Did the bundle of games thing again. This time only three.
Here’s the reviews :
Ziggurat. I’m getting to old for this shit.
Ziggurat is a fast paced FPS. It’s set in a fantasy world where you are a student wizard facing the final test before becoming a full on wizard : the titular Ziggurat, a pyramid type structure pull of traps, monsters, spells, weapons, and big bad bosses.
In other words, all of the usual trappings of a fantasy setting but for an FPS.
A retro FPS, as it turns out, because the graphics are ray-traced oldschool style and the whole thing feels like something from the era between Doom and Quake.
And I like that. Brings back pleasant memories of playing Duke Nukem 3D until the wee hours of the morning.
This is a good game. Fun, fast, challenging, with tons of variety in everything and plenty to keep any hardcore FPS enthusiast busy for a long long time.
It is, however, quite unforgiving. The game has only one difficulty level, no save games, and death is permanent.
In that sense, it is a “roguelike”. The idea is to get as far as you can in each “run”. And that wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t, like I said earlier, too old for this shit.
My poor old brain just can’t keep up with a game this fast and hard. It’s a shame, because if I were at least a decade young, I am sure I would love a game this dynamic, unpredictable, and challenging.
But as it is, I doubt I will end up playing it much. It’s just too much for me.
Out There. This is almost a game.
The premise is pretty straightforward. You have a space ship. In it, you explore the galaxy, trying to make your way to this one planet that sent out a weird alien signal. You fly from star to star and planet to planet, collecting resources to keep your spaceship moving for as long as you can.
Which sounds great and all, but all you really do is drill for minerals (rocky planets) or fuel and oxygen (gaseous planets) and hope to get enough of both to keep going to do more of the same.
And that is terribly boring.
The game tried to zazz things up by having a random encounter type thing every time you enter a new star system, and those are well written and exciting. You also occasionally come across mysterious alien space stations (which don’t do anything except fill one of your resources) and Earth-like “Garden” planets where you get to meet and interact with alien species.
And that helps make the game less of a grind, but it’s still pretty boring, and the very minimal graphics and sound don’t do much to help.
So I can’t recommend this game. It might make for a fun board game, but as a video game, there is just not enough going on to keep my interest.
There’s just not enough there there.
More after the break.
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows. I am not quite sure what to make of this game.
It seems pretty good on paper, so to speak.
A “realtime with pausing” tactical battle system? Check. I have used and enjoyed those before in games like Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur’s Gate 2. They have the advantage of letting you command your forces without having to tell them to do every little thing. That way you can concentrate on tactics instead.
A complex plot set in a bold, unique dark fantasy world? Check. Love that kind of thing. I don’t mind a fantasy setting if it’s not just yet another cookie cutter Tolkien ripoff. My favorite PC game of all time, Witcher 3, has a fantasy setting.
Beautiful art and animation? Check. Not a huge priority, but always a plus for me.
And yet there seems to be something off about the whole thing. Something wrong with its aesthetic that I can’t quite put my finger on but which made me stop playing fairly early into the game because I was feeling rather ill.
Might have been a coincidence. Might have gotten sick for other reasons and I just happened to be playing the game at the time.
But I suspect it’s something about the visual style of the game. Something in the way it handles its hard drawn art and sleek animations makes my stomach turn and my head hurt, like I had been staring at a complex optical illusion for too long.
It’s the same sort of feeling I have gotten from exposure to certain repeating geometric patterns in art or on carpeting or clothing.
All it takes is the wrong combination of shapes and colors and I have to leave the room before I pass out and/or vomit.
No doubt, I will give the game another try. It is the most promising of the bunch and I am still pretty interesting in playing it and exploring its world.
But it may be that it and I are simply not compatible. That just happens to me sometimes. Something that is perfectly ordinary to everyone else is somehow deeply disturbing and wrong to me.
Its the same sort of thing that people with Asperger’s Syndrome sometimes complain about, and therefore evidence towards my theory that I might be slightly “on the spectrum” as they say.
Given my airtight and isolated childhood, one would almost expect me to turn out to be somewhat autistic. By anyone’s standards, no kid should grow up without friends, guidance, or reliable authority figures like I did.
There was just plain nobody in my life for my first four years of elementary school. I had no friends, my teachers didn’t like me, nobody paid me any attention at home, and that went double for my harried, tired parents who never wanted me in the first place.
Oh, and no kindergarten.
I often wonder how the hell I made it through all that with any sanity or connection to humanity left at all.
Just lucky, I guess.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.