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Yes. I just had covid flu last week, not this thankfullyWas it your first time? I am still a virgin AFAIK!
As far as I know, yeah. But just about everyone in my extended circle
has gotten it in the last few weeks, close to a dozen. Only today can I say the flu symptoms are really gone.
The only officially sanctioned* CSIPGA monthly game's round-up thread!
Accept no substitutes! Sure we're at the start of a new year, but
forget about looking ahead. Look back, and tell us all what games kept
you occupied during the busy, busy holiday season!
Shall I go first? Oh, I think I shall!
Just The Names
---------------------------------------
* Metal Hellsinger
* The Hunter - Call of the Wild: Salzwiesen Park DLC
* The Invincible
* Trek to Yomi
Everything else plus the kitchen sink
---------------------------------------
* Metal Hellsinger
This game is so disappointingly average. It could have been so much
more but the end result is just so mediocre.
In essence a 'boomer shooter', the 'gimmick' of "Metal Hellsinger" is
that your weapons do more damage if you time your attacks to the beat
of the music. That music, of course, being a tremendous selection of thrashin' heavy metal tracks. All well and good in concept, but the
execution leaves something to be desired. It's not that it doesn't
work well at times -it's undeniably cool when you happen to get in the
rhythm and are watching demons (it's a boomer shooter, so of course
the bad guys are demons) burst into multi-colored sprays of ichor as
you blow them apart with your weapons. But there are a host of
niggling issues that keep you from achieving this feeling of grace
long enough to make it worth playing the rest of the game.
Reloading, for once. This game would be so much better if, after every
five shots or so, you didn't have to break rhythm to reload. It's just
so immersion breaking; you're groovin' to the beat, bang bang bang,
watching demons pop one after another and then suddenly: click. And
then a long and slow reload. Or take about how that some weapons just
never seem to be able to match up to the beat. Or watching your damage multiplier march agonizingly downward not because you can't keep up
the rhythm, but instead because the enemies aren't spawning fast
enough (or because the AI is stuck behind some pillar on the far side
of the map and can't get to you). Then there's the discordant tracks
that play on the higher difficulty levels; it makes it harder to match
the beat (which is part of the challenge) but until you do, there are
no lyrics and -frankly- listening to those tracks is just ear gouging.
It's not fun; it's not enjoyable. You're constantly being pulled out
of the moment because of problems with the mechanics, and not your own abilities (or lack thereof).
But even that might be a survivable flaw if there was more to the
game, but there's not, really. The gunplay is --beyond its
beat-matching gimmick-- completely average. It's story and setting
aren't original or even notable. Its graphics are passable but aren't anything you probably have not seen dozens of times before. The levels
are small and the bosses are tedious grinds. There isn't much variety
to the enemies, or the weapons for that matter. It's all so... bland.
"Metal Hellsinger" could be great. It really could. The beat-matching mechanic, if tweaked with better weapons, could raise this game to
becoming one of the classics. But it's not there yet. Maybe one day,
but right now? It's just not worth playing.
* The Hunter - Call of the Wild: Salzwiesen Park DLC
It's been a while since I played "Call of the Wild". The release of a
new DLC seemed as good a reason as any to give the game another go. "Salzwiesen Park", a hunting preserve nominally set in north-eastern
Germany, looked like it could be a winner. I'll admit; it's not awful.
But it is disappointing all the same.
Its biggest flaw is its size; the map is /tiny/. It's probably a
quarter of the size of any of the other maps. I literally explored it
in just a few hours of play. There is very little to actually see too.
Other maps had all sorts of nooks and crannies to explore; little bits
of history and architecture to stumble across as you chased your prey.
Not so "Salzwiesen Park"; there are just three or four locations to
discover.
The map looks nice, for sure; it's got colorful foliage and a nice mix
of forest and prairie. But there's no variety to the map; what you see
in the first ten minutes is pretty much what you'll see throughout
your explorations. There's nothing to really differentiate one part of
the park from the next. The ecology is almost identical to
"Hirschfelden", which is the very first map of the game. There's an incredible sense of deja vu; haven't I played this already? Why did I
pay again for something I already own?
Then there's the hunting. Even though that's actually the least
important part of the game to me (despite it being the core mechanic),
I do pay /some/ attention to it. And, frankly, it's not very
interesting. Your prey consists primarily of varmints; ducks and
raccoons and red foxes. All interesting critters to be sure, but not particularly exciting prey. They're the sort of beasties I'd normally
go after between hunts for bigger animals; their being the focus of
the whole map makes me feel more like pest-control than Big Game
Hunter.
This isn't a bad map, but it is bad DLC. It really feels like the sort
of map you put in the base game to convince players to buy your DLC.
