I’ve downloaded a huge number of demos from Steam’s Summer Game Festival event, so today I went through some of them. This is only a handful of the ones I picked up, so I’ll likely have more to talk about later, but this is what I’ve got for now.
Arrieta of Spirits – 2D Zelda-like with some good but not amazing pixel art. It has a modern setting where you play the role of a young girl on holiday with her parents in a log cabin, mourning her late grandmother who used to join them on previous trips. But it has magical stuff involved as well. Suffers the same problem as I have with its inspirations; being able to only face in four directions with a very small arc to the sword swing makes combat a clunky nuisance.
Ary and the Secret of Seasons – 3D Zelda-like that lets you change the season in localised areas to solve puzzles. One I’ve actually had my eye on for a while already. Very interesting idea with a lot of potential, and a nice Asian fantasy aesthetic. This demo feels very unfinished and uneven however. Some parts feel well made and polished, while other things feel like placeholders and are very rough. Hopefully just because it’s an incomplete build. But I had to stop playing because I seem to have soft-locked it by buying the wrong ability and running out of money, meaning I couldn’t access the next area.
Omno – Journey-like adventure game, and another one I already had my eye on before now. You adventure through some attractive scenery while solving simple puzzles to progress, by transferring energy collected from around the level towards magical structures that move to open the path forward. Very simple, and clearly a very early build since the demo tells you that this was made for a Kickstarter campaign from a while back. After you finish the main chunk of the demo you are placed in to an open desert area that is a sandbox for some of the abilities you have, including riding on your magic staff like a hoverboard. Seems promising.
Ars Fabulae – A hybrid puzzle adventure games, split between narrative exploration parts where you explore an old run down theatre, interspersed with puzzle-focused levels themed around plays that were put on at the theatre decades previously. The exploration sections have a realistic art style, but with muted colours as if to look like an old photograph, while the puzzle sections are designed to look like painted worlds, like the handmade posters you see around the theatre. An interesting idea that allows for a lot of variation in puzzle mechanics, but I’m not sure I’m particularly interested in the subject matter.
Metamorphosis – A first-person platformer/adventure game based on the Kafka novel of the same name. It showed some surreal imagery that could be a sign of some very unique and imaginative level design, but unfortunately this demo was too short to make much of an impact. It was only 10 minutes long, having you almost instantly shrink and become a bug, and then climb across a room as one. They could have done much more with this, but the demo didn’t show it.
Figment: Creed Valley – Another one I’ve had my eye on, a sequel to Figment which I enjoyed a lot. This seems like pretty much more of the same, which is far from a bad thing. It’s an isometric action adventure game where you progress through levels solving puzzles and fight the occasional monster, but the twist is that it’s all set within the mind of a person, so everything is themed around various different mental tendencies and tropes (so lots of fun visual puns, etc.), and it’s presented in a very attractive and surreal Escher-style storybook aesthetic. Music is weaved in to environments and boss fights in really fun and clever ways too. I like it a lot.
Exo One – A strange minimalist… momentum game? You explore exotic and expansive alien worlds as a strange spherical probe that has the ability to increase mass to fall faster, or flatten out to glide in the air. So the gameplay involves optimising your momentum by exploiting these mechanics to gather speed rolling down declines and using inclines to launch yourself in to the air and gliding as far as possible. Very simple, but satisfying movement, and some impressive vistas that have a barren beauty to them, which feel like they’re teasing you with what is hiding over the horizon.
I’ve actually already played a few of these demos before when they have been released in previous events. Or at least I have played demos of the same games, as the ones from this current event might be newer builds. Either way, I’ve shared my thoughts on Raji and Recompile here, and CrisTales here.
Whatcha Been Playing?
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Part 2 of Steam Summer Festival demos!
A Juggler’s Tale – A 2.5D puzzle platformer where you play as a string puppet, so you have to think about how the strings above you dictate your movements. Another very short demo that ends before it really shows what it has to offer. Only one of the puzzles in the demo did the limitation of the strings come in to play. All the puzzles, including that one, were very straightforward and uninspired. Although that might be a bit harsh, as these were clearly just tutorial puzzles, but still, it would have made the game look much better if they put at least one or two more imaginative ones in there. Surely they have more than 10 minutes of content finished by now. There’s also a narrator talking over the gameplay who speaks in rhymes. It’s also not good, although again I think this deserves some slack since it’s obviously written and performed by non-native English speakers. But still, the rhyming structure doesn’t appear to make much sense, and feels very forced an unnatural. And sometimes when things should rhyme, the speaker pronounces the words wrong and ruins it. There was also some simply wrong uses of words that didn’t make sense either, like describing a quaint small village by using the word “laboratory”, or describing a crowd at a circus as being “cliche”. It does look nice at least, with characters and props looking like carved wooden models, following the puppet show theme. And the colour palette is a nice mix of soft turquoise and earthy brown.
