T w e n t y S i d e d
This week I was busy with work, so I only got to play a bit of Rimworld.
The Anomaly DLC has grown on me over the past few days. While I still don’t think it adds much to the main gameplay loop, I do think the entities that you face add some new, fun ways to challenge your colony. The entity containment system is neat, but space consuming. Keeping a bunch of entities is worth it to me anyway because I really like the bioferrite generators. I think Keeping a few monsters in a cell; for fueling a generators that produce 4000 W of power is pretty good. Even with a small caveat of crating a -6 moodlet for colonists nearby.
Anyway, what’s everyone else doing this week?
Wolfenstein II
This is a massive step down in story, gameplay, and art design when compared to the 2014 soft reboot. Yet critics rated this one much higher. What's going on here?
Games and the Fear of Death
Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
Resident Evil 4
Who is this imbecile and why is he wandering around Europe unsupervised?
Overthinking Zombies
Let's ruin everyone's fun by listing all the ways in which zombies can't work, couldn't happen, and don't make sense.
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.
I’ve spent most of the week playing Next Fest demos, also discovering that my recent game crashes were not due to graphics drivers but rather may have something to do with conflicts between Unreal Engine and certain Intel CPUs which is. The recommended solutions involve fiddling with CPU clocking (which I’m wary to do) or updating BIOS which is probably the route I’ll take but I only figured this out, like, yesterday so still have to look into it.
I’m also finishing a playthrough of Hollow Knight which is technically my third but this one is different. We’re playing an Archipelago multiworld game with some Discord pals. Its essentially a randomizer with the added feature that items can be randomized between games. So for example my Monarch Wings, which let me double jump, can show up as loot from another player’s Zelda game dungeon, whereas the change to the worldstate resulting in beating a Terraria boss may instead be locked behind me picking up what would be a health upgrade in my game. We’re running a mutliworld between 10 games but the player who set it up says they participate in a regular run every couple of months that consists of around 3000 players (with a lot of the games being duplicates of course as Arhipelago at present handles a fairly limited selection). I presume this works entirely by sorcery.
Brotato DLC‘s standout so far had been a weapon with a massive cooldown, that cooled down instantly whenever you pick up money. Turns out, there’s an entire CHARACTER that works like that, and it’s now my favorite character in the game. I was disappointed with several of the DLC characters but this one I think makes up for it.
Deltarune is as finished as it will be for a while. Chapters 3 and 4 really started getting the overall plot rolling, which is a mixed blessing considering the release schedule. 3 also has the hardest superboss in the game, and 4 has the coolest. Not a huge fan of 4’s level design (lots of mazes in the dark), but even when it’s annoying it’s still charming. Looking forward to Chapter 5, though I’m not sure how much of that is owed to watching other people play through and theorycraft. I’d probably be less intrigued if I was fully blind on it. But I’m remembering why I liked Undertale so much, and have high hopes that the game will: [a] finish, and [b] stick the landing.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 managed to get me to buy it despite knowing my old computer couldn’t actually run it**. But after finding a deal on a new computer, I’m playing through and loving it (just picked up party member number 4, so still early). So far the worst thing about it remains the name; I read “Clair Obscur” and think “Dear Esther” and “Edith Finch”, instead of a turn-based RPG borrowing the best ideas of at least half a dozen standout games in the genre*. I seriously just shrugged it off based on the name, until I saw someone play it and was sold by the end of the tutorial battle three minutes in. (It also features the most emotionally weighty prologue I’ve seen in, I want to say any medium, and while the last level I completed was a bit more goofy it’s keeping that gravitas alive.)
My greatest concern is that it might be TOO GOOD. It feels like a lava cake of a game, where it’s so rich I can only handle small amounts of it. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be willing to replay it. But, that worry’s a long way off, and one of the best problems for a game to have.
…I think the Tales games are going back on hold for a while.
*(It also borrows… less good ideas, like Chrono Cross’s “If you want that item, press the Talk button 20 times”. It’s actually 33 times in Clair.)
**(Turns out it COULD run on the old computer, but only if I was willing to play with unloaded floors and constantly streaking red lines giving it the look of a shattering window. Considering the game is named after a painting technique and the central villain is called “The Paintress”, I feel I should perhaps play through it on a graphical setting higher than “Trash Fire”.)
I’ve had a rare free weekend, so I ran a bit wild.
In Baldur’s Gate 3 I have worked through Wyrm’s Crossing, and it was fine, but I might have been too overhyped for Sharess’ Caress. I also had A Ton of long-rest-happenings, once again telling me that I am not long-resting enough to spread them better, but thank BG1 for that.
I have then started Aliens: Dark Descent, which plays exactly like I expected, and so far I like it, but I am also still within the tutorial.
Next game started was Deathloop, where I eventually managed to leave the first area and make it to the second. Again too early to make any proper statements, but it seems to be executing its core idea quite well. Let’s see if it manages to keep me. I somewhat doubt that, tho, because…
I also started Kingdom Come Deliverance, where I made it out of the prologue and then immediately jumped into the first installment of the A Woman’s Lot DLC. So far I like it both mechanically and narratively, and I am seeing myself loosing way too many hours in it – or at some point not managing to play for two months and subsequently loosing all memory of inventory, plot and mechanics.
