Oh! What with all the holiday excitement and usual CSPIGA comments, I
almost forgot that we have THIS thread to do too! We can't start a new
month without talking about what we played LAST month... can we? I'd
rather not take that chance. So here we go again: let's talk games!

Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
worth the effort or should I not bother?

I've been surprisingly busy with games this month so my list is a bit
fuller than usual (read: this next bit is gonna be _long_)

A List
---------------------------------------
* MechWarrior 5: Clans
* Magic Archer
* Pacific Drive
* Their Land
* CloudPunk
* Front Mission 1st: Remake
* Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)
* Teardown

A Novel
---------------------------------------

* MechWarrior 5: Clans
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2000890/MechWarrior_5_Clans/
I'm terribly disappointed with this game.

It should have been a slam-dunk. One of my biggest issues with its
predecessor (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries) was the uninteresting level
design; everything was procedurally generated, and the various
missions very quickly became repetitious. "Clans" promised a full
campaign with hand-crafted missions. How could it all have gone so
wrong?

Visually, the game is fine; it uses an upgraded version of the
"Mercenaries" engine, and there is a general improvement to the
animations of the mechs. The first couple of levels look terrific too,
with a lot of lush vegetation, custom architecture and lots of
superfluous detail that make the world look real. The cockpits are
improved, with greater variation between different mechs and all
looking more three-dimensional. It all makes for an excellent first
impression.

But the further into the game you get, the worse it seems. Later maps
are far less detailed and interesting to look at. Some are downright
ugly; most feel quite generic. Worse, the level design is -with only a
handful of exceptions- extremely tedious. Most maps are just long
winding canyons, with no real open spaces or options to step off the
beaten path. In pretty much every mission you are led by the nose from
waypoint to waypoint, often not allowed to even progress to the next
arena until you fight off waves of enemy mechs.

The combat is, arguably, a slight improvement over "Mercenaries", but
it still is not very good. The AI is just terrible; it rushes straight
towards you, rarely making use of cover or even relying on its
long-range weaponry. Too often, combat devolves into in-your-face
brawls with multiple mechs picking away at one another from close
range. The respawning is particularly bad too; you will be forced to
mow down dozens of enemy robots per mission, with new enemies popping
out of indestructible hangers or jumping down cliffs that would leave
your mech smashed if you tried a similar feat. There's just no
strategy to the game, and ultimately your best tactic is to field the
heaviest mechs you can so you can endure the onslaught, making any
lighter robots in your arsenal practically useless.

Don't even get me started on the boss-enemies! Bosses... in a
MechWarrior game! They're incredible bullet sponges that don't abide
by the same rules the players have to follow, and feel completely out
of place.

There's little else praiseworthy about the game either. The cutscenes
are fine... except for the weird facial animations (what is with the
fat-lipped mouth movements?). The voice-acting is awful. The story is
dull. The characters are all unlikable. The music is completely
uninteresting. There are some areas where the visuals completely fall
apart (such as the missile impact textures, which are laughably bad).
And once you finish the game, that's it; sure, you can replay the
missions but there's no option for procedural missions to keep the
action fresh.

That's not to say I disliked everything. The battles did have a bigger
feel to them; you often are fighting alongside multiple other lances
and the narrative gives the impression that your unit is just a small
part of a much larger war. That's sort of neat. The improved MechLab
-where you can customize your robot's loadout- has been improved, and
I liked the ability to research new upgrades (even if it feels
completely out of place for a BattleTech game). But these are all tiny
improvements on a game that otherwise feels a massive step backwards.

I really wanted to like this game. I broke my rule about not buying
games immediately on release because I was so excited about playing
another MechWarrior game. But in almost every respect, I was
disappointed by the experience. "MechWarrior 5: Clans" probably ranks
below all the other games in the franchise. It takes all the worst
parts of "MW5: Mercenary", does almost nothing to improve them, and
adds on a host of new flaws. It is not a good game.

* Magic Archer
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2905170/Magic_Archery/
"Magic Archer" was hyped up as that free game 'so good people are
insisting they should be allowed to pay for it.' And even though there
are, indeed, people making this demand, the game is in no way
deserving of it.

Oh, it's enjoyable enough... for a free game. But it's extremely
shallow, even for the 'clicker' games it resembles. Click a button to
set up a target, your archer will shoot arrows at it. Once enough
arrows hit it, it breaks apart and you earn experience. Select which
stat that experience gets assigned to; get enough, and the stat will
go up. As stats rise, you unlock various quests (automatically
fulfilled) and upgrades which improve the rate at which you earn
experience.

It's barely a game. In fact, after about fifteen minutes of play, you
can buy an upgrade to automatically reset the targets for you, meaning
past that point the game essentially plays itself. There's no real
strategy, no way to lose, and the only 'challenge' is how fast you can
get to the end.

And, look, I'm not objecting to this. The game's retro-aesthetics are
nice, and the speed at which you constantly earn upgrades ensures a
constant dopamine fix. You're getting a unceaseless stream of rewards,
and our brains respond positively to this. There's an extremely low
barrier to entry; if you can click a mouse, you've all the skill you
need to win the game. Even the most luxuriously played game won't take
you more than a couple of hours before you're done. It's welcoming.
It's fun.

But it's got no challenge, no depth, and no replayability. It's a
modern day equivalent to those Flash games of the early 2000s;
something that briefly occupies your time and then you move on to
something better. It's a palette cleanser; a respite from more serious
titles. It's definitely not worth money. As much as I liked it, I'm
not sure it was even worth the time I invested into it.

Get "Magic Archer", sure. Play it, fine. But don't fool yourself into
thinking it's anything but the most basic of clicker games, and even
for free you may be overpaying.

* Pacific Drive
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1458140/Pacific_Drive/
"Pacific Drive" got a brief moment of fame on its release, hailed as
one of the best survival games -and perhaps one of the best games- of
the year. But, let's face it; it's not that. It's a good game, sure,
but in the end it's still a fairly unexciting example of the genre
that quickly faded from public consciousness and is unlikely to leave
any lasting mark on the industry.

There's a lot to like about the game, though. It's stylized graphics
--it reminded me a lot of the almost cartoony wilderness in
"Firewatch-- do a really good job of presenting the eerie world in
which we find our self. There's just the perfect blend of the alien
and the familiar, and there's just a terrific atmosphere to the whole
game. The music is surprisingly good (although I gravitated more
towards the techno soundtracks while driving), as is the voice-acting.
The driving is surprisingly fun. Imagine the bouncy planetary
exploration of the first "Mass Effect" game... except done well. You
feel every rock and tree you hit, but there's far less loss of
control. Whether zipping down the broken roads of Washington state or
through its heavily-wooded forests, the driving is amazingly
satisfying.

I liked a lot of the world design too. An isolated bit of wilderness
now haunted by unexplainable 'anomalies' caused by Science Gone Wrong,
"Pacific Drive" wears its heart on its sleeve when it comes to its
influences, and it obviously took a lot from "STALKER" in the creation
of its 'Olympia Exclusion Zone'. But where "STALKER's" Zone feels
actively malicious against the player, the oddities in "Pacific Drive"
feel less concerned with ruining your day. They're still incredibly
lethal: you'll face off against weirdness ranging from radiation
storms, exploding mannequins, giant balls of acid falling from the sky
to gremlin dust-bunnies that glitch your car. There's just such a
variety of foes you'll face off against, many of which do more than
just cause hit points to deplete by a few points. Many you can't even
fight (anyway, you go through this journey completely unarmed), and
you must either avoid or endure their unwanted advances. They feel
less like foes than other-natural forces that just happen to have been
transported to Earth. It all works strangely well.

On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:40:39 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
>(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
>(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
>figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
>worth the effort or should I not bother?

I don't really need links. I am perfectly capable of finding any game
that I am interested in. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
Although... Ant likes links. You are probably making him happy at
least.

On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:50:33 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:
>On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:40:39 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>>Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
>>(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
>>(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
>>figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
>>worth the effort or should I not bother?

>I don't really need links. I am perfectly capable of finding any game
>that I am interested in. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
>Although... Ant likes links. You are probably making him happy at
>least.