"Here's a demo of what the game is like; buy the expansions for more
if you like it!" But as something you are charging customers for? It's
too small and characterless. It feels like a rip-off; a last ditch
attempt to milk the last few dollars out of your customers before you
abandon the game.
* The Invincible
"The Invincible" is one of those games I hate to review, because while
I can individually point to any of its components and say, "Well
done!" when look it as a whole I get a feeling sad disappointment.
There's so much I like about "The Invincible"; why can't I enjoy it as
a game?
I went into my experience with the game blind; all I knew about it was
that you took on the role of a lost astronaut on an alien world. I was
thus thrilled to learn it was in fact based on a story by Stanislaw
Lem, famed Polish sci-fi author (you may know him for another of his
stories, "Solaris", which is highly regarded in the genre). This
immediately elevated the game in my eyes; how could you go wrong with
a foundation like that?
And I'll be honest; it's hard for me to point at any one thing that is
bad about this game. It has an interesting story. It has strong
characters. It has good voice-acting. It has a good -although not
memorable- soundtrack. The visuals are beautiful. The aesthetic
-especially the chunky 'Soviet Tractors In Space' motif- is
intriguing. I can't even fault the style of the gameplay, although I'm
sure a lot of people won't care for it; it's a "narrative game"
(a.k.a., a "walking sim"). It's only when you start fitting all the
bits together that you start seeing the cracks.
I think the biggest fault is that the developers wanted to tell a
tense story of survival and discovery, but then locked it behind the mechanics of a walking sim. Now, do not mistake me; I have no issues
with narrative games; I actually enjoy the genre. But by their very
nature, there is no tension; there are no stakes in a game you cannot
lose and where the story will pull you forward regardless of what you
do or do not do. And once you realize that is what is happening with
"The Invincible" (as you very quickly will), all intensity is lost and
the impact of story is greatly diminished.
It doesn't help that the game does everything it can -especially in
its first half- to disguise the player's powerlessness to affect the narrative. This makes bumping into the many (often literally)
invisible walls all the more frustrating; "The Invincible" implies the ability to wander where you will and do what you wish, but your actual
range of travel and actions is extremely limited. All the worse since
there's often very little reason to actually explore; this is a game
devoid of any hidden secrets, which makes any attempt to escape the
dictated plot all the more pointless. Couple all that to the fact that
the world of "The Invincible" is so interesting that you are
inescapably drawn into its surreal world that these limitations are
almost cruel in their nature.
None of this is a fault of the narrative game mechanics, or the story.
But the two do not complement one another and "The Invincible" becomes
a lesser work because they have been jammed together in an awkward combination. I could see either working quite well (a narrative game
set in "The Invincible's" setting but with a different story, or the
current narrative given different game mechanics) but as it stands
now? It's a poor fit.
I would really like to say good things about this game. I really,
really would. Not just because I hold anything Stanislaw Lem in such
high esteem, but because so much else of the game is done so well, and
how much obvious love and respect the developers have for Lem's work.
But as it is, this is a game that can't help but disappoint lovers of
Lem's fiction and gamers alike.
* Trek to Yomi
"Trek to Yomi" is a game all about style; it is a stylish game. More,
"Trek to Yomi" knows it is a stylish game; it revels in it. And that
style is both its strength and weakness.
Taking guidance from Japanese jidaigeki films in general (and
Kurosawa's films in specific), the game plays this connection to a
tee. From its black-and-white, grainy film-footage appearance, to the cinematic, long distance shots, to its Japanese voice-acting (with
subtitles, for those of us who don't speak the language), "Yomi" is a Kurosawa film come to life, where we get to take on the starring role.
Like all classic chanbara films, the player is allowed the role of a
heroic samurai, caught between duty and love, life and death. If you
have any familiarity with that genre of movies, you will immediately
see the similarities; "Yomi" makes no attempts to hide its influences.
But its almost slavish devotion to the filmic parallels work against
the game almost as much as it works for it. It's often repetitive
gameplay --the endless fights against bandits (and later spirits)--
destroy the pacing and atmosphere the story is trying to create. It's dramatic camera angles often come at a cost to playability; in more
than a few fights I could barely make out my character, shrunk down in
the distance and almost invisible in the shadowy monochrome of the
levels. And while there is a decent variety in monsters and sets --
ranging from town to forest, to haunted mines, to hell itself-- each
area overstays its welcome. At one point even the protagonist moans
about having had enough of the repetitiveness of the battles.
The actual gameplay is good, if not exceptional. It consists largely
of slicing-n-dicing your opponents in melee, then running onwards to
the next arena to slice up some more. There's some (very light)
platforming and some (very easy) puzzling to add some spice to the
game. There's also a good number of secrets to discover, which consist
of anything from collectibles, to ammo for your secondary ranged
weapons, to upgrades. The learning curve is fairly gentle, and the
whole thing is very work-a-day. It does suffer from some control
issues, where sometimes controls are ignored (I had to fight one
entire battle facing backwards because, for some reason, the 'spin
around' key stopped responding) and the timing of the attacks seems
variable; sometimes they work, sometimes not and I can't figure out
why. It's competent, but doesn't really stand out as the game's best
part.
