Having the Switch has been a real blessing in terms of the breadth and depth of experience available to play while way from home. I would never have thought to be able to take with me games like Fortnite, Bayonetta, Breath of the Wild, or the hottest new JRPG on the scene, Octopath Traveler, in the days of even the Vita or 3DS.
Much of my game time in Japan this year was spent with those, but I also checked in on a few others, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (for the kids, mostly), Shovel Knight, and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.
I took my 3DS along for the trip with the express purpose of playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, and I did just that. I got about 3 hours or so in. So far, so good. the dungeon exploration is reminiscent of Etrian Odyssey, though thankfully without the need to manually draw in features on the map.
I thought I might like to play some Rocket League, but my wifi speeds are apparently not sufficient for it to work well via the Steam Link on my TV, so I guess I will have to keep that bounded within the four sides of my desktop monitor for the time being.
Showing posts with label Rocket League. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rocket League. Show all posts
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Monday, January 8, 2018
Blasting in the New Year
I caught a bit of the DICE bug over the weekend, and decided to crack into both Battlefield 1 and Star Wars: Battlefront for the first times. I had some good fun with both of them, the only real sour note was when a player on the other team logged on with unsavory ideological messages conveyed in his player emblem.
I was impressed with the graphics of both games; the Frostbite engine is really something. Both games were fun and had a good feel to what I played. I get the impression that Battlefront may be a little more casual and arcade game-like, and Battlefield 1 a little more geared toward the classic hardcore shooter. I'd like to play more of both, but it's hard to say whether I'll put too much time into them. It would probably behoove me to get Battlefront II, instead, so maybe I'll lean toward Battlefield 1 more if I do want to play a game like this.
I played a little Rocket League, as well. That game is as smooth and fun as ever. It's really smartly designed and presented. Again, I should play more of this.
Mark of the Ninja is another new one for me. I chose this one to knock off of the backlog both because I was kind of feeling like a 2D action game and because it starts with M. It's much less the platformer I was kind of craving and much more of a hardcore stealth game pulled off nearly flawlessly in two dimensions. It's a joy to play. Everything feels crisp and intentional, and there's very little room to fumble your actions in the control scheme. The levels branch nicely and offer alternate pathways through the spaces, which is impressive for 2D environments. It's like Klei wanted to bring over all the best parts of immersive sim stealth into 2D, and it really works. I played a solid 2 hours in my first session.
I also finally got around to trying out Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon. It's a hex-based, turn-based war game, as I anticipated, but not quite so hardcore and forbidding as I had thought it might be. It's maybe not even much more complex than Battle of Tallarn; indeed it lacks the import that game puts on unit facing on the battlefield. I'm not sure it is more complex at all, come to think of it. It offers more units, sure, and they're upgradable, but I'm not sure there is that much more to it. And it doesn't quite raise the production values bar as high as I'd like above Tallarn, either. It is better presented, to be sure, but not that much better presented.
Regardless, I'm having a good time with it, and the campaign seems pretty long and involved, with a lot of scenarios. I'm definitely going to keep playing this one, and I'm sure I'll have more impressions as I delve further in.
I was impressed with the graphics of both games; the Frostbite engine is really something. Both games were fun and had a good feel to what I played. I get the impression that Battlefront may be a little more casual and arcade game-like, and Battlefield 1 a little more geared toward the classic hardcore shooter. I'd like to play more of both, but it's hard to say whether I'll put too much time into them. It would probably behoove me to get Battlefront II, instead, so maybe I'll lean toward Battlefield 1 more if I do want to play a game like this.
I played a little Rocket League, as well. That game is as smooth and fun as ever. It's really smartly designed and presented. Again, I should play more of this.