Always keep the ants happy. I for one welcome our new insect overlords
and I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in rounding up
others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

More seriously...

It's just that when I do my monthly round-up, I don't really review
/the games/ so much as my experience with them. I rarely go into much
detail about the game itself, so if people aren't actually familiar
with what the game is, a lot of what I say probably just goes right by
them. I was figuring that maybe if they had a quick link to somewhere
with pictures of videos, my comments might make more sense.

(and after all, it's easier to provide a link than review a game
properly)

Of course, that assumes anyone actually /reads/ my diatribes anyway.
But please don't destroy that illusion. It's all I got! ;-)

>What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2024?

ENSLAVED: Odyssey to the West Premium Edition
https://store.steampowered.com/app/245280/ENSLAVED_Odyssey_to_the_West_Premium_Edition/

It is $3 right now on steam; If you don't have this title just buy it right
now. The combat & platforming are straightforward and linear (this is a
Point A to Point B classic Quest after all), which is totally fine with me,
and I played on Easy difficulty anyway. The affecting story and excellent
voice acting by Lindsey Shaw, Gollum and Daddy Pig are a cut above, and make
Enslaved truly worth playing, and you get involved with these characters
much more than the average title. The 10+ year old graphics look great to
my eyes -- 1080p is the maximum resolution, and looked fine on my 1440p
monitor which auto-adjusts -- textures reasonably detailed and colorful, and
a standard xbox controller worked well. This is not a deep, complex game,
and it doesn't need to be. It tells a great story in just the right amount
of time: Big thumbs up!

If you want more of this, don't forget the Pigsy's Perfect 10 dlc that's
included
https://store.steampowered.com/app/245280/ENSLAVED_Odyssey_to_the_West_Premium_Edition/
(I decided to skip playing this but watched a cutscene compilation instead)
and if you want even more, I also just finished and can recommend reading
the abridged Journey to the West novel the game is based on:
https://www.amazon.com/Journey-West-translation-originally-published-ebook/dp/B0DG7V8NJR
as well as the Stephen Chow movie
https://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=42612606#item_42612606
and of course there is the recent Black Myth Wukong game!

rms

Duo Lingo, Impulse, Voro, etc. in my iPhone. Pulsar: Lost Colony and
Star Wars; The Old Republic in PC's Windows. I played a few free Steam
weekend and new iPhone's iOS games, but they (don't remember their
titles) were meh. I hope to play more for the new month. I did play more
this morning in my iPhone. :P

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Oh! What with all the holiday excitement and usual CSPIGA comments, I
> almost forgot that we have THIS thread to do too! We can't start a new
> month without talking about what we played LAST month... can we? I'd
> rather not take that chance. So here we go again: let's talk games!

> Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
> (or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
> (honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
> figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
> worth the effort or should I not bother?

> I've been surprisingly busy with games this month so my list is a bit
> fuller than usual (read: this next bit is gonna be _long_)

> A List
> ---------------------------------------
> * MechWarrior 5: Clans
> * Magic Archer
> * Pacific Drive
> * Their Land
> * CloudPunk
> * Front Mission 1st: Remake
> * Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)
> * Teardown

> A Novel
> ---------------------------------------

> * MechWarrior 5: Clans
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2000890/MechWarrior_5_Clans/
> I'm terribly disappointed with this game.

> It should have been a slam-dunk. One of my biggest issues with its
> predecessor (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries) was the uninteresting level
> design; everything was procedurally generated, and the various
> missions very quickly became repetitious. "Clans" promised a full
> campaign with hand-crafted missions. How could it all have gone so
> wrong?

> Visually, the game is fine; it uses an upgraded version of the
> "Mercenaries" engine, and there is a general improvement to the
> animations of the mechs. The first couple of levels look terrific too,
> with a lot of lush vegetation, custom architecture and lots of
> superfluous detail that make the world look real. The cockpits are
> improved, with greater variation between different mechs and all
> looking more three-dimensional. It all makes for an excellent first
> impression.

> But the further into the game you get, the worse it seems. Later maps
> are far less detailed and interesting to look at. Some are downright
> ugly; most feel quite generic. Worse, the level design is -with only a
> handful of exceptions- extremely tedious. Most maps are just long
> winding canyons, with no real open spaces or options to step off the
> beaten path. In pretty much every mission you are led by the nose from
> waypoint to waypoint, often not allowed to even progress to the next
> arena until you fight off waves of enemy mechs.

> The combat is, arguably, a slight improvement over "Mercenaries", but
> it still is not very good. The AI is just terrible; it rushes straight
> towards you, rarely making use of cover or even relying on its
> long-range weaponry. Too often, combat devolves into in-your-face
> brawls with multiple mechs picking away at one another from close
> range. The respawning is particularly bad too; you will be forced to
> mow down dozens of enemy robots per mission, with new enemies popping
> out of indestructible hangers or jumping down cliffs that would leave
> your mech smashed if you tried a similar feat. There's just no
> strategy to the game, and ultimately your best tactic is to field the
> heaviest mechs you can so you can endure the onslaught, making any
> lighter robots in your arsenal practically useless.

> Don't even get me started on the boss-enemies! Bosses... in a
> MechWarrior game! They're incredible bullet sponges that don't abide
> by the same rules the players have to follow, and feel completely out
> of place.

> There's little else praiseworthy about the game either. The cutscenes
> are fine... except for the weird facial animations (what is with the
> fat-lipped mouth movements?). The voice-acting is awful. The story is
> dull. The characters are all unlikable. The music is completely
> uninteresting. There are some areas where the visuals completely fall
> apart (such as the missile impact textures, which are laughably bad).
> And once you finish the game, that's it; sure, you can replay the
> missions but there's no option for procedural missions to keep the
> action fresh.

> That's not to say I disliked everything. The battles did have a bigger
> feel to them; you often are fighting alongside multiple other lances
> and the narrative gives the impression that your unit is just a small
> part of a much larger war. That's sort of neat. The improved MechLab
> -where you can customize your robot's loadout- has been improved, and
> I liked the ability to research new upgrades (even if it feels
> completely out of place for a BattleTech game). But these are all tiny
> improvements on a game that otherwise feels a massive step backwards.

> I really wanted to like this game. I broke my rule about not buying
> games immediately on release because I was so excited about playing
> another MechWarrior game. But in almost every respect, I was
> disappointed by the experience. "MechWarrior 5: Clans" probably ranks
> below all the other games in the franchise. It takes all the worst
> parts of "MW5: Mercenary", does almost nothing to improve them, and
> adds on a host of new flaws. It is not a good game.

> * Magic Archer
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2905170/Magic_Archery/
> "Magic Archer" was hyped up as that free game 'so good people are
> insisting they should be allowed to pay for it.' And even though there
> are, indeed, people making this demand, the game is in no way
> deserving of it.

> Oh, it's enjoyable enough... for a free game. But it's extremely
> shallow, even for the 'clicker' games it resembles. Click a button to
> set up a target, your archer will shoot arrows at it. Once enough
> arrows hit it, it breaks apart and you earn experience. Select which
> stat that experience gets assigned to; get enough, and the stat will
> go up. As stats rise, you unlock various quests (automatically
> fulfilled) and upgrades which improve the rate at which you earn
> experience.

> It's barely a game. In fact, after about fifteen minutes of play, you
> can buy an upgrade to automatically reset the targets for you, meaning
> past that point the game essentially plays itself. There's no real
> strategy, no way to lose, and the only 'challenge' is how fast you can
> get to the end.

> And, look, I'm not objecting to this. The game's retro-aesthetics are
> nice, and the speed at which you constantly earn upgrades ensures a
> constant dopamine fix. You're getting a unceaseless stream of rewards,
> and our brains respond positively to this. There's an extremely low
> barrier to entry; if you can click a mouse, you've all the skill you
> need to win the game. Even the most luxuriously played game won't take
> you more than a couple of hours before you're done. It's welcoming.
> It's fun.

> But it's got no challenge, no depth, and no replayability. It's a
> modern day equivalent to those Flash games of the early 2000s;
> something that briefly occupies your time and then you move on to
> something better. It's a palette cleanser; a respite from more serious
> titles. It's definitely not worth money. As much as I liked it, I'm
> not sure it was even worth the time I invested into it.

