RealM722's Trophy Cabinet

[YaManSmevz]

1 hour ago, realm722 said:

Game: Madden 22

 

Hey man, good shit as always!

 

I didn't get into football like I did baseball and basketball as a kid, and the game was utterly ruined for me as an adult. Being a bartender, I have had countless drunken imbeciles screaming in my face because of the television behind me for far too many years to count now, so I've become the stuffy authority figure in a fraternity movie where football is concerned. I will, however, always read a realm review?

 

Quote

I don't even want to get into how idiotic the notion of momentum is.

 

Momentum is stupid and all it really means to sports fans is "the last team to make a good play". THAT'S IT.

 

Basically, momentum is f***ing useless. . 

 

ALL OF THIS. If there's a good inning, play, possession, whatever, suddenly everyone starts talking about that. And it's like bro... you don't understand how probability works! It does not ever think "ooh that was a sick play, guess I'll have to suspend myself for a while."

 

There's a whole list of things that sports fans are conditioned to tell themselves, it's really weird. There's one I absolutely loathe yet still succumb to every so often - I remember saying "we got Freeman" and immediately scolding myself like "you jack ass, YOU didn't get anything, the LOS ANGELES DODGERS got Freeman. All you get is to watch games and make single serving friends when you wear the jersey in public.

 

Whew. Shared more than I meant to there!

 

Also a 7th consecutive in any series is impressive. I'm working on #3 for The Show and thought I'd stop with 21, but fuck... that kinda makes me think about keeping it going?

Edited June 7, 2022 by YaManSmevz

[realm722]

On 6/2/2022 at 8:07 AM, PlutoRico said:

I don't have much experience regarding roguelite tho so I will be on uncharted territory haha. 

 

I honestly think Hades is a fantastic entry point if you're new to the genre! Honestly, based on some of the games you're reviewed on your thread (specifically OlliOlli & The Fight) I think this is an untapped potential fave genre of yours haha. I say that hesitant since I don't want to over-promise but you seem like someone (like myself) who doesn't mind enjoy doing the same activities over again as you get slightly better and better (cleaner runs, faster times) and that's what roguelites are all about with the sprinkled element of variation to keep things just a lil bit fresh. 

 

On 6/2/2022 at 8:07 AM, PlutoRico said:

There is only one point with which I disagree tho : MJ is still the GOAT till this day (I assume you think the opposite when deciphering your comparison but I'm not sure tbh, the color pattern is confusing me) ?

 

lmao I confuse MYSELF with some of the coloring choices I make. I just try and bold some of the hottest takes or lines that I think someone glossing over the review would find interesting. Honestly, all I did there was make LeBron's name gold cuz he plays for the Lakers while MJ/Hades are red cuz of Bulls/Hell. I'm fine with anyone who thinks either. Newer generations love Bron while older ones push back and defend MJ. I think MJ's the greater player but prefer LeBron's arc/story? MJ is like Superman where once he reached his Apex, there's no stopping him (except for Orlando in '95 which people try to discount since he was coming back from retirement but the man averaged 32PPG against Charlotte the series prior. I really ain't here for "he was out of shape" excuse-making). Meanwhile, LeBron has cooler ups/downs that remind me of a Batman. I'm a Heat fan. That 2011 Finals series is a stain on his resume that will NEVER wear off. But to vindicate and comeback with 2x MVPs, 2x Championships, 2x Finals MVPs? Then to leave us  but go back to his hometown and beat quite literally the greatest regular-season team of All-Time (73-9 Warriors) AFTER GOING DOWN 3-1? Draymond suspension or not, he won forever after that. 2018 was one of the greatest one-man armies thru the East I've ever seen. Again, none of that stuff is better than 6 titles in 8 years. Buuuuut I get how others, who didn't see MJ's domination would think otherwise. 

 

On 6/3/2022 at 4:42 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

I hope you are pleased with yourself.

 

Hahahah thank you Doc! I really hope you enjoy it! I honestly think it may end up ranking higher than Going Under

 

10 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

There's a whole list of things that sports fans are conditioned to tell themselves, it's really weird. There's one I absolutely loathe yet still succumb to every so often - I remember saying "we got Freeman" and immediately scolding myself like "you jack ass, YOU didn't get anything, the LOS ANGELES DODGERS got Freeman. All you get is to watch games and make single serving friends when you wear the jersey in public.

 

lmaooo alright so I'm gonna out myself as an absolute sports nut right now. I 100% do NOT mind when people say "we" or "I" when referring to their favorite sports team. I've always found that people who try and correct whenever excited fans do that are 1) haters and more importantly 2) don't understand how fundamentally AWFUL speaking about sports would be otherwise. Seriously. "Hey, I'm really excited we're gonna go after Giancarlo Stanton this offseason". (cue some blowhard chiming in) -"WE???? I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE THE GM. DON'T YOU MEAN THE YANKEES?" Aight, let's try that again. "Hey, I'm really excited the Yankees are going after Stanton. I am a fan of the Yankees. This is good for the baseball team." It just makes all fan dialog sound so stilted. Where I will draw the line is if some herb whose team won the game goes on Twitter to an opposing team's player that they just beat and types something corny/cringy like "HOLD THIS L WE SMOKED Y'ALL!!!!!". Aight bro. You didn't get the triple-double. Jimmy Buckets did. But when it's fans talking amongst fans? I'm fine with it. 