Eastern Exorcist – A 2D character action game that appears to be Chinese developed. There are actually quite a few of these hidden away on Steam and I’ve liked a fair few of them, despite them being rather janky a lot of the time. This one appears to be a miss however. While basic attacks feel nice and are well animated, and have some timing mechanics that adds a bit of intention to what you’re doing, the game also has a stamina meter for some reason, and it’s really punishing and can’t keep up with the pace of the game. It feels horrible, especially on the boss at the end of the level who has a Sekiro-like balance meter that you can break to get some free hits in. Problem is the amount of hits it takes to break their balance is enough to drain your stamina completely, so you can’t take advantage of the opening. This boss’s attacks also all come out way too quickly to be able to respond to (which seems to be a common problem with this little niche of games) and multiple different attacks have the same telegraph move, so you can’t tell which attack is coming anyway. Nice art though. It mixes 2D and 3D in the backgrounds, with a misty grey colour scheme, that helps the more colourful characters stand out in the foreground. But if you want to try out a game like this, Bladed Fury and The Vagrant are much better options. The latter is especially good if you’re in to Vanillaware stuff.
Everspace 2 – 3D space dogfighting game, with crafting elements I think, but I didn’t reach a point where any use for materials appeared. Did not like this at all. The UI is really bad, with extremely small icons and text, all coloured white, so you can barely pick anything out among the stars and debris floating around. Your space ship also feels really slow, so flying isn’t very satisfying. It also has awful sound design, with incoming hits having an extremely loud and grating sound to them which quickly made me not want to play any more. The slow movement speed meant avoiding damage didn’t seem particularly doable either, but that might just be me not knowing what I’m doing.
Haven – Something of a turn-based RPG with a heavy exploration emphasis where you control two characters at once. These two characters are a romantic couple trapped on some strange planet made up of floating islands, and seem to be fugitives of some kind. Most of the demo is a mix between dialogue scenes with these two characters and exploring around these little floating land masses. I enjoyed these aspects a fair amount. The writing and voice acting of the characters is really good, feeling like they have a playful chemistry with each other, and the delivery of lines is very natural and well done. Movement during exploration is pretty good as well, as it’s not just running about. You glide around just above the ground, so locomotion has a sort of vehicle-like feel to it, where you have to take in to account your turning radius, but you can pull off a drift move to turn more tightly. It has a nice smooth feeling to it, although I do wish it felt like it had a bit more feeling of physics- driven momentum to it. The turn-based RPG stuff I wasn’t so keen on. Occasionally you’ll come across wildlife that has been corrupted by some mysterious substance that you run in to, and you’ll end up fighting them so you can pacify and cure them. Attacks down by holding down face buttons that build up a bar, which you then release to set off an attack. If you mirror the same attack between each character and set them off at the same time, it becomes more powerful. So it’s not quite turn-based, but sort of a new spin on the ATB system where you’re trying to sync up with yourself. I don’t think I got the hang of it very well. Charging attacks can be interrupted by enemies, but I couldn’t tell if there was any way to see when to anticipate that or do anything about it, so I was clumsily bumbling my way through the battles and not really getting it. It’s a very visually pleasing game though, which is no surprise since this is made by the devs who made Furi. It has a similar art style with flat shaded neon pastel colours, so looks very nice.