Mark of the Ninja is another new one for me. I chose this one to knock off of the backlog both because I was kind of feeling like a 2D action game and because it starts with M. It's much less the platformer I was kind of craving and much more of a hardcore stealth game pulled off nearly flawlessly in two dimensions. It's a joy to play. Everything feels crisp and intentional, and there's very little room to fumble your actions in the control scheme. The levels branch nicely and offer alternate pathways through the spaces, which is impressive for 2D environments. It's like Klei wanted to bring over all the best parts of immersive sim stealth into 2D, and it really works. I played a solid 2 hours in my first session.
I also finally got around to trying out Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon. It's a hex-based, turn-based war game, as I anticipated, but not quite so hardcore and forbidding as I had thought it might be. It's maybe not even much more complex than Battle of Tallarn; indeed it lacks the import that game puts on unit facing on the battlefield. I'm not sure it is more complex at all, come to think of it. It offers more units, sure, and they're upgradable, but I'm not sure there is that much more to it. And it doesn't quite raise the production values bar as high as I'd like above Tallarn, either. It is better presented, to be sure, but not that much better presented.
Regardless, I'm having a good time with it, and the campaign seems pretty long and involved, with a lot of scenarios. I'm definitely going to keep playing this one, and I'm sure I'll have more impressions as I delve further in.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
New Arrivals Appear on the Scene
Two new contenders for GOTY have appeared this week! Devil Daggers and Talisman: The Horus Heresy. Here are my top 4 2016 releases thus far, in no particular order:
The Witness
Firewatch
Devil Daggers
Talisman: The Horus Heresy
Just so I don't forget what actually came out this year that I have played. It is paramount that I have a definitive, rigorously considered GOTY each year, of course.
What I have been playing lately:
Rocket League - a few matches the other night. There really is something great about a 5 minute round of something as a palate cleanser or itch scratcher. This game is really lots of unadulterated fun, too. The production values are nice and crisp--Rocket League is just a great package all around.
Elite - I'm back to long-range exploration as my main modus operandi. I took a trip our to the Merope system in the Pleides nebula the other day to get a first-hand look at the "barnacles" that have been found out there. Getting to the system was a cinch in my exploration-optimized Asp, but getting to the specified coordinates on the planet was a real bear. It was a very cool thing to do, though. After that I returned to civilization to top off my hull repair, sell data, and dove back into the abyss. I'm working on a roundabout way toward VY Canis Majoris, this trip. I should mention that I also made a trip to Betelgeuse before going to Merope. Betelgeuse is very near the settled bubble, and an impressively large star. Unfortunately, like an idiot, within just a few light-seconds of a dock to sell that data, I decided to check out a Distress Call instance. Never again. I was torn apart by multiple assailants with no provocation and before I could even get my FSD more than a third of the way charged. And this was with 5D shields! Live and learn, and that was at least a million credits down the drain, figuring in re-buy costs.
Mass Effect 3 - I cured the Genophage, and won the support of both the Krogan and Turians in my galaxy-spanning war on the Reapers. It sounds like a real feat, but it only took less than a couple of hours. I have a lot of side quests to be doing, and I'm going to have to mediate a conflict between the Quarians and the Geth at some point, I know. There's still a lot of game left here. I should finish it before going to Japan for a few weeks in about a month's time.
Devil Daggers - This game came out of nowhere, as far as I'm concerned. I first saw a screenshot of the title screen on twitter, and then it was everywhere. It's Geometry Wars but in Quake, in a nutshell. The single round, one hit death, survive as long as you can play of the former in the perspective and motif of the former. The object of the game is primarily just to survive as long as possible, and presumably also to collect as many red gems as possible, which are dropped by certain enemy types. I'm guessing collecting enough will trigger some sort of power up. This game is very difficult, and very addicting. It is also very, very intense. It's a blast, as I love the feel and look of it. I'm currently at the top of my friends' leaderboard, though there is only one other person on it, with a time of 62-some-odd seconds.
