May 16, 2023 - Day 136 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 152

Game: Bad North: Jotunn Edition

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 17, 2018
Library Date: Dec 25, 2022
Unplayed: 145d (4m24d)
Playtime: 43m

Steam went down while I was writing this, which was a little disconcerting.

Bad North: Jotunn Edition is the "definitive edition" of Bad North, which I'd never played. It's a real-time cozy tactics strategy roguelite.

I threw "cozy" in there, because of all the games this reminds me, it's actually Townscaper that it comes closest to in terms of atmosphere.

It's somewhat minimalistic in design, but that gives it a unique character. You defend a series of islands against Viking invaders, so it's like the anti-Assassins Creed Valhalla.

I wish I had more to say about it, but I've come down with some kind of not-COVID (according to two tests so far), and couldn't stay awake last night to post the update.

I then went to bed and couldn't sleep, so it's a lose/lose.

I really must look up the difference between roguelike and roguelite, because all of these subcategories are doing my head in.

Bad North: Jotunn Edition is:

4: Good

#BadNorth #Cozy #Tactics #Strategy #Roguelite #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 17, 2023 - Day 137 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 153

Game: Batora: Lost Haven

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 21, 2022
Library Date: Mar 10, 2023
Unplayed: 68d (2m7d)
Playtime: 29m

Batora: Lost Haven is an isometric action-adventure with RPG elements (RPGlite?)

It's another quite pretty game. It also has a female protagonist, which is frequently something that improves my chances of enjoying a game.

One of the small pieces of the puzzle in coming to terms with being trans was looking at all of the small signals strewn across my life.

Playing games, reading books, watching movies... when the protagonist is female, I connect with that story in a way that rarely - if ever - happens with a male protagonist.

Batora has an interesting "save the post-apocalyptic world" storyline, which has my interest; on the other hand, as often happens with isometric games, I find the fixed camera angles somewhat stifling.

Batora does allow you to zoom in and one by one level, but it feels like it could have used an extra level of zoom-in.

Batora: Lost Haven has piqued my interest, and so far it seems:

4: Good

#BatoraLostHaven #ActionAdventure #Isometric
#MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 18, 2023 - Day 138 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 154

Game: Elex

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 18, 2017
Library Date: Dec 1, 2022
Unplayed: 168d (5m17d)
Playtime: 66m

Elex is a third-person open-world "sci-fi" ARPG. Apparently.

The game opens with a narrator drawling the story of the planet Magalan, and the terrible disaster that befell them, leaving them in a post-apocalypse that feels like the designs of Skyrim, Fallout, and Destiny 2's EDZ got put in a blender, but the devs decided to roll their own gameplay.

They kept the aspect of Fallout's "collect all the things just in case" gameplay, but while I managed to collect a stash of stuff, an hour in I still have no idea what to do with any of it.

Combat feels mushy, and the mobs I've run into feel overpowered.

...and then there's the voice acting. Our protagonist is a gruff emotionless white guy who's been done wrong, and left to die by his faction. Early on, he meets a character from a different faction, and the conversation itself felt like a grind.

To call the voice acting wooden would be an insult to trees.

Unfortunately, I think Elex is another game that might have been interesting in 2017, but suffers in comparison to everything that's come since, and there's little here that makes me want to keep playing.

Elex?

2: Meh

#Elex #ARPG #ThirdPerson
#MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 19, 2023 - Day 139 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 155

Game: Moving Out

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 29, 2020
Library Date: Sep 25, 2022
Unplayed: 236d (7m24d)
Playtime: 20m

Moving Out is an isometric couch co-op game.

First mistake I made was trying to play it with keyboard and mouse. Definitely designed for controller. Picked up the controller, it became playable.

Take your cartoony avatar, rush into the house, grab the highlighted objects, load them into the truck as fast as possible.

Rinse, repeat.

The moment I saw the option for multiple players, I should have twigged that this was designed to be played co-op.

I can see how it might be fun co-op, as you get in each other's way and coordinate to try and beat the timer.

Single player? It's not much fun at all. Is this the kind of game I'd pull out to play on the couch with friends? Maybe, if I had friends who came over to game, or a party.

Alas, I'm 49, and neither of those things happen.

Moving Out is just a bit:

2: Meh

#MovingOut #CouchCoOp #Isometric #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 20, 2023 - Day 140 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 156

Game: A New Beginning: Final Cut

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Dec 11, 2012
Library Date: May 14, 2019
Unplayed: 1467d (4y6d)
Playtime: 30m

A New Beginning: Final Cut is a mashup of a point-and-click adventure & a graphic novel, and it does neither very well.

Today almost didn't have a review. I've spent a chunk of the day asleep, and being sick seems to have supercharged my ADHD.

I'm 16 games ahead, I could have skipped today... kind of wish I had.

I scoped my unplayed games, & saw this. Most of the time I remember at least activating a particular game; this one was a complete mystery.

It's a heavy-handed environmentalism-focused point-and-click "adventure". Not the fun kind of point-and-click, either.

The kind where you have to mouse over every little thing on screen to try & find something.

When you do, the interaction model is terrible. Most point-and-clicks give you a right-click context menu. Here it's left-click-hold-down-the-mouse-button-choose-the-correct-option...

...then listen to the droning, "my life sucks & I just want it to be over" voice acting with a poorly translated script that disavows contractions.

This is not a game you play for fun, it's a game you play as penance for not sorting your recycling properly.

Play A New Beginning: Final Cut?:

1: Nope.

#ANewBeginning #PointAndClick #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 21, 2023 - Day 141 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 157

Game: ReCore: Definitive Edition

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 15, 2018
Library Date: Mar 20, 2023
Unplayed: 62d (2m1d)
Playtime: 36m

ReCore is a third-person action-adventure platformer with a female protagonist and robots.