No, it's its style that makes this title special. "Yomi" is a
beautiful game, but it feels --like its protagonist-- caught between compelling but opposite forces: the need to imitate the movies it
loves so much, and the need to be a game. It's one of those titles I
suspect is probably a lot more enjoyable to watch somebody else play
than do it yourself. I almost wish the developers had backed away from
their imitation of Kurosawa and the rest; that they had focused more
on the game than the film. But had they done so, "Yomi" wouldn't have
been half as memorable as it was.
---------------------------------------
All that, and an overly busy holiday season too! Heck, I hear reports
that I was quite busy in Usenet, of all places (I'm not sure I trust
those accounts. Who goes to Usenet anymore?). Still, a very full month regardless.
And you? How was your month, especially regarding the gaming aspects?
Because what we really want to know is:
What Have You Been Playing... IN DECEMBER 2024?
* for violation of too many international treaties to count
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 16:23 this Wednesday (GMT):[snip]
[snip]And you? How was your month, especially regarding the gaming aspects?
Because what we really want to know is:
What Have You Been Playing... IN DECEMBER 2024?
I have been playing a llot of balatro.,
I also got Arkham City and another Arkham game,
either Knight or Origins, which I haven't played on PC much at all! $
* The Invincible
* Trek to Yomi
What Have You Been Playing... IN DECEMBER 2024?
However, I would like to reintroduce the group to the concept of
"[snip]." We all have access to Spalls' full post. Unless you are specifically responding to a part of it, in-line, it's gentle and kind to [snip] stuff that everyone has access to in the first place.
Sorry, not sorry, to be netiquette nanny, but leaving 253 lines of Spalls untouched to reply with 3 is a little beyond. Used to be we did this to conserve server space and extend retention, but it also averts repetitive strain injuries from rolling the mouse wheel. I have arthritis.
I'd almost rather people top-post...
I finally got FO: London to stop crashing. Something to do with FO4
godrays implementation and RTX cards. Who knew? More importantly, since Nvidia hard codes specific game optimizations into their drivers, why
can't it be fixed?
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 08:03:34 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 01/01/2025 23:04, Zaghadka wrote:
However, I would like to reintroduce the group to the concept of
"[snip]." We all have access to Spalls' full post. Unless you are
specifically responding to a part of it, in-line, it's gentle and kind to >> [snip] stuff that everyone has access to in the first place.
Sorry, not sorry, to be netiquette nanny, but leaving 253 lines of Spalls >> untouched to reply with 3 is a little beyond. Used to be we did this to
conserve server space and extend retention, but it also averts repetitive >> strain injuries from rolling the mouse wheel. I have arthritis.
I'd almost rather people top-post...
I tend to try and leave in enough context so that someone can see what
I'm actually responding to especially if a post makes multiple points.
That can save having to reread an entire post just to see what I'm on about.
I do agree though, scrolling through a few pages of text to get to
"That's a good point." isn't overly helpful.
Me too!
spalls@aol.com
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 08:03:34 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 01/01/2025 23:04, Zaghadka wrote:
However, I would like to reintroduce the group to the concept of
"[snip]." We all have access to Spalls' full post. Unless you are
specifically responding to a part of it, in-line, it's gentle and kind to >>> [snip] stuff that everyone has access to in the first place.
Sorry, not sorry, to be netiquette nanny, but leaving 253 lines of Spalls >>> untouched to reply with 3 is a little beyond. Used to be we did this to
conserve server space and extend retention, but it also averts repetitive >>> strain injuries from rolling the mouse wheel. I have arthritis.
I'd almost rather people top-post...
I tend to try and leave in enough context so that someone can see what
I'm actually responding to especially if a post makes multiple points.
That can save having to reread an entire post just to see what I'm on about. >>
I do agree though, scrolling through a few pages of text to get to
"That's a good point." isn't overly helpful.
Me too!
spalls@aol.com
Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> writes:
I finally got FO: London to stop crashing. Something to do with FO4
godrays implementation and RTX cards. Who knew? More importantly, since
Nvidia hard codes specific game optimizations into their drivers, why
can't it be fixed?
Weird. I had a few crashes as I realized 1.02 had come out and updated
to that but nothing much since then. Still buggy though, just last night
I had to use the unlock console command to actually get into a place a
bought in Westminster. Or actually I skipped the buying part with
another console command since I couldn't get in... In retrospect, I
could've unlocked it at that point too but this method had the benefit
it didn't cost anything :)
I
have decided though that, no I'm not going to replay missions just to
get the 'perfect' result so if a squad member dies then that's it. I
look at it as learning from the school of hard knocks.