Still playing Nightreign. Got lucky the other night and actually managed to fire a game taking a shot at Ironeye’s final quest (where you have to fight a specific boss, which is the only reason people fight that boss, and their matchmaking won’t pair you with anyone else doing quests, as previously griped), and even though I choked and made a wrong call at the end the tank carried through. Not so in the last run I did today, where. . . well actually I made a perfectly reasonable call, threw my ult to stagger the boss so it wouldn’t turn around and run me over. Which then failed for whatever reason, probably not allowed to knock it out of that particular attack or something, and so it turned around and ran me over (and we end up with just the tank standing but their rez ult is on cooldown and they eventually drop).
Of course, if the team had followed me into the volcano we could have all had legendary tier weapons and probably more levels and instead of being almost dead it would have been dead dead by that point. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised at how well I was soloing my way down there, but I suppose I did have my weapon maxed and bonus damage and bonus stagger, just about the best possible position to be in. But every time, I’m able to reach the bottom on my own, and then there’s a big boss at the end that I flat-out don’t have time to fight even if I could take it.
I’m also sitting on the final quest for katana-man (the call him Executor, but I suspect they mean Executioner, unless there’s something yet to be revealed at the end of his story), which requires you to
duel an NPC version of yourself, with the usual NPC/enemy hacks- he breaks your guard in like 3 hits but you can’t break his and trying just charges his special attack, which is just incredibly frustrating. Mostly because every time you fail you have to re-talk to an NPC and then wait through a slow animation and then skip through a cutscene before you can finally do the fight.I’ve played some on the last two characters I hadn’t touched, the Duchess and the Raider. The Raider suffers from the same problem as all “hit point tanks” do in souls games: the game is lying to you when it suggests that is actually a viable strategy. Early to mid game bosses it might work, but the endgame bosses will just kill you through whatever tank strats you have (yes I know there’s a youtube video about how to tank all of Elden Ring, and it requires stacking like three buffs before every hit, which you can’t even do in this game because random). I’ve actually got a relic for the nifty Prayerful Strike skill, which restores hp, which can almost make that work. Until you get to a final boss and they just jump or teleport away from the attack every single time.
The Duchess is the all-aggro DPS dream though, as her passive is free dodging. And her active forces foes to re-take like maybe 50% of the damage they just took in the last couple seconds, so you get even more out of a DPS spike. And one of the relic ability upgrades she can get just makes that happen after enough dagger hits. Where the Executor looks like he’s kindof supposed to be like dual katanas or something but it turns out he’s actually midrange (his main skill means he always has a shield in his pocket and his ult can be used to heal self or pickup allies or attack groups or stun bosses), Duchess is actually just dual dagger all aggro then spam dodge away. Quite satisfying.
Still haven’t beaten the damn goat, or “Equilibrious Beast” for its proper name. Had a run where it finally got down to half but I just don’t know what you’re supposed to do other than git gud and have team that is similarly all gud’d. It’s got it all (non-spoilered for disrespect): sudden explosions directly on top of you, teleporting, massive wide stream attacks that continue while it does other attacks and which dodging though hardly ever works, sometimes multiple active at once, sudden puzzle objective that can happen when people are just not in a position to do anything about it, sudden status flood over an absurd area, etc, etc. There is no attack window, the best you can do is run up and get a couple chips in before it either teleports away or explodes you or just continues charging across the battlefield after someone else. Supposedly it’s weak to madness, one of the rarest spell types to find and which I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually use against it, but I suspect it’s the same way the Gaping Jaw is “weak” to poison (poison will make it stop fighting for a bit, in the first phase only)- that madness effects might make it go berserk instead of using its magic, which doesn’t actually help.
Finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Without a doubt (at least for the time being, though very hard chance for it to change) my game of the year. I haven’t found a game that has been so fun to play, so rewarding to explore and so emotionally touching as this one in years. Everything about it has been a fantastic experience, the only real complaint I have is that a couple of achievements failed to register, and it frankly matters so little that I feel silly just mentioning it (also the few platforming puzzles are absolute bullshit, but the rewards are generally just cosmetic, so it’s fine). All the characters play differently but they’re all fun to engage with. Enemy variety is very generous, so even the few times you find “recolored” versions of existent foes they have their own set of skills and strategies. Combat is easy to learn but though to master and relies far more on skill than your typical JRPG. Level design is fantastic, so no two areas look the same yet they’re all creative and gorgeous. Character design is imaginative and varied. The soundtrack is outright spectacular. But the best part of it all is the writing. The characters are engaging, interesting and well developed and the story is an incredibly emotional rollercoaster full of surprises and turns that even when you think you figured out something turns out you haven’t even scratched the surface. And while things might sound confusing at first once all cards are on the table it’s all extraordinarily rewarding. What starts as a fantastic journey to try to stop the apocalypse ends up becoming a much more personal story about dealing with grief that will forever change how you look at stories. This is a true work of art and I recommend it to everyone, particularly those who enjoy creating art.