Ghostrunner – First-person platformer/action game that blends Mirror’s Edge style parkour with Hotline Miami style one-hit kill combat. Conceptually sound very appealing, but I came away with a very negative reaction. Sound design is terrible. There’s hardly any sound effects, and what effects it does have are so quiet that they are barely noticeable. Makes the game feel very limp and unsatisfying, especially when taking out enemies. I hate the one-hit kill thing too. Deaths often feel very unfair, as the sound design makes it impossible to tell when a shot is coming your way when it’s not directly in front of you, and the controls don’t feel reliable enough for the game to be so punishing. Ended up dying many times because the collision detection got confused, or because I couldn’t hit an enemy when I felt like I should have been able to. Even though checkpoints are instant and don’t send you back far, I still hate having to repeat the same thing over and over like that, failing repeatedly in quick succession. Also the level design was sort of… unconvincing? They are very clearly laid out specifically for the purpose of jumping through them and killing enemies, and nothing else. Despite looking like a lovingly realised cyberpunk city, it doesn’t feel like a real place at all. Far too artificial, with the areas you platform through making zero sense existing for any other reason, and enemies just standing on weirdly isolated platforms as if just waiting for you to show up and cut them down.
A Juggler’s Tale – A 2.5D puzzle platformer where you play as a string puppet, so you have to think about how the strings above you dictate your movements. Another very short demo that ends before it really shows what it has to offer. Only one of the puzzles in the demo did the limitation of the strings come in to play. All the puzzles, including that one, were very straightforward and uninspired. Although that might be a bit harsh, as these were clearly just tutorial puzzles, but still, it would have made the game look much better if they put at least one or two more imaginative ones in there. Surely they have more than 10 minutes of content finished by now. There’s also a narrator talking over the gameplay who speaks in rhymes. It’s also not good, although again I think this deserves some slack since it’s obviously written and performed by non-native English speakers. But still, the rhyming structure doesn’t appear to make much sense, and feels very forced an unnatural. And sometimes when things should rhyme, the speaker pronounces the words wrong and ruins it. There was also some simply wrong uses of words that didn’t make sense either, like describing a quaint small village by using the word “laboratory”, or describing a crowd at a circus as being “cliche”. It does look nice at least, with characters and props looking like carved wooden models, following the puppet show theme. And the colour palette is a nice mix of soft turquoise and earthy brown.
Eastern Exorcist – A 2D character action game that appears to be Chinese developed. There are actually quite a few of these hidden away on Steam and I’ve liked a fair few of them, despite them being rather janky a lot of the time. This one appears to be a miss however. While basic attacks feel nice and are well animated, and have some timing mechanics that adds a bit of intention to what you’re doing, the game also has a stamina meter for some reason, and it’s really punishing and can’t keep up with the pace of the game. It feels horrible, especially on the boss at the end of the level who has a Sekiro-like balance meter that you can break to get some free hits in. Problem is the amount of hits it takes to break their balance is enough to drain your stamina completely, so you can’t take advantage of the opening. This boss’s attacks also all come out way too quickly to be able to respond to (which seems to be a common problem with this little niche of games) and multiple different attacks have the same telegraph move, so you can’t tell which attack is coming anyway. Nice art though. It mixes 2D and 3D in the backgrounds, with a misty grey colour scheme, that helps the more colourful characters stand out in the foreground. But if you want to try out a game like this, Bladed Fury and The Vagrant are much better options. The latter is especially good if you’re in to Vanillaware stuff.
Everspace 2 – 3D space dogfighting game, with crafting elements I think, but I didn’t reach a point where any use for materials appeared. Did not like this at all. The UI is really bad, with extremely small icons and text, all coloured white, so you can barely pick anything out among the stars and debris floating around. Your space ship also feels really slow, so flying isn’t very satisfying. It also has awful sound design, with incoming hits having an extremely loud and grating sound to them which quickly made me not want to play any more. The slow movement speed meant avoiding damage didn’t seem particularly doable either, but that might just be me not knowing what I’m doing.
Haven – Something of a turn-based RPG with a heavy exploration emphasis where you control two characters at once. These two characters are a romantic couple trapped on some strange planet made up of floating islands, and seem to be fugitives of some kind. Most of the demo is a mix between dialogue scenes with these two characters and exploring around these little floating land masses. I enjoyed these aspects a fair amount. The writing and voice acting of the characters is really good, feeling like they have a playful chemistry with each other, and the delivery of lines is very natural and well done. Movement during exploration is pretty good as well, as it’s not just running about. You glide around just above the ground, so locomotion has a sort of vehicle-like feel to it, where you have to take in to account your turning radius, but you can pull off a drift move to turn more tightly. It has a nice smooth feeling to it, although I do wish it felt like it had a bit more feeling of physics- driven momentum to it. The turn-based RPG stuff I wasn’t so keen on. Occasionally you’ll come across wildlife that has been corrupted by some mysterious substance that you run in to, and you’ll end up fighting them so you can pacify and cure them. Attacks down by holding down face buttons that build up a bar, which you then release to set off an attack. If you mirror the same attack between each character and set them off at the same time, it becomes more powerful. So it’s not quite turn-based, but sort of a new spin on the ATB system where you’re trying to sync up with yourself. I don’t think I got the hang of it very well. Charging attacks can be interrupted by enemies, but I couldn’t tell if there was any way to see when to anticipate that or do anything about it, so I was clumsily bumbling my way through the battles and not really getting it. It’s a very visually pleasing game though, which is no surprise since this is made by the devs who made Furi. It has a similar art style with flat shaded neon pastel colours, so looks very nice.