> Get "Magic Archer", sure. Play it, fine. But don't fool yourself into
> thinking it's anything but the most basic of clicker games, and even
> for free you may be overpaying.

> * Pacific Drive
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/1458140/Pacific_Drive/
> "Pacific Drive" got a brief moment of fame on its release, hailed as
> one of the best survival games -and perhaps one of the best games- of
> the year. But, let's face it; it's not that. It's a good game, sure,
> but in the end it's still a fairly unexciting example of the genre
> that quickly faded from public consciousness and is unlikely to leave
> any lasting mark on the industry.

> There's a lot to like about the game, though. It's stylized graphics
> --it reminded me a lot of the almost cartoony wilderness in
> "Firewatch-- do a really good job of presenting the eerie world in
> which we find our self. There's just the perfect blend of the alien
> and the familiar, and there's just a terrific atmosphere to the whole
> game. The music is surprisingly good (although I gravitated more
> towards the techno soundtracks while driving), as is the voice-acting.
> The driving is surprisingly fun. Imagine the bouncy planetary
> exploration of the first "Mass Effect" game... except done well. You
> feel every rock and tree you hit, but there's far less loss of
> control. Whether zipping down the broken roads of Washington state or
> through its heavily-wooded forests, the driving is amazingly
> satisfying.

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:50:33 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
> wrote:
> >On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:40:39 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
> ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

> >>Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
> >>(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
> >>(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
> >>figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
> >>worth the effort or should I not bother?

> >I don't really need links. I am perfectly capable of finding any game
> >that I am interested in. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
> >Although... Ant likes links. You are probably making him happy at
> >least.

> Always keep the ants happy. I for one welcome our new insect overlords
> and I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in rounding up
> others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

