NightDuck
Starts out great and the combat changes feel really good, but, it's just a slog. There aren't really side quests and you have to be a certain power level to progress the main quest, which means you have to grind by literally killing the same enemies in the same area over and over. It's like a gacha game that isn't trying to make you pay money, I don't get it.
2021
Haha assault rifle goes brrr!
I don't care about the battle pass because the game is fun to play, so I don't need poking and prodding to cajole me into playing the game.
I don't care about the battle pass because the game is fun to play, so I don't need poking and prodding to cajole me into playing the game.
This game sucks, I love it. The gameplay is horrendously designed (e.g. leveling up makes you weaker if you play your character correctly), but the quests, lore, and exploration are all great.
I feel very strongly that Skyrim is not a good game, but I do understand why so many people like it. The quests, the lore, the dungeon design, and the sandbox nature of the game are all great, but I think basically every piece of the gameplay is actively bad at it’s intended purpose. Oblivion is the same way. It’s very frustrating to me because I would like to play these games as first-person dungeon crawlers, but they just aren’t designed for you to think about how the game works, so any build is either extremely overpowered or hopelessly useless.
For example, two-handed weapons are inferior to one-handed weapons in every way. You have less flexibility, you can’t cast spells, you do less damage per attack than dual wielding, and you attack slower. Also, not only is blocking less effective, most of the perks in the Block tree only work when you have a shield equipped. I like big swords, I want to smash skeletons with a big sword, but the game heavily punishes me for trying to use a big sword, so the only option for playing that way is to turn the difficulty way down.
That said, this is one of my most played games and the above complaints make me spend a lot of time trying to download mods to "fix" the game.
For example, two-handed weapons are inferior to one-handed weapons in every way. You have less flexibility, you can’t cast spells, you do less damage per attack than dual wielding, and you attack slower. Also, not only is blocking less effective, most of the perks in the Block tree only work when you have a shield equipped. I like big swords, I want to smash skeletons with a big sword, but the game heavily punishes me for trying to use a big sword, so the only option for playing that way is to turn the difficulty way down.
That said, this is one of my most played games and the above complaints make me spend a lot of time trying to download mods to "fix" the game.
2000
This game is weird. The music is great. The combat is... interesting. I'm glad I tried this out, but it's a bit too janky for me to want to finish it, so I'll just listen to the soundtrack instead.
The first 90% of this game is great, but the ending sucks and is barely connected to the themes of the rest of the game. I don't want to elaborate on my complaints because of spoilers, but the short version is that the end is a bunch of poorly explained bullshit that explicitly wasn't setup earlier. They setup interesting character arcs throughout the game and then just... don't resolve them in the ending.
The combat is interesting, but gets repetitive over time. Button mashing is pretty much the optimal strategy and by the end there are too many effects on screen at once to be able to see and dodge enemy attacks. Not a bad combat system, but not my cup of tea.
The combat is interesting, but gets repetitive over time. Button mashing is pretty much the optimal strategy and by the end there are too many effects on screen at once to be able to see and dodge enemy attacks. Not a bad combat system, but not my cup of tea.
2017
The game demands precise, twitchy gameplay, but the controls don't support that. The most specific issue is that the dash happens when you release the trigger because you can multi-dash, but I didn't encounter a single situation where multi-dash would be useful in 5 hours. This means that the dash button is designed for you to hold it down, but the encounters are designed for you to tap it, so your character feels sluggish and unresponsive in a game that's all about going fast.
Also, this game handles the sensitive subject matter associated with cyberpunk media (e.g. poverty, ableism, body horror) with the least amount of care I have ever seen. It doesn't have anything to say about those subjects, it just makes them as grotesque as possible for shock value. This game doesn't have any new ideas, but it sure is a collection of all of the worst ones.
This game makes me appreciate The Ascent so much more. The gameplay is similar, but feels much better in The Ascent, and the story has some interesting ideas/visuals.
Also, this game handles the sensitive subject matter associated with cyberpunk media (e.g. poverty, ableism, body horror) with the least amount of care I have ever seen. It doesn't have anything to say about those subjects, it just makes them as grotesque as possible for shock value. This game doesn't have any new ideas, but it sure is a collection of all of the worst ones.
This game makes me appreciate The Ascent so much more. The gameplay is similar, but feels much better in The Ascent, and the story has some interesting ideas/visuals.
2021
Dungeon Encounters is an excellent podcast game! The pieces are very simple, but the interaction between them makes things complex enough that I’m always doing light calculations in my head. It’s also very satisfying to fill in squares on a grid.
The combat is an interesting, minimalist take on turn-based combat, where you think about each attack more because you can predict all of the interactions. This game shows you everything you need to know on screen during a battle (e.g. speed, attack damage, enemy special abilities), so you always have the information you need to make the right decision as long as you think through everything. A while ago I wrote about how dungeon crawlers with simplistic combat systems make me feel like Light saying “…And then I’ll take a chip and eat it”. This game gives that feeling more than other dungeon crawlers I have played because you’re constantly making those elaborate plans instead of just once before entering the dungeon.