Ghostrunner – First-person platformer/action game that blends Mirror’s Edge style parkour with Hotline Miami style one-hit kill combat. Conceptually sound very appealing, but I came away with a very negative reaction. Sound design is terrible. There’s hardly any sound effects, and what effects it does have are so quiet that they are barely noticeable. Makes the game feel very limp and unsatisfying, especially when taking out enemies. I hate the one-hit kill thing too. Deaths often feel very unfair, as the sound design makes it impossible to tell when a shot is coming your way when it’s not directly in front of you, and the controls don’t feel reliable enough for the game to be so punishing. Ended up dying many times because the collision detection got confused, or because I couldn’t hit an enemy when I felt like I should have been able to. Even though checkpoints are instant and don’t send you back far, I still hate having to repeat the same thing over and over like that, failing repeatedly in quick succession. Also the level design was sort of… unconvincing? They are very clearly laid out specifically for the purpose of jumping through them and killing enemies, and nothing else. Despite looking like a lovingly realised cyberpunk city, it doesn’t feel like a real place at all. Far too artificial, with the areas you platform through making zero sense existing for any other reason, and enemies just standing on weirdly isolated platforms as if just waiting for you to show up and cut them down.
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Been playing Steamworld Heist on Switch and it is totally fantastic.
It's scratching the exact itch I had for something else like Into the Breach I can play handheld... quick and really fun missions, really rewarding progression, it looks great as do all the Steamworld games, and a central mechanic that is endlessly joyful - lining up those ricochet shots.
Completing the main objectives but then risking it all to delve back into the bowels of an enemy-infested ship to get extra loot is always fun and tense, and I love the fact that one of my considerations when gearing up for a hard mission is making me sure my characters aren't wearing their best hats, in case they get shot off.
It's scratching the exact itch I had for something else like Into the Breach I can play handheld... quick and really fun missions, really rewarding progression, it looks great as do all the Steamworld games, and a central mechanic that is endlessly joyful - lining up those ricochet shots.
Completing the main objectives but then risking it all to delve back into the bowels of an enemy-infested ship to get extra loot is always fun and tense, and I love the fact that one of my considerations when gearing up for a hard mission is making me sure my characters aren't wearing their best hats, in case they get shot off.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Celeste
I just beat it the other day. What a game. I have to recommend it to anyone that'll listen, and I'm hell bent on getting my non-gaming gf to play it. It's easy to pick up, a ton of fun, and has something to say, something I think most people will really relate to.
onplanners
I just beat it the other day. What a game. I have to recommend it to anyone that'll listen, and I'm hell bent on getting my non-gaming gf to play it. It's easy to pick up, a ton of fun, and has something to say, something I think most people will really relate to.
onplanners
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I finished it recently and loved it too, some of the later missions can get pretty lengthy. My tip would be to focus on levellingup just 4 of the team and stick to those 4 throughout, to save yourself from having to do any grinding later on.
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Thanks for the tip! Yeah I'm doing that, although I'm also revisiting some of the most fun missions with a different squad to see how it plays out, and also to get some xp for them as well.
One of the things that makes it hard to pick a squad sometimes us they're all such vivid and cleverly sketched characters in their own right.
One of the things that makes it hard to pick a squad sometimes us they're all such vivid and cleverly sketched characters in their own right.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Think I’m close to the end of In Other Waters on Switch. It’s wonderful! Intuitive, engaging, tense, and despite it’s visual simplicity, I find it stunningly atmospheric. Based on what I can see today, only Star Wars Squadrons can top this as my game of the year!
I won a copy of Skelattack for PS4 on Twitter and gave it a good hour, but it’s just not very good. It’s a stylish action platformer that’s very light on the action and very demanding on the platforming, and unfortunately the controls just don’t support that - they stink, particularly the most unnatural-feeling wall jump ever. I’ve since played the Kunai demo on Switch - similar game that controls like a dream. Shame.