Talisman: The Horus Heresy - It's Talisman Digital themed in my favorite Warhammer setting and characters. I was naturally going to pick this up, loving the license and liking the game well enough. I've played 4 games so far, trying out different characters, who all have unique traits. There is a very heavy luck component to any game of Talisman, this one being no exception. In my last game as Konrad Curze, I wandered around the periphery of the board barely accruing any strength or resources at all, where my partner Angron (this version is team-based, rather than a free-for-all) snowballed early and rolled right through all comers to slay The Emperor very quickly and win the game for us. It's only lightly interactive, and mostly dependent on dice rolls and card draws, so strategy is less emphasized, but I enjoy a game of Talisman here and there, and as an unrepentant Horus Heresy enthusiast, I'll be playing this game quite a bit in the future, I think.
The Witness
Firewatch
Devil Daggers
Talisman: The Horus Heresy
Just so I don't forget what actually came out this year that I have played. It is paramount that I have a definitive, rigorously considered GOTY each year, of course.
What I have been playing lately:
Rocket League - a few matches the other night. There really is something great about a 5 minute round of something as a palate cleanser or itch scratcher. This game is really lots of unadulterated fun, too. The production values are nice and crisp--Rocket League is just a great package all around.
Elite - I'm back to long-range exploration as my main modus operandi. I took a trip our to the Merope system in the Pleides nebula the other day to get a first-hand look at the "barnacles" that have been found out there. Getting to the system was a cinch in my exploration-optimized Asp, but getting to the specified coordinates on the planet was a real bear. It was a very cool thing to do, though. After that I returned to civilization to top off my hull repair, sell data, and dove back into the abyss. I'm working on a roundabout way toward VY Canis Majoris, this trip. I should mention that I also made a trip to Betelgeuse before going to Merope. Betelgeuse is very near the settled bubble, and an impressively large star. Unfortunately, like an idiot, within just a few light-seconds of a dock to sell that data, I decided to check out a Distress Call instance. Never again. I was torn apart by multiple assailants with no provocation and before I could even get my FSD more than a third of the way charged. And this was with 5D shields! Live and learn, and that was at least a million credits down the drain, figuring in re-buy costs.
Mass Effect 3 - I cured the Genophage, and won the support of both the Krogan and Turians in my galaxy-spanning war on the Reapers. It sounds like a real feat, but it only took less than a couple of hours. I have a lot of side quests to be doing, and I'm going to have to mediate a conflict between the Quarians and the Geth at some point, I know. There's still a lot of game left here. I should finish it before going to Japan for a few weeks in about a month's time.
Devil Daggers - This game came out of nowhere, as far as I'm concerned. I first saw a screenshot of the title screen on twitter, and then it was everywhere. It's Geometry Wars but in Quake, in a nutshell. The single round, one hit death, survive as long as you can play of the former in the perspective and motif of the former. The object of the game is primarily just to survive as long as possible, and presumably also to collect as many red gems as possible, which are dropped by certain enemy types. I'm guessing collecting enough will trigger some sort of power up. This game is very difficult, and very addicting. It is also very, very intense. It's a blast, as I love the feel and look of it. I'm currently at the top of my friends' leaderboard, though there is only one other person on it, with a time of 62-some-odd seconds.
Talisman: The Horus Heresy - It's Talisman Digital themed in my favorite Warhammer setting and characters. I was naturally going to pick this up, loving the license and liking the game well enough. I've played 4 games so far, trying out different characters, who all have unique traits. There is a very heavy luck component to any game of Talisman, this one being no exception. In my last game as Konrad Curze, I wandered around the periphery of the board barely accruing any strength or resources at all, where my partner Angron (this version is team-based, rather than a free-for-all) snowballed early and rolled right through all comers to slay The Emperor very quickly and win the game for us. It's only lightly interactive, and mostly dependent on dice rolls and card draws, so strategy is less emphasized, but I enjoy a game of Talisman here and there, and as an unrepentant Horus Heresy enthusiast, I'll be playing this game quite a bit in the future, I think.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Play Salad
I've been into a ton of different things in the past few days:
Firewatch - I finished it. It was alright, overall, but I didn't end up liking it as much as I anticipated. Maybe I was just not in the mindspace for this type of thing. The high points are the style of the game's art and believable characters on display, though I don't quite buy that it is set in the mid '80s when the characters speak the way they do. Something about it just seemed off. Hiking around the nature areas was nice, but got old kind of quickly, and I was soon dashing everywhere, and dashing through to the end of the game.
