Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Of course innovative isn't necessarily good, but something innovative has a place in a genre that something derivative but fun doesn't. That's all I'm trying to say. Indigo Prophecy is not very good (some would say dreadful), but it's one of the games that first did the interactive movie quicktime event thing in AAA games.
Alex, let's say there's a hypothetical game where you explore a world, and you kill the things in it. You learn about its history and its past and who its inhabitants are, but you don't form any kind of relationship with these people aside from "buys stuff" and "kills stuff."
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
In the space of the consumer, sure, but in the space of tradition, genre, and so on, yes, one is fundamentally "better" than the other, because one is memorable, and so people take notice.
It's like history. You don't get your name in the book if people just remember you as just okay.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
We're talking about how there are people who give a damn at all about things that aren't necessarily good but are interesting because they are interesting.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Not in the sense of "interesting" vs. "derivative." One of them has to have some value of "more good in this sphere" or else they are both completely useless and meaningless qualities and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
2 hours into Firewatch, I am quite enjoying this game. I'll confess, I honestly love "walking simulator" style games that mostly serve as an interactive narrative rather than as action games in any sense. It's a lovely game with one of my favorite graphics styles. The voice acting is fairly solid, as well, though I'm not quite sure how I feel about the faceless Delilah on the whole.
Starting a Torment run, which will be...interesting, if the one I did of Escape From the Pit is any indication. Melee got nerfed fucking HARD though, and casting is more absurd than usual in this game. So I'm planning fighter/priest tank, full priest, and 2x mage/priest.
In honor of the release date of the “Poke-Heartbeat-Collection”, you can now download Pokemon Messege Cards! Look, even these two from Team Aqua and Team Magma seem to be getting along surprisingly well!
My Avernum 2 Torment run just finished the starter area, with only two quests incomplete (both pretty much impossible until later anyway).
Unfortunately, this is the part that terrifies me the most.
See, with a Torment run, melee is borderline useless, and your build pretty much has to be focused very, VERY hard on damage output over long-lasting utility. That means you're running a tank who usually doesn't do much more than heal himself, three casters built to dump high-power spells very quickly, the only First Aid you're getting is what you can buy at Ft. Draco, and the assumption is that you refill MP by running back to town.
But right at the end of the starter area, you have to do a long, continuous gauntlet river from Formello to the first vahnatai town. It starts with a waterfall of no return, and there are several mini-dungeons along the way. You can skip a couple, but it naturally penalizes you with additional required sidequests once you get to Olgai, and on Torment they may not be entirely possible if you can't cut through the bullshit and open up the map fast enough. Even if you spend all your herbs on energy potions, you'll only have maybe 8-9 to improve your survivability.
Worse, the boat doesn't respawn at Formello -- so if you left anything unfinished on the river, you can never pick it back up after getting the portal.
Wrote up a Steam review of Firewatch now that I've completed it:
Despite a few plot holes, Firewatch succeeds in creating an incredibly immersive and aesthetic game. The character development across the game is on point, with the ending taking it into account. Though some may find the end unsatisfying (I don't want to spoil it!), I found it to be a good resolution to the story.
The game is largely built upon atmosphere and dialogue. Henry, our protagonist, is in constant contact with another lookout named Delilah. The game centers around their interactions and around the mysterious happenings surrounding Henry's lookout tower. The mysteries built up are a little conspiracy theory-esque in nature, but fortunately the game doesn't run too far with that. It's just enough, and far enough in to the game, that it's not overwhelming.
Delilah initially came off as a bit... try hard, to me. As a woman myself, she very much came off as a woman vying for the attention of a man. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it felt a little fake at first, until some of the real plot started in. She is, in most ways, a fantasy - but the fantasy felt self aware. It was written the way a woman would write a woman who was attempting to be a fantasy in real life, if that sentence isn't too obtuse. Therefore, I wasn't overly bothered by it. She had nothing else to do up there, found someone interesting, and put some effort into becoming something men would want.
On the subject of atmosphere, the soundtrack, colour choices, and stylistic graphics completely sell it. The views in the game are lovely. I highly encourage everyone to make use of the disposable camera they're given during the game! It pays off at the end. I'll be adding the game's soundtrack to one of my ambient playlists, as well.
Given that this is essentially a walking simulator game, what little gameplay there is was actually quite good. It doesn't suffer from feeling as though you're going too slowly and it doesn't have too much "empty" padding without dialogue or purpose. The world is large enough to feel exploratory, but small enough it's not frustrating to get from point A to point B.
If you're looking for a game with a story with emotions and that run true-to-life, this is a great game in that regard. The story has a mature feeling - no one necessarily gets everything they want, but at the end, you're left with the thought that everyone had at least SOME closure and has a hope for a better future. I'd say it was well worth full price, to me, at least.
Wasn't really on my radar before (except for the fact that the development studio has a ridiculously catchy name that I'd heard via Polygon), but I want to try it down the road.
I've actively avoided spoilers for it to keep the mystery intact. It's intriguing.
And for those of you who got confused: Golden Axe is listed in your Steam library as "SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics", as apparently all the individual Genesis/MegaDrive titles on Steam are counted as DLC of this one "game".
So I'm a dumbass and forgot that every stretch of the Vahnatai river has a campfire for free resting. If I knew that, I'd have spent that 7k gold on Cave Lore for the caches instead of the only 8 points of First Aid I'm ever picking up.
In any case, the map just opened up almost the entire game's worth of stuff, and it's almost ALL too high level to kill. Yay Torment!
You know what I need? I need a romhack of Chrono Trigger that's super hard.
I can come to this conclusion simply by listening to and getting really into a Youtube upload of the Tyrano Lair theme, wherein someone comments that the Black Tyrano fight wasn't hard enough.
Ori and the Blind Forest is a pretty fun platformer. Even thought it's totally different in every way, basically, it sort of reminds me of Child of Light. Has a somewhat similar level up system, and the music and atmosphere are somewhat reminiscent.
Some of the UI is a little... xbox-ish, though, which I'm not a huge fan of. That's a really minor complaint, though.
On the whole it's gorgeous with tight controls and fun, yet challenging, platforming.
I have not heard of Inexistence yet, but it seems like it might be up my alley.
As for Momodora 4, it seems that rdein changed his studio name to Bombservice and then got Playism to help with publishing it? A little odd, but I know to little about him to say that that's entirely implausible.
Comments
They just occupy two different places.
Neither one is fundamentally better than the other.
'interesting' seems a fair word to me, monotony is not interesting, and consumption of formulaic media becomes monotonous over time
it's entirely possible for something to be interesting, but bad in every other respect
I've actively avoided spoilers for it to keep the mystery intact. It's intriguing.
And for those of you who got confused: Golden Axe is listed in your Steam library as "SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics", as apparently all the individual Genesis/MegaDrive titles on Steam are counted as DLC of this one "game".
I can come to this conclusion simply by listening to and getting really into a Youtube upload of the Tyrano Lair theme, wherein someone comments that the Black Tyrano fight wasn't hard enough.
As for Momodora 4, it seems that rdein changed his studio name to Bombservice and then got Playism to help with publishing it? A little odd, but I know to little about him to say that that's entirely implausible.
Edit: And I guess he really has: http://bombservice.com/
Thanks for pointing me to these.