That does sound like something I'd enjoy and playing a new AAA game for a >month for PC Gamepass price is amazing. Going to go do that now.
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 08:03:34 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 01/01/2025 23:04, Zaghadka wrote:
However, I would like to reintroduce the group to the concept of
"[snip]." We all have access to Spalls' full post. Unless you are
specifically responding to a part of it, in-line, it's gentle and kind to >> >> [snip] stuff that everyone has access to in the first place.
Sorry, not sorry, to be netiquette nanny, but leaving 253 lines of Spalls >> >> untouched to reply with 3 is a little beyond. Used to be we did this to >> >> conserve server space and extend retention, but it also averts repetitive >> >> strain injuries from rolling the mouse wheel. I have arthritis.
I'd almost rather people top-post...
I tend to try and leave in enough context so that someone can see what
I'm actually responding to especially if a post makes multiple points.
That can save having to reread an entire post just to see what I'm on about.
I do agree though, scrolling through a few pages of text to get to
"That's a good point." isn't overly helpful.
Me too!
spalls@aol.com
AOL?!?!?!
What Have You Been Playing... IN DECEMBER 2024?
On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 01:00:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 16:27 this Thursday (GMT):
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
spalls@aol.com
AOL?!?!?!
Yeah, it's still around, for some reason.
More specifically, it's a reference to how --after AOL started
offering access to the Usenet feed to its users-- newsgroups were
inundated with hundreds of new users whose primary contribution to discussions were single-line responses. These were seen as extremely
poor netiquette, as they didn't add any worthwhile content to the
thread nor did they properly trim unnecessary lines. These posts were
often referred to as "me too" posts (because that was too often the
extent of the reply) and were seen as indicative of being new to the community.
TL;DR: I was making a joke about an issue so old that even people who
were here back in the day don't recognize it ;-)
Same as usual: Pulsar The Lost Colony (very little), Propel, Impulse,
Duo Lingo (took a couple weeks break), etc. I did play a few new free
iOS games (Raider, OptiFlight, and Vampire Survivors), but they weren't
not keepers. I really need to get back into PC/Windows gaming, but no
time and dang my unexpected tummy achy from New Year's Day eve. I'm so
behind and need to catch up. Still not recovered. Life is truely a game.
:(
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 15:43 this Friday (GMT):
On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 01:00:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 16:27 this Thursday (GMT):
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
spalls@aol.com
AOL?!?!?!
Yeah, it's still around, for some reason.
More specifically, it's a reference to how --after AOL started
offering access to the Usenet feed to its users-- newsgroups were
inundated with hundreds of new users whose primary contribution to discussions were single-line responses. These were seen as extremely
poor netiquette, as they didn't add any worthwhile content to the
thread nor did they properly trim unnecessary lines. These posts were
often referred to as "me too" posts (because that was too often the
extent of the reply) and were seen as indicative of being new to the community.
TL;DR: I was making a joke about an issue so old that even people who
were here back in the day don't recognize it ;-)
Well, I joined in like 2023 so I definitely wouldn't remember that :D
Also, I do know a couple people who use AOL emails.
Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 16:27 this Thursday (GMT):
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 08:03:34 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 01/01/2025 23:04, Zaghadka wrote:
However, I would like to reintroduce the group to the concept of
"[snip]." We all have access to Spalls' full post. Unless you are
specifically responding to a part of it, in-line, it's gentle and kind to
[snip] stuff that everyone has access to in the first place.
Sorry, not sorry, to be netiquette nanny, but leaving 253 lines of Spalls
untouched to reply with 3 is a little beyond. Used to be we did this to >> >> conserve server space and extend retention, but it also averts repetitive
strain injuries from rolling the mouse wheel. I have arthritis.
I'd almost rather people top-post...
I tend to try and leave in enough context so that someone can see what
I'm actually responding to especially if a post makes multiple points.
That can save having to reread an entire post just to see what I'm on about.
I do agree though, scrolling through a few pages of text to get to
"That's a good point." isn't overly helpful.
Me too!
spalls@aol.com
AOL?!?!?!
Yeah, it's still around, for some reason.
candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:[snip]
Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 16:27 this Thursday (GMT):
AOL?!?!?!
Yeah, it's still around, for some reason.
Because too much to work change it for all of your accounts? :P
Still mostly just Fallout: London.
ALso, Norovirus suck!
Still mostly just Fallout: London.
I'd still like to play FO4, but the complaints of poor writing are still
putting it farther down the list :(
rms
ALso, Norovirus suck!
Yes. I just had covid flu last week, not this thankfully
Yes. I just had covid flu last week, not this thankfullyWas it your first time? I am still a virgin AFAIK!