The game opens in medias res with Joule and her "corebot" dog Mack, trying to find out what's gone wrong in the post-apocalyptic desert where they're located.

Joule is on the trail of an unusual energy source reading, and as you go, the game introduces you to the core gameplay mechanics, which was pretty well done.

One of the unusual mechanics is that the corebots that attack you all have energy cores that can be extracted mid-fight, once you've done enough damage, by essentially entering a tug-of-war after firing your extraction device.

Occasionally, there's an "instant extract" option, but I'm not sure what triggers that. Fight through to the end-of-mission boss, defeat, extract core, return to your "crawler" home base, repair, upgrade, next mission.

I quite enjoyed it, and am interested to see how the underlying storyline of "New Eden" and what's gone wrong there develops.

I would have kept playing, but sleep is coming on fast. Again. Will be glad to be over this virus.

ReCore: Definitive Edition seems fun so far, so it's:

4: Good

#ReCore #ActionAdventure #ThirdPerson #Platformer #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 22, 2023 - Day 142 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 158

Game: Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 4, 2016
Library Date: Mar 14, 2023
Unplayed: 69d (2m8d)
Playtime: 76m

Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders is a point-and-click 2.5D puzzle/mystery game.

IIRC it came as a free mystery bonus gift with a Fanatical purchase.

The most annoying thing about it is that it absolutely sucked me to keep playing it. I've never read an Agatha Christie novel, and the only things I knew about Hercule Poirot is that the character is French, and has been played onscreen by David Suchet multiple times.

This is not a David Suchet voiced version of Poirot. Yet, 76 minutes in, and I've completed around a quarter of the game, in spite of having little desire to do so. It's just... scratching an itch.

I don't think it will be a particularly long game; the puzzles aren't overly complex (so far), I just can't understand quite why I felt so compelled to keep going until I completed the first chapter.

No connection to the character, no particular affinity to this kind of game, no emotional drive to play it, yet I'm going to probably keep playing it, which I find mildly irritating.

Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders is:

3: OK

#AgathaChristie #TheABCMurders #PointAndClick #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 23, 2023 - Day 143 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 159

Game: Just Die Already

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 21, 2021
Library Date: Sep 25, 2022
Unplayed: 240d (7m28d)
Playtime: 2h25m

I spent most of today in the hospital for what turned out to be a kidney stone. I'm still in a lot of pain (waiting for it to pass) so I planned to knock out 15 minutes of a game, write up a quick review, head off to bed.

Just Die Already came as part of the September 2022 Humble Choice bundle. It's an "old people mayhem sandbox" game, from the developers of Goat Simulator, a game that did not particularly grab me.

Because it's built on Unreal Engine 4, it's got that same kind of Fortnite graphics feel, that I'm not particularly fond of.

On top of all of that, it's a sandbox game (I think the first one I've reviewed?) and sandbox games just do nothing for me. I need a goal to focus on.

Which is why I was taken aback when I finally quit out and I'd been playing for almost two and a half hours.

As an angry senior citizen who's just been kicked out of their retirement home, you set out to cause ultra-violent gory-but-cartoonish violence everywhere you go.

It's absolutely not a kind of game I'd choose to play, yet it kept me distracted from the pain all evening, which is sometimes exactly what I need from a game.

Just Die Already is:

4: Good (!)

#JustDieAlready #Sandbox #Mayhem #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 24, 2023 - Day 144 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 160

Game: Unmemory

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 14, 2020
Library Date: Aug 17, 2022
Unplayed: 280d (9m7d)
Playtime: 1h42m

I had my little rock baby earlier tonight, and within a few hours I felt like myself again.

Just in time to play a game, and review it before bed, 15 minutes and I'm away.

The best laid plans of mice and women and all of that...

Unmemory is a murder mystery puzzle game, via a novel, mashed up with Christopher Nolan's "Memento", and a multimedia demo CD from the mid-1990's, packaged up like a tar baby for the unwary #AuDHD gamer.

Last night's game kept me distracted. Tonight, on the other hand, I was hyperfocused as this game scratches multiple itches simultaneously. Lots of small details to take notice of; pieces to put together, patterns to match.

As the main character (gender unclear), you wake up with amnesia, covered in blood, and find yourself trying to solve the murder of the woman in the bathtub. Who is she? Am I responsible? What is going on??

I've tried not to spoil the game with any details of the storyline in the review, because it's just downright enjoyable to learn what's happening as you go, and start finding order within the chaos.

This is genuinely the kind of game that suits the term "multimedia", and it's not as an insult.

Unmemory is:

5: Excellent

#Unmemory #Puzzle #Mystery #Multimedia ##MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 25, 2023 - Day 145 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 161

Game: Demon Pit

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 18, 2018
Library Date: Aug 17, 2022
Unplayed: 281d (9m8d)
Playtime: 18m

This was the third unplayed game I played today. First was Due Process, a free multiplayer shooter with no players. Quit, uninstall. Then Bomjman, which had an auto-translated and generated voiceover that was so bad, I quit and immediately uninstalled it too.

Then came Demon Pit. Apparently I bought a bundle of mash-up games on the same date. Unlike yesterday's game, though, Demon Pit did not scratch any itches.

It's a retro-styled first-person boomer shooter, with a grappling hook, like a mashup of Doom and Just Cause. You're in a single arena where you need to kill a set number of mobs to end that wave, then you get a new weapon, the arena re-arranges around you, and more mobs spawn.

Keep going until you die.

