Tale

I got a promotion a couple of months ago at work. Barely a pay upgrade (partially due to the fact that I was already being paid more than people who were above me due to experience), but the work load... I've heard people talk about getting promoted and finding themselves having less to do, but I never thought I'd see it. I've spent the last decade of my life feeling overworked or anticipating regular crises and now I fear I may only feel that way two months out of the year. I enjoy the work, too. It's payroll data entry, but there's just enough playing with poorly designed computer systems and basic algebra to keep me from falling asleep when there's actual work to do.

I bought both Witch Queen Deluxe + 30th anniversary and Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. Why am I wasting money on games I'll likely not play for several months? Because there was a discount, of course. I am a weak man.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. I love me some Ace Attorney. It's the main reason I bought two generation of handheld consoles. Maybe it's getting a bit tired all these years later, but they're still fun. It was always a VN first and a game with puzzles second, but it really feels like it's leaning more towards the former than ever. It keeps dropping new case mechanics only for them to be entirely scripted for drama. This might not be a bad thing. Just a way of keeping the story fresh, I suppose. And then maybe they'll become relevant mechanically in later episodes. Also I finally gave up on Doom Eternal. Was playing DLC1 and decided that fighting way too many waves and the occasional Marauder made the whole thing an unfun slog. And so I wrote a negative review about it on Steam to which id software responded. Let me repeat myself. The game developer that got me hooked on video games, that is only 25 minutes away and that I once applied for a job at, responded to a review where I called the latest installment in the franchise that defined my childhood "overdeveloped." There's no way in heck I'm reading that response. It would only break my heart.

The writing mostly. There's a few I've played for fun puzzles, but they're a shocking minority. Like The Room games. Or Obra Dinn. Great puzzles! End of list. But Monkey Island, various Telltale narrative adventures, and the like. It's always plot, characters, or being funny. I played through a great couple of games called Puzzle Agent. Telltale before Walking Dead, like a Canadian Professor Layton. Puzzle's right in the name! I don't remember a single puzzle. But the game was funny and charming.

I pre-ordered 12 minutes because I'm scatterbrained and will probably forget it came out if I don't see it in my library. Also because I'm impulsive. I also bought Dusk + Amid Evil. This is mostly the impulsive thing. Tried a couple levels of Dusk and it were fun. I'm just craving environmental storytelling and a game that doesn't require an entire evening of commitment.

Forgotten City was pretty cool. Exploration, mystery, and time loops are my jam. My one complaint is how small it felt. But if they make another game like it that's bigger, I'll definitely snatch that up.

Hinterlands had a hint of a story. It's the only area where the war is actually going on. And can apparently progress forward. But that's completely gone by Act 2. I think one other area had a story, the one with the lake you could drain. Or that one with all the ghosts or skeletons that's pretty much nothing but a linear dungeon. Those are the only fond memories I have from the open world.

Yeah, I'm kind of in the "too much D:OS2" camp. There's some really good stuff in it. But there's may not enough of what I loved most about Baldur's Gate. I'm particularly not a fan of the origin system. It turns companion quests into these drawn out affairs that need to have one development per chapter. What Baldur's Gate 2 really did not need was Minsc wasting all of Act 1 pretending he didn't have a hamster in his pocket. Yet that's pretty much what that Warlock and Vampire guy are doing. Have they said anything about if they're still committed to locking off areas every chapter?

It's repetitive, but engaging. And that's where it traps you. I could go back to Morrowind, but get annoyed by whiffing all the melee attacks at low levels. I could go back to Oblivion, but I don't hate myself enough. Skyrim is... easy to get into. And its flaws don't seem to really become striking until you've been playing too much and realized you saw everything worth seeing dozens of hours ago. Anyway, I'm playing Ace Attorney Chronicles. As something of an Ace Attorney fanboy, it's nice to be back at it and with something new. Only two cases in and I've had plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Marvels Avengers is free to play for the weekend. I got through the first level/tutorial. If I were to parody AAA gaming, I might end up using this game as a template. The first thing I saw after I started the game was a tutorial on how to use their store. When I actually started the campaign, I immediately got a popup of like a half dozen in-game currencies or crafting materials I know nothing about. Then it's following markers, watching cutscenes that are trying way too hard, and doing QTEs for a while. Then the explosions. It's... I don't know what it is. There's a logic to it. Let players try out all the characters before they have to pick one. But if I were to take that as a vertical slice, I'd never pick it up again. Even giving it benefit of the doubt that was some early development stuff they were too rushed to revise, I am not picking it up again. Thor just beats some guys up in a small arena. Then Iron Man does an on rails auto-target shooting sequence... and beats guys up in an arena. Hulk's turn to do linear platforming before he's tossed into an arena. Cap's turn is just more arena. Ending up lastly on Black Widow, who is now left with the boss fight. All the while the game keeps flashing messages telling you to use your cool moves that really aren't. I have 50 minutes in the game and I want them back.