Torchlight II - I'm not sure why, now, but something made me want to go back to revisit this game, as I felt like we had unfinished business. I feel like I'm finished with it now, though. I realized while playing it for a while that I wasn't particularly in love with either the play or the world in this game, and my time would be better spent elsewhere.
Borderlands 2 - Same story here as above. I haven't been able to get into Borderlands 2 for whatever reason, after a couple of tries. I played all the way through the first and all the DLC for it, and while I do enjoy the combat in these games, the randomly generated guns don't really do all that much for me, and I don't particularly like the world they've built here, unique though it is. I could play any number of other shooters and probably eventually find one that clicks in a way that this one doesn't.
Tomb Raider II - Another game not really on my backlog, since I did play all the way through it back at release on the original PlayStation, but that I did want to revisit. I bought the entire collection of Tomb Raider games on Steam a while back, and I want to try each of them out, for a while at least. I never played past the second when these were contemporary, nor ever played Legend, Anniversary, or Underworld in later years. The next TR game I played after II was actually the 2013 reboot. I still really like these original games in the series. No other game has done quite this sort of 3D world navigation puzzle with a very well defined move set and a collection of levels planned out so exactly. I hypothesize that the advent of the analog stick cut short this evolutionary path in gaming.
Rocket League - It continues to be a great game to dip into for a few minutes at a time as a break here and there during the day, or in the evening as a warm-up for more serious fare.
The Witness - The more serious fare, often. I've made some really good progress lately. I'm up past 250 puzzles solved now, I think, with 5 or 6 laser beams activated. I really like this game.
X-COM Enemy Unknown - My campaign continues. I'm at a stage where I have to infiltrate an alien base, and I'm just trying to build up resources and prepare my squad before doing that. I don't know if it's time sensitive or not, but it probably is, at least in the sense that alien activity is going to keep happening, and I can never address all instances of it. Eventually everyone will just pull out of the whole X-COM project. One nation already has, Russia, if memory serves.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - I have a game in progress that I am half-serious about completing, and that I keep going back to when I feel like a quick hit of action play and the PS3 is on, usually because Mia and Juno have been watching something.
Elite Dangerous - I finally made it back to civilized space with my tons of exploration data, and sold it, making about 8 million credits, which was enough to bankroll the best FSD available for my Asp, as well as other improvements, and now I'm off out into the black for another run. I don't know where I'm headed, other than to the bottom of the galaxy, and rimward of the bubble of settled systems. One of the new toys I want to test out is my SRV, the rover that can be deployed to drive around the surfaces of planets (rocky and non-atmospheric, for the time being). I need to do more and longer expeditions if I'm going to make enough money to buy an Anaconda or other large ship, and if I'm going to rank up to Elite in exploration. These are long, long, long term goals. I can play CQC mode in between bouts of jump, scan, jump, scan, jump, scan, and so on.
Firewatch - I finished it. It was alright, overall, but I didn't end up liking it as much as I anticipated. Maybe I was just not in the mindspace for this type of thing. The high points are the style of the game's art and believable characters on display, though I don't quite buy that it is set in the mid '80s when the characters speak the way they do. Something about it just seemed off. Hiking around the nature areas was nice, but got old kind of quickly, and I was soon dashing everywhere, and dashing through to the end of the game.
Torchlight II - I'm not sure why, now, but something made me want to go back to revisit this game, as I felt like we had unfinished business. I feel like I'm finished with it now, though. I realized while playing it for a while that I wasn't particularly in love with either the play or the world in this game, and my time would be better spent elsewhere.