/me whitelists Spalls.
--
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God ??? this is your spiritual act of worship." --Romans 12:1. Take this ant already!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 17:40 this Sunday (GMT):
>
> Oh! What with all the holiday excitement and usual CSPIGA comments, I
> almost forgot that we have THIS thread to do too! We can't start a new
> month without talking about what we played LAST month... can we? I'd
> rather not take that chance. So here we go again: let's talk games!
>
>
> Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
> (or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
> (honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
> figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
> worth the effort or should I not bother?
>
>
> I've been surprisingly busy with games this month so my list is a bit
> fuller than usual (read: this next bit is gonna be _long_)
>
>
> A List
> ---------------------------------------
> * MechWarrior 5: Clans
> * Magic Archer
> * Pacific Drive
> * Their Land
> * CloudPunk
> * Front Mission 1st: Remake
> * Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)
> * Teardown
>
>
>
> A Novel
> ---------------------------------------
>
> * MechWarrior 5: Clans
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2000890/MechWarrior_5_Clans/
> I'm terribly disappointed with this game.
>
> It should have been a slam-dunk. One of my biggest issues with its
> predecessor (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries) was the uninteresting level
> design; everything was procedurally generated, and the various
> missions very quickly became repetitious. "Clans" promised a full
> campaign with hand-crafted missions. How could it all have gone so
> wrong?
>
> Visually, the game is fine; it uses an upgraded version of the
> "Mercenaries" engine, and there is a general improvement to the
> animations of the mechs. The first couple of levels look terrific too,
> with a lot of lush vegetation, custom architecture and lots of
> superfluous detail that make the world look real. The cockpits are
> improved, with greater variation between different mechs and all
> looking more three-dimensional. It all makes for an excellent first
> impression.
>
> But the further into the game you get, the worse it seems. Later maps
> are far less detailed and interesting to look at. Some are downright
> ugly; most feel quite generic. Worse, the level design is -with only a
> handful of exceptions- extremely tedious. Most maps are just long
> winding canyons, with no real open spaces or options to step off the
> beaten path. In pretty much every mission you are led by the nose from
> waypoint to waypoint, often not allowed to even progress to the next
> arena until you fight off waves of enemy mechs.
>
> The combat is, arguably, a slight improvement over "Mercenaries", but
> it still is not very good. The AI is just terrible; it rushes straight
> towards you, rarely making use of cover or even relying on its
> long-range weaponry. Too often, combat devolves into in-your-face
> brawls with multiple mechs picking away at one another from close
> range. The respawning is particularly bad too; you will be forced to
> mow down dozens of enemy robots per mission, with new enemies popping
> out of indestructible hangers or jumping down cliffs that would leave
> your mech smashed if you tried a similar feat. There's just no
> strategy to the game, and ultimately your best tactic is to field the
> heaviest mechs you can so you can endure the onslaught, making any
> lighter robots in your arsenal practically useless.
>
> Don't even get me started on the boss-enemies! Bosses... in a
> MechWarrior game! They're incredible bullet sponges that don't abide
> by the same rules the players have to follow, and feel completely out
> of place.
>
> There's little else praiseworthy about the game either. The cutscenes
> are fine... except for the weird facial animations (what is with the
> fat-lipped mouth movements?). The voice-acting is awful. The story is
> dull. The characters are all unlikable. The music is completely
> uninteresting. There are some areas where the visuals completely fall
> apart (such as the missile impact textures, which are laughably bad).
> And once you finish the game, that's it; sure, you can replay the
> missions but there's no option for procedural missions to keep the
> action fresh.
>
> That's not to say I disliked everything. The battles did have a bigger
> feel to them; you often are fighting alongside multiple other lances
> and the narrative gives the impression that your unit is just a small
> part of a much larger war. That's sort of neat. The improved MechLab
> -where you can customize your robot's loadout- has been improved, and
> I liked the ability to research new upgrades (even if it feels
> completely out of place for a BattleTech game). But these are all tiny
> improvements on a game that otherwise feels a massive step backwards.
>
> I really wanted to like this game. I broke my rule about not buying
> games immediately on release because I was so excited about playing
> another MechWarrior game. But in almost every respect, I was
> disappointed by the experience. "MechWarrior 5: Clans" probably ranks
> below all the other games in the franchise. It takes all the worst
> parts of "MW5: Mercenary", does almost nothing to improve them, and
> adds on a host of new flaws. It is not a good game.
>
>
>
> * Magic Archer
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2905170/Magic_Archery/
> "Magic Archer" was hyped up as that free game 'so good people are
> insisting they should be allowed to pay for it.' And even though there
> are, indeed, people making this demand, the game is in no way
> deserving of it.
>
> Oh, it's enjoyable enough... for a free game. But it's extremely
> shallow, even for the 'clicker' games it resembles. Click a button to
> set up a target, your archer will shoot arrows at it. Once enough
> arrows hit it, it breaks apart and you earn experience. Select which
> stat that experience gets assigned to; get enough, and the stat will
> go up. As stats rise, you unlock various quests (automatically
> fulfilled) and upgrades which improve the rate at which you earn
> experience.
>
> It's barely a game. In fact, after about fifteen minutes of play, you
> can buy an upgrade to automatically reset the targets for you, meaning
> past that point the game essentially plays itself. There's no real
> strategy, no way to lose, and the only 'challenge' is how fast you can
> get to the end.
>
> And, look, I'm not objecting to this. The game's retro-aesthetics are
> nice, and the speed at which you constantly earn upgrades ensures a
> constant dopamine fix. You're getting a unceaseless stream of rewards,
> and our brains respond positively to this. There's an extremely low
> barrier to entry; if you can click a mouse, you've all the skill you
> need to win the game. Even the most luxuriously played game won't take
> you more than a couple of hours before you're done. It's welcoming.
> It's fun.
>
> But it's got no challenge, no depth, and no replayability. It's a
> modern day equivalent to those Flash games of the early 2000s;
> something that briefly occupies your time and then you move on to
> something better. It's a palette cleanser; a respite from more serious
> titles. It's definitely not worth money. As much as I liked it, I'm
> not sure it was even worth the time I invested into it.
>
> Get "Magic Archer", sure. Play it, fine. But don't fool yourself into
> thinking it's anything but the most basic of clicker games, and even
> for free you may be overpaying.
>
>
>
> * Pacific Drive
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/1458140/Pacific_Drive/
> "Pacific Drive" got a brief moment of fame on its release, hailed as
> one of the best survival games -and perhaps one of the best games- of
> the year. But, let's face it; it's not that. It's a good game, sure,
> but in the end it's still a fairly unexciting example of the genre
> that quickly faded from public consciousness and is unlikely to leave
> any lasting mark on the industry.
>
> There's a lot to like about the game, though. It's stylized graphics
> --it reminded me a lot of the almost cartoony wilderness in
> "Firewatch-- do a really good job of presenting the eerie world in
> which we find our self. There's just the perfect blend of the alien
> and the familiar, and there's just a terrific atmosphere to the whole
> game. The music is surprisingly good (although I gravitated more
> towards the techno soundtracks while driving), as is the voice-acting.
> The driving is surprisingly fun. Imagine the bouncy planetary
> exploration of the first "Mass Effect" game... except done well. You
> feel every rock and tree you hit, but there's far less loss of
> control. Whether zipping down the broken roads of Washington state or
> through its heavily-wooded forests, the driving is amazingly
> satisfying.
>
> I liked a lot of the world design too. An isolated bit of wilderness
> now haunted by unexplainable 'anomalies' caused by Science Gone Wrong,
> "Pacific Drive" wears its heart on its sleeve when it comes to its
> influences, and it obviously took a lot from "STALKER" in the creation
> of its 'Olympia Exclusion Zone'. But where "STALKER's" Zone feels
> actively malicious against the player, the oddities in "Pacific Drive"
> feel less concerned with ruining your day. They're still incredibly
> lethal: you'll face off against weirdness ranging from radiation
> storms, exploding mannequins, giant balls of acid falling from the sky
> to gremlin dust-bunnies that glitch your car. There's just such a
> variety of foes you'll face off against, many of which do more than
> just cause hit points to deplete by a few points. Many you can't even
> fight (anyway, you go through this journey completely unarmed), and
> you must either avoid or endure their unwanted advances. They feel
> less like foes than other-natural forces that just happen to have been
> transported to Earth. It all works strangely well.
>
> So "Pacific Drive" has a lot to offer. Where it falls short, though,
> is its main gameplay loop. The game is a story-based survival
> experience; entering the world with nothing but the clothes on your
> back, you must scrounge for supplies and build up your inventory of
> tools (largely upgrades to your car) in order to complete a series of
> missions and escape back to the real. All well and good, except the
> game is exceptionally grindy and there just isn't enough variety to
> keep up interest for as long as this game takes.
>
> Even the simplest of missions (either the harder story-based ones or
> just resource gathering) can take a considerable toll on your car,
> requiring you to go out to find even more resources to repair your
> vehicle. You can't stay too long out in the field either; the longer
> you're away from base, the higher the chance a radiation storm will
> hit, so you're limited to how many resources you can collect on each
> run. The upgrades aren't any of them that exciting, and the number you
> can affix to your car at any one time is extremely limited.
>
> Worse, as interesting as the world is in concept, it all looks very
> much the same: endless roads winding through forest and dale. You do
> get to some new climes --a radiation-wracked hellscape-- about three
> quarters of the way through the game which looks significantly
> different, but by then it's too little, too late (it's also too
> hostile a region to linger and take in the sights). Most of the game
> will be traveling the same roads over and over again, scouring the
> (randomly placed) buildings for resources to repair your (too easily
> filled) vehicle and slowly --ever so slowly!-- manufacture necessary
> upgrades.
>
> It's not that I ever found the game that difficult; the nature of the
> Exclusion Zone is that the harm it inflicts on you is largely
> reactive; you're only ever at risk if you stay out too long. But
> resource gathering is so slow, that inevitably you're going to push
> for longer runs just to finally see some progress. But the upgrades
> don't really help much and you never really feel secure on your
> drives; even by the end of the game, I felt almost as much at risk as
> I did at the start. There's no sense of satisfaction at having
> invested so much time and effort to upgrade your vehicle.
>
> Still, kudos to the development team for offering one of the most
> nuanced and customizable difficulty setting I have ever seen in any
> game. You can strengthen, nerf or even ban from the game outright
> almost every opponent/event in the game. Don't like those radiation
> storms? Turn them off. Think the acid should do much more damage to
> your car? Crank it to max. Want every chest to be filled to the brim
> with resources? That's an option.
>
> But I played on the default settings because... well, that's the way
> the game was intended to play. And I just don't think the intended
> game-play loop is much fun. You're quickly stripped of that sense of
> wonder and awe from exploring the strange world by sheer repetition,
> and left with a too-slow grind that offers little reward. "Pacific
> Drive" is a game with a lot of good ideas, but sadly is less than the
> sum of its parts; it ends up being a very average-feeling survival
