---------------------------------------
That's it for me this November. December - and a whole new selection
of games - awaits... but you'll hear about THOSE in thirty one days. Meanwhile, all that is left is for me to ask:
What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2023?
That's it for me this November. December - and a whole new selection
of games - awaits... but you'll hear about THOSE in thirty one days. Meanwhile, all that is left is for me to ask:
What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2023?
What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2023?
I believe I promised to work on PS5 games (like God of War) last
month -- before my PS+ subscription expired -- and failed miserably.
What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2023?
Another month down! Time keeps creeping onward and there's never
enough time to dedicate to our hobby. Which is playing games. But
which games are we playing? That's what this thread is about! So let's
do this thing!
The Games In Short
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* Days Gone (new)
* Ion Fury (new)
* Project Zomboid (new)
* Beyond a Steel Sky (new)
The Games Made Long
---------------------------------------
* Days Gone (new)
"Days Gone" apparently was panned - or just ignored - on its initial
release. But there has been a recent trend where fans of the game have
been promoting the idea that the game isn't as bad as initially
reported. I'm here to confirm that promotion: "Days Gone" is not a
terrible game. That doesn't mean it is necessarily a good one, though.
It is just so incredibly average. It is a game that almost revels in
its mediocrity and paint-by-numbers design. There is almost nothing
this game does that is in any way original or exceptional. Everything
you see or do in this game has been done first and better in other,
more interesting titles. It's a uninspired effort that, even if the
final result isn't an eyesore, neither does it impress.
The gameplay is completely rote. Big open world, lots of enemy maps, a handful of safezones, a huge number of collectibles; if you've played
any open-world game in the last ten years, you know the drill. "Days
Gone" doesn't do anything really exceptional with this world; it's not particularly reactive or interesting. The map design is poor - with
too many unclimbable walls limiting your progress that are poorly
melded into the terrain (seriously, developers, I'd rather an
old-school invisible wall than all these immersion-breaking cliffs).
The gunplay is passable, but not exciting, and everybody's favorite
mechanic - breakable weapons - rears its ugly head. The game is
heavily reliant on its stealth mechanic (unsurprising, given that
you're usually outnumbered hundreds-to-one) but your sneaking
abilities are given short-shrift. The motorcycle is fun to drive, but
it doesn't feel too different from any other motorcycle you've ever
driven in a video game, and there really isn't anywhere INTERESTING to
drive; mostly, it's just a method of uninteresting transportation.
The game flubs several important aspects too. Most immediate is the
save feature: it's limited to only when you are near your motorcycle,
so if you leave the noisy beast a ways behind, be ready for a long
hike before you can save again. The voice-acting - especially that of
the protagonist, who seems to mistake VOLUME with emphasis - is often laughably bad. The characters are trite and predictable ("Oh, that's
the guy who will betray me." "That's the reasonable military figure
who will help me out when the army-guy-in-charge inevitably goes
rogue." "That's the nice old dude who has to die to show that Now
Things Are Serious") and they lack any real arcs or personality. The
writing is sophomoric action-movie schlock that further suffers from
terrible pacing and editing. And the game suffers from a number of
bugs, ranging from monsters suddenly despawning, or flying into the
air, or doors not opening, or crash-to-desktop dumps. These
programmatic flubs weren't so serious as to prevent me from finishing
the game, but they reflected the general lack of polish the entire
game suffered beneath.
And it's all so unfortunate, because it is obvious the developers have
put a lot of love and effort into the game. But the whole thing
ultimately smacks of a cash- grab. I can imagine some C-level in 2015
going "Hey, "The Last of Us Is" is popular! "Sons of Anarchy" was a
hit. Let's make a game that combines both!", thus birthing "Days Gone"
with little regard to how to adequately meld those too ideas or even
wanting to put in the time and money to make it all work. "Just make
the game like Far Cry 3!" seemed to have been the extent of it. But
why play "Days Gone" when we already have "Far Cry" or "The Last of
Us" or any of dozens of games which are better and more fun?
So, no; "Days Gone" isn't a terrible game. But it's not worth spending
your time playing either.
