Topic: Games you've recently beat

@ApostateMage I had a couple of days not on it much, so I'm still basically at the point where I'm just looking around Tatooine, but even that is awesome 😁

Did you find it a bit weird at how bad a liar Kay is, amd yet people just believe her? 😅 she will say "uhhhhh, yeeeeah? I know this person, sure. The errrr, person I know, right?" And people will react as if it sounded like she legitimately is saying something that rings true. I think it's a problem with modern writing and acting as a whole. They try to make it sound kind of silly and dumbed down to make it obvious that it's a lie, as if the stupid people watching are just going to think it is the truth if it doesn't sound like a lie to us. It is such a weird trend 🙃 please respect our ability to understand context, writers. But anyway ahah.

I was marvelling at the detail they have in Kay's face, however, as I noticed she sweats on Tatooine 😂 it really is a game of varying extremes.

@Ravix I literally thought this when I was playing last night and I had a dialogue option to get past a guard. I chose to lie and the way Kay bumbled through some bullsh*t I was gobsmacked when it worked and the guard let her past. I think it's just the VA's style of acting though because Kay does say 'errr' a lot. I actually think that she does a decent job.

I never noticed the sweat on Kay but she is always complaining how hot it is to Nix when on Tatooine. Nice shot.

Just finished the Minerva's Den DLC for BioShock 2. Quite enjoyed it actually, even though it was more of the same. I'm glad that I took a break from the game and played Child of Light in between as I probably would've gotten burned out on the DLC otherwise. There were some new stuff, like the laser weapon and gravity well, which were cool but most of weapons/powers were returning ones from the base game. I did like the story and the futuristic take of an AI in the 60s. Really cool stuff!

@Malaise was that your first time of finishing the story? If so, yeah it’s up there with gamings greatest narratives for sure… maybe the greatest! I’d love a current gen remaster but in the mean time, I’m quite looking forward to playing through the original again now that it’s been patched for 60 fps.

Played through Life is Strange: True Colors this week and while it was good… better than any Telltale offering anyway, I didn’t like it as much as the first two. I did like the turn-based LARP chapter in particular though… maybe my favourite individual chapter of the trilogy.

Just finished off Rage on ps3. It wasn’t terrible but it just feels like by wanting to make an open-world first-person shooter, that id couldn’t do either thing justice. It doesn’t really feel like an open-world, or a traditional open-world anyway… and the fps gameplay feels well short of Doom. In terms of post-apocalyptic games, I would also say it falls into some grey middle ground between Fallout and Mad Max… both of which I would recommend above this.

Finally someone said it.
Telltale’s storytelling games (TWD-onwards) were never to my liking. Their puzzle games (BttF and everything before) were better put together and ironically had better stories. My favorite being Tales of Monkey Island, Wallace & Gromit and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People.

Interesting. Had a feeling it wouldn’t be to my liking, not when Mad Max and Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise already exist.

@Malaise you’re not alone and I feel pretty similar about it.

@Malaise @Yousef- Interesting. I’m very curious to play DDLC because I hear it’s got this huge twist and completely subverts expectations. But I just can’t get past the way it comes across, based on the title, cover art, etc. So what you’re saying is that it is actually more of a teen/after school special/Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys type of game, and it doesn’t turn into a mature blood-filled gore fest?

@Th3solution I’ll say this right now. It’s one those twist driven games. Basically the ones where if you give away the twist, you’ll be seen as an *****.
thankfully, I already am one. So I got nothing to lose there.
But seriously, there’s a reason I labeled it as such. It’s kinda all it has going for it. I don’t think you’ll be coming out of this five hour adventure feeling like it was well spent despite its length, be that as may be.
The reasons aren’t even things like “pacing” or “annoying characters”, it goes deeper than that. The entire game is one giant flaw in my eyes which is… shockingly rare for this kinda thing. I believe I genuinely can’t salvage much out of it.
Once you know the twist, there’s not much there. Regardless whether you discover it by yourself or not.
Now, “flaw” does not equate to “terrible”. But… I can’t really say this was “good” either.