Disclaimer: This opinion is brought to you by a sports freak who ties up too much of his identity and happiness in sports. 

 

It's time for that Lost in Random review. I'll spoil my own review a bit. I'm going to be largely negative. I'm sorry. I try not to sound like a miserable sap too often and if I'm critiquing a game I try to at least be humorous or understanding but woof this game was not for me. But I DO have a lot to say about it so hey! It's not all bad! Until then! 

[PlutoRico]

21 hours ago, realm722 said:

Game: Madden 22

 

Gameplay Focused Trophies - My strategy with the game was to get in and out as quickly as possible. We were not here to be dilly-dallying checking out any of the new features that EA is likely reintroducing from the Playstation 2 era. Hence, I made the "Momentum Stealer" trophy my #1 priority as it was the rarest trophy in the game. I don't even want to get into how idiotic the notion of momentum is. I imagine someone reading this who's a sports fan will have their jaw hit the floor at that statement. I can't express this sincere opinion I have on any other platform I use since sports fans get REALLY mad when you say "momentum doesn't exist". Like... it's a vitriolic reaction. It doesn't make any sense. In case you're willing to take a bit of a deep dive in trying to understand what I mean, you can check out this "Nomentum" article from good ol Bill Barnwell during the Grantland days as well as a more recent article on ESPN from David M. Hale. If you don't care to read those - I'll give my version. Momentum is stupid and all it really means to sports fans is "the last team to make a good play". THAT'S IT. If you think it's "a series of good plays". You're wrong. Cuz whenever a team will have a series of good plays such as the Buccaneers storming back against the Rams in the Divisional Round from 3-27 down to tie at 27-27, SOMEHOW, DESPITE HAVING ALLLLLLLL OF THE MOMENTUM, they let Cooper Kupp break free and manage to kick the game-winning field goal. How could they lose? They had ALL the momentum? Well, buddy, clearly they lost it with that big Kupp play! Basically, momentum is f***ing useless. It's just a thing sports commentators and fans to say. That's IT. Hell, I could look at Game 7 Heat vs. Celtics ECF which broke my heart and how we nearly came back and STOLE that game from Boston riding ALL of the momentum of a 11-0 run late and yet... Jimmy Butler missed the potential game-winning 3 in the final seconds. How could we lose? We had all the momentum? I could express even more. This doesn't even have anything to do with Madden but this all crossed my mind when I saw their key, earth-shattering feature for this year would be based around "momentum" and served as a kind reminder to me that these games aren't for me. They're for 12-year-olds. I was 12 once. I enjoyed it then. I'm not anymore. So I don't now. 

 

Nice review man, congrats on keeping the Madden streak alive ? I disagree about the momentum takes tho, like you said momentum is a series of good play back to back to back that changes the physiognomy of the game. It can be as simple as a few plays during a 120 possessions in a basketball game : a dunk, a defensive stop, a transition three followed by a drawn foul to tie the game. The examples you gave prove that momentum isn't an exact science, and even tho a team has all the momentum with them, they can still lose on one big play (as a Rams fan, the Cooper Kupp plays back to back where he was able to get 20 + 44 yards were exhilarating, especially after everything that happened before ?). But on the opposite, there is also a lot of example where a team is able to ride the momentum they were able to create to cruise to victory. If you look at Real Madrid's road to winning the Champions League this year, it was filled with them being very resilient and able to capitalize on those momentum moments, against PSG, against Chelsea, against Manchester City to steal it every time. They scored 2 goals against City at the 90' and 91' mark and then scored again during overtime to punch their ticket for the final. I'm pretty sure momentum played a big part on this one as Manchester City's players were probably destroyed by those two successive goals at the end of the game while Real Madrid was revived and galloping. But, as the example you gave suggest, there is also counter examples where a team is able to "steal that momentum" going against them in order to get it done. 

[YaManSmevz]

 

12 hours ago, realm722 said:

lmaooo alright so I'm gonna out myself as an absolute sports nut right now. I 100% do NOT mind when people say "we" or "I" when referring to their favorite sports team. I've always found that people who try and correct whenever excited fans do that are 1) haters and more importantly 2) don't understand how fundamentally AWFUL speaking about sports would be otherwise. Seriously. "Hey, I'm really excited we're gonna go after Giancarlo Stanton this offseason". (cue some blowhard chiming in) -"WE???? I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE THE GM. DON'T YOU MEAN THE YANKEES?" Aight, let's try that again. "Hey, I'm really excited the Yankees are going after Stanton. I am a fan of the Yankees. This is good for the baseball team." It just makes all fan dialog sound so stilted.

 

 

Hahaha that's totally fair. And thank you, I never really considered it a form of shorthand. It's just something I never quite understood.

 

To be clear though, I would never take it upon myself to stop someone in their tracks like "excuse me my good sir, but I do believe you have mixed up your articles of ownership. I certainly hope your mind machine is in working order." After I posted that I really started hoping that I didn't paint myself in this way! Again, I just never got it. Which is why whenever I catch myself saying that, I'm like "dude, shut up and watch the damn game!"

 

Maybe I'm a closet we-er?

 

12 hours ago, realm722 said:

Where I will draw the line is if some herb whose team won the game goes on Twitter to an opposing team's player that they just beat and types something corny/cringy like "HOLD THIS L WE SMOKED Y'ALL!!!!!". Aight bro. You didn't get the triple-double. Jimmy Buckets did. But when it's fans talking amongst fans? I'm fine with it.