> game that should have been a lot better than it was.
>
>
>
> * Their Land
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2430990/Their_Land/
> I really hate dumping on this game. It's a student project, and it's
> free, so it deserves some leeway when it comes to judging it against
> its peers. But "Their Land" is just not a very good game.
>
> Visually, it looks extremely dated; it looks only a little better than
> a game from 2005, and that is largely because it's using a modern game
> engine and things like lighting are free. The worst is the character
> animations, which are obviously key-framed and lack any sort of
> fluidity or realism. The models themselves are extremely chunky too.
> But I can forgive that; obviously resources were tight and
> motion-capture isn't always an option. Less pardonable is the
> lighting; while it is technically impressive, in a cinematic sort of
> way, it's too often washed out in brightness or overly dark in actual
> gameplay. Appearance took precedence over practicality, and not being
> able to make out what's going on because the developer had so fixated
> on their vision is unpardonable.
>
> I'll give the writing a pass too. Not only are these students, they're
> obviously don't speak English natively. Sure, the story is terribly
> told and lacks in originality, but it's just enough to keep the
> adventure moving, so we'll let it slide. The voice-acting is pretty
> bad too but, again: student project. They aren't going to be able to
> afford Troy Baker. Maybe they could have afforded a better microphone,
> though. Or run some of the subtitles through a spell-checker.
>
> The gameplay is not very good. "Their Land" very obviously takes its
> cue from "Peter Jackson Presents King Kong", which diagetically plops
> you into a lost island environment and has you fight off bugs and
> monsters and savages, oh my. There's only a very minimal interface
> consisting of two quite unnecessary icons indicating your current
> weapon and stance... which are completely obvious in-game. Player
> movement is incredibly slow, and the controls needlessly clunky. The
> game consists of combat that isn't very much fun, and puzzles where
> the answer is always solved by running about until you find that one
> interactable object hidden in the clutter. It isn't fun.
>
> Still, I have to give the game some credit for its visual design (even
> if it does detract from the gameplay) and the look of its almost
> Cthullian monsters. It's a shame the AI is so braindead.
>
> As a student project, this is an excellent product. It reflects a lot
> of effort and a forthright desire to create something unique. A lot of
> "Their Land's" faults lie in a lack of experience and not having
> enough resources. I'd happily give them top scores for the project.
> But I'm not their professor and regarding this as a game -as something
> anybody would actually want to play- it is absolutely terrible in
> almost every regard. As much as I hate to say it, "Their Land" is not
> worth playing.
>
>
>
> * CloudPunk
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/746850/Cloudpunk/
> "Cloudpunk" reminds me a lot of Annapurna Interactive's 2022 game,
> "Stray". Not for the obvious reasons that both take place in a
> decaying futuristic city or deal with the humanity of artificial
> lifeforms, no. Rather, the main reason to play both games is that you
> enjoy their aesthetics. In the case of "Stray", it's because its
> protagonist is a adorably rendered cat whose movements are sure to
> melt the heart of any cat-lover. With "Cloudpunk", it's the gorgeous
> cyberpunkian cityscapes.
>
> The game is beautiful, and this is despite (or maybe even perhaps)
> that everything you see is made up of some very chunky voxels. But
> there is such detail in almost every scene, and such terrific lighting
> that you can't help but want to soar through its flying highways and
> take in more of the view. It's "Attack of the Clone's" Coruscant, or
> "Bladerunner's" Los Angeles, or "Fifth Element's" New York... except
> in your face and yours to explore as much as you want. And there's so
> much of it, with neighborhoods ranging from the dark abandoned Ventz
> (the undercity), to a futuristic China Town, to the Spire (the only
> part of the city with a view of the sky). You play "Cloudpunk" so you
> can gawk at the city like some podunk tourist off the farm for the
> first time.
>
> You certainly aren't playing the game for its gameplay. There's really
> not much too it, unfortunately. "Cloudpunk" could easily be subtitled,
> 'Fetch Quest: The Game', because that's pretty much all that you do.
> Go to location X, pick up box, take to location Y, drop off box.
> Sometimes the box talks, or it's a bomb, or -on occasion- is a
> passenger; this all adds variety and spice to the world. But the
> gameplay itself is all very samey. Except for two brief instances,
> your skill in driving is not a factor; there's no time-limit on any of
> the missions (you do pay for fuel though, so meandering about too much
> will cost you, but it's not a steep price).
>
> There are a variety of NPCs to talk to -some of them even trigger
> their own fetch quests- and several characters have you go on extended
> missions to locate various items. But beyond that, there's sadly very
> little to actually do in Cloudpunk's world. Which is a shame, because
> I could easily see myself getting lost living a virtual life in its
> environs. But no, it's just drive here and deliver that. Sadly, even
> the driving is a bit of a mixed bag; while I love soaring the
> skylanes, mechanically the actual driving is a bit clunky and
> inaccurate; your hover-car lacks the precise cornering that would make
> the experience really enjoyable.
>
> The story and characters are endearing, if somewhat trite: naïve farm
> girl comes to Big City and has all the usual sorts of Big City
> adventures. Still, even if there's not much originality, the
> characters are well voiced and the tale is entertaining. Mostly
> though, I like how it fills out the world's setting. But it's still
> pretty forgettable by its end.
>
> No, the real reason to play "Cloudpunk" is its visuals. I quite
> enjoyed my time with it --enough so that I'm even considering buying
> the DLC expansion-- but overall it's a fairly shallow experience. If
> you watch the game's trailer and aren't entranced by its cityscapes,
> there's little else in this game that will appeal to you; it's just
> too limited. But if you look at it screenshots and think, "I'd like to
> see more of that" then it's worth giving the game a shot. Even if the
> gameplay isn't all I hoped it could be, and even if the story isn't
> saying anything new, it's still fairly well done and I had fun with
> it.
>
>
>
>
> * Front Mission 1st: Remake
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399730/FRONT_MISSION_1st_Remake/
> I don't have much to say about this game, simply because I didn't
> stick with it for very long. I vaguely remember having more fun with
> this game back when I first encountered it on the SNES; it was an
> interesting combination of anime styled-combat, giant robots, and
> strategy. I suppose it still is, but it's also a game with an
> incredibly trite story and tediously slow battles where the vast bulk
> of each mission is simply moving your robots into position where they
> are close enough to actually use their weapons.
>
> The weird ziggurat-like map design --forgivable in the 8-bit days when
> memory was short and pixels were large-- don't translate well to
> modern visuals. I've little desire to get into the nitty gritty of
> fiddling with each mech (sorry, 'wanzer') to min/max the perfect build
> either. All in all, the entire experience felt extremely old-school,
> where games demand you spend months getting through them. I just don't
> have interest in that sort of experience anymore.
>
> The most dedicated fans of the original will probably love that this
> game's mechanics haven't been changed since 1995; me, I'd prefer
> something a bit more fast-paced and modern.
>
>
>
> * Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)
> https://www.mobygames.com/game/12011/baldurs-gate-dark-alliance-ii/
> In honor of the latest stable release of PCSX2 (a Playstation 2
> emulator), I fired up "Dark Alliance 2", a game I haven't played...
> well, in such a long time I've actually forgotten what its about. A
> fact which probably says a lot about the game itself.
>
> It's not that "Dark Alliance 2" is a bad game, but it is a fairly
> shallow one. An action/RPG, is lacks even the minimal complexity of
> "Diablo"; it's all hack-and-slash, with only a minimum of role-playing
> elements. The basic strategy of buying the most powerful weapon you
> can and clicking as fast as you can is as much strategy as you need to
> get through the game (at least on the default difficulty). The game's
> levels are incredibly straight-forward, and the AI is easy to cheese.
>
> Still, for all its simplicity, it's nonetheless an entertaining
> power-fantasy, even if it didn't challenge me in any way, neither with
> its gameplay or story. It offered a fairly steady drip of new weapons
> and skills, and a surprising variety in enemies, including everything
> from goblins to troglodytes to drider to dragons. The levels were less
> exciting --small and blocky, they rarely stood out from one another
> (despite some significant cosmetic differences) -- but you never
> stayed in any one area long enough for it to become bothersome.
>
> In fact, the most annoying part of "Dark Alliance 2" wasn't the fault
> of the game itself, but of the underlying architecture; saving on the
> PS2 was such a burdensome chore; slow and clunky, I eventually stopped
> bothering entirely and instead relied on the emulator's save-state
> functionality. It's amazing PS2 users didn't throw their consoles out
> the window from it being so frustratingly slow.
>
> But otherwise it was an enjoyable --if admittedly mindless--
> adventure; not one I'm in a rush to play again (at least, not for
> another decade) but neither anything I regret spending time with.
>
>
>
> * Teardown
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/1167630/Teardown/
> "Teardown" is a tech demo. It's a gimmick. It's neat, but it's not a
> game. Or rather, it's not a good game.
>
> It's gimmick is its fully-destructible voxel-built world. Well, not
> fully-destructible, sadly. You can't smash up the bedrock, so there
> are limits to how much of the world you can blow up. But if it's a car
> or a building or pretty much any object on the map, you can smash it
> into tiny cubes. It's neat.
>
> But it's so limited. The physics engine is incredibly basic, and that
> limits how much fun the destruction is. Blow down all the supports of
> a building except for one tiny pillar of glass and that building will
> stand indomitable right to the end. It's only once you knock out each
> and every one of the supports that it falls... rather lamely. There's
> no crumbling of the upper structures, no sense of collapse. It just
> drops a bit. The work needed to blow things up right and proper never
> matches the results. It's disappointing, especially since we've seen
> it done a lot better in other games.
>
> Worse, the actual game (it comes with a campaign) seems to
> misunderstand why this game might be fun. You're tasked with various
> criminal enterprises and given a variety of tools to do so:
> sledgehammers, blowtorches, dynamite, the works. But the missions
> you're sent out on never take full advantage of that capability,
> thanks to all your targets being hooked up to alarms which, if
> triggered, end the mission in 60 seconds. That trigger varies -it
> could be stealing an object, or getting it wet, or on fire- but once
> that alarm starts blaring, you're on the clock. This wouldn't be so
> bad if you only had the one target, but almost all missions have
> multiple goals. The idea is, I think, to plan your route ahead of
> time, but it also incentives you to limit your destruction lest you
> accidentally start the timer. Some missions forgo the destruction
> entirely (one has you trying to beat a lap record in a automobile
> race). The campaign is absolutely the worst thing about "Teardown".
>
> There are mods, of course, which take a crack at improving the
> experience, but the majority of these just enhance the idea that the
> whole game is just a gimmick; "Here's a more powerful gun to make
> destruction easier!" or "Here's an intricately detailed level for you
> to rampage through!" None of them really give you any reason to do so
> beyond the, "hey, that's neat" experience... and that wears pretty
> thin after the third or fourth one.
>
> The game's tech is fun, undoubtedly, but I wish it could have been
> more robust and I wish there was actual reason to use it. As it is,
> the whole experience became a lot more tiresome than it should be, a
> lot faster than it should have. It's a neat tech-demo, but not
> something worth paying for.
>
>
>
> ----------------
>
> Well, that took forever. I *did* warn you.
>
> Anyway, that's me for November. How about you? Did you have an excess
> of spare time for video games, or was life putting up its usual
> hassles? Either way, you gotta tell us:
>
> What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2024?