Ark hit a stopping point for me. About time since I put over 200 hours in the stupid thing. I'm on the third map, Aberration, and fighting the boss. Only the boss does an attack that glitches me ever so slightly through the floor into an instant death zone. I lose 4 Spinos, 13 Megalosauruses, 1 shinehorn (which is like a baby deer whose anters glow), and a Reaper (which is a knockoff of an Alien Queen from Alien). The Megas and Spinos were expendable, bred for death. The other 2 will be missed. And a rock drake screwed up and didn't go to the boss arena, so it's probably still alive down at the terminal. I also lost all of my best gear, including my armor, and three sets of hazard suits. It's close to having to start over. I'm not looking forward to making more Megas. So I'm just playing other games. Picked up Dishonored after many years of thinking I hated it. One of Arkane's titles, their big one after Dark Messiah. Played it a few years ago on PS3 and found it frustrating. But thought I might change my tune for it on PC like I did Doom 2016. After a couple of levels, I might just like it more this way. Touched The Letter again. It's a great little horror VN about a haunted mansion. With one itsy bitsy problem. It has god awful pacing. Like the story starts picking up and getting to the horror when it decides to drop everything back to the beginning of the story from a different perspective. There's a reason that neither novels nor movies do this. Why do VNs insist on it? Instead of a climax and building to a crescendo it's just a really awkward sin wave. And I'm sick of getting to the good part and ending up back at the boring one.

Probably my game of the year, honestly. If it had a little more class variety and a little better story, it might have been my game of the decade. It helped fill the itch from the D&D group I lost during the pandemic. Anyway, I finished the main campaign of Doom Eternal. I complained the the combat takes itself too seriously. This gets only worse when Marauders and Archviles show up. Might as well BFG the room so you can focus on these two enemies and their nonsense.

I finished The Island portion of Ark and moved on to Scorched Earth. I pretty much have to start over. None of my Tek transferred. I'm not even sure if my Tek Rex is about, maybe he's at the obelisk. So I've started over for many practical purposes. I'm not opposed to it. That's how survival games go. Got to build up your base again. I used the stopping point to clear up Doom 2016. I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed it lots when I started getting infinite ammo from runes and could just chaingun demons at range all day long. And then started Doom Eternal. It's... something different. The combat perhaps takes itself way too seriously. Tiny arenas and probably way too many enemies. Low ammo caps, too much obsession over weaknesses and counters. Can't just enjoy my plasma rifle because it has barely any ammo and I'll probably need it if those shielded dudes show up. The power fantasy is lost and it just feels like I'm playing a bunch of noise. On the plus side, the secret hunting and platforming is actually kind of fun.

How did I get dragged into Ark? For the longest time I thought it was just running around shooting other dudes and riding dinos. I guess I just found out you don't have to play it PvP. So now I'm doing singleplayer and cheating my ass off to avoid the grind. Just started taking down the bosses of the first map. It's actually kind of cool having an army of robot T-Rexes that you use to fight a spider queen.

I've played DOOM 2016 three times. I hated it the first two. Lots of tedious item hunting and awkward jumping between merely okay combat. But now I see why people liked it so much. Why is the third time different, you may ask? I'm playing on PC this time. And I max out the skills that tells you were all the items are, so I don't have to waste much time on it. If it weren't a DOOM game I never would have given it so many tries.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition 9 years since Mass Effect 3 came out. Hard to believe it's been that long. Only Mass Effect I was willing to give a chance after that was a replay of 2 on PS3. Playing Mass Effect 3 after all this time, with the DLC and the extended ending, I don't hate it anymore. It's good to enjoy the series again. And to be able to enjoy the whole series without issuing conditions on 1 and condemnation on 3. The ending is still dumb. Perhaps the dumbest bit in the series. But it no longer feels like the whole thing is ruined. Just a misstep. I'd be glad to play a 4 of the same quality, assuming they don't pick up the dumbest bits of the ending and run with it.