 

It is definitely this specific thing that soured me on that! But you are right, it isn't fair of me to dismiss an agreed-upon way of talking among sports fans just cuz a bunch of dudebro pricks wanna use sports as an excuse to go aggro.

[realm722]

Game: Lost in Random

 

Analysis: I did not buy Lost in Random. Instead, I paid $5 for a month of EA Play and got it as one of the many games in their catalog. We'll say we got it for $2.50. 

 

Why Lost in Random? I had never heard of this game in my life. Apparently, it had been released back in September 2021 but it had completely evaded me. As mentioned in my Madden 22 write-up, this was another game that had joined the EA Play catalog of games and I figured since it seemed to have a reasonable play length of 15 hours and 30% rarity platinum rate, I'd take a flyer on it in the hopes it'd be better than some of my past EA Play endeavors (most notably, Sea of Solitude which I did NOT enjoy). When I booted the game up for the first time, I was surprised to see "Zoink!" pop up as one of the intro logos. That sounded familiar to me... lo and behold, those are the developers who made Fe! A little indie game that I bought for $10 ages ago when I was just starting out variety gaming. You could honestly say it was my 2nd ever variety game after Oxenfree which I had platinumed. Hell, the review is on the opening page of this thread! My memory remembers the game as fine. Nothing too noteworthy, some decent platform mechanics, but I always like playing a game from a developer I'm familiar with just so I can see how they evolve with more and more experience. So lessgo!

 

The Concept - Lost in Random is a linear story that takes place across 6 worlds. You play as a girl named Even in pursuit of your sister, Odd, who was taken from your family. There are lots of references to chance/luck/probability and how people's entire lives are dictated by their "roll" in life. It's all dressed up in the narrative of a dark, gothic, Tim Burton-sorta, high fantasy setting. Let me say this VERY clearly. This is NOT my preferred style in games, movies, or anything else for that matter. I don't do horror, and a subgenre of that is I don't really mess with goth/emo/alternative aesthetics. It's not my thing. That being said, I think the game does pretty well considering what it's going for? Like, I could 100% see someone really digging what this game is trying to pull off (for whatever reason, I think a woman would gravitate more to the game than dudes will, don't ask me why I think that, just a gut feeling). I also got some "A Series of Unfortunate Events" vibes but that could just be my brain vaguely associating a dark story w/ kids with another dark story w/ kids. 

 

Let's Start With The Positives - Before getting to my gripes, I feel compelled to credit the game for a lot of the things it does well. 1) The narrator, Even, and a solid amount of the cast did an outstanding job with the voice acting. Genuinely. Not merely voice acting, but the humor and effort put into the dialogue was probably the most enjoyable aspect of the entire game to me. When I say dialogue, I mean there is A LOT of dialogue in this game. Before playing, I checked out this trophy guide which said that the plat time could be cut in HALF by skipping cutscenes. (8 hours skipped, 12-15 hours not skipped). I thought to myself: "wha... how?" Then I played the game. There is SOOOOOO much dialogue and characters you can interact with which aren't even relevant to the plot. A lot of it was good. Some of it wasn't. But the game deserves praise for the sheer amount of effort poured into this department. 2) I like how you have tons of dialogue options as Even. Outside of a few side quests, 99% of your dialog choices don't impact the story in the slightest, but you do get options to sprinkle your personality into Even whether you want her to be more sassy, sarcastic, or sincere depending on what the situation calls for. The poetry slams with Mayor Royam in Two-Town stand out most in my mind in this regard. 3) The game's quests track well and a rumored "glitched" trophy gave me zero hassle. This was a huge fear of mine when I started playing and saw this thread about it but I can confirm the trophy popped appropriately when I completed the last puzzle in Fivetropolis. 4) The game subverted my expectations very well when arriving at the final world of Sixtopia. I had the exact same reaction as Even. 

 

That's the end of the positives. Spoilers below. I've thought about this game a lot and think I finally found a way to condense all my feelings in a readable manner. 

Good Grief this Gameplay - Aight... so you probably noticed I haven't touched the gameplay yet. Lost in Random tries for a very unique concept. Even(that's the name of the girl, sorry if that's confusing) has a series of cards she'll collect as she navigates through the many worlds. You can buy them from a card dealer who follows you everywhere, and with those cards, you can attain different things that do damage. The image above shows a few of them. There are ones for attack, healing, hazards, defense, etc... each of these has a cost. "0", "1", "2", & "3". Typically, higher the value, the better the card. Your # that depends on how many cards you can spend depends on the dice roll you get with "Dicey" your cube companion featured in the main image. If you get a high role, you can use a bunch of cards. If you get a low roll, tough break. You only get to through "Dicey" after building up some crystals which you get by shooting little icy points on enemies. If this all sounds needlessly convoluted, IT'S BECAUSE IT IS. I mean, you'll get the hang of it but it honestly feels like the developers were like: "yo we need a cool system to tie into the narrative around rolling dice & chance and we don't wanna do a simple hack 'n slash game" and just stacked layers on top of layers of a system that doesn't need to be this deep AT ALL. My biggest complaints are the following. 1) Shooting the crystals off enemies to build up the energy needed for a role feels very Junior Crew Game Design. it doesn't feel good. Why am I finicking about with a slingshot so damn much in this game? 2) There are only 2 cards that let you do direct damage with a melee weapon. The "Sword of Three" as presented above will be great for the first 3-4 worlds. But honestly, "Hammer of Two" + any bomb card (single or triplets) + the ghost/hand are enough environmental damage you need to destroy anything in your path. This is because the late-game enemies have a bizarre red static that prevents you from hitting them directly. Clearly, the developers didn't want Even doing most of the damage via melee but I sure showed them. 3) Some combat sections drag on INSUFFERABLY LONG in the 2nd and 3rd worlds. So much so, I bumped the difficulty down to Easy and never looked back. It freaking sucked. I legit let out a few "are you kidding me?????" when I saw more would spawn. This gameplay is not so good that sections should be this padded, and given how slow the game is on its own this only exacerbated the issue. Aside from those encounters, the boss fights were pretty decent even if they were super cheesable with the hammer and bombs which I abused to the fullest degree. 