Back in the big itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, I played a surprisingly powerful browser-based text adventure called Masks, about being in a university under siege by riot police. It’s inspired by last year’s Hong Kong protests, but seems equally relevant now. It takes just minutes, though you’ll probably want to play again a few times, and it’s very impressive. There’s a few other game-jam type browser games there that are definitely a look too - Intrepid and I’m Bored, Let’s Explore (Ruins) are quick, simple treats I can also recommend.
I won a copy of Skelattack for PS4 on Twitter and gave it a good hour, but it’s just not very good. It’s a stylish action platformer that’s very light on the action and very demanding on the platforming, and unfortunately the controls just don’t support that - they stink, particularly the most unnatural-feeling wall jump ever. I’ve since played the Kunai demo on Switch - similar game that controls like a dream. Shame.
Back in the big itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, I played a surprisingly powerful browser-based text adventure called Masks, about being in a university under siege by riot police. It’s inspired by last year’s Hong Kong protests, but seems equally relevant now. It takes just minutes, though you’ll probably want to play again a few times, and it’s very impressive. There’s a few other game-jam type browser games there that are definitely a look too - Intrepid and I’m Bored, Let’s Explore (Ruins) are quick, simple treats I can also recommend.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
So last night I finished Metroid Prime on the Wii and it was very good.
I really loved the Wii motion controls, it gave you so much more freedom of movement and momentum.
Problem is, it made it much much easier.
I really loved the Wii motion controls, it gave you so much more freedom of movement and momentum.
Problem is, it made it much much easier.
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andthenweplay
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- Location: AB, Canada
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I picked up Dragon's Crown Pro On PS4. I had the PS3 version but I really wanted to replay play and thought what better way to jump back in then with a enhanced version. The game still looks stunning. I am a huge fan of 2D art and Dragon's Crown is among the best in the biz. The game is also incredibly addictive. Being a huge fan of brawlers and scrolling beat em ups, Dragon's Crown really feels great to play.
If anyone hasn't tried it yet they totally should. The PS4 version allows you to import your previous saves to so my file I had on PS3 I can transfer if I want to
If anyone hasn't tried it yet they totally should. The PS4 version allows you to import your previous saves to so my file I had on PS3 I can transfer if I want to
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I started Guacamelee 2 on Xbox Game Pass on Friday night and have been having a whale of a time. I was a huge fan of the first game which I played on Vita. I was originally planning for it to hit a sale on Switch but with it being free on Game Pass I thought why not. It is very similar to the first game but that is no bad thing, I forgot just how fun the gameplay is with the combo based combat adding a nice layer to the traditional metroidvania template. It has been the perfect antidote having just finished Red Dead Redemption 2.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I've been playing a little game called Angry Birds 2.
Guys... It's brilliant.
So I downloaded it to my phone for the kids to play, but I've got hooked. It had saved my progress since I played when it first came out, but the game has expanded exponentially since then. Aside from the regular levels there are PvP matches, leagues, challenges, boss levels, upgrades and stats for the birds (of which there seem to be about ten with different abilities) and so much more stuff. It's unbelievable how much stuff there is to do in the game!
Yes, there are loads of microtransactions too, but I'm on level 102 and haven't needed nor wanted to pay for anything.
The core gameplay of Angry Birds is so satisfying too, lining up that perfect shot to wipe the board in one go.
It's easy to dismiss this game due to over-saturation, but it really paved the way back on iPhone in the early days for almost a whole genre of game style. But yeah, Angry Birds, just as great as its ever been!
Guys... It's brilliant.
So I downloaded it to my phone for the kids to play, but I've got hooked. It had saved my progress since I played when it first came out, but the game has expanded exponentially since then. Aside from the regular levels there are PvP matches, leagues, challenges, boss levels, upgrades and stats for the birds (of which there seem to be about ten with different abilities) and so much more stuff. It's unbelievable how much stuff there is to do in the game!
Yes, there are loads of microtransactions too, but I'm on level 102 and haven't needed nor wanted to pay for anything.
The core gameplay of Angry Birds is so satisfying too, lining up that perfect shot to wipe the board in one go.
It's easy to dismiss this game due to over-saturation, but it really paved the way back on iPhone in the early days for almost a whole genre of game style. But yeah, Angry Birds, just as great as its ever been!