Borderlands 2 - Same story here as above. I haven't been able to get into Borderlands 2 for whatever reason, after a couple of tries. I played all the way through the first and all the DLC for it, and while I do enjoy the combat in these games, the randomly generated guns don't really do all that much for me, and I don't particularly like the world they've built here, unique though it is. I could play any number of other shooters and probably eventually find one that clicks in a way that this one doesn't.
Tomb Raider II - Another game not really on my backlog, since I did play all the way through it back at release on the original PlayStation, but that I did want to revisit. I bought the entire collection of Tomb Raider games on Steam a while back, and I want to try each of them out, for a while at least. I never played past the second when these were contemporary, nor ever played Legend, Anniversary, or Underworld in later years. The next TR game I played after II was actually the 2013 reboot. I still really like these original games in the series. No other game has done quite this sort of 3D world navigation puzzle with a very well defined move set and a collection of levels planned out so exactly. I hypothesize that the advent of the analog stick cut short this evolutionary path in gaming.
Rocket League - It continues to be a great game to dip into for a few minutes at a time as a break here and there during the day, or in the evening as a warm-up for more serious fare.
The Witness - The more serious fare, often. I've made some really good progress lately. I'm up past 250 puzzles solved now, I think, with 5 or 6 laser beams activated. I really like this game.
X-COM Enemy Unknown - My campaign continues. I'm at a stage where I have to infiltrate an alien base, and I'm just trying to build up resources and prepare my squad before doing that. I don't know if it's time sensitive or not, but it probably is, at least in the sense that alien activity is going to keep happening, and I can never address all instances of it. Eventually everyone will just pull out of the whole X-COM project. One nation already has, Russia, if memory serves.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - I have a game in progress that I am half-serious about completing, and that I keep going back to when I feel like a quick hit of action play and the PS3 is on, usually because Mia and Juno have been watching something.
Elite Dangerous - I finally made it back to civilized space with my tons of exploration data, and sold it, making about 8 million credits, which was enough to bankroll the best FSD available for my Asp, as well as other improvements, and now I'm off out into the black for another run. I don't know where I'm headed, other than to the bottom of the galaxy, and rimward of the bubble of settled systems. One of the new toys I want to test out is my SRV, the rover that can be deployed to drive around the surfaces of planets (rocky and non-atmospheric, for the time being). I need to do more and longer expeditions if I'm going to make enough money to buy an Anaconda or other large ship, and if I'm going to rank up to Elite in exploration. These are long, long, long term goals. I can play CQC mode in between bouts of jump, scan, jump, scan, jump, scan, and so on.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Focus Leads to Completion, Completion Leads to Progress
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Someone slandered the revered name of this game recently, claiming another, more recent game could be better. I checked, and no, no game is better.
Rocket League - Had a quick game the other day, scored a goal. Very fun!
Orion: Dino Beatdown/Dino Horde/Prelude - Dumb Sci-Fi Battlefield-like with universally hostile dinosaurs in the environments. Seemed alright, but few players were on the servers, and the production values just aren't where they need to be in a game like this.
KOTOR update - This is where I've been spending most of my gaming time. I must be around a third or more of the way in, now. I am probably getting near the end of the Manaan section, the first planet I am visiting on my quest for the Star Map. There are three others after this one, and probably one or two more endgame locations to hit after that. I still lack two companions, the fan favorite HK-47 being one, the other unknown to me. Unless it's potentially Malak? I'm definitely enjoying this game. I believe I'm further in now than I ever managed to get before, but I don't recall exactly where it was I left off, previously.
Rocket League - Had a quick game the other day, scored a goal. Very fun!
Orion: Dino Beatdown/Dino Horde/Prelude - Dumb Sci-Fi Battlefield-like with universally hostile dinosaurs in the environments. Seemed alright, but few players were on the servers, and the production values just aren't where they need to be in a game like this.