Please keep in mind I’m trying to soften my words here, I’m already rewriting a few paragraphs, but these negative words just come out on their own. Why? Look at it this way…
It’s respect.
If you respect a game, even if it’s flawed, you will feel obligated to be nicer.
I’m genuinely not sure if DDLC deserves much respect outside of being something a smash modder made and accidentally got it popular.
No, I didn’t make that up. The origins of this silly looking game… is the smashing brothers community. Classy. As if the game couldn’t be any shallower.

It’s actually somewhat out of character for me to be this critical and this blunt, but… do understand that just the mere mention of DDLC makes my brain go

So I want to be nice, but I doubt my ***** brain will let me.
And I’m an anime fan, so you can already tell that’s not an anti-anime fueled take. I just cannot take this game seriously. It is a baby’s first horror in every way. Not necessarily THAT amateur-ish, but maybe that’s the most positive thing I’ll say. Who am I kidding, it is. All downhill now.
Don’t worry, it already lists itself as a horror. Even has a trigger warning which is…. Cute.

Oh hey, cuteness, that’s a good thing to bring up….
Because I don’t like a single character design or anything about this game’s aesthetic. It’s all cheaply made and kinda…. Soulless? Not being abstract here. The entire twist is that this a horror, however, that’s not a good justification for the “facade” to feel like it had no effort in it. In fact, that’s the OPPOSITE of what a facade is.

You put on a facade out of effort and care to hide your true identity. If you don’t care at all, you wouldn’t be hiding it in the first place. It’s why I half-mocked the health warning in the game. Why would you spoil your own twist before the title screen even shows up? Are you truly THAT scared people would not even make it past the title screen?

Forget shadow of the erdtree, fromsoft needs to hire this guy. He knows some secret sauce to make even the titis screen unbeatable.

But yes, just like how the dev did a very bad job of hiding the horror tone, I’m doing a bad job of hiding the horror this gave me. Bad writing horror, that is.

Now usually arguments are made here where people are like “but it’s just a game made by a small team and for free”. That’s not completely wrong…. Anymore, because the game isn’t free anymore. You now have to pay for it. Lovely.

But yes like I mentioned before, there’s quite a bit of unpacking here to do here (actually not much because the game is really shallow technically but let’s maintain the illusion, it would be in-line with the illusion that game has of being well-written).

Now, you guys love sports, right?

So let’s do a three strike system here.

• STRIKE 1: The game does not actually subvert the genres it is claiming to subvert

I’ve read more visual novels than I care to count, I’ve played more dating sims than I care to mention, GTA San Andreas being one (won’t elaborate).

Doki Doki Litrature Club, quire literally, does not actually subvert the genre it claims to subvert.

First off, here’s a quick writing note. Subversive writing is a basic skill. If your audience can see your writing from miles away, you are either doing a poor job or you must make your predictable story a compelling one anyways. Via things like dialogue (oh believe me, we’ll come back to this)

You can’t really pride yourself in JUST being able to subvert expectations. It’s a good skill, obviously, but if you’re a professional writer and you unironically brag about understanding subversive writing (without showing any examples to back up said understanding), I’ll just say:

So we’re already off to a great start, aren’t we?
What is DDLC even subverting if it’s subverting anything at all though?
See that’s the weird part. It’s not subverting genre tropes, which would be the case if the writer even touched a VN his whole life, it’s subverting the IDEA of a Visual Novel… which isn’t really a compelling thing at all.

Picture this; imagine a platformer but you don’t jump. There’s nothing unique or interesting happening, there’s not even any cool level design, your character just doesn’t jump. Sure, it’s unique, but surely you’ve got more than to offer, yeah?

And imagine this; an FPS made for non-FPS fans or made by someone that never touched one in their lives. Sure, it could worse, but who are you targeting… exactly?