 

When There's Too Much Dialogue - I talked earlier about how this game's biggest strength is its dialogue. I stand by that. But man... I think we all have our breaking points. I really did try and pay attention to a bunch of the main story beats through the first 4 worlds but once I got to Fivetropolis, I essentially skipped everything that even the main story NPCs had to say. Thankfully skipping dialogue in the game is so easy by just tapping the X button. I listened to Even escape Onecroft and leave her parents behind. I got through Two-Town and everyone having a split personality. I quite enjoyed Threedom with the warring factions and seeing how uniquely despicable each of three commanders were, but by the time I reached Fourburg the game was not fun enough gameplay-wise to keep me entertained. I just wanted the experience to be over. I don't know if this is an indictment against me and my attention span or the game for perhaps putting too many side characters in. I think in a game like the Witcher 3 where players expect that sort of depth, it's defendable. In one like this though? Didn't land with me. 

 

Holy Missable Trophies Batman - (IGN reviewer voice) Lost in Random really makes the player feel Even's misery and hopelessness when they include this amount of missable trophies. (/end IGN voice) To give y'all an idea... I count that just about half of the 41 trophies in the game are missable. While none of these are challenging, it is VERY easy to accidentally progress a little bit too far than you realized and all of a sudden cross a point of "no-return" in any one of these worlds, worst of all, Fivetropolis. The game does NOT have a chapter select option and if you miss one collectible or story moment (there's a very cruel one at the end that you need to give the right dialogue options for), you're looking at replaying the entire game all over again. If you play with a guide close to your chest, you won't miss a beat. But I felt compelled to point this out given the number of people I've seen complain about it. 

 

Would I recommend Lost in Random? Probably not. I personally did not enjoy that much. Early on I was decently enchanted by the novelty of the goth aesthetic but that slowly waned on me and by Fourburg I was completely turned off even by the "friendly" creatures such as Seemore. I think it's grotesque, but again, it's everybody's personal taste. By worlds 2-3, I had grown so sick of the combat and worried over the glitched/missable trophies the game was legit looking at a 4/10 rating and going in the shameful Bottom 5 Games of All-Time tier. Yet by world 5, I put the game on mute and played it in the background while watching some Twitch streams (Joseph Anderson, Zero Escape baby) and found myself not being so bothered. I enjoyed Sixtopia and the conclusion (perhaps in large part due to the trophy fears being over and the combat being much faster with higher-ranked cards as Dicey was maxed out). I don't normally do this (oh god I sound like a girl in her late teens on a date), but I'd really like to see what @rjkclarke would think about this game. He has such a way of finding the good in every title that I think he'd serve a good counter to many of the aspects that grated on my experience. I could easily see someone being very charmed by the game in other ways. It just didn't happen for me, and that's okay! Not all games have to be for me. I earned the 30.17% rarity platinum in 1 day and 23 hours. I'm likely going to be on a bit of a hiatus playing some longer and unique titles for a bit but I should have some articles to pass the time in-between. Bye-o-nara!

 

Panda Score: 5.4 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.5 / 10

Edited June 9, 2022 by realm722

[realm722]

RealM722 Reviews Summer Game Fest 2022

 

   Last year in the Summer of 2021, I reviewed E3 2021 and went game-by-game of every single one that caught my eye and what I thought of it. Though a laborious endeavor, I'm quite happy with how it came out and it served as a quick snapshot of my gaming interests at large and what I typically find interesting in games when just the trailer is shown. With E3 canceled this year, I figured I'd resort to the next best thing which is Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest. Let's hope the games are better than the graphic design direction they went with the logo. All games that are in blue and green will have a link so you can directly see what trailer intrigued me about the game. Away we go!

 

Green - Super Interested, 100% Want To Play

Blue - Intrigued, May Went To Play on Sale

Purple - Wait and See, Want to Know More

Red - Not Interested At All, 0% Basically

 

Summer Game Fest Day #1 (Jun. 9th, 2022)

* Street Fighter 6 (Purple) - Never played a Street Fighter game, the open-world looks cool, but think the eventual trophy list would keep me away.

* Aliens: Dark Descent (Red) - Not for me. I don't do horror and much less in space. 

* The Callisto Protocol (Red) - Not for me. Don't do horror, I think the game will be pretty successful. Like an 80 on Metacritic?

* Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Red) - Not for me, don't play FPS. Super lengthy trailer. I guess maybe COD fans will enjoy that?