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Played a lot of this on Vita and its undeniably gorgeous to look at. I didn't quite get on with the seemingly unavoidable grinding though, and what with the quests system and how that worked and stuff it always felt a little, I don't know how to put it, but I remember wishing it was more like a linear left to right scrolling brawler with set levels and you just progressed through the game.andthenweplay wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2020, 3:31 am I picked up Dragon's Crown Pro On PS4. I had the PS3 version but I really wanted to replay play and thought what better way to jump back in then with a enhanced version. The game still looks stunning. I am a huge fan of 2D art and Dragon's Crown is among the best in the biz. The game is also incredibly addictive. Being a huge fan of brawlers and scrolling beat em ups, Dragon's Crown really feels great to play.
If anyone hasn't tried it yet they totally should. The PS4 version allows you to import your previous saves to so my file I had on PS3 I can transfer if I want to
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Just played a bit of Intertial Drift: Sunset Prologue, which is a free demo of an indie arcade racer coming out soon. I found this to be pretty impressive and fun, and actually quite innovative for a genre that usually sees little of it. And it's innovative in a way that actually improves the core driving gameplay in a unique feeling way, rather than just bolting on some distracting gimmick as is often the case when racers decide to venture off in to new territory. The idea is that you have direct control over your drift with the right stick, so you can initiate it basically whenever you want, with fine control over the precise angle, and keep it going exactly as long as you want.
But it's not totally without restrictions. Your normal turning ability is somewhat limited, and your drift angle dictates basically how far you can turn in the same direction, but drifting will also limit your acceleration too. So the game encourages a slightly new way to approach an arcade racer, but basically using a drift to set yourself up for a corner, making sure you're at the right angle and position in the exit, so you can flick out of the drift as soon as possible to speed away. It's really interesting as it gets you thinking about when you need to start a drift, sometimes needing to set one up more than one corner before the one you're preparing for. It can require a lot of precision, and is actually rather hard. The demo consists of only two short time trials, and it was a challenge to get a gold medal on both. Took a handful of tries at each. While I like the idea that this is a new way of driving to wrap my head around, but it does make me wonder how difficult the full game is. If this is the introductory baseline, how harsh will the full game end up getting? Might be a bit too much for its own good.
Aesthetically it's pretty cool as well. It's got a cartoonish retro-futurist neon look to it. Although there is one thing about the look I'm not too keen on. While the car designs are pretty good, they are a bit too tall and narrow for my liking. Oh, and this demo isn't a part of the Steam summer festival, so it's available any time.
EDIT: Turns out there's actually two tracks, so four time trial events in total. The demo was glitched or something before and it wouldn't let me access these other events before. It's a longer and more technical track than the first, and it's pretty hard. I managed to get the gold medal on the first attempt with the lower tier car, but the higher tier one was a real challenge. I also saw a video of the person at the top of the leaderboards do their runs, and from that I found out there are actually hidden platinum medals to unlock as well. Don't think I'll bother going for those. Gold is hard enough already.
But it's not totally without restrictions. Your normal turning ability is somewhat limited, and your drift angle dictates basically how far you can turn in the same direction, but drifting will also limit your acceleration too. So the game encourages a slightly new way to approach an arcade racer, but basically using a drift to set yourself up for a corner, making sure you're at the right angle and position in the exit, so you can flick out of the drift as soon as possible to speed away. It's really interesting as it gets you thinking about when you need to start a drift, sometimes needing to set one up more than one corner before the one you're preparing for. It can require a lot of precision, and is actually rather hard. The demo consists of only two short time trials, and it was a challenge to get a gold medal on both. Took a handful of tries at each. While I like the idea that this is a new way of driving to wrap my head around, but it does make me wonder how difficult the full game is. If this is the introductory baseline, how harsh will the full game end up getting? Might be a bit too much for its own good.
Aesthetically it's pretty cool as well. It's got a cartoonish retro-futurist neon look to it. Although there is one thing about the look I'm not too keen on. While the car designs are pretty good, they are a bit too tall and narrow for my liking. Oh, and this demo isn't a part of the Steam summer festival, so it's available any time.
