T w e n t y S i d e d
This week, I’m back from vacation and I’m playing a bit of Rimworld.
I got the biotech and anomaly DLC without looking into them very much, so I keep getting distracted by new stuff. The gene stuff seems pretty cool but I haven’t gotten a chance to properly use it. The I haven’t touched the anomaly stuff yet, but I probably should.
What are you guys doing this week?
Tenpenny Tower
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
Fable II
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
Shamus Plays WOW
Ever wondered what's in all those quest boxes you've never bothered to read? Get ready: They're more insane than you might expect.
Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
id Software Coding Style
When the source code for Doom 3 was released, we got a look at some of the style conventions used by the developers. Here I analyze this style and explain what it all means.
Talos Principle II DLC is done. Great game, great DLC – even though DLC-campaign 3 didn’t reach the (olymp-like) level of narrative quality previous campaigns had – but with a lot of very hard puzzles.
Then I started Foundry, a factory game like Dyson Sphere Program but in ego perspective and in a Minecraft like world. I’m not very fond of the DSP/Foundry building system of factory in- and outtakes and tons of parallel conveyor belts. I don’t have conveyor belt splitters for now, so this “factory” is a mess.
And I started Digimon World – Next Order – barely touched the surface for now. First impression is: meh.
Analog I visited family and got to play Bomb Busters, Tribes of the Wind, Vale of Eternity and Exploding Kittens – Good vs. Evil. In Bomb Busters we failed mission 5 several times. Tribes was liked but very long for a 3 player game. Vale is always good and EK is EK. Good for a few quick rounds, but the joke looses its effect quickly.
I liked Digimon World: Next Order a fair bit – but then the original Digimon World game which it’s based on was one of my favorite games growing up – it can be a bit janky at points, but I think the more “digital pet” inspired RPG setup is a pretty neat approach, compared to something like Digimon Cyber Sleuth which is a much more straightforward JRPG style game.
Not much new, more Stellaris, raised the difficulty a step but it still seems too easy in the current version, I’m trying not being the crisis but the big upside of being the crisis is that you can win early, otherwise it’s just about time.
More Expedition 33. One thing I really enjoy about the dialogue in this game is that people interrupt and talk over each other occasionally. It’s something that happens on a regular basis in the real world but games, for various reasons, almost never include it. Still feel like learning the enemy’s moves and dodging them is the critical thing – for example, I’m running into mimes who hit for double my max hp, but I have 4 revives and every mime has the exact same attack pattern, so… I dunno, it’s weird.
Monster Train 2 comes out tomorrow so, uh, all of this is going to be put on hold for a while, probably.
How is scaling difficulty nowadays? I remember when I last played Stellaris (it was a while ago) I liked playing with it because the AI would not get ridiculous buffs at the start of the game allowing for some exploration and setup but it would get buffed later on meaning it would put up at least some resistance in the lategame.
Jedi Survivor taking over whatever I was playing previously has been taken over by Horizon Zero Dawn. But home and work things have taken over that. Just had a four day weekend and didn’t play any games. Oh one game actually. Friday: stressed from the work week, had a couple hours work in the morning, arguing with gf half of the day then moping. Saturday: the chill day, went upstairs with gf after breakfast only to find flies in the spare room. So the unchill day of moving everything and vacuuming and putting clutter into the loft, clearing the garage enough to move things there, and doing similar with the other bedroom. Sunday: the actual chill day. Doctor Who, Mariokart, hotdogs (cheese and bacon, yum). Monday: recycling to the tip, gardening, miscellaneous chores, GP appointment, did watch the film Color of Night because I saw there was an Red Letter Media video on it. Actually quite enjoyed it in a silly over the top 80s-but-actually-90s way.