* Flashback^2 (Purple) - They didn't show much but it seems like it had some diverse gameplay? Not ruling it out yet. 

* Witchfire (Red) - Not for me. Looks absolutely fine but honestly a bit generic?

* Fort Solis (Purple) - Probably not but so little was shown gameplay-wise maybe? Troy Baker being in it is good.

* Routine (Red) - Not for me, don't do horror. Solid trailer. ANNOUNCED A DECADE AGO? Good lord.

* Stormgate (Red) - Meh... just not feeling it. The Production Director interviewed afterward was chill tho.

* Highwater (LINK) - Ay something finally more my speed! Curious what the gameplay loop would be, solid concept. 

* American Arcadia (Purple) - Hmm... liked the voice acting. Art style is memorable. Would like to know more!
* Goat Simulator 3 (Red) - Played the original last year, these sorts of wacky physics games don't appeal to me.

* Neon White (Purple) - Interesting! Comes out super soon. Would prolly depend of the trophy list for me, but looked good!

* Honkai Starrail (Red) - Probably not for me given all the anime, but if it got rave reviews I could be enticed.

* Zenless Zone Zero (Red) - Same issue as above but have to give props for an outstanding, memorable name.

* Humankind (LINK) - YESSSS!!! I absolutely love the concept. I still have to play Civ 6. But damn! If the trophies are good, hell yea!

* Onepiece Odyssey (Red) - I don't do anime quite like that. Hope it's good for fans of the show though.

* The Quarry (Red) - Kinda reminds me of Until Dawn. Could be good for entertaining YouTube Let's Play.

* Nightingale (Red) - Wasn't feeling it to be honest.

* Layers of Fears (Red) - Is there always THIS much horror in these shows? OR does it just stand out cuz I'm writing about each of them? 

* Gotham Knights (LINK) - I want this game to be good so bad man. I miss the Batman: Arkham games. My inclination is it won't fill the void. 

* Planet of Lana (LINK) - Super cute. Seems like a simple puzzle game with an adorable companion. 

* Bear & Breakfast (LINK) - Love the art style. Think it could be super charming. Hope it gets well received. 

* Animal Well (Purple) - Bit more of an intimidating puzzler. 

* Naiad (Purple) - Another cute game. It's hilarious how much more the indie showcase is my speed than the big bad reveals.

* Roofs of Pacha (LINK) - This looks outstanding! Holy crap it's like a tribal Stardew Valley. YES PLEASE!

Analysis: Wow! So there you have it. I skipped over a number of the indie games at the end since this post would be unbearably long otherwise. But honestly, for as much as the big impressive games with Geoff announcing them didn't impress me, I was delighted with some of the stuff shown in the 2nd half of the showcase. Roofs of Pacha particularly has put itself on the map for me as a future potential farm/life/town simulator. Super optimistic it gets all the love it deserves and could eventually get a console port!

 

Summer Game Fest Day #3 (Wholesome Direct) (Jun. 11th, 2022)

* Terra Nil (LINK) - Absolutely love the idea of breathing life into a desolate wasteland. Lovely concept. 

* Lumbearjack (Red) - Ehh, not even coming to Playstation consoles and lacks a bit too much for me.

* The Garden Path (Purple) - Decent concept, curious how fun it is in practice. Can you manipulate the time cycle?

* Coffee Talk Episode 2 (Purple) - I platinumed the original. It was an alright time. Don't think I was entertained enough to pick up the sequel.

* Ooblets (LINK) - Absolutely love the concept. Going Under art style. Grrrrr none of these games are coming to Playstation  

* A Frog's Tale (LINK) - So basically Ikenfell with a rhythm-themed battle system but with animals? I'm in. 

* Potion Permit (LINK) - Very nice visuals, could have some solid potential.

* The Wandering Village (LINK) - YESSS! So happy to see this one pop up again! Loved it at E3 last year. Hope it's successful!

Analysis: I really enjoyed that. It sucks that the entire stream is essentially exclusive to PC & the Nintendo Switch but I'm def gonna keep this show on my radar in future years. Easily skipped over 50+ other indie games just because I didn't wanna clog things up. There's a thin line between "oh cute and wholesome AND an amazing game" and "cute and wholesome but shallow concept that isn't that fun to play" and I'm always looking for the former. Skipped a number of other shows between this and the prior one (Guerrilla Collective 3, Tribeca Games Spotlight, Netflix Geekend, IGN Expo, Devolver Digital) as there's just far too much talking between announcers as opposed to letting the games shine. This show did awesome in that regard.

 

Summer Game Fest Day #3 (Future Games Show) (Jun. 11th, 2022)

* Outpost (Red) - Super meh... that's a really poor name too even if it's just a working title

* Luto (Red) - Horror and me are like water and oil. No thank you.

* Tray Racers (Purple) - I'd like to play Phogs before I play the developer's 2nd game. Looks okay. Cartoon Riders Republic

* Turbo Golf Racing (Purple) - Absolutely love Rocket League, if they can recreate half the fun with golf I'd be 100% down to play it.

* Alaskan Truck Simulator (Red) - None of these simulator games have ever appealed to me. Different strokes for different folks.

* The Entropy Centre (Purple) - Eh... Portal vibes. I'd like to know more before making any judgements.

* The Last Faith (LINK) - I have zero interest but I'll drop an at for @Copanele just cuz it looks like something I think he'd play!