It's a short review because... there's not a lot to it. The grappling hook mechanic is OK, but you frequently get flung past your goal into more mobs.

It gets repetitive very quickly, and it's just not much fun after that.

Demon Pit is:

2: Meh

#DemonPot #FirstPerson #BoomerShooter #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 26, 2023 - Day 146 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 162

Game: Tell Me Why

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 27, 2020
Library Date: Jun 2, 2022
Unplayed: 358d (11m24d)
Playtime: 82m

I was talking with some trans friends earlier tonight and mentioned that I was going to have to dip and play tonight's game, and one of them suggested "Tell Me Why".

As it turns out, Tell Me Why IS one of the games in my pile of shame. I grabbed it last year when it was released free for Pride Month, and I'm kind of glad that I didn't play it immediately, as it hits differently on the other side of coming out, and starting to transition.

Tell Me Why is a point-and-click adventure game from the makers of Life Is Strange, that tells the story of two twins (one of whom is a trans man), their psychic link, and the murder of their mother.

There's something very realistic about this game. This is (so far) a world that feels lived-in, with an environment that feels like it has an actual past.

The voice acting is excellent (with the trans character being played by a trans actor), but also telling a story that's interesting, moving, and not just a "trans story".

But, it is *also* a trans story, & it evoked some incredibly strong emotions as I saw a young character engaging with their transness in a way that I could not at that age.

This game may take over my weekend.

Tell Me Why is:

5: Excellent

#TellMeWhy #PointAndClick
#Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 27, 2023 - Day 147 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 163

Game: Hue

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 31, 2016
Library Date: Dec 22, 2017
Unplayed: 1982d (5y5m5d)
Playtime: 27m

There are some technically unplayed games hidden in my library, and Hue is one of those games. It's a game I started at some point in the past but quit out of immediately. I still count those games as unplayed.

In the case of Hue, I suspect it was in my "I CAN'T USE A CONTROLLER" phase. One of the nice discoveries during this project is that my controller skills have improved over the last few months.

Hue is a lovely little platformer with an interesting gameplay mechanic, in that the puzzles in the game are based on different colours, and switching between colours at the appropriate times.

There are still timing-based puzzles that rely on jumping-and-switching-colours-and-moving, which I still struggle with (darned fine-motor control issues), but as platformers go, this one is pretty good.

I picked this specifically, though, because not only was it unplayed, it's currently free on Steam through to the 9th of June. Link after the hashtags.

Hue is:

4: Good

#Hue #Platformer #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

https://store.steampowered.com/app/383270/Hue/

May 28, 2023 - Day 148 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 164

Game: Sable

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 23, 2021
Library Date: Mar 10, 2023
Unplayed: 79d (2m18d)
Playtime: 1h55m

Sable is a third-person open-world adventure & exploration game. Unlike... any open world game I've played, as far as I can recall, it has no combat.

Sable is the coming of age story of the eponymous main character, and leaving her clan to embark on her "gliding".

Apparently inspired by Breath of the Wild, Sable's quest takes her climbing and solving puzzles across her home world of Midden; seemingly a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Sable rides her hoverbike from destination to destination, picking up quests.

Her goal is to collect a series of masks, which (if I understand correctly), will ultimately lead her to a ceremony to choose a final mask, which seemingly represents her permanent role within her society.

Sable has a quite lovely cel-shaded graphic style with a dynamic colour scheme that changes based on a day & night cycle, and has an almost ethereal soundscape.

Sable is:

5: Excellent

#Sable #ThirdPerson #OpenWorld #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 29, 2023 - Day 149 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 165

Game: Northgard

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 8, 2018
Library Date: Apr 7, 2019
Unplayed: 1513d (4y1m22d)
Playtime: 49m

Northgard is a real-time strategy game about Vikings. Slightly cartoonish Vikings, but Vikings all the same.

Having watched his father the King, and clan slaughtered, Rig the now-very-angry seeks vengeance, by way of taking several years to build one single village, to build a longboat, and set sail to Northgard, where his father's killer has gone to invade and colonise.

I get that the seasons are a necessary part of the RTS process of this game, but it took three years of in-game time to get to the point I could follow the guy across the ocean.

He could be dead by now, for all I know. OK, he probably isn't, but still.

In any case, build a building to process wood, assign villagers, build a scout building, train scouts, etc etc.

The game has its own charm, but on the surface it appears to be a pretty run-of-the-mill strategy game.

Not going to complain, but not itching to jump back in.

Northgard is:

3: OK

#Northgard #Strategy #RTS #Vikings #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 30, 2023 - Day 150 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 166

Game: Ori and the Blind Forest

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 28, 2016
Library Date: Mar 12, 2023
Unplayed: 79d (2m18d)
Playtime: 26m

Ori and the Blind Forest is a Metroidvania platformer, and it's utterly gorgeous.

The prologue broke my heart a little bit. I don't know quite what else to say about this. The sound design is also wonderful, immediately drawing me into Ori's world.

It seems that Ori's goal is to restore life to the forest, but I haven't played enough of the game yet.

However, I wanted to keep playing, which is a significant change since the start of the year.

One of the odd things about playing so many platform games over the past few months is that, in something that has genuinely surprised me, I do seem to have improved at my platforming skills.

It's still a struggle, and I'm not going to be playing anything on hard mode (or probably even normal), but on easy mode I find that platformers go from something that just provides me with endless frustration, to a challenge that feels rewarding.

Ori and the Blind Forest is captivating, and is:

5: Excellent

#OriAndTheBlindForest #Metroidvania #Platformer #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

May 31, 2023 - Day 151 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 167

Game: Max Payne

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 25, 2001
Library Date: Dec 7, 2017
Unplayed: 2001d (5y5m24d)
Playtime: 30m

No, that is not a typo. Yes, this is the original Max Payne. No, I have never played it. Yes, this will be hard to review.