Played a bit more of my Imperial Agent in The Old Republic. The powerset I’m using is pretty much identical to my Smuggler’s from the playthrough I just finished, which is both good and bad, being familiar but also not being really new. Also, I’m having fun with the character but Kaliyo — your first companion that you get stuck with for an inordinately long time — REALLY doesn’t work with her, as her first companion quest is to rescue a “friend” that she then wants to sell herself, which ticks off my character both because she was going to do that AND because she didn’t tell her about it until after but expected her to just go along. When Kaliyo is mad because that person is now going around thinking that she’s better than Kaliyo, my character really, really wanted to say that if Kaliyo wanted to be better than her she could have rescued her and then just let her go, which would have shown her to be a better person AND a more skilled person. I’ll be glad when I get another companion and can ditch her.
Also played more Conception Plus. I managed to finish another couple of zodiac dungeons, and am leveled up enough that most of the two previous dungeons’ encounters are run-through kills, which means that in the zodiac dungeon itself all I need to do is find my way to the end and take down the boss, keeping enough bond points for a Mechunite or two and using their all targets ability to wipe things out, moving the other groups away from the big boss until everything is done and then using full heal potions to keep everyone alive to the end. Another good point point is that if the Mechunite gets hit by a strong ability, they don’t die but just get knocked out of the Mechunite with I guess 1 hit point apiece, which can be easily restored and then I can immediately create a new Mechunite to carry on. I just have to be careful to not let the big boss target me with hits that I can’t survive and I’m golden. As for the story, I think there is something suspicious about Narcisstes the advisor, and suspected that for a while but finding a circle that drains what is effectively the life force from people is probably a bad sign. Other than that, the individual Star Maiden stories are interesting enough but there are still too many of them for me to properly flesh out all of them so I will indeed have to focus on my favourites, for a while anyway.
I am now on ‘vacation’, and still between games. I think I’ve got it narrowed down to: replay (and then re-replay) Nights of Azure 2, or Baldur’s Gate 3, or Kena, Bridge of Spirits. I’ve played basically past the tutorial in the latter but then haven’t returned to it, a fluffier ‘souls-like’ (which just gets put on any 3rd person action game with a stamina meter or parrying, so any 3rd person action game) which seemed fine, but I got the feeling it would look better on the new rig so I stopped and haven’t returned. BG3 needs no introduction.
Nights of Azure 2 is at the top of my list to give the go, though I might change my mind. I’ve beaten it before, which unlocks the new game+ required to get the good ending (the game is on a time limit which prevents you from finishing the sidequests for all characters, which is removed in new game+). and then I made the mistake: I did new game+ on hard. The enemies were already bullet sponges/your attacks dealt barely anything before, and hard just turns that up higher. Even so, I slogged all the way through to like the second to last level. . . and then was finally disinclined to grind through the foes enough that I took a break, and never came back. That was like 8 years ago (crumbles to dust).
So my thinking was, since I now at least intellectually remember how the game works (very partner focused, chain from one combo meter to the next, don’t try to level everyone up on the first run, carefully learn and deploy the limited duration alternate weapons, etc), I could start a new game on normal, run through that, and then do new game+ on *normal*, do everyone’s sidequests, and see the good ending. Except then I realize I could just do new game+ from my old file and skip the first run. But part of the whole point was wanting to try the game again from the beginning with less fighting against the intended playstyle.
So we’ll see how that goes after I start it up I guess.
Kena holds such a special place in my heart. It was the very first game I played with my then-5-year-old sister. It was her first non-mobile game, and she was enthralled the moment she saw it – the vibrant art style, the cute characters, the exploration, the melancholy world… The way her eyes lit up when I explained to her that you have to discover the cosmetics you want, rather than unlock them via lootboxes… It felt like a whole new world unfolding in front of her eyes, and we had so much fun beating it together (with me doing a lot of the heavy lifting, of course, because she wasn’t used to playing with mouse and keyboard).
I don’t know how much you’d like it – it’s basically a 3rd Person platformer in the style of the early-to-mid 2000’s. In my case, it was exactly what I was looking for, but your mileage may vary…
Oh I was quite enjoying it through the tutorial, I specifically got it because less-hardcore action is also nice, and I liked the art. I just keep on jog jamming when I try to pick a game. . .