Analysis: Wow that show was a dud. It really fell off a cliff after The Entropy Centre for me in terms of games I'd even have a mild interest in. I'm sure there's something decent in there that I may be interested in dabbling with in the future but the overwhelming majority was just not my speed. Oh well, better luck next year!

 

Summer Game Fest Day #4 (Xbox & Bethesda Showcase) (Jun. 12th, 2022)

* Redfall (Red) - Not interested, don't care for FPS, looked alright though?

* Hollow Knight: Silksong (LINK) - THERE IT IS!!! Prolly the most hyped game in the communities I circle. I'd love to get around to it eventually. 

* High on Life (Red) - Wow that looks like the complete opposite of my sense of humor.

* A Plague Tale: Requiem (Purple) - Ehhh, I haven't even touched the original yet and I have it for free. I don't like rats.

* Forza Motorsport (LINK) - I wish I could play those Forza games man. They're scrumptious. 

* Scorn (Red) - That looked disgusting.

* As Dusk Falls (Purple) - Aight that seems like it could be fun. Kinda saw it in I believe the Guerrilla Collective but still. 

* Diablo IV (Red) - Never played a Diablo game. Don't think I'll start now. Happy for those who enjoy it though.

* Ravenlok (Purple) - Looked pretty whimsical. 

* Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (Red) - Damn they busted out Phil for this one. Not for me but they're aiming for this to a blockbuster eh?

* Persona Series (LINK) - Aight this got me mad salty lmao. How Atlus gon do us like that. Good for Xbox fans. 

* Hideo Kojima Unannounced Game (LINK) - The rumors were true. Et tu, Hideo?

* Starfield (LINK) - Damn they busted out Todd for this. It looks utterly immaculate. That really could be Bethesda's comeback title man...

Analysis: Aight I was mostly yawning past the whole show and then to hit us with that Persona announcement, Kojima reveal, AND Starfield looking spectacular in a trailer? Well done Xbox. I'm a bit jealous to be perfectly honest. I enjoyed Sony's last State of Play but man... turns out you can get pretty great games on your console if you spend billions hand over fist in the process lmao (excuse the pettiness, I was once an Xbox 360 over Playstation 3 guy. Then I got 3x Red Ring of Death. Never going back)

 

IN CONCLUSION

I initially wanted this to be an extremely exhaustive endeavor but there are way too many games for me to include every single one presented. My takeaways were that the opening main show was largely a gigantic dud for me outside of the very end with Roots of Pacha being shown and instantly skyrocketing to one of my most anticipated games in recent memory. I really hope it takes off and if it has 10% of the success that Stardew Valley had, the developers are going to have their careers made. Day #2 was a bunch of elephant crap until the Wholesome Direct was probably per capita my favorite showcase. I skipped over a bunch and depending on which ones received the proper amount of attention, I could see a few of them getting brought over to the big boy consoles. Future Games Show was a bust, and Xbox was largely a nothing burger for me until the end. Damn, they really swung for the fences. I'm not even bothering with the PC Gaming Show or Capcom Presentation given my history with both. Nonetheless, hope y'all were able to find a handful of things that caught your attention and can get excited for. 

[Copanele]

You sure know me, Last Faith is the game that truly caught my attention there, thanks for the tag

 

And honestly Wo Long is on my radar too! It sure looks like Nioh set in Ancient China, and given how Team Ninja nailed mythology... A Chinese mythological brutal game looks pretty sweet! 

[rjkclarke]

On 09/06/2022 at 5:18 AM, realm722 said:

Game: Lost in Random

 

Sorry it's taken, oh I don't know.... Well over a week to respond to this, but that was a great read, or at least the non-spoilery bits were, I avoided anything story-ish related, but you know I'll be back to chat about it and read them once I've played it for myself!

 

On 09/06/2022 at 5:18 AM, realm722 said:

I don't normally do this (oh god I sound like a girl in her late teens on a date), but I'd really like to see what @rjkclarke would think about this game. He has such a way of finding the good in every title that I think he'd serve a good counter to many of the aspects that grated on my experience

 

Thanks for thinking of me haha ?.

 

Sometimes I lose a bit of objectivity (which I know isn't something that you're bothered by) when I'm usually looking for the good in things, I sometimes end up forgetting to highlight some of the points that weren't so good!

 

I quite literally climbed aboard the Zoink train a few days ago with Stick It To the Man, which I personally really enjoyed.  So I'll definitely be exploring more of their back catalogue. Although this one caught my eye almost instantly after seeing the trailer for it sometime last year so I'd like to get to it sooner rather than later. Especially as I've really quite enjoyed the few deck-builder games that I have played.

 

I'll make sure to remember to throw up a tag for you once I actually get around to playing it, and if EA Play gets a little price reduction like they do occasionally I might end up playing it that way, but we'll see.

[realm722]

Game: Sid Meier's Civilization VI (8,000th Trophy Milestone)

 

Analysis: I bought Civ 6 for $7.49 back in October 2021 and bought the additional Anthology Upgrade Bundle for all the DLC for $24.99 in early February 2022. 