Max Payne is a... come on, you know: third-person shooter, undercover detective is framed, goes rogue to try & get his life back.

I'd started Max Payne at some time in the past, & closed it after three minutes. Possibly because it's buggy as hell.

As the game starts, "Remedy" pops up on the screen; "Wait... the people who made Control?" It added a new lens with which to judge the game.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help much. I can see why Max Payne was so groundbreaking in 2001, but almost 22 years later, it hasn't aged well.

Firstly, the face-tech that was amazing in 2001 makes Max look constipated, and that's a hard thing to get past. It makes the game feel cheesy now.

Secondly, it is quite buggy. Kudos that it still runs in 2023 (at 2K res!), but audio dropouts & random freezes make it tough to want to keep playing.

However, there's a core to the story there, and a foreshadowing of Remedy's future storytelling prowess. I can see why they're remaking it; I think I might wrestle with it for a bit longer.

Max Payne, even 22 years later, is:

3: OK

#MaxPayne #ThirdPerson #Shooter #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 1, 2023 - Day 152 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 168

Game: Slipstream

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 22, 2018
Library Date: Mar 4, 2019
Unplayed: 1550d (4y2m28d)
Playtime: 18m

Slipstream is a retro-styled arcade racer. It's not 8-bit retro, so much as a throwback to the arcade racers I sucked at in the early-mid 1990's.

One of the things I find myself struggling with is that the more games I play, the more reference points I have, and the harder it becomes to enjoy some games.

If I open an MMORPG, I played WoW for over a decade, but that burned me out on MMORPGs. So an MMORPG has a lot to overcome.

If I open a survival game, it needs to grab me as well as Subnautica... used to. Until I played Breathedge. Friendship ended with Subnautica, Breathedge is my survival friend now.

For arcade racing games, it's Forza Horizon 4*. Slipstream is a very well designed arcade racer, and leans heavily on nostalgia for that era of games. It's just that I don't have any nostalgia for that style of game.

So while it's well done, it doesn't offer me something that I don't get from another game, in a more enjoyable way.

Sorry, Slipsteam. You're just a bit:

2: Meh

#Slipstream #ArcadeRacer #Racing #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

*Almost 18 months ago, I found a literal showstopper bug that causes FH4 to crash, regularly. It took months for the Forza team to accept that it was a bug.

It's STILL not fixed. Much disappoint.

June 2, 2023 - Day 153 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 169

Game: Shadowgrounds

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 8, 2006
Library Date: Oct 5, 2011
Unplayed: 4258d (11y7m28d)
Playtime: 30m

Take the basic feel of Doom, & move it to Ganymede; mash it up with an early 2000's boomer shooter, make it top-down, limit ammo, add AI companions, who frequently stand in your way, preventing you from moving to get away from the mobs overwhelming you because you'd run out of ammo.

That's Shadowgrounds.

Setting the game options is done in an external app before opening the game. It seems I'd opened the configuration app and closed it again, at some stage in the last few years, meaning that the game has actually been unplayed for over eleven and a half years.

Oh well.

To try and say something nice about the game, it uses light, shadows, and jump scares very effectively.

It's also a 17 year old game where you cannot *aim* at the mobs you're trying to kill to conserve ammo, so you're just doing a spray-and-pray in their general direction, and hoping you don't run out out of... nope, I'm out of ammo. Again. Back to the pea-shooter.

Nope, overwhelmed by mobs and dead. Again.

But at least you respawn... a total of five times, apparently.

Even as I wrote the review, the rating on this just kept slipping.

Gotta give Shadowgrounds a big *old*:

1: Nope

#ShadowGrounds #BoomerShooter #TopDown #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 3, 2023 - Day 154 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 170

Game: Dead Rising

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 8, 2006
Library Date: Jan 20, 2023
Unplayed: 134d (4m14d)
Playtime: 49m

Dead Rising is the first in the series of Dead Rising third person action-adventure zombie games.

I bought it, after starting this project, because of one of the rules I set for myself that I wouldn't play a sequel to a game unless I'd played the predecessors.

Since I already owned Dead Rising 4 from a bundle (still unplayed), I decided I had to start at the beginning with Dead Rising, & bought it on special.

This rule was a mistake, as was buying this game. Changed the rule to add "if I own them".

It's not a bad game, per se. It's just that it was released almost 17 years ago, and is competing with zombie games like Dead Island and Dying Light.

It's got quite a lot of character in the main protagonist, Frank West, a photo journalist trapped in a mall full of zombies. However, his loping run feels frustratingly slow, and the zombies seem to be either ignoring you, or swarming you with little warning.

I got quite frustrated, but was slowly making progress, and then I died. Games in 2006 weren't really big on autosaving, something you don't miss until it's not there.

After more than 40 mins playtime, I found myself at the start of the game again, and quit.

Dead Rising has fallen to:

2: Meh

#DeadRising #ThirdPerson #Zombies #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 4, 2023 - Day 155 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 171

Game: Underhero

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 19, 2018
Library Date: Feb 29, 2020
Unplayed: 1191d (3y3m6d)
Playtime: 41m

Underhero is a quirky little 2D pixel art platformer with timing-based combat.

The game opens with you controlling a fully-levelled herp who is seemingly at the end of his quest to rescue a princess.

Then he gets killed by a minion.

You are now controlling that minion, and things only get weirder from then on.

Fights are timing-based, and you get extra points for hits on the beat. There are some RPG-lite levelling antics going on as well, and the whole thing kind of sits together quite well.

