also can't just play keepaway or use kiting to take advantage of your opponent being an AI. The combat system doesn't really let you do that. So, all told, it's a nicely challenging combat system that I am enjoying. Losing fights to superior opponents is a very real possibility, so you can't just Rambo your way through the world (and there is no Easy Mode).
The grinding aspect of the game also feels nicely balanced. It's neither "takes too much repetition" nor "too easy/quick". You pick up various things in your travels which you can sell, and you can also earn money by completing quests. I'm upgrading my equipment at a modest pace, but not so easily that I don't feel challenged. You have an encumbrance limit, so if you defeat "too many" opponents in a given fight, you'll find that you can't necessarily carry all the loot back to the towns (to sell), so you have to pick and choose what's best value for the weight.
Also, equipment and food degrade over time, or with wear. After a particularly nasty fight, my nice cloth garments would be under 50% condition (i.e. shredded and torn), and needs a visit to a tailor to get them repaired. Wearing clothing or equipment which is in tatters affects your impression / charisma, and therefore affects interactions. Footwear wears down as you travel, needing a visit to a cobbler. You can also improve your character's own repair skills of various kinds (cobbling, smithing, etc.), and do it yourself, to some degree.
There's also this cool tradeoff in the game where you pick what you wear depending on the circumstances. Mainly, a tradeoff between looking good/impressive (affecting interpersonal interactions), or being well protected for combat. Or a tradeoff between being well-camouflaged for stealth activity, or looking suspicious ("hm, why is that guy wearing all black in the town square?"). I'm finding I'm setting up certain outfits (eq sets) to wear, depending on what I'm doing. I also once forgot to change from stylish clothes to combat eq, and almost paid for it in a subsequent combat encounter.
Anyway, I could probably go on and on, but, suffice to say, I really like this game.
Otherwise, I'm also still spending a bit of time here and there with Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Valheim .
I started playing Sp!ing. It is really great! It's what I'd call a swinging action puzzler. Your character is a little geometric shape (it changes over the levels). At the start of each level it falls out of a portal into the play field. There are little gears around the play field and when your character is within range of them, they turn into spinners. You tap and hold to have the nearest spinner grab your character. It then starts swinging your character around itself. Let go and the spinner lets go of your character. The goal is to gather all the diamonds on the level and get through the exit portal. There are of course hazards, and gravity is constantly pulling you down. I could swear I read that the artwork was done by indigenous artists from Australia, but I can't seem to find any references to that at the moment. In any event, I've played through something like 350 levels so far. I just can't put it down. Each level can be played in under a minute, though if you want a perfect score, it's usually a lot harder than that!
Mostly Factorio still, but I did find a mobile game that I like quite a lot called "What The Golf?". It starts off like a basic golfing game...swipe back to power your shot, aim, release to hit the ball. But within minutes it goes off the rails into insanity. Suddenly when you release the ball, it's your character that goes flying through the air and you have to hit yourself into the flag at the end. And then it turns into a side-scrolling mario inspiration where you have to putt not-mario over pipes and not-goombas until you get to the big stair case you have to jump from to reach the flag. There's a Donkey Kong level, a series of Super Meat Boy levels, series of Portal levels, and right now I'm at the levels designed to be be frustrating (like obstacles move after you take your shot, dumb things like that).
It's a lot of fun and honestly the best mobile game I've ever played. I got it via Apple Arcade, but it may be available on Android, not sure.
In addition to the usual suspects (Grand Theft Auto Online, Master of Orion II), I have recently delved into Wurm Unlimited. I... want to like this game. It's very reminiscent of games like EverQuest, and the ability to manage your own servers is very nice. But it doesn't have a learning curve, it has a learning wall. The game just doesn't make it easy to play, and the UI is somewhat atrocious.
But I can't stop trying. I suppose that says something.
I've been putting more time into Beat Saber; gosh, it's pretty much the only thing I do with my VR headset, but I feel like it carries the purchase all on its own as-is. I don't think anyone with a VR set needs an introduction to the game, but once you've got mods, there's an ocean of content that just grows by the day. Very tiring, though; works up a serious sweat.
Granblue Fantasy Versus is seeing some more playtime from me, now that I've found a handful of people to play with again. It's a very fun game to just mess around and press buttons in; pretty much the only fighting game I play where I've bothered to try and "learn" more than one character.
In Valheim, my friends and I are about to finish our progression in the Mountain biome; we've been taking it fairly slow, since we only really have matching timeslots during the weekends. Overall, I feel the game has some pretty rough edges; but that's to be expected of a truly early access title. I'm hopeful that the little gaps in progression will be filled in over time; but I suppose even if development stopped today, I've gotten more than my money's worth.
Here's some of the more substantial and less jokey reviews I've done of games I've played lately:
Super Princess Peach
Super Mario 3D World (my favorite review I've done in a while)
Mega Man
Pareidolia (or, Why I Saw Pac-Man Everywhere In 2020) is a favorite I haven't written much about yet, I dropped Animal Crossing: Wild World fairly quickly because literally everyone is an asshole to you, I rushed through the Splatoon single player, and went through the incredibly short and ridiculous Seinfeld The Telltale Series.
Right now I'm switching between playing Syberia, Final Fantasy II, Mega Man 2, and probably about to start some PSX game as I've just gotten a bunch on my new retropie setup. I'm currently in the middle of a big transition where I want to go to emulation for every console where I can reasonably do so. I've got retropie going on the tv right next to the couch I'm practically living on right now along with a Wii U that can handle Gamecube games. In another room on my big ass Trinitron I've got a Wii hooked up through component to give me basically-ideal 240p gaming when I want to go to a less comfortable spot and take it more "seriously". I'll sell most of my consoles except ones where emulation is wonky, so I'll be keeping my PS2 (that I'm getting a modded drive for) and my N64 but most everything else is gonna go, along with all the games. My records are gonna go too...selling things is a pain in the ass lol.
while True:learn()
I found this on the iPad App Store a few days ago. It's a visual 'programming' game. It's actually more of a puzzle game in the vein of Zachtronics. It pretends to teach you AI programming. So far, it only teaches you about what different sorts of AI models will do, and not how they work. That is a reasonable compromise to make the game accessible to non-programmers. I just got into the challenging puzzles, and they are pretty good so far.
Super Hexagon
I redownloaded this on a whim. I was never very good at it, and I am still just as bad. So far my best times are 55:41, 15:22, and 6:07. I don't think these are particularly far from my lifetime best, although I am pretty sure that I beat Hexagon at some point.