 

Why Civ 6? If you were to take a look at my extensive catalog of 200+ completed games to this point, you would probably not discern that a grand 4x turn-based strategy game would be in my wheelhouse. I wouldn't blame you. They're a niche genre on their hub platform, PC, and even rarer on consoles. Yet my love for this franchise never came from having played it, but rather watching someone play it. There's a YouTuber that I used to love and adore known by the name of 2BCProductions. He's most known for his NHL content both with live commentaries of the games as well as his magnificent GM career modes. Yet despite hockey being his bread and butter, he'd dabble in other games. His Batman: Arkham series is some of the best content on the entire platform. Despite being a bit of a meathead, he also played the Civilization franchise. First Civ 5 with the Shoshone nearly a decade ago and more recently in Civ 6 with Rome and Canada. Keep in mind, I knew NOTHING about these games and yet still found myself enthralled in his playthroughs due to his charisma and enthusiasm when he'd be at war with another nation. This planted the seed for me to be intrigued enough to try out the game myself when I saw it was coming to Playstation consoles back in late 2019. I bided my time and waited for it to go on a deep discount, and waited a few more months in order to attain all the DLCs(and their 58 trophies). After finally overcoming my fear of the daunting learning curve I knew I'd have to overcome in order to attain the <1% 100% completion, I dove head-first. Here are the results!

 

A Tutorial Basis - As much as I wanted to go straight into my first playthrough completely blind and see if I could fumble my way into an empire, I decided to check out the base tutorial the game offers for those new to the franchise. You play as Cleopatra leading Egypt up against Gilgamesh and the Sumerians. While this tutorial will only last around 100 turns, it'll offer you the base fundamentals needed in order to get you on your feet. Here are the four fundamentals I learned. 1) Housing is important. You NEED housing for your city to grow. Without it, your citizens have nowhere to live. 2) You need builders. They improve tiles within your city and create mines, pastures, farms, etc... that help add production, faith, food, culture, etc... to your city. This allows you to construct things faster and grow your nation. 3) You need amenities. Amenities are essentially the "entertainment" foundations of your nation and you need to keep your crybaby citizens amused or else they'll complain about not being "happy" and needing a healthy "work/life" balance. 4) Food grows city. Production builds things faster. Every time you build a city, you can focus on different aspects of your nation. A production powerhouse can produce buildings, districts, units, etc... in a rapid amount of time. You could also aim for faith or culture. A larger population helps get things done more quickly. It will be up to you to determine how to balance out these elements in your federation. While these truly are the BAREBONES of the game, they teach you the fundamentals and had me feeling confident enough to dive into my first ever game! 

 

The Ruleset:

Leader: Simón Bolívar of Gran Colombia

Rules: Standard

Difficulty: Chieftain

Map: Small Continents

Size: Standard (as with everything else)

Game Speed: Quick

All Victory Conditions Eligible

6 Other Nations (Randomized)

 

Conquering the World as Colombia ?? - As this was my first ever game, I think Chieftain difficulty was plenty fair to give me a puncher's chance of blindly finding my way to victory given how little expertise I had. Why Colombia? Let's save that story for another time. So away I went! I founded the capital of our country in Bogotá and slowly but surely managed to start expanding. I settled a 2nd city to the north and quickly realized I had neighbors far closer to my borders than I had originally anticipated. I had Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick of Germany to my South, Cleopatra of Egypt to my North, and Gilgamesh of the Sumerians to my West. Thank goodness I had ocean waters and the coast protecting my Eastern front. After Frederick had the cute idea of settling one of his cities VERY close to my capital of Bogotá, I had to teach him manners in the only way people knew how back in olden times. By force. After conquering his fledgling city, I saw his capital was open for the taking as the fool decided to mess around and find out WITHOUT having an army. Apparently, other nations don't like it when you teach others a lesson because of wanting to avoid some "first they came for _______" nonsense. Hence, I quickly went from a peaceful country trying to focus on building a well-rounded nation to a military powerhouse. I assembled by forces in the West and promptly decimated all of Sumeria, ceasing their capital of Ur and accidentally erasing them from the face of God's green earth as a city state I was a Suzerain of captured their final city and razed it to the ground eliminating Gilgamesh from the game. WHOOPS. Apparently genociding entire races of people upsets other nations and this led to Cleopatra declaring war on me. Sadly, her civilization had been doing piss all the last few thousands of years as she had failed to have a single one of her cities rise to the population of 10 and my forces manage to quickly defund the currency of her existence. In hindsight, Frederick didn't turn out so bad considering what I did to the other two on my continent! With that being said, I recognized it was important to find the remaining 3 civilizations as I saw one of them was getting rather close to a religious victory and as I had no idea how to create one, I did not have my own to defend myself against their beliefs. It was time to sail the seas and I decided to head East!

 

This ended up being a mistake as there was piss all out East. Eventually, I did stumble upon the remaining three empies. They were Menelik II of the Ethiopians, Lady Six Sky of the Mayans, and finally Tsar Peter of Russia. Quickly, I realized Peter was the one posing the threat to convert the entire world to Eastern Orthodoxy. I mobilized my army. Sadly, I actually LOST the game as he managed to convert the remaining portion of Germany and thus successfully converted every civilization in the game. This happened quite literally as my units descended upon his capital and were seemingly with a moment's grasp of serving him the same fate that befell Gilgamesh and Cleopatra. So what did I do? It's rewind time! I loaded up my nifty save from 40 turns earlier and decided to rush hard towards a domination victory. This meant declaring war on Ethiopia, the Mayans, AND Russia all at once on a completely different continent. I also declared war on Frederick so I could use my units to block his missionaries from entering his last city. This was effective. I captured all of Russia's cities including their capital of St. Petersburg and while I failed to wipe him off the face of the earth (due to a hidden tiny city he had disguised in the fog), with my forces occupying Germany there would be no converting on my watch. Ethiopia was a cupcake and also posed no viable threat. To my surprise, the Mayans were the biggest pain in the ass to conquer in the entire game. They had actually built some semblance of an army. I was not able to waltz into their capital. They eliminated a handful of my units. I feared I would not have the artilery needed to take the city. With enough persistence, I wore her down. In the year 1981 AD, turn 262 of 330, my mobile modern armed combatants took the capital of Wak Kab'nal and my citiziens cried tears of joy as I had made Colombia the mightiest superpower the modern world had ever known. 