The quirky humour is what pushed it beyond "meh" for me - it's still a pixel art platformer, after all, but one I'll keep around for when I'm in the mood.

Underhero is:

3: OK

#Underhero #2D #Platformer #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 4, 2023 - Day 155 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 172

Game: Dead Rising 2

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 30, 2010
Library Date: Nov 4, 2017
Unplayed: 2038d (5y7m)
Playtime: 74m

After yesterday's Dead Rising review, @Averagegoob responded to me suggesting that Dead Rising 2 was better than Dead Rising.

He wasn't wrong.

It definitely improves on some of the weaknesses of Dead Rising. The new protagonist, Chuck Greene, feels like he moves faster than Frank West in Dead Rising.

The stakes feel higher here. Frank has a daughter he needs to keep safe, as well as [spoilers] that give him (and thus the player) an impetus to keep fighting.

Combat feels cleaner, and a little more fun as well. A nice addition is the ability to create combination weapons, which make things a little more gory, with a side of black humour.

On the downside, you still have to find a toilet to save the game, which is a little annoying, but overall, it's a step up from Dead Rising.

Dead Rising 2 is:

3: OK

#DeadRising2 #ThirdPerson #Zombies #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 5, 2023 - Day 156 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 173

Game: Carto

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 27, 2020
Library Date: Sep 1, 2021
Unplayed: 643d (1y9m5d)
Playtime: 74m

I committed to self-care last night, to resting and trying to shake off this virus. Therefore, to not force myself into playing a game.

At 11:30pm, having spent a good chunk of the day either asleep, or at least in bed, my brain was having none of it.

Got up, and decided to try and play something cozy & chill. As Steam were running a "Cozy & Family Friendly" sale/promoted category, I thought I'd click through and see what was on sale, and there was Carto, a game I've owned since Sept 2021.

Carto is indeed a cozy top-down puzzle game, with a unique gameplay mechanic. As young girl, travelling with your granny on her airship(!), an accident leaves you stranded, and collecting pieces of a map.

Each section of the map is square, and you can open the map, and rearrange the pieces of the map to navigate to different places, or solve puzzles BY rearranging the map pieces.

It was perfect for "I'm too tired to fall asleep", and kept me playing until I was sleepy enough to sleep; I went to bed and was out like a light.

This is a game that would also work great on a big screen, via SteamLink, so if you've got that kind of setup, it's a great way to chill out.

Carto is:

4: Good

#Carto #TopDown #CozyGaming #Puzzle #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 6, 2023 - Day 157 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 174

Game: Timberborn

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 16, 2021
Library Date: Jun 5, 2023
Unplayed: 1d (1d)
Playtime: 3h55m

Timberborn is an "oh no what have I done reality" game (TIL there's not really an antonym for simulator).

Technically, Timberborn is a "lumberpunk" city-building strategy management game in a post-apocalyptic Earth devoid of humans.

In practice, Timberborn is regret*-generator that will eat up your time, until you look up from the monitor and realise you should have been in bed two hours ago. In my case, three and a half hours.

You control a colony of beavers. BEAVERS! They're adorable and whimsical, and they build stuff, and you can build more stuff, and then extend, and then plant trees, and dear me, this just made me want to keep playing.

I had this on my wishlist for a while, and then it came up on special, and then it was even cheaper on Humble, and it was worth every penny of the A$23.50 I paid for it.

Except in lost sleep.

*I regret nothing.

Timberborn is:

5: Excellent

#Timberborn #Lumberpunk #Citybuilder #Management #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 7, 2023 - Day 158 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 175

Game: Honey, I Joined a Cult

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 4, 2022
Library Date: Jun 7, 2023
Unplayed: 0d (0d)
Playtime: 19m

Honey, I Joined a Cult is a top-down tycoon/management sim, in which you create a cult.

When June's Humble Choice bundle dropped today, I went through and added the 5 games I didn't already have to Steam.

With the idea of reviewing the bundle over the next week.

This is a tycoon management game about building a cult. I really did not think this through.

For those of you new to my story, my family & personal history is intertwined with two separate cults. This game was starting off from a long way behind, and literally started causing me anxiety.

Firstly, the music. I didn't get around to turning it down, but disco funk is somewhere below Kenny G for me, and definitely didn't not enhance my calm, or gameplay experience.

Secondly, the game visually feels a bit like The Escapists but with vector art graphics instead of pixel graphics.

Finally, coming off a city-builder management sim last night into this was like jumping off a moving bullet train into a push wagon. It... was not pleasant.

I wanted to give this a chance, but at 19 minutes, it was all a bit too much, and I was out.

Honey, I Joined a Cult? Actually:

1: Nope

#HoneyIJoinedACult #TopDown #ManagementSim #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 8, 2023 - Day 159 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 176

Game: Curse of the Dead Gods

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 24, 2021
Library Date: Jun 7, 2023
Unplayed: 1d (1d)
Playtime: 28m

Curse of the Dead Gods is a roguelike isometric dungeon crawler.

This is the second of the five previously unowned games from the June 2023 Humble Choice Bundle.

I like dungeon crawlers when I'm in the mood, but roguelikes are not my go-to style of game.

As an intrepid dungeon raider, you seek fame and fortune, and you're almost immediately cursed as you enter the temple. Smash things, pick up gold, kill mobs.

Weapon upgrades, spiky floors, strange gods. I feel like I've played this before...?

Wait up. It's Hades with a warmer colour palette, and less dialogue.

That's not to say it's a bad game. If you like gameplay of Hades, you might like this. If you like the storyline & wit, maybe less so.

It's a good looking game, but left me wondering when I'd choose to play this over Hades.

