The Reality<\/strong>: A couple of weeks ago I started playing Diablo III. And then the Factorio<\/a> update came out, and I’ve been waiting for that for five months. And then Prey<\/a> came out, and rumor was that it’s a spiritual successor to System Shock. Given my history with those games<\/a>, I HAD to get it. And then STRAFE<\/a> came out and I’ve been waiting for that since I backed the Kickstarter in February 2015. <\/p>\n So I’m trying to play four games at once and it’s going about as well as you might expect. I can’t say anything substantial about any of them, so let me say something insubstatial about each of them…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am enthusiastically<\/em> unimpressed. My indifference knows no bounds. <\/p>\n I’ve written a bunch of words on this game. I’m not sure when they’ll go up. It’s a bit long for a single post, so I need to either expand it into an analysis or cut it down to a review. I’ll probably cut. I don’t get the sense that anyone still cares enough about Diablo III to justify a multi-part series. <\/p>\n You know what really pissed me off about BioShock? How people kept calling it the “Spiritual successor to System Shock”. It wasn’t. It was shallower, shorter, more linear, less sure of its tone, and far more pretentious. This is not to say BioShock was a bad game. When judged on its own merits it was an excellent<\/em> gameExcept for the ending, obviously.<\/span>. But it was missing all the bits that I loved most about System Shock. Look, I like a nice hamburger as much as the next guy, but don’t try to convince me it’s a steak while I’m eating it.<\/p>\n But this? THIS is that spiritual successor I’ve been waiting for. It’s cyberpunk-y, it’s disempowering and survival horror-ish, it’s got a little bit of Metroidvania in its non-linear hub-based space station, it’s focused on a desperate scramble for resources, and the plot is doing some mind-screw stuff that’s keeping me curious.<\/p>\n I prefer to play this when it’s dark and quiet in the house. Nothing ruins a spooky, moody game like having sunlight streaming in the windows and having people stop by for chit-chat. I only get a couple of hours of quiet per day, so progress on this one is slow. And even after I finish, it’s going to take me a while to really digest it. <\/p>\n Short review: It’s the closest anyone has come to the System Shock experience since 1999. For a few of you, that should be all you need to know.<\/p>\n It was amazing to see what everyone else was playing last week<\/a>. If you read the responses, you’ll see that even after hundreds of comments there wasn’t an emerging pattern of “Most people are playing X”. We really are playing a lot of different games. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. I’m not sure why. I just love this notion that the world of gaming is now so big we have to run off and explore the various corners on our own and report our findings back to the group, because it’s just too dang big for anyone to see the whole thing. I play more games than most of youCitation: This post’s title.<\/span> and yet I still feel like I barely have a handle on what’s going on. <\/p>\n On the other hand, I was kind of sad when only one other Factorio fan chimed in. I was looking for an excuse to write more about the game, and I was hoping a handful of “Hello fellow cultist. Welcome to the fold.” would give me that opening. But it looks like there aren’t many people still into it. <\/p>\n Maybe that’s for the best. Factorio is so dense with its own technical details that I’d have to explain half the game before I could talk about any of its systems. Discussing Factorio with non-Factorio people is hard<\/em>. I’m not saying it has Dwarf Fortress<\/em> levels of impenetrability, but it suffers from the same problem that the depth makes it hard to discuss with outsiders.<\/p>\n Then again… I might take a crack at it anyway, if only to justify the embarrassing number of hours I’m pouring into the silly thing. Of all the games on my list, this one is devouring the most hours.<\/p>\n Comments on the most recent update:<\/p>\n Like I said, I’ve been waiting for this game since February of 2015. It was supposed to come out 11 months ago, but you know how it is with game development<\/a>. It’s pretty much everything I’d hoped it would be. It’s fast-paced, fun, and endlessly varied. It’s a roguelike built around 1996 style shooting mechanics.<\/p>\n The story is: You’re on a spaceship and everything wants to kill you. Keep that from happening for as long as possible.<\/em> Each level ends with a Left 4 Dead style safehouse where you can see your gameplay stats and (if the RNG is kind) replenish a little of your supplies. <\/p>\n The one complaint I keep seeing with the game is that the guns feel “weak”<\/a>. I do not get this. The guns are all basically one-shot kills for normal cannon fodder foes, so I don’t think people are complaining that the guns need to do more damage. The guns blow bodies apart, so they don’t have a lack of visceral feedback. They kick and recoilVisually. Your view \/ aiming reticle don’t move. Which is in keeping with the style the game is going for.<\/span> just like you’d expect from a “1996” videogame. So I’m not sure why so many people are finding them unsatisfying. Maybe it’s the sound effects? The guns don’t have a lot of bass to them, so you don’t get that meaty roar like (say) the shotguns of Doom or Quake. I’d love to dig down and figure out what’s really going wrong here.<\/p>\n My major gripe with the game – and it’s a pretty big one – is that it’s much too difficult to unlock the ability to start on later levels. It’s basically this obtuse process of gathering up random items that may or may not drop, and then buying other items from a shop that don’t have any immediate purpose, and then using those items in this other location. Once you’ve done enough of this random nonsense you’ll supposedly be able to start the game in the second zone, which means you won’t need to spend fifteen to twenty minutes slogging through the first zone again.<\/p>\n I’ve played 42 games and reached the second zone probably a dozen times, but I’m still waiting for the random items to drop that will let me skip directly to the second zone. I’m sick to death of the first area. Sick of the same enemies. Sick of the same few music loops. Sick of the same textures. I can’t stand it anymore. Maybe I’m just really unlucky, or maybe the developers thought the first zone was just so interesting people would want to spend six hours in itI don’t actually know how many hours I’ve put into the game. There’s a bug that the game leaves behind a ghost process when you close it, which makes GoG think it’s still running. (You have to kill it in task manager before you can launch the game again.) So my playtime numbers are meaningless.<\/span>.<\/p>\n The second zone has a lot of nasty surprises and new foes. Which is good<\/strong>! But when my run ends because I get torn apart by a threat I didn’t understand and I realize how long it’s going to take me to get back to the second zone, I realize I’ve got twenty minutes of monotony before I can learn the next lesson the Hard Way.<\/p>\n It’s the Dark Souls problem all over again: Don’t make repeat half an hour of stuff I’ve mastered before I’m allowed five minutes of practice on the New Thing. <\/p>\n Hate it. HATE IT. <\/strong><\/p>\n “But Shamus, that’s how a roguelike works!”<\/p>\n Eh. Some do, some don’t. Spelunky lets you begin the game on later levels if you want. Same with Crypt of the Necrodancer. Strafe does too. It’s just that the STRAFE system feels like an Easter Egg and not a proper feature. If it wasn’t for people posting their findings<\/a>, I wouldn’t have known it was possible at all. And grinding for random drops is the worst way of handling unlocks. Give me something concrete to works towards. Perhaps “reach the second zone five times to unlock it”. Or “get 10,000 kills”. Something. Whatever. Show me the finish line.<\/em> The current system sucks and it’s basically murdered my ability to enjoy the game.<\/p>\nDiablo III<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Prey<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Factorio 0.15<\/h3>\n
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STRAFE<\/h3>\n
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