I’m not demanding some sort of “required reading” or anything psychotic like that, I simply find it funny that this is a “subversive VN” that…
-does not address common genre tropes
-does not go beyond messing with the format itself
-does not reference or take any notes from any VNs whatsoever
-does not seem to be made for VN fans at all which isn’t something you should be doing in things like this

If you wanna make a subversive cowboy movie, you have to watch as many cowboy movies as possible.

Know, learn and understand the material first. And love it. Good parodies are born out of love, not just critiques.

This ties into my points about the game’s cutesy facade and character design. I genuinely and wholeheartedly believe whoever’s responsible for the game’s aesthetic does not truly care for this kind of cutesy aesthetic, and you have to take it from someone who’s a fan. I love anime, I love VNs, I decently enjoy dating sims and the like. This game does so little to actually subvert or use elements from those beyond very shallow elements, concept and pre-conceived notions that are already understood by outsiders.

• STRIKE 2: Your shallow game has little going on underneath both the surface and what’s even below there.

Now don’t take it from me, take it from my buddy… Shrek.
A good story is like an onion.
IT HAS LAYERS.

Now we can all sit at a fireside, cuddle along and sing kumbaya together. But you cannot look me in the eye, tell me someone wrote a multi faceted story
And then proceed to say that game is DDLC.
You noticed I’ve not called it by its full name besides just once?
Now, let’s have a flashback…
Remember when I said…

you must make your predictable story a compelling one anyways. Via things like dialogue (oh believe me, we’ll come back to this)

Yeah, well, the dialogue in DDLC…
Well, it’s a dialogue. You definitely can’t argue with that. Human words do in fact get exchanged between (debatably) human characters. I have indeed witnessed things that do resemble a “conversation” in these scenes. But I need an expert’s opinion just to be sure.

So uh, what’s the cast like?
Well, we have Natsuki, who’s a skank and hates everyone and everything.
We have Sayori, whom I’d love to punch in the face, but I’d rather not give her the attention.
We have Yuri (seriously? I get the creator isn’t Japanese, but this is like if I made characters named “John Burger”, “Jack America” and “Mark Car”… oh yeah I’m supposed to say something about Yuri but tbh I kinda lost interest. She’s the quiet one. She can die).
And Monika… facepalm… well, she’s just the girl trying to make the other girls look bad to get inside the protagonist’s pants. Her words, but slightly paraphrased.

Wow we have… a stellar cast.
What? A protagonist? Well he’s an *****. But I don’t know him, the ***** community disowns him. He’s not deserving of being lumped with us so he can F off.

So what happens in DDLC before it abruptly turns into a cheap horror game?

Nothing. Let’s move on.

What happens after?

Also nothing. Let’s move on.

• STRIKE 3: So that’s it?

@Yousef- 😂 Ah, got it. I think I understand. Clicking the purchase button right now. 😜

Edit: Believe it or not, I actually saw your post before I saw the announcement that the game is a PS+ game for next month. 🤣
Even if I don’t purchase the game, I’ll have it in my library! I know what I’m voting for in Game Club next month!

@Th3solution

I'm at work and that's waaaaay too long of a post for me to reply to right now @Yousef- but... What?

Unless skank has a VERY different meaning in Kuwait Natsuki is not that. At all. In the slightest. Like holy moly that's not applicable for her!

I played Doki Doki Literature club a couple of months ago @Th3solution though I'd already seen playthroughs of it.

It was novel back when it released over 7 years ago. It's not a game you could replay over and over it's very much a one and done experience.

I do agree with Yousef in that I don't think it's as clever as it thinks it is.

But I think the "generic" artstyle and overly verbose dialogue is supposed to be the point, to lure you in that false sense of security til the curtain drops and it reveals it's hand.

I won't say anything else (unless you'd like me too and I think Yousef already said way too much) just go in as blind as you can. It's not crazy long. Seeing as it's the Plus version I would say to not skip on the side stories involving the girls. They're actually rather well written in my opinion (Especially Natsuki's).