* Ion Fury (new)
I purchased "Ion Fury" on a whim (and because it was on sale). It's a
retro 'boomer shooter' based on ideas first developed by 3DRealms as a sequel/spin-off to "Duke Nukem 3D", albeit with a slightly more
advanced version of the Build engine that powered that classic game. I
have a fondness for those older titles; sure the old-school gameplay
wouldn't wow me, but I figured that I would manage to eke a minimum of
fun from the title. Yeah, I was wrong about that.
The problem isn't that the game is old-school. I can pick up games
from that era - "Doom", or "Dark Forces", or "Hexen" - and still have
a blast with them. The problem with "Ion Fury" is that it is a BAD
old-school game. It's the modern-day equivalent of "Island Peril" or "Terminator Rampage" or "Depth Dwellers" (don't worry if you aren't
familiar with any of those; they've been forgotten by history for a
reason). It's an FPS that apes its betters without understanding why
those other games were so memorable.
"Ion Fury" wasn't totally without merit. I found some of its weapons
quite imaginative and fun (in particular, I liked the sub-machine guns
that set people on fire, and the puck-bomb that exploded into a dozen mini-bomblets). The soundtrack was quite nice too; sure, it was a
terrible match to the gameplay, but I could easily see myself
listening to it on its own. The visuals were very impressive for a Build-engine game, with a lot of extraneous detailing and pretty
colored lighting effects.
But the game wasn't any fun to play. At all.
The main issue with the game was its map layouts. "Ion Fury" leans
hard into the old-school maze-and-keycard design, but does a very poor
job at indicating where the player is supposed to go next. This means
you'll scour a level looking for a switch, and then repeat the process
to figure out what that switch just activated. The cluttered levels
don't help; too often I would walk by a door or toggle not realizing
it wasn't just a wall texture or random detailing. The end result was
a lot of very tedious wandering through unpopulated maps. Later levels improved on this problem somewhat but it remained a tiresome problem throughout the game.
The gunplay was average at best. While a few of the weapons stood
above the rest, none of them were exceptional, and all of them had significant disadvantages. The enemies were either completely
forgettable or grievously annoying (small floor-level enemies? Fine.
Tiny floor-level enemies that bounce unpredictably? No. Tiny bouncing floor-level enemies that constitute 20% of the bad guys I'm going to encounter? Fuck right off). None of them inspired any interest or
excitement (I'm not even sure if the bad guys were supposed to be
aliens or undead or robots or what, and the game gave me no reason to
care enough to find out).
Although story was often considered an inconsequential part of 'boomer shooters', most at least attempted some sort of narrative and
atmosphere. Here "Ion Fury" failed as well. Yes, some of the maps were visually interesting, but I've no idea who my on-screen avatar was,
who she was fighting, or why it mattered. The end result was of me
shooting a near-endless stream of faceless goons wondering why I was
even bothering. The game lacks all character beyond 'here's a gun and
there are bad guys', resulting in a total lack of intensity and
emotion. It was flat and dull.
The whole thing felt amateur, like a total-conversion to a better game
made by first-time developers. Had it been a free mod, I might have
been more forgiving, but this is a game for which they charge $20 USD,
and published by the same guys who created "Duke Nukem 3D". I expected
some attempt at quality. It's an endurance test of uninteresting ideas
that goes on for far too long with too little regard for the player's
time or entertainment. There are dozens of better retro-FPS games
available; there is no reason to play "Ion Fury".
* Project Zomboid (new)
"Project Zomboid" is one of those games that I really admire... even
if I don't actually enjoy playing it that much.
A top-down action/strategy/survival game, "Project Zomboid" isn't
going to win any awards in the visuals department. It looks like a
game released 20 years ago (it has shades of "Fallout 2", except with
higher resolutions and slightly sharper textures). Similarly, it's
sound design is understated; there aren't a lot of effects, almost no voice-work, and if there was a soundtrack I honestly can't remember.
But it wasn't the presentation that turned me off. It's fine; it gets
the job done of presenting its post-apocalyptic world well enough, and
isn't an eyesore.