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 18:24 this Sunday (GMT):
> Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:50:33 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
>> wrote:
>> >On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:40:39 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
>> ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> >>Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
>> >>(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
>> >>(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
>> >>figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
>> >>worth the effort or should I not bother?
>
>> >I don't really need links. I am perfectly capable of finding any game
>> >that I am interested in. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
>> >Although... Ant likes links. You are probably making him happy at
>> >least.
>
>> Always keep the ants happy. I for one welcome our new insect overlords
>> and I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in rounding up
>> others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
>
> /me whitelists Spalls.

Oh no, what are you planning
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
> Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 18:24 this Sunday (GMT):
> > Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:50:33 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:40:39 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
> >> ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> >>Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
> >> >>(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
> >> >>(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
> >> >>figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
> >> >>worth the effort or should I not bother?
> >
> >> >I don't really need links. I am perfectly capable of finding any game
> >> >that I am interested in. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
> >> >Although... Ant likes links. You are probably making him happy at
> >> >least.
> >
> >> Always keep the ants happy. I for one welcome our new insect overlords
> >> and I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in rounding up
> >> others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
> >
> > /me whitelists Spalls.

> Oh no, what are you planning

You'll see
--
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God ??? this is your spiritual act of worship." --Romans 12:1. Take this ant already!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 11:20:23 -0700, "rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net>
wrote:

>>What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2024?
>
> ENSLAVED: Odyssey to the West Premium Edition
>https://store.steampowered.com/app/245280/ENSLAVED_Odyssey_to_the_West_Premium_Edition/

I have fond memories of Enslaved:OTTW; my opinion of it largely
mirrors yours (not deep, but fun). I've considered going back and
giving it a replay, but I wondered how well it'd hold up *even at
launch, in 2010, it was a bit dated). But you've given me
encouragement that it still is worth playing. So I've upped its
priority and I guess I'll get to it sooner rather than later ;-)

("Black Myth: Wukong" also looks interesting... but not so much I want
to pay full price for it;-)

On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 21:00:11 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

>Well, not a whole lot new? I re-bought Hypnospace Outlaw and beat it in
>5 hours again, still a FANTASTIC game but I don't have the patience to
>go for 100% HAP completion. I also started playing the first Ace
>Investigations game and Pokemon Black. I'm trying to see if theres
>anything else I want to buy before the sales end though.

Be a good consumer and buy. It's not what you want that matters, but
how much of it you own ;-)

I had to look up which game "Hypnospace Outlaw" was. I remembered
playing it but initially couldn't recall anything else thing about it.
It was the one that had a fake Internet that you had to surf. I was
impressed by the depth of the simulation, but less so with the
gameplay. Maybe it's because I don't have much nostalgia for the old
web; probably because I wasn't a kid when it was new so it didn't have
the same impact on me (that, and the 90s web was a movement away from
the advertising free, academic internet I was familiar with; it was
loud and brash and filled with a lot more nonsense; a step down in
many ways, as far as I was concerned ;-)

>("Black Myth: Wukong" also looks interesting... but not so much I want
>to pay full price for it;-)

I've watched streams of Wukong. Pretty, but the gameplay is repetitive
to an extreme, and other aspects are mediocre. Not one for me.

rms

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 21:15 this Sunday (GMT):
> candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
>> Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 18:24 this Sunday (GMT):
>> > Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:50:33 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:40:39 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
>> >> ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >> >>Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
>> >> >>(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
>> >> >>(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
>> >> >>figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
>> >> >>worth the effort or should I not bother?
>> >
>> >> >I don't really need links. I am perfectly capable of finding any game
>> >> >that I am interested in. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
>> >> >Although... Ant likes links. You are probably making him happy at
>> >> >least.
>> >
>> >> Always keep the ants happy. I for one welcome our new insect overlords
>> >> and I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in rounding up
>> >> others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
>> >
>> > /me whitelists Spalls.
>
>> Oh no, what are you planning
>
> You'll see

scawy :(
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 16:04 this Monday (GMT):
> On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 21:00:11 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
><candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
>
>
>>Well, not a whole lot new? I re-bought Hypnospace Outlaw and beat it in
>>5 hours again, still a FANTASTIC game but I don't have the patience to
>>go for 100% HAP completion. I also started playing the first Ace
>>Investigations game and Pokemon Black. I'm trying to see if theres
>>anything else I want to buy before the sales end though.
>
>
> Be a good consumer and buy. It's not what you want that matters, but
> how much of it you own ;-)

number go up?

> I had to look up which game "Hypnospace Outlaw" was. I remembered
> playing it but initially couldn't recall anything else thing about it.
> It was the one that had a fake Internet that you had to surf. I was
> impressed by the depth of the simulation, but less so with the
> gameplay. Maybe it's because I don't have much nostalgia for the old
> web; probably because I wasn't a kid when it was new so it didn't have
> the same impact on me (that, and the 90s web was a movement away from
> the advertising free, academic internet I was familiar with; it was
> loud and brash and filled with a lot more nonsense; a step down in
> many ways, as far as I was concerned ;-)

I thought it was a really really well put together and charming game
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

On 12/1/2024 9:40 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> * Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)

> * Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)
> https://www.mobygames.com/game/12011/baldurs-gate-dark-alliance-ii/
> In honor of the latest stable release of PCSX2 (a Playstation 2
> emulator), I fired up "Dark Alliance 2", a game I haven't played...
> well, in such a long time I've actually forgotten what its about. A
> fact which probably says a lot about the game itself.

It was good for the time, but that's 3 generations of PS's ago. Bard's
Tale was similar, but at least had some mild humor in it, a bit more
interesting. .hack was pretty interesting for a weird japanese rpg. The
best game I remember on the PS2 was GTA III VC, but you can play that on
the PC without the emulation. The Ratchet and Clank games were pretty
good, but got pretty samey after the first.

> In fact, the most annoying part of "Dark Alliance 2" wasn't the fault
> of the game itself, but of the underlying architecture; saving on the
> PS2 was such a burdensome chore; slow and clunky, I eventually stopped
> bothering entirely and instead relied on the emulator's save-state
> functionality. It's amazing PS2 users didn't throw their consoles out
> the window from it being so frustratingly slow.

Ugh. I don't remember that specifically. I do remember Crash Bandicoot
(might have been on the nintendo though?) where the load times took
longer than the play time.

Loading

Loading

L

O

A

D

I

N

G

Loading

Loading

repeat that several times. My wife and I say that when we're waiting
for things to this day.

> Anyway, that's me for November. How about you? Did you have an excess
> of spare time for video games, or was life putting up its usual
> hassles? Either way, you gotta tell us:
>
> What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2024?

My gaming time has been pretty low.

**** Mass Effect Andromeda
My NG+ play I ended about halfway through as I realized all the dialog
options only a few actually have any effect, and it's much more minor
that I thought it would be. The multiplayer is too dead, and it's just
going to be way too grindy to get anywhere solo in that mode, especially
since like Crash Bandicoot the loading in and out is taking longer than
the time I can survive.

** Fallout New Vegas
With the freebie from Epic with the DLCs I started playing, but I still
wasn't into it. I did play through Honest Hearts which I thought was
fairly good, and the supposed best one Old World Blues. For some reason
I wasn't that into it. It should've been something I loved with all the
weird Think Tank stuff, but I didn't. It mostly felt like a chore. I
ended up killing them all for having lobotomized me. Part of my issue
is I went with a low Int character, but I don't think I saw a single low
int dialog up to that point, except when I was getting implants and the
Dr gave me a discount on the Int one because I really needed it in her
words. Also even with the 'wild wasteland' perk nothing was
particularly out there like it was in 3, or even 76. Everything felt
very contained, so I didn't really have the fun of wandering around
finding new things like I did on 3. I quit after OWB because of
disinterest.

I think it will be awhile before I get back to Fallout 4 and try out
London.

*** EDF 6
My daughter asked to play it again with me, but the missions are just
getting too repetitive. I think they really dropped the ball on this,
some of the missions are repeated with slight variations or new monsters
as many as 5 times so far. We're close to the end though, maybe 10 more
missions out of 136 I think. I keep getting myself killed far more than
she does, probably because I'm too aggressive instead of cautious.

**** Dark Souls 3
I had a sudden itch to play DS3 again. Been having some fun helping
people with my newbie helper build locked at level 12 and +1 weapons,
fighting invaders and mobs. It's good to see people are still playing
at least in the early areas so far. I want to play a new pyromancer
again even though that's the one I 100% the game with. I don't really
savor the idea of continuing where I left off with that one. I don't
look forward to the grindy bits either. I do have to admit I miss some
of the stuff from Elden Ring, like the ring that gives you health on crits.