EDIT: Turns out there's actually two tracks, so four time trial events in total. The demo was glitched or something before and it wouldn't let me access these other events before. It's a longer and more technical track than the first, and it's pretty hard. I managed to get the gold medal on the first attempt with the lower tier car, but the higher tier one was a real challenge. I also saw a video of the person at the top of the leaderboards do their runs, and from that I found out there are actually hidden platinum medals to unlock as well. Don't think I'll bother going for those. Gold is hard enough already.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I hadn’t noticed quite how much rebalancing they’ve done with the latest Apex legends patch. Till I read the notes.
https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-leg ... atch-notes
That’s... a lot of changes. Will it be enough nerfing to finally make Wraith not broken? We shall see.
Liking the Lifeline changes, not sure about the Watson ones.
https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-leg ... atch-notes
That’s... a lot of changes. Will it be enough nerfing to finally make Wraith not broken? We shall see.
Liking the Lifeline changes, not sure about the Watson ones.
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KissMammal
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- Joined: August 22nd, 2014, 5:52 pm
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Resident Evil 4 on Switch.
This is probably my third full playthrough, the first 2 being on Wii probably over 10 years ago, and all I can say is this game still really does deserve its masterpiece status. Honestly, the only thing dated about it are the QTEs. It's like the gaming equivalent of that classic old movie that if you happen to catch a bit of on TV you can't help but watch the entire thing to the end.
Despite this being the third time, I'm also still consistently surprised by how big a game it is every time I play through it, just as I was last time. It just keeps going and going, doesn't it? But in a good way.
Just a perfectly satisfying combat system
This is probably my third full playthrough, the first 2 being on Wii probably over 10 years ago, and all I can say is this game still really does deserve its masterpiece status. Honestly, the only thing dated about it are the QTEs. It's like the gaming equivalent of that classic old movie that if you happen to catch a bit of on TV you can't help but watch the entire thing to the end.
Despite this being the third time, I'm also still consistently surprised by how big a game it is every time I play through it, just as I was last time. It just keeps going and going, doesn't it? But in a good way.
Just a perfectly satisfying combat system
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I decided to take advantage of the recent offer for Origin Access to take a look at some games I've had my eye on for a while. First thing I put my attention to is Need for Speed: Heat. I have been thoroughly unimpressed with this series for a very long time, but always had an inkling of hope that one day it might be good again, and this one seemed like it had the best shot at that in ages. First impressions are very bad. The handling as presented to you from your starter car is just awful, still suffering from the same issues of the 2015 game. Trying for something that is sort of like a toned down version of Burnout, but ending up being sloppy, vague, unresponsive, and erratic. But after sticking with it for a while and getting some upgrades, I discovered there are some ways to tweak how the handling behaves that did help. There are sliders to turn up responsiveness and downforce, which I maxed out, and hidden away in the menus there's the ability to adjust the controller deadzone, which for some absurd reason is set to something like 30% by default. After that it helped make the cars a bit more controllable and like the game actually responded to input in a reasonable time. But it's still not great. Drifting feels limp, cars feel kind of slow in general, and overall the whole thing feels kind of numb and not very fun. It's not terrible, but mediocre at best.
Racing isn't particularly interesting either, in the sense that the game feels like it doesn't have much structure. There's no big goal to aim towards, and no ladder of progression. There are just individual races dotted around the map, and story missions, which so far have consisted of slowly following another car to a race, and then doing it. This game does the old "walk and talk" that got old before the end of the last console generation, but it's doing it with cars. The game is also split in to day and night sections, where you get more money from day races, and more XP from night races, and there are way more police around at night, but that seems to be the only difference. They basically feel the same except cops get in your way at night. The cop chases so far are pretty crap too. Thanks to the slow cars, it doesn't have any of the thrill or momentum that Most Wanted had, and it lacks all the little subtleties that made that system work so well. You do get upgrades later on that factor in to the chases, but I've been playing for several days now and I've only unlocked one useless upgrade for that.
The setting is pretty bland too. The city has no personality and feels very flat and dull. It even causes problems for racing because it's hard to pick out what the racing line is on occasion because corners and intersections aren't particularly visually readable or memorable. While things do look more interesting at night when the city turns to a colourful neon light show, but it ends up making the readability problem worse. At times it can be very hard to pick out exactly what direction a road is going in, and large hazards can just pop up out of nowhere giving you no chance to react. It adds another layer of problems to the police chases, as their lights blinking away adds even more visual noise, and when not being able to see what you're doing there means you can very easily lose all your progress built up over the night, it makes even attempting playing at night pretty unappealing.