I "finished" a game of Stellaris with the new update. First time I've completed a game since they changed the economy. I put finished in quotes because the game has a repeatable hard lock 900 days from the end of the galaxy. I, as the player crisis, tricked the galactic alliance into fighting against the Awakened Empire. Thus allowing me to mess around and not be attacked by either unless I attack first. And right before I win, the Awakened Empire wipes out the Galactic Custodian. The hard lock occurs after the notice.

When I said Below Zero mainly just reminded me of how incredible the original Subnautica was, I wasn't joking. I'm on my third playthrough now. I've not done much, but I feel like the second I have a Moonpool, the game is already as good as beat.

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl Aside from the headbob being so bad it's officially a headwobble, this game holds up really well. I played it way back in the day and always meant to give it another go. That said, I have 0 interest in running around doing sidequests. I'm just playing it for the main quest and it's plays very well for that.

Since I'm off this week, I was able to run through Subnautica: Below Zero. It's more Subnautica and that's good. It's got new base building modules and that's also good. The Seatruck is actually really cool. And the environments are all still absolutely incredible. But all of the environs are too small and too cramped to really build a cool base. The Snowfox is wasted and the Spy Pengling is itself a waste that only helps get small amounts of resources early and resolve a plot. And the story is poorly structured.

Have some commentary on random games I've played lately. Buddy Simulator 1984. I'm not sure what this game is trying to do. It's like it's supposed to be a horror title with a really insecure AI creating games for you. The text adventure segment is full horror and aspects of that carry over into future segments. And there's lots of horror tropes. But the buddy is so affable it's like being haunted by Casper the friendly ghost who likes to create quirky NPCs where murder and torment is a punchline. It's impossible to be afraid. And it's not funny either. So I'm lost. Perfect Vermin. A free game on Steam where you bust up stuff in an office building to find creatures imitating furniture. And then it gets crazy. But it goes further in the end and tries to be deep. It's fun, but what it's trying to say ends up causing whiplash with all the gravitas compared to what came before. Vessels. Where has this been all my life? You can beat it in two hours and it's $5. If that's okay with you, BUY IT. You're a guy in an airlock trying to stop himself from getting spaced by the rest of the crew. And there's a voice in his head that grants him powers. It's a cosmic horror story, but more than that it's a great mystery. Explore the ship with your powers and learn what happened. If it had been made with a real budget it could have been the next Outer Wilds.

Baldr Sky is my main game right now. It's... kind of slow. There's advice in writing circles in the US to cut your first chapter or so because people tend to write too much buildup and wait too long to get to the interesting bits. This advice is clearly not popular in Japanese Visual Novel circles I'm finding. Still, it's pretty fun. Dungeons of Naheulbeuk I'm playing on the side. A comedic RPG based on some radio dramas if I remember right. It's actually super charming and been a few laughs so far. So I'm glad I grabbed it and fully recommend.

Team Pfizer in the house. Don't @ me if you're one of those Johnson & Johnson boys. I was literally offered three appointments for today, one for each. Initially offered Moderna through work, but that whole thing got cancelled. So I picked up one from the county for the same day. Then work got back to me for the J&J. I'm pretty happy with what I hear about Pfizer, though.

Raging Loop The best under the radar visual novel I've yet seen. At least under my radar. Maybe it's too recent compared to all the classics I'm still catching up to, but it's pretty great. It's about a guy who gets trapped in a time loop in a village that's playing a real life version of the Werewolf party game.

I've been snowed in all week so far and it's looking to continue. So I'm playing through the Crysis trilogy. I'll be honest. I hated Far Cry. And wasn't thrilled with Crysis when I first played it. It only clicked for me when I played Warhead. Replaying Crysis now, I see a bit of why that is. Because when the aliens show up, the interesting play style goes out the window. Sadly, Crysis 2 does not capture that same play. But it has its own strengths. I've always kind of loved transhuman storylines and it's got plenty of power fantasy when you grab a turret, armor up, and go to town. Now to play Crysis 3 for the first time.