I'm somewhat thinking I want to give DS2 a crack again, maybe with mods
if there are any good ones. But I promised myself never again, at least
until a remaster if there ever will be one, as DS1 remastered made it
feel much better.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>
> What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2024?
>

I swear, this gets harder every month. I don't know where october gaming
ends and November gaming begins anymore.

I think I may have been playing:

- The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
- Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney
- World of Warcraft Classic
- Link's Awakening (remake)
- Link's Awakening (original)

The long read:
//The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
It's officially the game I have put more hours into it since I have an
Steam account, something I'm not happy about it. There's a discussion,
"Isaac is a Roguelike". "No, Isaac is a Roguelite". "Both of you dildos
are wrong, only things that are like Rogue can be Roguelikes" (Dildo as
an insult provided by Metapocalypse). If we use "roguelike in the sense
of a game with high risk, high difficulty, never ever getting easy,
etc), Binding of isaac is a weird game. I perceived as a roguelike, but
then I began wondering if the game was a roguelite, given how with each
run it seemed to get progressively easier thanks to the unlocks.

Well, not roguelike nor roguelite. more like "The guy who does not want
you to use the term roguelike screaming 'karma, bitch!!!'". The game
balance makes it so that the more you play, the worse it gets, until the
game finally got too hard and I hit a massive wall, made worse by the
Repentance DLC that removed all the easy strategies (why it felt like
roguelite when it was Afterbirth+). I should have quit a long time ago
when the run counter got to -19, but I just could not. I literally had
to "cheat" the game to reduce the handicap: Ditching the Steam Deck,
using a minimal latency computer screen, a wired dual sense because the
button separation actually matters and I was using Snes separation
buttons (also the extra non slip rubber coating in the analogs), and
tooling the config files to make the game less zoomed out so that I
could play on a smaller part of the screen an focus better.

Well, I sorta did it. Got the negative, defeated Satan 5 times, and
gained access to the Dark Room where The Lamb was waiting for me. After
that, the next day I managed to kill the angels, get to the dark room
again and open the golden doors, encountering the true final boss of the
game: Mega Satan. This guy has damage scaling so that it always poses a
challenge and you can't kill him fast. The battle was so long and hard
that when i finally got over it, I finally was able to put down the
game. There's a lot more stuff after 10 years of expansions, but I feel
like this is skill ceiling. Feels good that the urges are finally satiated.

//World of Warcraft Classic
I don't know what I was expecting, but definitely not this. I have not
played WoW for more than 2 months in my whole life, and that was when
the game was in Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. Just clicking
on an enemy and waiting until it dies while pressing the number row
is... eh. Like if I wanted to do that, I'd rather play Diablo II and
III. Maybe it made sense playing as a hunter with a firearm, but as a
warrior, I expected to be able to circle around the enemy, parry, evade,
jump... It's like my brain wants more Dark Souls, Ocarina of Time or
Nier Automata combat. And obviously I'm playing solo, so not great

//Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney
Making things clear: I love Ace Attorney, I hate Layton. Only playing
this because I have run out of Ace Attorney games. Hate the puzzle
sections, suffer with them until I can get to the Ace Attorney trial
sections

//Zelda: Link's awakening remake
This monstrosity should not exist. they ruined a perfectly good game.

//Zelda: Link's awakening (original)
I was angry enough at the remake to quit and play the gameboy original
instead. So much better in every sense: Music, controls, framerate,
graphics... This time I played it in japanese, since it makes the game
much faster (less text to scroll) and I don't need to read the text to
play anymore. Too many years replaying it.

Crookz: The Big Heist
---------------------

I've spoken about this before but as a quick recap it's an isometric/3D
stealth game based around, yes you guessed it, heists. The slight twist
is that it has a 70's disco theme - yes that's what I said! Certainly
worth checking out if you like that kinda thing even if it's not a game
that anyone is likely to think is a classic. Only £2.39p on Steam.

XCOM:2
------

I did get one game in the Steam sale but this one has been on my list of
I should probably play sometime and at £1.74, well why not now. I
haven't played more than a couple of missions but so far seems like good
solid XCOM fun and it's seriously can one of you at least hit the
target*. Hopefully the whole base building part won't be as distracting
as I found it in XCOM:1 although I do realise it wouldn't be a XCOM game
without it but then you have Laser Squad.

*I know that's been a complaints about the first game (including it's
rigged which turned out to be true but in the player's favour) but
honestly I don't really understand why people have such a problem with
it. RNG has been a staple diet of these type of games, and table-top
games, for, well forever. It's what helps create those highs and lows
and stops the game being predictable.

Call of Cthulhu RPG
--------------------

We only managed a couple of sessions last month but my two players are
slowly unravelling what's going on even though one seems to think almost
everyone is the ring-leader behind the big plot. It certainly didn't
help when we had the things not to do in CoC moment - shoot first and
ask questions later. That was one roll away from out first character death.

Fahrenheit 451
--------------

I finally got around to reading this as it's always on those lists of
must read sci-fi books. I very much enjoyed it with its mix of a
dystopian future (all books to be burned) and commentary on US politics
at the time. Well worth a read with a downside that I found some of the
writing a bit clunky compared to modern standards.

On Tue, 3 Dec 2024 08:54:28 +0100, H1M3M <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote:

>//World of Warcraft Classic
>I don't know what I was expecting, but definitely not this. I have not
>played WoW for more than 2 months in my whole life, and that was when
>the game was in Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. Just clicking
>on an enemy and waiting until it dies while pressing the number row
>is... eh. Like if I wanted to do that, I'd rather play Diablo II and
>III. Maybe it made sense playing as a hunter with a firearm, but as a
>warrior, I expected to be able to circle around the enemy, parry, evade,
>jump... It's like my brain wants more Dark Souls, Ocarina of Time or
>Nier Automata combat. And obviously I'm playing solo, so not great

World of Warcraft uses an older combat system called TAB Targeting
where you just hit your skills over and over until the mob dies. It
sounds like you would prefer MMOs with a newer kind of combat called
Action Combat where you must do some of the things you describe above.
Each kind of combat has its fans.

On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 14:17:37 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
>On 12/1/2024 9:40 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>> * Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2 (PS2)
>> https://www.mobygames.com/game/12011/baldurs-gate-dark-alliance-ii/
>> In fact, the most annoying part of "Dark Alliance 2" wasn't the fault
>> of the game itself, but of the underlying architecture; saving on the
>> PS2 was such a burdensome chore; slow and clunky, I eventually stopped
>> bothering entirely and instead relied on the emulator's save-state
>> functionality. It's amazing PS2 users didn't throw their consoles out
>> the window from it being so frustratingly slow.
>
>Ugh. I don't remember that specifically. I do remember Crash Bandicoot
>(might have been on the nintendo though?) where the load times took
>longer than the play time.

It wasn't so much the actual read/write time but the steps to get
there. Open menu. Select save. Select the memory card. Select the
slot. Pick (or confirm) save name. Do you want to save? Then back out
of each step to return to the game. Individually, each step didn't
take a lot of time but combined? It got annoying fast.

(It didn't help that everytime you made a configuration change you had
to go through that rigamarole too. Or whenever the game started up.
And all controlled by a clumsy gamepad)

Or I could just jab the hot-key in the emulator to 'save state' and it
got done almost instantly.

Like I said, it's not really fair for me to blame the game... or even
the console itself. All that was fairly standard for the day and only
now, spoiled by twenty years of advancement, does it seem amazingly
clunky. But even if it was acceptable practice back in 2004, it did
mar what was otherwise a fun experience playing the game.