Also, the game is great because I find myself thinking things like “I see, sharks and wizards are natural allies. I need to have a plan to deal with that deadly combination.” or “I want to have two people equipped with guns because that’s the best counter to Amoebas.”
The combat is an interesting, minimalist take on turn-based combat, where you think about each attack more because you can predict all of the interactions. This game shows you everything you need to know on screen during a battle (e.g. speed, attack damage, enemy special abilities), so you always have the information you need to make the right decision as long as you think through everything. A while ago I wrote about how dungeon crawlers with simplistic combat systems make me feel like Light saying “…And then I’ll take a chip and eat it”. This game gives that feeling more than other dungeon crawlers I have played because you’re constantly making those elaborate plans instead of just once before entering the dungeon.
Also, the game is great because I find myself thinking things like “I see, sharks and wizards are natural allies. I need to have a plan to deal with that deadly combination.” or “I want to have two people equipped with guns because that’s the best counter to Amoebas.”
2021
I don't usually like 2D platformers, but this game feels great to play!
The controls are very interesting and I am interested to see more games with this style of controls. The control scheme is overloaded (e.g. slide and morph ball are the same button) and the game handles that by trying to intuit what you want to do based on context (e.g. moving the left stick diagonally aims your gun while still moving you in the same direction). I think the control scheme is fascinating, well done, and feels great when you're exploring, but later in the game it sometimes makes me feel like I'm fighting the controls whenever I have to fight bosses or do difficult platforming. I think letting you turn off some of the upgrades might help with that (e.g. letting you turn off morph ball in a boss fight where you need to slide).
Also, they took out almost all of the gross misogyny stuff from Fusion, which is why I bounced off of that game. Lots of the storytelling is completely nonverbal and told through body language, which is fantastic and part of what's so memorable about Super Metroid.
The controls are very interesting and I am interested to see more games with this style of controls. The control scheme is overloaded (e.g. slide and morph ball are the same button) and the game handles that by trying to intuit what you want to do based on context (e.g. moving the left stick diagonally aims your gun while still moving you in the same direction). I think the control scheme is fascinating, well done, and feels great when you're exploring, but later in the game it sometimes makes me feel like I'm fighting the controls whenever I have to fight bosses or do difficult platforming. I think letting you turn off some of the upgrades might help with that (e.g. letting you turn off morph ball in a boss fight where you need to slide).
Also, they took out almost all of the gross misogyny stuff from Fusion, which is why I bounced off of that game. Lots of the storytelling is completely nonverbal and told through body language, which is fantastic and part of what's so memorable about Super Metroid.
The gameplay is good, but this game is bad vibes distilled to their purest essence. It's morally reprehensible and I would not recommend it to most people.
I think the easiest way to describe this is as a more hardcore version of the Bethesda Fallout games with fewer RPG elements and an Eastern European setting. Absolutely love it, but the game is also famously buggy.
2021
Real G's move in silence like lasagna.
This game is everything I was hoping based on the previews:
1) It's Dishonored, but you aren't punished for killing people.
2) The roguelike structure makes it fun to replay levels, something I would have liked to be able to easily do in Dishonored.
This game is everything I was hoping based on the previews:
1) It's Dishonored, but you aren't punished for killing people.
2) The roguelike structure makes it fun to replay levels, something I would have liked to be able to easily do in Dishonored.
DO NOT REVISIT THIS GAME UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW TRUE SUFFERING.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
I was really into this game with friends in 2009-2010 and even then, this was clearly the most miserable MMORPG ever designed. It is literally impossible to progress solo beyond about level 10 and group content is getting a group of 6 people to fight bats. I don't mean multiple bats at once, I mean literally 1 bat at a time because that's how the combat is balanced. And you better hope your group is good because you lose a significant amount of xp every time you die. There is no story, there is only bats.
The combat is so slow and repetitive, I once literally fell asleep and didn't mess up my rotation as the tank. But despite that, if you mess up at all, you will be killed by the bat.
I am not super into FF14, but it is a much, much better game than this in every way.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
I was really into this game with friends in 2009-2010 and even then, this was clearly the most miserable MMORPG ever designed. It is literally impossible to progress solo beyond about level 10 and group content is getting a group of 6 people to fight bats. I don't mean multiple bats at once, I mean literally 1 bat at a time because that's how the combat is balanced. And you better hope your group is good because you lose a significant amount of xp every time you die. There is no story, there is only bats.
The combat is so slow and repetitive, I once literally fell asleep and didn't mess up my rotation as the tank. But despite that, if you mess up at all, you will be killed by the bat.
I am not super into FF14, but it is a much, much better game than this in every way.
2019
Amazing concept, level design, atmosphere and design. Miserable combat and core gameplay loop.
Finally, a game with representation for me, a skeleton inside of a worn out meat suit.