But now I’m in over my eyeballs on Satisfactory. Which I will save the report on for Wednesday.
I started playing Path of Exile 2 specifically because I read that Elon Musk was bad at it.
As a woman who is older than Elon, I thought it would be gratifying to prove to myself that I’m a better player than the world’s richest man.
I’m also playing Rimworld. It’s very good, though there’s a very steep learning curve in trying to get your pawns (colonists) to do what needs doing rather than leaving jobs unfinished and being generally stupid.
– Like one guy who was told to hunt a bear, shot it once (thus enraging it) and then went to bed, leaving it to maul another colonist in its rage.
– Or running to the other side of the map to clean up random piles of dirt in between building a wall.
– Or give up on cooking a meal and instead eat the raw meat they were supposed to cook, thus ensuring there’s not enough left for a meal. And then complaining about the lack of cooked food.
– And if there’s a way to force them to pick up resources they harvest, I’d be overjoyed if someone would tell me it.
I tell someone to harvest plants from a collection of bushes some distance away, they pick all the fruit and then leave it on the ground and walk home. Where they – most likely – complain about being hungry.
Still, once you get used to it, it works well. The level and depth of the simulation is very impressive, and I keep discovering new mechanics and possibilites as time goes on. Trade caravans! Faction diplomacy! Ancient dangers! Relocating your colony to other biomes for a challenge!
All of which is enjoyably detailed.
It’s also one of the rare games that does a good job of properly incentivising evil. Usually I never bother – in most games it’s just cruelty for it’s own sake – but the game’s lack of judgement and appraoch to consequences has got me to do things I’d never consider usually, I.e:
– I’m trying to breed and train dogs, who naturally need feeding. But it’s a harsh winter and food is scarce – wait, I’ve just been attacked by pirates!
I mean, it’d take effort to bury all those bodies…
– One of my colonists has a collapsed lung from an old gunshot. They’re now worse at everything they do. But what’s this? One of the latest raiders was captured alive and they’ve got TWO perfectly healthy lungs! Right, where’s my doctor…
And so forth. I’m interested to see if the game ever drives me to becoming a slaver or trading in harvested organs, which are both posibilities…
Vanilla RimWorld definitely has some…idiosyncrasies, but the good news is that nearly always There’s A Mod For That™. Here are a few suggestions for QoL mods off the top of my head that might solve some of what you’ve mentioned, though I apologize as I’m currently using around 400 mods and have been using many of them for years, so I sometimes forget what behavior is vanilla and what is modded:
– While You Are Nearby: changes pawn job priority so they tend to favor doing jobs nearby rather than walking long ways to do one single thing before walking back and doing recreation.
– Pick Up and Haul: lets pawns fill up their inventory with things and drop it all off at once rather than picking up just one of the 12 stacks of berries lying around and heading back to base to eat dinner.
– Achtung!: gives you more control over your pawns in general, such as being able to force them to keep working on something past when they’d normally stop, like if you really need your doctor to patch someone up after raid rather than going to sleep.
-Common Sense: not direly related to what you said, but it makes a bunch of little tweaks to pawn behavior to make them generally act more sensibly.
I’m undoubtedly forgetting some, but those four should make things run a little smoother and give you more control without altering gameplay too much.
My week was rather interesting. On Tuesday, me and my family went to Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees take on the Texas Rangers. During the game, I watched Aaron Judge hit a home run for the first time EVER (in-person at least), and the crowd went wild! The Yankees ended up defeating the Rangers 5-2. The game was honestly breathtaking. That’s all I have to say here, and thank you for reading this message.
My week was rather interesting. On Tuesday, me and my family went to Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees take on the Texas Rangers. During the game, I watched Aaron Judge hit a home run for the first time EVER (in-person at least), and the crowd went wild! The Yankees ended up defeating the Rangers 5-2. The game was honestly breathtaking. That’s all I have to say here, and thank you for reading this message.