On Tue, 3 Dec 2024 09:46:43 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>Crookz: The Big Heist
>---------------------
>
>I've spoken about this before but as a quick recap it's an isometric/3D
>stealth game based around, yes you guessed it, heists. The slight twist
>is that it has a 70's disco theme - yes that's what I said! Certainly
>worth checking out if you like that kinda thing even if it's not a game
>that anyone is likely to think is a classic. Only £2.39p on Steam.
>
>XCOM:2
>------
>
>I did get one game in the Steam sale but this one has been on my list of
>I should probably play sometime and at £1.74, well why not now. I
>haven't played more than a couple of missions but so far seems like good
>solid XCOM fun and it's seriously can one of you at least hit the
>target*. Hopefully the whole base building part won't be as distracting
>as I found it in XCOM:1 although I do realise it wouldn't be a XCOM game
>without it but then you have Laser Squad.

I think its not so much the RNG as the concealled RNG. It's one thing
when the random numbers say 'you hit' or 'you miss' but when the game
says "99% chance of hit" and then you miss ten shots in a row because
the game didn't show you that there wer -70% penalties... well,
there's something wrong with that.

I think XCOM2 was more transparent with regards to hit-percentages
than was its predecessor, but it's been a while since I played the
game. But XCOM (2012) was really annoying in that regard.

>Fahrenheit 451
>--------------
>I finally got around to reading this as it's always on those lists of
>must read sci-fi books. I very much enjoyed it with its mix of a
>dystopian future (all books to be burned) and commentary on US politics
>at the time. Well worth a read with a downside that I found some of the
>writing a bit clunky compared to modern standards.

Bradbury was one of those sci-fi writers were the idea took precedence
over the story and characters. His writing reflects that. It's very
work-a-day with little excess or flourish. It was fairly common
amongst authors of the genre of the time.

H1M3M <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote at 07:54 this Tuesday (GMT):
> Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
>>
>> What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2024?
>>
>
> I swear, this gets harder every month. I don't know where october gaming
> ends and November gaming begins anymore.
>
> I think I may have been playing:
>
> - The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
> - Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney
> - World of Warcraft Classic
> - Link's Awakening (remake)
> - Link's Awakening (original)
>
>
> The long read:
> //The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
> It's officially the game I have put more hours into it since I have an
> Steam account, something I'm not happy about it. There's a discussion,
> "Isaac is a Roguelike". "No, Isaac is a Roguelite". "Both of you dildos
> are wrong, only things that are like Rogue can be Roguelikes" (Dildo as
> an insult provided by Metapocalypse). If we use "roguelike in the sense
> of a game with high risk, high difficulty, never ever getting easy,
> etc), Binding of isaac is a weird game. I perceived as a roguelike, but
> then I began wondering if the game was a roguelite, given how with each
> run it seemed to get progressively easier thanks to the unlocks.
>
> Well, not roguelike nor roguelite. more like "The guy who does not want
> you to use the term roguelike screaming 'karma, bitch!!!'". The game
> balance makes it so that the more you play, the worse it gets, until the
> game finally got too hard and I hit a massive wall, made worse by the
> Repentance DLC that removed all the easy strategies (why it felt like
> roguelite when it was Afterbirth+). I should have quit a long time ago
> when the run counter got to -19, but I just could not. I literally had
> to "cheat" the game to reduce the handicap: Ditching the Steam Deck,
> using a minimal latency computer screen, a wired dual sense because the
> button separation actually matters and I was using Snes separation
> buttons (also the extra non slip rubber coating in the analogs), and
> tooling the config files to make the game less zoomed out so that I
> could play on a smaller part of the screen an focus better.
>
> Well, I sorta did it. Got the negative, defeated Satan 5 times, and
> gained access to the Dark Room where The Lamb was waiting for me. After
> that, the next day I managed to kill the angels, get to the dark room
> again and open the golden doors, encountering the true final boss of the
> game: Mega Satan. This guy has damage scaling so that it always poses a
> challenge and you can't kill him fast. The battle was so long and hard
> that when i finally got over it, I finally was able to put down the
> game. There's a lot more stuff after 10 years of expansions, but I feel
> like this is skill ceiling. Feels good that the urges are finally satiated.
>
> //World of Warcraft Classic
> I don't know what I was expecting, but definitely not this. I have not
> played WoW for more than 2 months in my whole life, and that was when
> the game was in Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. Just clicking
> on an enemy and waiting until it dies while pressing the number row
> is... eh. Like if I wanted to do that, I'd rather play Diablo II and
> III. Maybe it made sense playing as a hunter with a firearm, but as a
> warrior, I expected to be able to circle around the enemy, parry, evade,
> jump... It's like my brain wants more Dark Souls, Ocarina of Time or
> Nier Automata combat. And obviously I'm playing solo, so not great
>
> //Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney
> Making things clear: I love Ace Attorney, I hate Layton. Only playing
> this because I have run out of Ace Attorney games. Hate the puzzle
> sections, suffer with them until I can get to the Ace Attorney trial
> sections

I thought vL was a really good AA game, even if there's only one
non-tutorial case besides the final.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

candycanearter07 wrote:
>
> I thought vL was a really good AA game, even if there's only one
> non-tutorial case besides the final.
>

That sounds like the first Great Ace Attorney, where almost until the
final case, there are one or two tutorials for the new mechanics

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
> Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 21:15 this Sunday (GMT):
> > candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
> >> Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 18:24 this Sunday (GMT):
> >> > Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:50:33 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> >On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:40:39 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
> >> >> ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >> >>Oh, and I'm trying something new this month: providing URLs to Steam
> >> >> >>(or elsewhere) where you can get more information about the game
> >> >> >>(honestly, I'm not trying to get you to buy any of these. I just
> >> >> >>figured maybe you'd like a link to screenshots or something). Is it
> >> >> >>worth the effort or should I not bother?
> >> >
> >> >> >I don't really need links. I am perfectly capable of finding any game
> >> >> >that I am interested in. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
> >> >> >Although... Ant likes links. You are probably making him happy at
> >> >> >least.
> >> >
> >> >> Always keep the ants happy. I for one welcome our new insect overlords
> >> >> and I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in rounding up
> >> >> others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
> >> >
> >> > /me whitelists Spalls.
> >
> >> Oh no, what are you planning
> >
> > You'll see

> scawy :(

Scawy? Scary? :P
--
"Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus be cursed,' and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." --1 Corinthians 12:3. Superman & Lois' finale was emotionally good!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

On 03/12/2024 15:18, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> Fahrenheit 451
>> --------------
>> I finally got around to reading this as it's always on those lists of
>> must read sci-fi books. I very much enjoyed it with its mix of a
>> dystopian future (all books to be burned) and commentary on US politics
>> at the time. Well worth a read with a downside that I found some of the
>> writing a bit clunky compared to modern standards.

> Bradbury was one of those sci-fi writers were the idea took precedence
> over the story and characters. His writing reflects that. It's very
> work-a-day with little excess or flourish. It was fairly common
> amongst authors of the genre of the time.

That's really what I mean by clunky compared to modern standards where
the writing is more elaborate and not so functional. Sci-fi I feel is
one where you can get away with that more than some other other genres
as you're exploring ideas not 'showing off' your literal flourish. I put
some of Philip K. Dick's work in the same category. I also recently read
Iain M. Banks Look to Windward and that's a real contrast in writing style.

Tolkien I found an extreme version of it so much so that I gave up
reading it after maybe ten pages and finding it a slog. A great story
teller but just not a good writer. IMHO the films bring his stories to
life far better than the books did.

On 03/12/2024 15:18, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> XCOM:2
>> ------
>>
>> I did get one game in the Steam sale but this one has been on my list of
>> I should probably play sometime and at £1.74, well why not now. I
>> haven't played more than a couple of missions but so far seems like good
>> solid XCOM fun and it's seriously can one of you at least hit the
>> target*. Hopefully the whole base building part won't be as distracting
>> as I found it in XCOM:1 although I do realise it wouldn't be a XCOM game
>> without it but then you have Laser Squad.
>
> I think its not so much the RNG as the concealled RNG. It's one thing
> when the random numbers say 'you hit' or 'you miss' but when the game
> says "99% chance of hit" and then you miss ten shots in a row because
> the game didn't show you that there wer -70% penalties... well,
> there's something wrong with that.
>
> I think XCOM2 was more transparent with regards to hit-percentages
> than was its predecessor, but it's been a while since I played the
> game. But XCOM (2012) was really annoying in that regard.

I can't say I ever noticed it being a problem as having a look online I
don't see where the issue is.