Curse of the Dead Gods is:

3: OK

#CurseOfTheDeadGods #Isometric #DungeonCrawler #Roguelike #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 9, 2023 - Day 160 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 177

Game: Grime

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 2, 2021
Library Date: Jun 7, 2023
Unplayed: 2d (2d)
Playtime: 28m

Kids, it's time to charge up (or plug in) your controllers. Game number four from the June 2023 Humble Choice bundle is Grime.

Grime is a 2D soulsvania platformer. One of the things I've struggled with over the course of the last 5+ months is categorising games, and I've kind of given up doing it myself, and just Google it.

There are so many sub-genres, and games that are mashups of different things, that I just want to make sure I'm talking about the right thing.

After the intro & I was dropped into the game (and fired up my controller), I was struck at how much the game reminded me of Dead Souls 3.

Turns out Grime is considered a "soulsvania" in that it takes elements of souls-likes and uses them in the gameplay.

The actual game is a little hard to describe; there was also the sense of "I have no idea what's going on here" and so was exploring the chambers and tunnels.

The thing that'S surprised me was that I've gone from close to anti-platformer at the start of this project to -almost- enjoying them now.

On that basis, Grime is:

3: OK

#Grime #2D #Platformer #Soulsvania #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 9, 2023 - Day 160 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 178

Game: Remnant: From the Ashes

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 20, 2019
Library Date: Jun 7, 2023
Unplayed: 2d (2d)
Playtime: 40m

Remnant: From the Ashes is a third-person souls-like ARPG, & game #5 from the June Humble Choice bundle.

The game opens with an avatar designer; while not overly complex, it was enough to be able to create a female character & make her feel like "me".

You then find yourself in a boat for a cinematic intro, while a voiceover sets the scene; after a final shipwreck, you're washed up on a post-apocalyptic shore, with a palette of mostly dark muted colours, armed only with a sword.

So... souls-like.

There's an integrated training section of the game where you're introduced to the main bads, "the Root". Creepy AF spike-shooting black & red trees can spawn out of nowhere, or drop from platforms above you where they're ...rooted... in defiance of gravity, hanging there in exactly the way bricks don't.

Once you're rescued by the inhabitants of "Ward 13", you get a couple of guns (less souls-like), and start exploring this horrifying world in which you're part of the titular remnant of humanity.

The atmosphere is incredibly creepy, and I'll probably spend some more time killing evil trees.

Remnant: From the Ashes is:

3: OK

#RemnantFromTheAshes #ARPG #SoulsLike #ThirdPerson #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 10, 2023 - Day 161 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 179

Game: Turbo Golf Racing

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 4, 2022
Library Date: Jun 7, 2023
Unplayed: 3d (3d)
Playtime: 16m

Turbo Golf Racing is game #6 from the June 2023 Humble Choice bundle and answers the question "What if Rocket League, but mini golf?"

I really don't know what else there is I can say about it.

Take away the stadium, give all 8 players their own ball, three competitive rounds to get your ball from one end of the green to the hole as fast as possible.

Powerups, weapons, wildly differing greens.

This is a multiplayer game, and I can understand why they were willing to put it into a bundle less than a year after release.

As with any multiplayer game, no players = no game, so by putting it into a bundle, the devs are obviously hoping to goose the playerbase.

I did find a match, and it was kind of fun, but I suspect this will end up being another also-run game that will get shut down in a year or two, just through not having enough players to support ongoing development.

Turbo Golf Racing is:

3: OK

#TurboGolfRacing #Sports #Golf #Racing #Multiplayer #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 11, 2023 - Day 162 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 180

Game: Meeple Station

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 11, 2020
Library Date: Jun 2, 2022
Unplayed: 374d (1y9d)
Playtime: 63m

Meeple Station is game #7 from June 2023's Humble Choice, the last of my unplayed games from the bundle, and answers the question "How do we fill out the bundle to 8 games?"

I actually picked it up in a bundle last year, so I have a free key.

Meeple Station is an isometric pixel-art colony builder/management sim. You build and control a space station.

In this case, build and control are very loosely defined. When I looked at this game, I was expecting to find it was still in Early Access, but no, apparently this bug-ridden disaster area is the release version. Patch 1.0.7 was released in Jan 2022, 1.0.8 was released in July 2022, and nothing else since.

Some nice ideas, but very poorly executed. After 63 mins, I hadn't even completed the 5 tutorials.

For example: You assign crew members to a task, then you have to wait for them to complete that task to move on in the tutorial.

There's no way to force them to do it, you just have to wait... and they just won't do it. I restarted two tutorials, one of them at (as it turned out) the final step. When it happened again mid-tutorial #5, I was done.

Meeple Station has some nice ideas, but:

1: Nope

#MeepleStation #PixelArt #ColonyBuilder #Isometric #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 12, 2023 - Day 163 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 181

Game: Styx: Master of Shadows

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 8, 2014
Library Date: Jan 23, 2023
Unplayed: 137d (4m17d)
Playtime: 19m

Styx: Master of Shadows is a third-person-ish* stealth RPG game. You play as the titular Styx, a 200 year old goblin, who's been captured and locked up while trying to obtain the game's MacGuffin. This may be intentional.

Before I decided that reviewing sequels if I didn't own previous games in the series was OK, I kept skipping over the sequel to this (thanks Humble Monthly Bundle June 2018!). When this came up for sale for $1.65 in January, I added it to my pile of shame.

It's a stealth & assassinate game. There's a storyline about elves and humans and something called amber, but it's basically just an fairly middling framing for a stealth game.

While it IS a third-person game, Styx's stealth method is to crouch, meaning that sometimes the camera breaks to first-person instead, which is somewhat disorienting.

