Tried four more games from my recently purchased bundle. Here’s my thoughts :
Archamon. The basic idea is that you are in charge of a whole bunch of people stranded by a disaster and have to guide them to gather resources and use them to build civilization back up.
That’s an idea that has great appeal to me. I like to lead (kinda) and I love games where I get to rebuild civilization from the ground up.
Which is, I suppose, somewhat supervillain-ish of me. The only difference is that I am not the one who destroyed civilization in order to get to rebuild it.
This game, however, does not appeal to me at this point. I am sure it’s fine, but I am not in the mood for anything like realtime strategy, and that’s basically how the game works.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
I can see myself returning to this game when my moods change, though. Like I said, the premise intrigues me, and once I have had time to process the basic nature of the game and get into the swing of it, I will likely give it another shot.
After all, those people need me!
Black Paradox. Sounds like something pithy from a black comedian, doesn’t it? “See, the Black Paradox is that if you assert your rights with a cop, they shoot you, but if you don’t, they beat you up!”.
It’s funny because it’s true.
Anyhow, what the game is really about is a very eighties cyberpunk-ish future where you are the only one who can defeat the galaxy’s most dangerous blah blah blah it’s a side scrolling shooter a la R-type with some RPG elements.
And while I applaud the game’s very enthusiastic attempts to capture a “more-Eighties than the Eighties” vibe, I don’t particularly feel like playing a side-scrollling shooter (a genre I never liked much) in order to experience it.
I miss a lot of things from the Eighties, but that type of game ain’t one of them.
So this is definitely a “not my cuppa” type situation. I am sure it’s a wonderful game for those who are into that kind of thing, but I ain’t one of them.
Plus, full disclosure, it ran a bit fast for my old guy reflexes to handle. Too much happening on the screen at the same time for me to process.
God damn getting old sucks.
Degrees of Seperation. From the opening screen which told me that this game was made in Scandanavia with government grant money, I knew it would be an art game.
And wow, is it ever.
The basic idea is that you control Rime, a boy from an icy world that has started to melt, and Ember, a firey girl whose world has started to cool, as they try to figure out the mystery of what is happening to their worlds.
That’s the plot. The gameplay involves switching between the two of them in order to use their respective powers to solve physics puzzles.
And it is gorgeous. The art is vividly colorful and extremely well drawn. Everything about it seems designed for maximum visual appeal, and it is a true feast for the eyes.
However, I am not in the mood right now for those kinds of puzzles. It’s very tempting because the game looks so damned good, but I don’t want to deal with that kind of frustration and finicky problem solving right now.
Call me old fashioned, but I just want to kill stuff. Is that so wrong?
Actually, don’t answer that.
More after the break.
Dimension Drifter. Worst game so far. A few okay ideas implemented in a way so crude and inept that it seems like the game was made by aliens who were only vaguely familiar with the concept of a “game”.
It’s clearly trying to be an FPS game but someone forgot the FP part, because it’s actually from a third-person over the shoulder POV. This immediately makes aiming awkward and difficult, as your character frequently ends up blocking your view of the enemy you are trying to shoot.
For obvious reasons, I did not play this one very long. So it is quite possible that I misapprehended the whole thing and it’s not nearly the clusterfuck it seemed to be when I gave it a shot.
But as it stands, sheesh, what a dog. Do not recommend unless you are teaching a game design class and need a good solid example of what not to do.
I’ll do the remaining 4 (turns out there was 12, not 16) plus the two I got from a random draw some time soon.
Well, it finally happened. After resisting the urge for months and months, I finally slipped up and took the scab off my wound today.
God damn it.
It happened when I was just waking up. It’s like my subconscious mind was just waiting for the opportunity. I was half-asleep. felt an itch, scratched it, boom, there’s the scab off and in my hand for me to glare at.
Oh well, it’s not the worst thing in the world. The scab will grow back. It bled/oozed for a while, but I solved that problem by tying a clean sock around my leg as a sort of improvised bandage and that soaked up the goop until it stopped on its own.
I’ve changed my sock/bandage since then, as it was getting gross. By then, it had stopped discharging, but I put the sock over it anyhow to give it some extra protection while things go back to normal.
Hopefully, the evidence of my crime will be gone before my appointment on Tuesday.
I haven’t heard anything about the socks that were supposed to replace the compression bandages currently cursing my being, so I will have to stop in at the pharmacy on Tuesday to see what’s up with THAT.
If there is no motion on that, though,I will be sorely tempted to tell the nurse at the health center not to bother putting that goddamned compression bandage back on me because I am just going to take it right back off when I get home.
I need a proper shower, dammit!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow,