#1016 Thirty Flights of Loving

Posted: 23rd May 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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2

513th played so far

thirty flights main

Genre: Interactive Fiction
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2012
Developer: Blendo Games

Described as a first-person adventure game, I didn’t really know what to expect from Thirty Flights of Loving before I started. It’s the story of a heist, but the main thing that stood out from what I’d seen is the art style – the big, blocky heads and flat coloured, blocky surroundings.

Originally created as a reward for backers of the Idle Thumbs Kickstarter, and now for sale on Steam, the game is meant to be short but (obviously) good. I’m ready to try it.

Our Thoughts

On the surface, there isn’t much to the game. There are no real puzzles, no choices, not even loads to explore (although there are a couple of easter eggs in the game). That isn’t a problem at all – games like Gone Home, Heavy Rain and Facade have interested us in the past despite mostly leading you around a story. It does mean there’s not much to gameplay, instead focusing on what it’s trying to tell you.

The other part of Thirty Flights of Loving is that the story it tells is far more action based than those games. The others are emotional pieces, often heavy, talking about how people experience things and how they react. Here, instead, it’s about the action, the story it tells about the raid (out of order and almost completely wordless) where you draw your own connections and don’t necessarily need to feel much. Instead you get the biggest thrills of the adventure, the highlights, and enjoy them without any chance of failure.

With that, the game actually creates a more interesting story. As a fifteen minute game, it doesn’t have much time to do it, which again is where the action focus helps immensely. You don’t need a lot of context to know what’s going on, as a lot of action tropes are already involved in telling the story. Even the characters are used in a fifteen second cut scene each, just giving their jobs, immediately giving an idea of their personalities through this as well.

At that point, it’s just a run from high to high, where you get enough to know what you’re doing. You don’t quite know what the heist is for, just how you’ve done some things and the aftermath, but that’s all you really need to know.

Final Thoughts

Thirty Flights of Loving is not a game to play over and over again – there’s not much new that would be in the game – but with how short it is, it doesn’t need a lot of your time to go through and experience the game. It’s like the art – it looks simple, but there’s an awful lot put into something that seems simpler than it is, and a lot of thought has clearly been put into the game. One of those games you just have to experience.

#210 NHL Hockey

Posted: 19th May 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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0

512th played so far

NHL_Hockey_Coverart

Genre: Sports
Platform: Mega Drive
Year of Release: 1991
Developer: Park Place Productions
Publisher: EA Sports

Time for another sports game – hockey again. NHL Hockey, unlike its more recent brother NHL 10, has stayed on the list of games – as you’d expect from an older game, really.

I can’t say much more about the game, as ice hockey isn’t my thing and I’ve never had a reason to play it… We’ll just need to see.

Our Thoughts

As is always the issue with sports games, if you don’t know the sport a large part of the game can be, or at least starts off pretty impenetrable. NHL 10 prepared us a bit for NHL Hockey, but more mercifully, NHL Hockey is a lot simpler (as always) which helps a lot getting into the game. Even so, my goal became just ‘get to the goal to score’ without much knowledge of strategy, making me feel like I’m missing a lot of the game, but also not being at a point where I know how to discover more.

It meant that while the game was fine and a bit of a challenge, it got boring and flat early on, while I didn’t know enough about it to appreciate any depths of the game – I’m not sure how different this really would be from a football game, just without the ball being able to leave the field.

It struggles more with player selection than most games – although I suspect that’s a problem I won’t ever see fixed. Here, however, even when you expect to jump closer to the puck, you don’t always do so (and I’m not sure if you could). Only when you own the puck do you know you’ll get that player’s control, but beyond that you could well expect to end up at the other side of the field from where the action is going on.

Final Thoughts

I don’t think I’ll ever quite get to grips with these sports games. Partially I don’t see the point as I don’t know the sports, but unlike with other control methods, I haven’t gotten to grips with this after all these years of playing games for the blog. But yeah, for the most part I don’t care about the game – it’s entertaining enough for a little while, but doesn’t get me going further.

#106 Alter Ego

Posted: 15th May 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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1

511th played so far

alterego

Genre: Role-Playing
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1986
Developer: Activision
Publisher: Activision

With there being 1021 games on the revised list, here we are – the actual, true halfway point of the list. And I’ll admit that Alter Ego wasn’t our planned halfway point (that game will follow at some point), but I started playing it to try it and was enjoying it that much that we both played through it.

Alter Ego is a role playing game of sorts – in that you play your way through life. A 1980s life, of course, no modern conveniences, but the idea is that you see ‘yourself’ develop as you go through things that happen in your life.

Our Thoughts

Alter Ego is strangely compelling, considering it plays for a large part as a visual novel or simple adventure – you just pick an answer (or two) each time, without anything more complicated. Menus allow you to see more detailed statistics, but that’s all based on your actions and I’m not quite sure how often they play a role – in part because you only see one outcome, unless you’d play again – there’s occasionaly feedback, but only in the most general terms.

It gets more complicated as you get to university and move beyond, as you need to keep track of education, start to keep tracking your job and income, and can be in a relationship. It gives you more choices over what choice adventures youget, but sadly it also means the more interesting story ‘tree’ isn’t available as often as you need a job or need to graduate. It still makes for an interesting story, but it someitmes felt a bit diluted as I felt compelled to go through more boring scenarios.

With some content updates, it even feels like the game could work today – an indie title with a slightly updated interface and graphics, but essentially the same game would still make for something playable today. That much is shown by the fact that I started playing my game, but soon after Peter wanted to join and make his own route through – he did very well out of that.

Final Thoughts

Alter Ego is, at its core, a pretty simple game, something more approaching the visual novel these days. It’s also incredibly fascinating, in a ‘what-if” sort of way that, especially now I’m a bit older than the first time I experimented with it years ago, makes me reflect on parts of my own life. It’s utterly fascinating on its own already and feels like it could do with a sequel.

#589 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Posted: 11th May 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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1

510th played so far

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Genre: Action
Platform: PC/Playstation 2/X-Box
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games

It’s always nice to reach a Grand Theft Auto game, as it has always had a good core gameplay while the 3D games have slowly been hammering out some control issues – Grand Theft Auto Vice City was already a step up from Grand Theft Auto 3 – and I understand San Andreas is no exception – it’s amongst the best in the series.

I haven’t really played it, obviously, just seen bits of it, but having watched Peter play Grand Theft Auto V around its release, and that alone has given me enough interest in a large open world game, something to mess around in where possible.

Our Thoughts

Maybe I just haven’t quite gotten to grips with the Playstation 2 controller, but there were a few points in the game where the controls still seemed to work against me a bit. Not as much as before, but it felt like the game steered me towards them (as the “cool” features). The big blocker was probably a minigame where you need to make your pimped car ‘dance’, in a DDR style minigame which just doesn’t seem to work according to the instructions given. As it was part of a quest line to proceed, I got stuck here for one of my options.

The characters feel better developed in this game, with a more interesting cast in the gang surrounding you and while there are single joke characters, at least it feels like there’s more of an attempt to make that part of the world live around you.

And that feels like it’s the case in general. The world feels a bit more together and realistic.  I wouldn’t necessarily everything makes perfect sense, but as a game world (rather than a realistic one) it feels like it all integrates better.

The game still feels like is still harsh on loss – you still lose all your weapons when you do, for example, although there’s always a free gun nearby.  Save games are still restricted as well – only in your safe houses, and the game provides no checkpoints during missions, which, considering their length and sometimes uneven difficulty can get frustrating – you need to keep doing the same things, even if you’ve completed that tricky bike race five times before.

Final Thoughts

The game feels better, it looks better, the whole thing comes together more than before. I know Peter considers it the best of the series – that’s deservedly that so far, but I hope that the next few installment add the few gameplay enhancements I’m really hoping for.

#65 Ballblazer

Posted: 7th May 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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0

509th played so far

2365966-a7800_ballblazer

Genre: Sports
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1984
Developer: Lucasfilm Games
Publisher: Atari

I’m not quite sure what to say of Ballblazer, as in my mind it’s just on the list, without any notable qualities. An early sports game that sounds somewhat soccer-like, with a sci fi veneer but also limited by the restrictions of the platforms at the time. I can’t say it’s been top of my list, but I’ll just try it.

Our Thoughts

Ballblazer was underwhelming. I wasn’t expecting much, really, but I was hoping there’d be a nice surprise in it. You play with a first person view (rare for the time) and cannot turn around yourself – either you are turned to face the ball (at 90 degree angles), or if you have it, to face the goal where you have to score your point. The former is especially confusing – your view will suddenly change, without any real warning.

You also play on a 2D field, but there is no real indication of where you are on that field. You can sort of estimate when you have the ball, but beyond that it’s just a featureless plane stretching ahead at first.

The gameplay is somewhat compelling, playing as simple as you can make a sports game with a ball – pick up ball, avoid opponent, score. No real special moves or rules that I have seen, it sticks to the basics – you just have to be careful with the goal getting smaller each time.

Final Thoughts

If Ballblazer had a more conventional perspective, it would have felt like a nice, early soccer game  – a distant predecessor of Speedball 2 perhaps. Even now the game is interesting, but the struggle to comprehend where you are diminishes the gameplay experience for me. Nice to play around with now, but it feels like there are other options now – more an interesting point in history than a game I’d still love today.

#553 Geometry Wars

Posted: 3rd May 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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2

508th played so far

Geometrywarscover

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2003
Developer: Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Some games seem to start small and grow big almost by standing out from where it came from. Geometry Wars wasn’t released on its own, it was a minigame in Project Gotham Racing 2. The sequel to that, which we’ll play later, also contained an updated version of this game.

Geometry Wars itself is a simple-looking twin stick shooter. Just another one to try.

Our Thoughts

It’s interesting how Geometry Wars and Robotron 2084 are similar at their most basic. Twin stick shooters in a limited arena, where you have to shoot the enemies who approach you, with room limited to (slightly more than) a single screen. And if you told me Geometry Wars was an update of an old arcade game, with basic character designs (usually resembling vector graphics) with loads of neon colours and a bunch of fireworks added on each piece of success.

It doesn’t make for the most innovative gameplay, but instead the stripped back, streamlined gameplay emphasizes what you’re doing, with the graphical changes being extraneous in a way that adds to it – they’re not important, so you have more of a reason to enjoy them.

At the same it’s the idea of a simple concept aided by simple mechanics interacting – as eenmies do affect each other, a black hole that sucks everything in is bad for you, butg also clears enemies. The book lists Robotron, again, as an original example, and it seems quite lucky we played one after the other.

Final Thoughts

I’m not sure this is a game I’d play a lot of in a single sitting. It’s a minigame, set up for it, and plays well in shorter, arcade game bursts. Great fun to play with for that time though, and there’s nothing wrong with having these shorter experiences – anything drawn out would have ruined the experience.

#37 Robotron 2084

Posted: 29th April 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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2

507th played so far

robotron-front

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1982
Developer: Vid Kidz
Publisher: Williams Electronics

Robotron 2084 is yet another shooter. not something that thrills me most days. Fine, but little more. I think I best just play it.

Our Thoughts

Robotron 2084 looks pretty simple – even for its time the graphics seem a bit primitive, crude sprites moving around an arena. The standard two stick setup – one for movement, one for direction of fire – is present, but remains feeling as uncoordinated as ever. The lack of scrolling requires more precise controls for positioning, which makes all of it feel a bit off.

What doesn’t quite help with that (but adds a nice twist to the game) is that aside from enemies that need to be shot and avoided, there are humans walking around the field that you can rescue for bonus points. That requires more precise movement, and adjusting your shots as you move along.

Once you can manipulate the controls into order, then, the game becomes a pretty decent single screen shooter. There are loads of different enemies with their own patterns and ways to avoid them and the challenge ramps up at a decent speed, never leaving you too overwhelmed or feeling it goes too slow. It can be a bit of a rarity to see that balance in arcade games, but it works well here.

Final Thoughts

Robotron 2084 feels very much of its age, with some dated graphics and controls (Ms Pac Man seems to look better, and I recall Scramble handling things a bit better), but the thought put into its gameplay is better and seems more challenging – with a more appropriate difficulty curve.

#330 Age of Empires

Posted: 25th April 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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2

506th played so far

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Genre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 1997
Developer: Ensemble Studios
Publisher: Microsoft

Have we not played this game yet? (Almost, we played Age of Mythology a year ago.) Age of Empires is, and feels like, one of those important strategy series that everyone played for a while, although I believe we haven’t seen a release in the series for a while now.

As one of the first historical-based RTS games out there, it feels like it includes some additional research elements that, from what I remember, perhaps places it closer to Rise of Nations than Command & Conquer. Let’s see what I remember about the game from, oh, fifteen years ago!