@HallowMoonshadow Morbid curiosity may get the better of me eventually. And I don’t think anyone has said anything that I didn’t already know from just passive exposure to the game. I have a rough idea of what the hook probably is (but yeah, I’ll stay in the dark for as much as I can). It’s like TLoU2, which I didn’t seek any spoilers and I didn’t read any specific spoilers but the basic online discourse of the game had me knowing roughly what the twist was going to be.

I like a good ‘bait-and-switch’ game (or movie), and I’m more easily impressed than many people so, who knows, I might end up thinking DDLC is clever. The game is “free” for me now with the PS+ inclusion, so the barrier to entry is negligible. But the fact of the matter is, as I’ve oft said, time is the more limiting factor in my world so I will probably prioritize other games in my ginormous backlog for a while and see if a moment of weakness strikes and curiosity wins out one day.

Just finished Sackboy: A Big Adventure on PS5. Great 3D platformer but I still didn't like how you could miss collectibles and not go back without restarting the entire level. The combat didn't feel completely responsive either and it was hard to perceive depth while platforming, which caused many unnecessary deaths. The game was quite frustrating to play at times to say the least, but I liked it overall. The levels reminded me a lot of the ones in Super Mario 3D World but also Super Mario Galaxy, which are games that should be inspired from more often as they are absolutely phenomenal.

@LtSarge I agree with all that. Overall i did enjoy it, but by the end of the game I had defo had my fill of the game. When the additional levels unlocked, I tried one and noped out. It has kind of put me off playing 3D platformers, as I don't think i've played one since. Will make an exception for the latest Astro's game though.

@JohnnyShoulder Same here. I beat the first level of the final world, which was okay, but the levels after that were seriously tough and so I decided to stop playing. Not to mention the last Knitted Knight trial, which is apparently 10-30 minutes long! I don't know about you, but hearing that a speedrun level can take 10 minutes and at most 30 minutes completely discourages me from trying it out.

Astro Bot looks phenomenal, I don't think it'll be as challenging as Sackboy. I'm also going to be playing it down the line.

@Malaise I didn't have any issues with the LittleBigPlanet games, but the story modes in those games felt like an afterthought while Sackboy feels more tailor-made. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing another 2D LittleBigPlanet. Perhaps Sony will add the PSP LBP game on PS5 as I haven't played that one yet!

Just finished Condemned: Criminal Origins on Series X. Absolutely phenomenal horror game! It nails pretty much every aspect of a horror game. The scare factor was good, the sound design was sublime and would constantly make me feel unease, the melee combat was simple but super fun, the difficulty was spot on (played it on Normal) as the game gives you plenty of health and the story was interesting. It reminds me of an early 2000s TV show (I actually started watching the crime drama The Wire now because of this game). All in all, fantastic horror game and I can't believe it came out in 2005. Almost 20 years ago! It holds up very well today, I highly recommend it.

@Malaise That's right! The graphics are a bit rough today but they didn't affect my experience of the game. But yeah, I've also heard that it looked great at the time.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II - not a patch on the original but it was worth a play. The only thing I can think of is that Lucasfilm were already deep into negotiations with Disney at the time to buy the Star Wars rights… as there just seemed to be very little effort put into the game. Luckily it still plays well… as the mechanics were already fully developed from the original. Seemed significantly shorter, levels were narrower and the combat less varied. Still, I really like Starkiller as a character, he’s 10x the character of half of the new lot Disney introduced.

@LtSarge Condemned Criminal Origins is one of my all time favorite games. I have many fond memories of it, specifically how I got an Xbox 360 and the game in the first place. I was a freshman in high school, and my family never really had money, so vacations and getting gifts was hardly a thing. My mom used to pick me up from school every day, and I remember getting in the car and she told me to look in the glovebox. When I opened it up there was Perfect Dark Zero and Condemned Criminal Origins. I was absolutely shocked, and freaking out. When we got home, my mom already had the Xbox 360 set up in my room with Call of Duty 2 on the start screen. How my mother managed to afford the console and those three games is beyond me, but it’s a memory I’ll never forget.

Anyway, Condemned Criminal Origins is top tier, and those mannequins in the mall still haunt me to this day. That’s the gist of this long reply. Lol.