I also tried out Titanfall 2 as I've heard so much praise about the campaign mode of this game. I don't want to say too much on it yet because I'm actually close to finishing it, since it's pretty short. But right now I'm not exactly blown away by it. I suppose I can see some positive qualities to it, but I'm not exactly seeing this being up there with the new Doom games as being a high bar for the genre. Still has a lot of the issues I dislike about ADS shooters. But I'll go in to it more when I'm done.
Racing isn't particularly interesting either, in the sense that the game feels like it doesn't have much structure. There's no big goal to aim towards, and no ladder of progression. There are just individual races dotted around the map, and story missions, which so far have consisted of slowly following another car to a race, and then doing it. This game does the old "walk and talk" that got old before the end of the last console generation, but it's doing it with cars. The game is also split in to day and night sections, where you get more money from day races, and more XP from night races, and there are way more police around at night, but that seems to be the only difference. They basically feel the same except cops get in your way at night. The cop chases so far are pretty crap too. Thanks to the slow cars, it doesn't have any of the thrill or momentum that Most Wanted had, and it lacks all the little subtleties that made that system work so well. You do get upgrades later on that factor in to the chases, but I've been playing for several days now and I've only unlocked one useless upgrade for that.
The setting is pretty bland too. The city has no personality and feels very flat and dull. It even causes problems for racing because it's hard to pick out what the racing line is on occasion because corners and intersections aren't particularly visually readable or memorable. While things do look more interesting at night when the city turns to a colourful neon light show, but it ends up making the readability problem worse. At times it can be very hard to pick out exactly what direction a road is going in, and large hazards can just pop up out of nowhere giving you no chance to react. It adds another layer of problems to the police chases, as their lights blinking away adds even more visual noise, and when not being able to see what you're doing there means you can very easily lose all your progress built up over the night, it makes even attempting playing at night pretty unappealing.
I also tried out Titanfall 2 as I've heard so much praise about the campaign mode of this game. I don't want to say too much on it yet because I'm actually close to finishing it, since it's pretty short. But right now I'm not exactly blown away by it. I suppose I can see some positive qualities to it, but I'm not exactly seeing this being up there with the new Doom games as being a high bar for the genre. Still has a lot of the issues I dislike about ADS shooters. But I'll go in to it more when I'm done.
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SludgeWizard
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Interesting. I wonder if this is an example of years of hype killing what you would've otherwise enjoyed much more. I'm one of the people who tells other people it's one of the best shooter campaigns out there, most underrated title of it's generation, blah blah blah. But I also played it without hearing too too much hype about the campaign.Scrustle wrote: ↑June 26th, 2020, 3:15 pm I also tried out Titanfall 2 as I've heard so much praise about the campaign mode of this game. I don't want to say too much on it yet because I'm actually close to finishing it, since it's pretty short. But right now I'm not exactly blown away by it. I suppose I can see some positive qualities to it, but I'm not exactly seeing this being up there with the new Doom games as being a high bar for the genre. Still has a lot of the issues I dislike about ADS shooters. But I'll go in to it more when I'm done.
I liked it more than DOOM: Eternal, but not as much as DOOM.
It also has one level that I still think may be the coolest shooter level I've ever played, but I don't want to say what it was in case you aren't there yet. If it didn't blow your socks off, I don't think that you had any socks in the first place.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
I had the same experience with Titanfall 2. Thought it was enjoyable but didn't really see anything groundbreaking. I know the exact level you're talking about too, Sludgewizard, and honestly I didn't really like it. It looked cool, but I found it a bit annoying to play!
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
Titanfall 2 campaign is very solid, but it's relatively good. FPS campaigns tend to be dogshit. It really comes alive in MP and it's easily the best FPS I've ever played. Pure aggression and fluidity and fast movement, wall running, double jumping and grapple hooks. It's exceptional. The moment you get a Titan and push a load of dudes' shit in is such a rush.
Re: Whatcha Been Playing?
The Titanfall2 campaign stood out at the time, cause everything else released around then was just more call of duty and / or battlefield.
I liked it a lot, each level had its own specific ‘gimmick’ and while I could’ve stood to have some of them last more than just one level, it did feel like nothing overstayed it’s welcome.
I liked it a lot, each level had its own specific ‘gimmick’ and while I could’ve stood to have some of them last more than just one level, it did feel like nothing overstayed it’s welcome.