Our Thoughts

This game – I will admit – stopped me in my tracks before I got well and truly started. Playing through the tutorial, the third or fourth tutorial level involves hunting and food gathering. Only workers, no warriors. The level also features several lions, which easily kill your worker when you get too close. To the point where you can run out of workers before you finish the objective (part of which requires getting past those lions). Another tutorial level has an enemy warrior walking around, posing similar problems (although not as obviously so – I did manage to complete the objectives without him). It’s sort of doable – I skipped part of the tutorial – but felt like bad tutorial design.

It’s a shame, as the game is good (if difficult) game, offering more 4X-based base growing variety than other RTS games while providing more direct action than 4X games tend to have.

The historical element sthemselves are interesting, not overly visible, but adding a nice, more realistic touch to proceedings (although having to climb out of the stone age each time seems a bit odd).

Final Thoughts

It feels like there’s not much to say about Age of Empires – it’s a real life history based strategy game that does its things competently, but a lot of it was done by earlier games and improved by later games like Rise of Nations. Good fun to play though.

#226 Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Posted: 21st April 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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0

505th played so far

Sonic2_European_Box

Genre: Platform
Platform: Mega Drive
Year of Release: 1992
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: SEGA

We’ve covered a few Sonic games before, including the original Sonic the Hedgehog. This is the first time, however, that we’re doing so on the Mega Drive, or even the original console for those games (thanks to ports and remakes)

As a sequel, the game is partially more of what we’ve seen before, but I believe it should offer some nice upgrades to the original game. We shall see!

Our Thoughts

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, as a sequel, is faster and larger. The former is to be expected and is pretty welcome. The latter makes the levels feel larger than they were before (although I haven’t fully checked this). It feels that bit better and smoother, more of what I think of a Sonic game being, and it’s great whenever we can run through.

The levels are varied as well, with a bunch of environmental hazards – as with most Sonic games, there aren’t many enemies (they’d slow you down just as often) and it’s as much about showing different ways of traveling through the levels. The boss fights are just as good, and again, it all feels better.

What we played with most, however, is the multiplayer mode. It’s split screen 1 vs 1, a bit laggy, but great fun trying to get ahead of each other, collect more rings and score the most points. It’s a gameplay mode we don’t see that often and it’s executed to perfection here.

Final Thoughts

This game is really a good improvement on an already nice game, Knuckles’ two player gameplay being a nice addition to add some variety and making for some compelling multiplayer. Even without considering that, the game plays well, is fast, and looks good for what it’s trying to do.

#906 Dead Space: Extraction

Posted: 17th April 2016 by Jeroen in Games
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1

504th played so far

Dead_Space_Extraction

Genre: Survival Horror/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Visceral Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts

I remember enjoying Dead Space. It’s not a favourite, the genres the game consists of made sure of that, but it managed to strike the right balance of scares, tension and proper action.

With that in mind, I approach Dead Space: Extraction with some hesitation.  On rails shooters feel outdated and not my sort of thing, but Dead Space feels special enough in this regard that it might pull it off.

Our Thoughts

That turned out to be a pretty fun experience – for what it was. Part of my issue with these shooters is that it’s just enemy after enemy you fire on, with not much in between. While the game did have moments where that seemed to happen a bit too much, most of the time it allowed for enough variety that it wasn’t just that. There are weapons and goodies to collect (using some separate device) and other secrets to discover, which allowed for a lot more to do. Then there was the storytelling – from early on, the story the game presents is interesting, the first mission ending with a pretty surprising twist that pretty much had me hooked right there and then.

After that it becomes a good zombie shooter, with a heavy investment in story and the world, efficiently building some characters. The treasure hunting aspect of it becomes a bit of a distraction – the image of you firing off this grappling hook thing while discussing more serious topics is comical and I can just imagine our main character staring bored around him while trying to pretend he cares.

The game looks pretty decent as well, the environments suggesting there is a lot more to find (and at times also later letting you go to those places). The monsters look appropriately weird, adding to the effects, and some of the weirder content fits well.

Final Thoughts

It won’t be my favourite game, but I feel this is the best rail shooter so far. I don’t think it’s entirely because of age, either – sure, it helps make things look a bit better and a bit more polished, but it feels like it’s trying far more to pull you into the story and keep you busy with other things. It’s more than just shooting whatever pops up in front of you, and that’s what makes the game better.

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