I'm marking this as my "finished" date even though I want to spend more time with the various minigames. I managed to complete the story and pick up all of Rusty's Nontendo inventory before the eshop closure.

Played the first six or so puzzles to progress to the point where I could buy the level packs since the eshop is closing. I intend to play Pushmo and Crashmo before continuing.

Finally playing this because there's word that its online services will go away on the 19th, although no one knows that that means and it hopefully won't affect the PC version, since it's not published by EA (anymore).

Anyway, it's real fun! Just a solid Commando-like grounded bullet hell-lite. I only played the Prologue, which is longer than the name suggests with 5 stages. I like the enemy army design with their steampunky gliders and balloon mines and flamethrower grunts and rocket towers that wind up out of the earth. The stages are a smooth continuity of set pieces; you're moving through your home base after completing training as it falls under attack and then crossing landscapes to take the fight to the enemy. I was very impressed by the sounds of tank and troop movement and explosions all around me. I also like how much impact permanent weapon upgrades have; you definitely feel a difference in their power, but they also have improved visuals. The grenade in particular seems great, changing from just a basic grenade that you can toss anywhere (which can be very useful when the terrain makes it difficult to approach multiple enemies safely) to some kind of multi-missile strike.

On the complaints side, sometimes it can be hard to tell which way you're supposed to move next until you start headed in the right direction, and other times the camera (or, rather, the hard frame of the screen that has moved with you along a set track) can get into a position that prevents you from avoiding damage--although that's player fault to some extent since you should be planning for it (this really only happened to me early on). Fire attacks can also be indistinct and frustrating to dodge. That's it, really.

I'm curious to see tomorrow what things are like in Chapter 1 because the Prologue ends on a pretty dramatic change. I mean, the storytelling is as basic as it gets aside from the action around you that provides context for the stages, but the status quo has certainly changed and I expect to be fighting entirely different enemies from now on. Wouldn't it be something if each of the 5 chapters had such a big difference?

Just watched Matt and Bats play Quixort and 'helped' rather than participating directly.

Played briefly to compare with 2010 Steam release of Shatter. Refunded after deciding that the original was clearly better.

Played a bit to compare with Shatter Remastered Deluxe. Edited .xml file for 4K resolution and looked great aside from some interface text being too small.

I managed to finish that obstacle course just in time as the free weekend was ending.

A favorite among my friends and I. This was my first time playing the fan-preserved version called TSE: Reloaded. We had a friend in the mix who hadn't played before and started out with a deathmatch mode, and when my rifle shots didn't one-hit kill other players I got angry because I thought it had been dramatically nerfed. Only after we switched to our favorite mode where all players but one are generic henchmen did I realize that it was likely only ever a one-hit kill against those henchmen with their reduced health pools. And it's still as fun as ever to get up on a rooftop and hold your own one shot at a time against a rising tide of henchmen armed with katanas and rocket launchers before retreating to an underground tunnel to lick your wounds. I'm struggling a bit to see my cursor, though; I might look into a mouse overlay, if only to change the color off of yellow.

The day after this session I discovered that once again a season had ended earlier than the in-game countdown had promised, and I'm done with this game until season 9 gets a rerun so I can collect the audio logs and complete the manhunt mission. It's a shame that the live service team is so incompetent because I was enjoying getting back into it.

I started playing the free version of Rail Route, The Story of Jozic, which is apparently a generously long demo and narrative campaign for the full game. It's nice, and I like the look of the train network UI a lot, which is why I was drawn to the game. Jozic sounds like a Santa Claus. So far I'm managing contracted trains with a lot of fiddly micro, sometimes with really tight timing as I move them around each other on parallel tracks and platforms. I don't feel like this is how the game is meant to be played at all; in videos it looks like a sprawling system of automated traffic, far too much for someone to manage manually. But even at the relatively simple level of complexity in which I find myself now I struggle to understand how to make things run so smoothly. The game is pushing me to switch to automatic signals, and even that first step intimidates me because I feel like I'll run into collisions if I don't handle signaling myself. I should take the leap and see what happens, but I also suspect that I should do a better job of creating parallel lines.

I tried out this free idle game mainly because I thought I could get something in Idle Champions if I did, but it's much too late for that, I've learned. However, it was an interesting experience nonetheless because Crusaders plays like a prototype of Champions in many respects. While it is enjoyable in its own right, I don't intend to spend more time with it since Champions is obviously both more complex and refined. I'm glad I took an hour or so to check Crusaders out, though, even if I can't get anything for it in Champions.

Rubbish, shallow incremental game that just tells you exactly what to do constantly instead of presenting engaging systems.

Tried with Matt and Bud during a free weekend on Steam. Some elements that really appeal to me: diegetic computer terminals, self-locating and navigating by paying attention to signs and labels, tense tactical play and a need for communication, etc. The stealth is not the greatest, though, and it's pretty important. We grew frustrated near the end of the first mission because we reached our objective and couldn't find anything to interact with; learned later that we needed to carry some sort of receptacle from the start. We all agreed that we'd like to play it more, but we're also not willing to pay even the current sale price right now.