aaa_batteries
2004
It's a confusing game, lost in a space between regular FPS where any weapon does damage to any enemy and a pattern based system like the modern Doom's.
It lacks the simplicity of the first Halo weapon roster, where shielded floods necessary.
With all its new weapons and enemy it feels you never have the right one at the right time.
Still don't know what to make of these really too dark sections, you can't even see the ennemies but they can see you, get the point but idk.
I didn't like CE much first but liked it more the second time while noticing all the design choices.
It lacks the simplicity of the first Halo weapon roster, where shielded floods necessary.
With all its new weapons and enemy it feels you never have the right one at the right time.
Still don't know what to make of these really too dark sections, you can't even see the ennemies but they can see you, get the point but idk.
I didn't like CE much first but liked it more the second time while noticing all the design choices.
2021
Can't say that a temporary scenary change to the countryside doesn't make you all weird, thinking about new things.
Game feel is off.
Love the characters, despite being as surface level as you'd expect from a video game, they all lack depth.
The main thing that sticks here is the mail delivery part, as boring and tiresome as you'd expect it to be, only having these little shiny encounters during your day, a delivery to the diner, being asked by Mildred to help a cat...
The main choice of the game is go back to evil corporate world and make money, stay in PO living a stable life with a shit job but unlike computers you have friends and a nice setting, or fuck off everything and leave with your lesbian cinephile GF in a camping car, choosing it despite the myst in your mind.
Sort things out, make choices, feel time, turmoil of emotions.
Lake stays on the surface but lack depth and a clearer direction.
Game feel is off.
Love the characters, despite being as surface level as you'd expect from a video game, they all lack depth.
The main thing that sticks here is the mail delivery part, as boring and tiresome as you'd expect it to be, only having these little shiny encounters during your day, a delivery to the diner, being asked by Mildred to help a cat...
The main choice of the game is go back to evil corporate world and make money, stay in PO living a stable life with a shit job but unlike computers you have friends and a nice setting, or fuck off everything and leave with your lesbian cinephile GF in a camping car, choosing it despite the myst in your mind.
Sort things out, make choices, feel time, turmoil of emotions.
Lake stays on the surface but lack depth and a clearer direction.
2017
I played the game twice, once trying to catch as many stars as possible, there's just too many, most uninteresting, there no exploration, no real hardship to move in the world, you're just mindlessly collecting.
The second time I played the game in a straight line and it's not much better, the main stars have just a little more care than the good optional ones.
The second time I played the game in a straight line and it's not much better, the main stars have just a little more care than the good optional ones.
2013
Inevitable comparison for me, I didn't want to play a Pokémon game at the time cause of all their cons.
Yokai Watch doesn't have the cons of Pokémon: lack of story, grinding... but has others: boring combats, shit befriending system.
The combat system isn't really bad, but once you understand all its possibilities, you also understand that to take advantage of them you're gonna need to grind befriending yokais, bug catching and fishing to exchange with rare objects and it's boooring.
Stupid sidequests.
It has all the charm of a Level 5 game.
Yokai Watch doesn't have the cons of Pokémon: lack of story, grinding... but has others: boring combats, shit befriending system.
The combat system isn't really bad, but once you understand all its possibilities, you also understand that to take advantage of them you're gonna need to grind befriending yokais, bug catching and fishing to exchange with rare objects and it's boooring.
Stupid sidequests.
It has all the charm of a Level 5 game.
2021
it is the best game about squirrel photography just like Mandibles is the best funniest movie with a giant fly.
Biggest problem with this game is the disconnect between the story and the gameplay, both in the writing and the game design:
story: corporation is destroying forest
plot: take pictures of squirrel for???
and you're just constantly alternating between gameplay and narrative phone call, making the disconnect even more obvious.
I feel forced to compare but this is just shitty Firewatch. Firewatch isn't good cause there's a nice looking forest and someone you're talking to, it's the whole execution, the way the game kept you immersed and engaged.
Biggest problem with this game is the disconnect between the story and the gameplay, both in the writing and the game design:
story: corporation is destroying forest
plot: take pictures of squirrel for???
and you're just constantly alternating between gameplay and narrative phone call, making the disconnect even more obvious.
I feel forced to compare but this is just shitty Firewatch. Firewatch isn't good cause there's a nice looking forest and someone you're talking to, it's the whole execution, the way the game kept you immersed and engaged.
2015
could've been shorter and it needed a better balance between its linearity and its large areas, the blue box missions were not needed and could've been part of the regular levels.
2017
shit gamefeel
why have collectible on a linear game??
what's with all the dark places where you can't see shit
dumb puzzles
too repetitive
couldn't finish, stopped at the dinosaur
why have collectible on a linear game??
what's with all the dark places where you can't see shit
dumb puzzles
too repetitive
couldn't finish, stopped at the dinosaur
This game not being good hurts me in the same way as when an animated movie isn't good.
Animated movies sometimes have badly written dialogues which just kills the movies, in this game it's the same thing with the interactions, there's something wrong with the way they feel and they don't manage to make you feel what the games want you to.
Now obviously the drawings, the animation, the music and the puzzles were great.
The game tries to make you feel the same thing as these days where you're alone, either sunny, rainy or during the late evening with warm moody lights in your flat and you're just listening to music, cooking, reading, cleaning... doing something tangible and carelessly enjoying it.
Animated movies sometimes have badly written dialogues which just kills the movies, in this game it's the same thing with the interactions, there's something wrong with the way they feel and they don't manage to make you feel what the games want you to.
Now obviously the drawings, the animation, the music and the puzzles were great.
The game tries to make you feel the same thing as these days where you're alone, either sunny, rainy or during the late evening with warm moody lights in your flat and you're just listening to music, cooking, reading, cleaning... doing something tangible and carelessly enjoying it.
2021
the map you explore and the tone of the game are perfect, but gameplay wise the collectibles and camps quickly dry out and you lose interest, the characters aren't really interesting, neither are the quest they give you.
the emerald quest that plays like a simplified dungeon and dragon was one of the most interesting part.
The game has its little lore but it would've been nice if it was developed around it and not entirely around camps.
Basically you get collectibles, make a camp and repeat 7 times, sometimes you do a FedEx quest and that's it.
the emerald quest that plays like a simplified dungeon and dragon was one of the most interesting part.
The game has its little lore but it would've been nice if it was developed around it and not entirely around camps.
Basically you get collectibles, make a camp and repeat 7 times, sometimes you do a FedEx quest and that's it.
2008
I finally understand the mirror metaphor.
You're free: jumping, running and seeing everything in this totalitarian city.
The combat isn't that good, it would've been better if the enemies were designed as another kind of obstacles instead of literal blockades, though I realised that the game is probably designed so you use the weapons though the game also seems to tell you not to.
You're free: jumping, running and seeing everything in this totalitarian city.
The combat isn't that good, it would've been better if the enemies were designed as another kind of obstacles instead of literal blockades, though I realised that the game is probably designed so you use the weapons though the game also seems to tell you not to.
2016
Like that scene in Bergman's Saraband where the young girl cuts up vegetables with the old woman waiting for her grandfather to come back.
Reminds me of the more recent Sciamma's Petite Maman on what's here and what isn't.
Reminds me of a lot of things, cause it's short and it's things I never did.
A game like pine, honey, cinnamon, the warmth of autumn.
There's that empty but not sad moment of self conciousness in the present when you only hear your feet in the snow cut up by short silences.
It could've had purposeful camera angles instead of the free camera.
After the grandma tells you the snow was like ice cream to her younger self the following last present part could've had more saturated colours.
Made me realise more complex things on the symbolism of autumn: it's an inbetween or an end, appropriate for anger and sadness, weirdly (or not!) enough that's where its comfy feel comes from, it touches ALL of your emotions.
Reminds me of the more recent Sciamma's Petite Maman on what's here and what isn't.
Reminds me of a lot of things, cause it's short and it's things I never did.
A game like pine, honey, cinnamon, the warmth of autumn.
There's that empty but not sad moment of self conciousness in the present when you only hear your feet in the snow cut up by short silences.
It could've had purposeful camera angles instead of the free camera.
After the grandma tells you the snow was like ice cream to her younger self the following last present part could've had more saturated colours.
Made me realise more complex things on the symbolism of autumn: it's an inbetween or an end, appropriate for anger and sadness, weirdly (or not!) enough that's where its comfy feel comes from, it touches ALL of your emotions.