It's game-play is the usual mixture of scrounging, sneaking, crafting
and beating on monsters that you find in similar survival games. The selection of weapons you can use feels somewhat limited compared to
its rivals - maybe twenty or thirty guns and melee weapons, tops? -
but it has an impressive number of usable inventory items. Many of
these items are context sensitive, and you won't even know that they
are usable until you come across something in the world that they can
be used with. This can make the game a bit arcane at times - for
instance, you might never discover that you can hotwire a car unless
you have scraps of wire in your pocket - but the depth of the
simulation is impressive.
Similarly, there's not much variety in the types of enemy you face; basically, the game is limited to slow-walking zombies and -
occasionally - slightly faster zombies. Oh, and human enemies if you
play online. Still, the sheer amount of zombies in the game - and the
ease with which your avatar takes damage - makes even the common
shambler a real threat. Health and disease are a constant problem in
this game; unlike most zombie games, even the smallest scratches can
cost you. Armor, weapons and clothes all degrade with use, so there's
a constant need to scrounge for replacements. The are a lot of systems
that need to be monitored - food, resources, health, temperature, and
more - and it can sometimes be overwhelming. But none of that is why I disliked the game either.
No, the main problem I had with the game is... well, the pointlessness
of it all. The game is a giant sandbox, and I get that the goal of
such games is to 'make your own stories', except that the only real
story available in "Project Zomboid" is 'how long can I survive'?
There's no narrative, no over-arching mystery to solve. You run
around, scrounge for goods, try not to get killed (by zombies, or the weather, or starvation, or online assholes). Maybe you master the
systems enough that you level up your skills to the point that you can
start building a base... but even then, all that does is help you keep
alive another day.
Do not mistake me; I am really impressed with the game itself, and I completely understand that some people absolutely dig this sort of
gameplay. But as for myself, I prefer some sort of narrative and goal
beyond simple tedious day-to-day living. For that, I have a job and
all the chores Real Life entails. I play computer games to escape the
grind, not recreate it.
* Beyond a Steel Sky (new)
I'm so disappointed with myself regarding this game. It deserves more
effort from me. But I have a hard time getting engaged with its
fantasy.
Maybe the problem is that I was never the biggest fan of the game's predecessor, "Beneath a Steel Sky". A cult-classic, I've played it and
even, to some degree, enjoyed it, but it was never a favorite. It was,
to me, just another run-of-the-mill, largely forgettable point-n-click classic adventure game from the DOS era. Its puzzles weren't
particularly good, and its writing was of mixed quality. It wasn't a memorable game, hardly deserving of a sequel.
Still, adventure games are still a fairly rare commodity, and -
beloved or not - it was a follow-up to a DOS-era game, so it was
inevitable I would pick up "Beyond a Steel Sky" too.
In truth, I haven't played very much of this game. But every time I've
had the opportunity, I've usually found something else to do instead.
The game - or at least the small bit I've engaged with - just isn't
very compelling. It doesn't make me want to come back and play more of
it. I'm hard pressed to say why, though. It's not all that visually impressive, but neither is it an eyesore (although the opening
cut-scene isn't very good). The voice-acting is underwhelming but
sufficient to task.
But I think the biggest sin - and the thing that keeps me from
enjoying the game as much as I would like to - is the game's use of a third-person viewpoint, similar to "Tomb Raider" or "Uncharted". This viewpoint works well with action games, but no so well with adventure
games, where it is the environment and characters that are the focus.
I had similar issues with "Kings Quest (2016)", where there just
wasn't enough opportunity to click on things and bask in the narrated
detail of the setting. Instead, the interface expects players to whiz
past the terrain, shorting a lot of the character of the world.
Is "Beyond a Steel Sky" worth playing? I'd like to believe it is but
it's not making the effort to make me want to discover its worth. I
still haven't uninstalled the game, so maybe I'll find out next
month... but I wouldn't bet money on that happening.
---------------------------------------
That's it for me this November. December - and a whole new selection
of games - awaits... but you'll hear about THOSE in thirty one days. Meanwhile, all that is left is for me to ask:
What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2023?
* Days Gone (new)
* Beyond a Steel Sky (new)
* Days Gone (new)
* Beyond a Steel Sky (new)
I'm still interested in both these, especially Days Gone, as Rin
Stowleigh championed it. Haven't decided yet what game I'll play next
rms
What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2023?
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