I feel like a bunch of people are being turned off by this game due to some journalists and essayists trying to praise all the wrong things about it. They say it “revolutionized the genre” or “finally made turn-based combat bearable”, but all of that is nonsense from people who have played less games than an infant. The game is simply well designed and fun. It doesn’t break new ground when it comes to gameplay, but it takes what others did before and refines it in a good way. And, like I said, the writing is the real star here.
I think I’m gonna have to deliberately take a couple days off gaming. I simply cannot engage with another game just like that after finishing this one.
I’m nearing the end of The Witcher Enhanced Edition. I’ve never played a Witcher game before and wanted to start at the beginning. It has its quriks, but I’m still having a good time. Probably going to dive in for a month or two of WoW Classic after I finish to keep the mid 00s vibe going for a bit.
Still playng Conception Plus. After finishing off the last zodiac dungeon in the last season dungeon, I decided to try grinding my way a bit through the final dungeon. While I wasn’t in too much trouble on the first floor, at least, I got bored of the combat after sweeping the first floor and wanted to back out, and noticed that I hadn’t gotten a lot of XP doing that. Since I have to fight all the monsters there because I’m not overleveled, I’ve hit the boring part of the game and it will be hard to level up new Star Children doing that. So I’ll have to think about my approach here, although there not being a time limit means that I should be able to max out all the Star Maidens’ relationships, which is the more interesting part of the game. So it comes down to how much I want to grind and how long I can take still playing it as my main game.
I went back and finished The Art of Gravity the other day. It’s a pretty unique 3D puzzle game where you have to shoot a limited set of balls at blocks suspended in the air to break them up, with later levels seeing some interesting gimmicks including different kinds of blocks and balls, ways to slide or rotate parts of the puzzle, etc. It’s far from the most daunting example of the puzzle genre, but I enjoyed it and ended up running through the last one-third of the levels in little bites over the course of about 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Territory Idle continues to chug along in the background. On the one hand, a lot of little bonuses are really adding up and I’ve hit the point where a whole island can be cleared in just a few days; I’ve also got about 90% of the achievements. On the other hand, the game’s fundamental design problems are really showing: for example, the “big” upgrade tracks are cluttered with bonuses that are essentially useless by the time you’ve actually made enough progress to afford them. It also looks like a couple of the high-level achievements are going to be boring grinds even by the standards of this relatively slow-paced idle game. I believe I’ll get them, but finishing this one is almost certainly going to come with a sense of relief more than anything else.
With Wave Gothic Treffen and two birthdays in the last two weeks I hadn’t had much time to play games. Just a little Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and a few hours of Sleeping Dogs. PC controls are unusual as Shift is to walk slow, while Space is to run. I often – and always in the wrong situations – forget that.
WGT on the other hand had some good performances by New Model Army, 69 Eyes, Xandria, Vroudenspil, Whisper in the Shadows and others.
Analog we played Bomb Busters – mission 6 is done now. Only two missions left to end training – Love Letter and Everdell including the train expansion. What a massive tablehog – but a good game nonetheless.
…well, the comment from my new computer triggered moderation, so I’ll make a comment from my old computer to talk about my new computer.
My old Cyberpower from 2019 has been struggling to run expensive games for a few years now. Mostly it didn’t bother me, but then I saw Clair Obscur and thought “I have to play this, but HOW?” This began a debate about what system to buy; I could get a PS5 for $500, or I could get a much more useful computer for double the price. But lo, upon walking through the electronic section at Wal-Mart, my eyes beheld a new Cyberpower that had been marked down due to box damage. Having the computer drop to the low low price of a mere PS5-and-a-half cinched the deal, and I now have a computer that can run Clair Obscur. As well as, like, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Cyberpunk 2077, and Control. And Total Warhammer. And probably others I’ve forgotten.
The secondary debate is whether to use the new computer as the main computer, or to keep the old computer with all the tabs and passwords and whatnot that is still working perfectly well for anything that isn’t Clair Obscur. I’m thinking I want to keep the old computer there, on account of I would like at least one computer in the house to not have porn on it, and turn the new one into the Offline Game Machine in the living room, like the really old computer was doing. On the other hand, only the main computer has access to the big TV, and I want that for playing Clair Obscur. So I think the new one gets the throne until that game is finished, and then the old one comes back.
All that to say, my last comment triggered moderation and I don’t think the site has noticed. So for the no doubt thousands of readers champing at the bit to hear Syal’s ongoing Brotato opinions, I encourage forming an orderly-yet-angry mob outside the moderation window and demanding action, and also extra ketchup for your fries.
…(I find it strange the moderated comment is still visible to me despite switching computers. Makes it seem like something else triggered it.)
Sorry, Syal. I only noticed the moderated comments today, even though I’ve logged in several times the last few days. I’ll see if there is anything obvious to fix, but I’m not aware of anything off the top of my head.