KOTOR update - This is where I've been spending most of my gaming time. I must be around a third or more of the way in, now. I am probably getting near the end of the Manaan section, the first planet I am visiting on my quest for the Star Map. There are three others after this one, and probably one or two more endgame locations to hit after that. I still lack two companions, the fan favorite HK-47 being one, the other unknown to me. Unless it's potentially Malak? I'm definitely enjoying this game. I believe I'm further in now than I ever managed to get before, but I don't recall exactly where it was I left off, previously.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Enough of the Commonwealth
That was pretty quick, really. I blew through the main quest line of Fallout 4, in the end siding with the Institute, wiping out both the Railroad and Brotherhood of Steel to cement their control over the Commonwealth. I didn't really feel the need to roam around poking at the non-essential locations and things, having played a whole lot of 3D Fallout over the last couple of years. I did really enjoy the play of the game, and I think it is nicer overall to play than 3 or New Vegas in terms of feel, even though the differences are not huge. The one aspect I'm still not completely sure how I feel about, even after 50 hours, is the new skill point and perk system. It always felt like the perk points were too few and far between to merely increment a core attribute or the effectiveness of a perk I already possessed.
I'm putting it aside after my first play through, planning to come back to it at a later date for another go-round with a different character build and taking a different path through the main quest. The idea is to play this game more in the way I played Oblivion, using several different characters to go through each of the game's guilds and major quest lines. Yes, you never max anything out on any one character, but the game does always feel fresh that way, and you don't get any of that weirdness associated with being both the leader of these guys and the leader of these other guys, too.
I've also finished up Telltale's Game of Thrones game, which I felt really improved as the episodes went on. I wasn't completely sold on it at first, but by the end of the series I was really into it. There will be more coming, they've revealed, and I'm sure I'll partake.
I got a chance to play Rocket League at a friend's house over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and just like everyone's been raving for the last several months, it's a lot of fun. I picked it up in the Steam sale, the only game I did buy, after selling a bunch of trading cards and TF2/Dota 2 items. I'll have to slot it into my non-RPG, non-Strategy slot, those being the two genres I really want to focus on playing more of in the near to mid- term.
Speaking of role playing, I have decided it is finally time to get back to Mass Effect 3 and wrap up the Reaper war and Shepard's saga. It's been long enough that the EA resentment has faded, and the desire to wrap up a loose end has been brought back to the fore. I feel like I am only about 30-40% into the game, at this point, so it may be a while yet.
I have also made it a point to check out Invisible, Inc. before the end of the year. I'll need to get that in soon.
I'm putting it aside after my first play through, planning to come back to it at a later date for another go-round with a different character build and taking a different path through the main quest. The idea is to play this game more in the way I played Oblivion, using several different characters to go through each of the game's guilds and major quest lines. Yes, you never max anything out on any one character, but the game does always feel fresh that way, and you don't get any of that weirdness associated with being both the leader of these guys and the leader of these other guys, too.
I've also finished up Telltale's Game of Thrones game, which I felt really improved as the episodes went on. I wasn't completely sold on it at first, but by the end of the series I was really into it. There will be more coming, they've revealed, and I'm sure I'll partake.
I got a chance to play Rocket League at a friend's house over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and just like everyone's been raving for the last several months, it's a lot of fun. I picked it up in the Steam sale, the only game I did buy, after selling a bunch of trading cards and TF2/Dota 2 items. I'll have to slot it into my non-RPG, non-Strategy slot, those being the two genres I really want to focus on playing more of in the near to mid- term.
Speaking of role playing, I have decided it is finally time to get back to Mass Effect 3 and wrap up the Reaper war and Shepard's saga. It's been long enough that the EA resentment has faded, and the desire to wrap up a loose end has been brought back to the fore. I feel like I am only about 30-40% into the game, at this point, so it may be a while yet.
I have also made it a point to check out Invisible, Inc. before the end of the year. I'll need to get that in soon.
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