At this point it's not bad, it's not dragging me back to play it again, it's just something that was fine to kill some time on and knock off my list for today's review while waiting for one of my poor decisions to finish downloading. I wouldn't pay full price for it, but AUD$1.65? It was worth it.

Styx: Master of Shadows is:

3: OK

#StyxMasterOfShadows #ThirdPerson #Stealth #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 13, 2023 - Day 164 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 182

Game: Styx: Shards of Darkness

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 15, 2017
Library Date: Jun 6, 2018
Unplayed: 137d (4m17d)
Playtime: 19m

Just like it's predecessor, Styx: Shards of Darkness is a third-person-ish* stealth RPG game.

While the graphics are better, I found Shards of Darkness somehow more frustrating and difficult than Master of Shadows.

I don't think I died during my run yesterday. I died *constantly* while playing tonight.

As far as I can tell, it feels like the grab/grapple mechanic is a little less certain in Shards of Darkness; that for whatever reason, Styx doesn't always grab onto an object in the same way as Master of Shadows.

Consequently, there was a lot of dropping to my death, whether it be to the ocean underneath the village where the first part of the game takes place, or straight into the path of a roaming guard.

In any case, I spent longer playing it, tonight, but only made it about as far into the game as I did last night (due to all the deaths, and effective restarts).

Styx: Shards of Darkness is, barely:

3: OK

#StyxShardsOfDarkness #ThirdPerson #Stealth #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 14, 2023 - Day 165 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 183

Game: Tinylands

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jan 22, 2021
Library Date: Dec 25, 2022
Unplayed: 171d (5m20d)
Playtime: 37m

Tiny Lands is a cozy isometric puzzle game. It's those old "compare these two images and find the differences", but with tiny little low-poly side-by-side dioramas that you can rotate and zoom.

They're very pretty, with an almost tilt-shift style, and a wonderful away of sound effects intermittently plays in the background while a very chill & laid back soundtrack accompanies you.

Set up my new WQHD work monitor tonight to test it, and this was the perfect game for it.

However, it is possible to, in a word, cheat.

If you've ever deliberately gone cross-eyed to trigger a 3D illusion, that some technique works almost flawlessly here. The differences in the images suddenly pop out at you as you rotate the tableaux, but it defeats the purpose of just chilling out and letting your mind wander.

Tiny Lands is:

4: Good

#TinyLands #Cozy #Isometric #Puzzle #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 15, 2023 - Day 166 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 184

Game: Dustforce DX

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jan 18, 2012
Library Date: Aug 13, 2022
Unplayed: 306d (10m2d)
Playtime: 17m

It's not often a game pisses me off, but Dustforce DX managed it. It is, of course, a platformer.

The music isn't bad. The semi-transparent spiky vector graphics fit the Indie feel of the game.

As there's no obvious way to to use a controller with the game, I played it with the default keyboard setup.

This was the part where I got cranky. I managed to complete the first two tutorial levels with an increasing amount of frustration, which peaked when trying to wall-jump up to the final tutorial.

Trying to press three keys at a time, at exactly the right time, almost completely eluded me.

Again, it's the fine motor control thing, and this is a game designed for practicing moves repeatedly to tune that fine motor control to a fine art.

This made the game an exercise in frustration.

As it turns out, there is a non-obvious way to set up a controller... you just assign the keys. I've never seen that done before, and it literally took me Googling it to find that out.

It didn't help.

If you enjoy that "needs perfect timing" kind of platformer, this might be right up your alley. Not mine, though.

Dustforce DX is a big:

1: Nope

#DustforceDX #Platformer #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 16, 2023 - Day 167 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 185

Game: Bleed 2

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 19, 2017
Library Date: Feb 2, 2019
Unplayed: 1595d (4y4m14d)
Playtime: 19m

Bleed 2 is a 2D twin-stick sideways scrolling pixel-art arcade shoot-em-up.

It feels very much like a 80's arcade game, both sonically and visually.

Lots of frantic button mashing, which would be great if I could mash the right buttons in the right order, but as I can't, I spent a lot of time dying.

The most frustrating thing is that every platformer / sideways scroller I've played uses the A button on the controller to jump, while Bleed 2 uses the right trigger, and uses A to taunt.

As the right thumbstick is used for shooting, it makes sense, but I found myself taunting instead of jumping far too many times (and then, of course, dying).

It's not that Bleed 2 isn't a good game, it's just that I'm not good at it.

Bleed 2 is just:

2: Meh

#Bleed2 #SidewaysScroller #PixelArt #TwinStick #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 17, 2023 - Day 168 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 186

Game: Weird West: Definitive Edition

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 1, 2022
Library Date: Jun 5, 2023
Unplayed: 12d (12d)
Playtime: 1h45m

Oops.

Weird West is a top-down twin-stick immersive sim set in an alternative wild west full of monsters bad juju.

The whole point of this endeavour was to reduce the number of unplayed games in my pile of shame, not add to the pile, and yet here we are with Weird West.

I assume part of it is my ADHD, and the "ooh, shiny" dopamine hit when something grabs my interest. A couple of weeks ago I saw the demo for Weird West and grabbed it. I also (and I have no recollection of doing so) wishlisted it.

Running on 2.5 hours sleep this morning, and I get an email saying "Weird West is on special!"

Fired up the demo, bought the game. Between Weird West, and Evil West, I guess the old west crossed with the supernatural is a thing now.

The cross between top-down and immersive sim makes for some interesting gameplay, however there were times when I felt like I wanted to zoom right in to a third-person perspective when in fights, but the fixed camera position made it a little bit frustrating.

Given that if you ask me to choose between western and sci-fi, I'm going to choose sci-fi, I was a little surprised at the way Weird West hooked me.

Weird West is:

4: Good

#WeirdWest #TopDown #ImmersiveSim #TwinStick #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 18, 2023 - Day 169 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 187

Game: Table Top Racing: World Tour

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 26, 2016
Library Date: Mar 13, 2018
Unplayed: 1923d (5y3m5d)
Playtime: 24m

Table Top Racing: World Tour takes iconic cars, shrinks them down to matchbox-sized caricatures, and sets you racing around landscapes built in kitchens and... something else, I guess. I never got out of the sushi kitchen.

If it sounds like I've played this game before, it's because it's fundamentally the same conceit as Toybox Turbos that I reviewed back in March.

To me, the most important thing about arcade racing games is that the cars handle well. Unfortunately the cars in TTR:WT handle like a bar of soap.

However, if you grind away for a few races, you can pick up some coin, which will allow you to fully upgrade the car, at which point it handles like a faster bar of soap.

The game design is cute, the track I raced on repeatedly was fun (a sushi kitchen), the soundtrack was banging, but the racing itself wasn't.

Maybe as you grind through, later cars you can buy might handle better, but there's just not enough to keep me pushing through to find out.

I spent an hour watching John Romero play a Doom 2 custom WAD this afternoon, and it was more fun than this.

Table Top Racing: World Tour is:

2: Meh

#TableTopRacingWorldTour #Arcade #Racing #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 19, 2023 - Day 170 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 188

Game: Bioshock Remastered

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 16, 2016
Library Date: Sep 16, 2016
Unplayed: 2467d (6y9m3d)
Playtime: 41m

"Wait... you've never played Bioshock?"

Well... yes and no.

I got Bioshock Remastered & Bioshock 2 Remastered for free because I already owned Bioshock & Bioshock 2.

Once I got past the intro (which seemed completely new to me), and into the game proper, I started to feel a sense of deja vu.

As it turns out, I played the original Bioshock for a total of 3.1 hours, last played July 26, 2014. I don't remember any of it; since I've never played Remastered, so I'm counting it as technically unplayed (particularly as I'm too tired to start something else at 10:30pm)

Bioshock (if you've been living under a rock) is an FPS/immersive sim set in a Libertarian utopia called "Rapture" that... isn't.

I'm not far enough into the game to understand why Rapture has collapsed, but I'm pretty sure that it's something to do with the "Plasmids" that effectively give the character super powers.

The visual and audio design of Bioshock Remastered is incredible, giving the game an oppressive & claustrophobic feel.

I doubt I would have grasped much of the Libertarian subtext in 2014; in post-Brexit/COVID/Musk 2023, that subtext sits very uncomfortably.

Bioshock Remastered is:

4: Good

#BioshockRemastered #FPS #ImmersiveSim #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

June 21, 2023 - Day 172 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 190

Game: Stray

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 20, 2022
Library Date: Oct 15, 2022
Unplayed: 249d (8m6d)
Playtime: 40m

This review is going to contain minor spoilers for the early part of the game.

Stray is a third-person game about a cat.

I count any game where I've played less than 15 minutes of the game as "unplayed".

Due to a mix-up around the release date, I missed out on the discounted purchase price, so left it on my wishlist, until it got discounted 3 months later.

As soon as it finished installing on October 15, I started playing.

The graphics are gorgeous. The cat is adorable, and amazingly cat-like. I feel like I'm controlling an almost-real cat... which turns out to be a problem.

As per the title, you're a stray cat; the game opens to find you snuggling with your siblings, high up on the wall of the city, before the intro takes you on all on a little adventure to teach you the controls.

***Spoiler Alert***

At the end of the intro, you jump across a gap in a pipe. The pipe you land on gives way, and you find yourself scrabbling to hold on as your siblings look down on you helplessly... as you lose your grip and fall into the city below.

You finally come to rest at the bottom of a pile of rubble. Gingerly (pun intended) you attempt to stand up, only to find that you cannot stand on your hind leg, and limp for a couple of steps, before collapsing.

It was at this point, at the end of the intro, after 13 minutes of playtime that I logged out of the game, sobbing inconsolably.

This tiny digital cat purrs, and trills, and meows, and looks around, and cleans itself, and feels utterly too real for me to see it get hurt like that.

I was overwhelmed by a sense of grief and loss as I watched this ball of fluff get separated from their siblings, and seeing them get hurt, limping and then collapsing was entirely too much for me (our furball is fine after having a sleep, but still).

I finally started it up again tonight; even 8 months later, I still feel that pain and sadness as I try to play.

The game itself is beautiful, rendering the post-apocalyptic environment full of dead robots in a gorgeous way. There were some fun "cat" moments, just jumping off things, or solving environmental challenges by knocking paint cans off the edges of a building.

The sounds made by this little ball of fur are wonderfully realistic, and everything within me wants to protect this little gem.

On paper, the idea of playing a cat exploring a "cybercity", and solving a mystery seemed like it was the perfect fit for me, as someone who loves cats, but in practice it seems to hurt too much to play.

If you love cats, and cyberpunk, and can disassociate yourself enough, then you might really enjoy Stray.

However it seems that I cannot, which is unfortunate, because Stray is:

4: Good

#Stray #ThirdPerson #Cats #Exploration #Cyberpunk #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

@SeaFury Yeah, that's what really sucks; I *do* feel traumatised... by a computer game?

I was hoping that after that long of a break, I could just enjoy the cats-eye-view and exploring the city, but I'm still seeing those other cats looking down as I fall, and it just makes me feel sad all over again.