 

It was a blast! I got stuck on a few occasions on what to do next, realized the importance of some key mechanics not taught in the tutorial, but overall absolutely fell in love with the game in my 1st ever playthrough. Sadly, due to the nature of the game's trophies, this ended up being my only proper game of Civ 6 on any difficulty higher than Settler. Let's explore why that is.

I remember intially disliking the change from Civ 5's realistic representations to Civ 6's more cartoonish depictions. With time and hindsight, I think I prefer the latter now! 

 

The "Problem" If There Is One With The Civ 6 Trophy List - In my initial 8-10 hours with the game, I had managed to earn 13 trophies. That's not all that bad. Unfortunatly, due to the plethora of DLCs that Firaxis have added over the years to the game, the remaining trophies I found were hardly ones you could stumble into upon happenstance. These are hyper specific scenarios regarding individual civilizations that would be entirely unfeasible to obtain if 1) You didn't purposefully game the system so they'd occur and 2) You dedicated several hundreds, potentially thousnads of hours into the game. Hence, the next 30+ hours of my experience with Civ 6 was "scenario hunting" the specific requirements I needed to get trophies to pop. This can be maniplauted while playing "Multiplayer Hotseat Mode". You can control all the civilizations that you desire with one controller, play on the easiest setting, and carefully craft the conditions necessary in order to get a trophy to pop. I'll be blunt. Unless you're someone who is entering this game with a positive association, I imagine for MOST players this will be very annoying/grindy/tedious. Hell, I freaking love this game and I even felt that at points. Some examples of this include needing to craft the Angkor Wat wonder in the city Angkor Wat as Cambodia and needing to settle 14 cities in the process due to a bad draw of RNG. OR the obnoxious "IT'S A TRAP!" and Re-Animator trophies in the zombie DLC. For the majority of these DLCs, once I got the trophies done in them, I never turned them on again. A rare exception this would be the Heroes DLC which I found to be quite fun due to the OP abilities of the various heroes as well as the meaty expansion packs of Rise & Fall as well as Gathering Storm with the disasters. I'm glad I didn't initiate them on my initial playthrough as the diplomacy, governers, and disasters would have been quite daunting for a new playerto learn on top of all the base game features.

 

IS THIS A FUN TROPHY LIST? - Probably not for most players. Did I enjoy it? For some portions yes. I built huge expansive empires as Babylonia and the United States due to the fact I gave myself the fun challenge of trying to knock out as many trophies as possible with them. These were games played on Settler difficulty yet took 250+ turns due to the fact I went out of my way to aim for certain victories and pop very specific requirements such as Flight Singulator or Mission to Mars. While that may sound like a slog, with quick movement turned on (a feature I discovered 150+ turns into my 1st playthrough), you can absolutely fly through games and I remember being shocked multiple times and thinking "have I seriously already played 150 turns?". This isn't a meme. It's a cautionary tale. Some trophies did admitedly get on my nerves. Luftballons in particular is atrocious. In large part solely due to the fact the contient of Nena spawning is so damn rare and took me nearly an hour and a half of restartting before finally popping it. On the other hand, "Missed that Day in History Class" had me giggling due to its sheer absurdity and it felt quite fitting that while playing as Tsar Peter and Russia, the only civilization to properly defeat me, I managed to achieve the Deity victory achievement and platinum too boot. I honestly made no effort to earn all the trophies as quickly as I did. I did a handful each day and before I knew it, I had earned the 3.68% rarity platinum in 2 weeks and 21 hours making me the 3rd fastest achiever on the leader board. Of course, DLCs obviously affected those boards for those who played the game when it launched but I'm quite chuffed about those results given how much of a noob I am. 

 

Miscallenous Thoughts on The Game - As a complete beginner to the genre, I don't have much expertise on what makes a 4X grand turn-based strategy game good VS bad. It's just not something I have in my repretoire to use as a point of reference. I can usually tell if a platformer's movement feels good but it's far harder to tell if a tactical game is properly balanced. This is also completely skewed by the fact that the majority of my hours on the game were played on settler where all challenge was virtually removed. With that being said, I've heard the game can get quite unfair above "King" difficulty due to the sheer advantages the CPU is given over the player. I would honestly love to play a game on Prince legitamately and see if I can come out on top against 9+ other civilizations. I should do that. After 50+ hours with the game learning all its various mechannics, I owe it to myself that I've come a long way since my Conquistador Colombian days. In general, I thought science was extremely valuable for tech advantages which can make wars a complete joke if other nations are fighting with units that are eras behind your own. Being one of the first four Civs to create a religion is essential to defend yourself from being overrun with missionaries. I didn't find Culture to be that essential and on low diffiuclties, amenties and the fear of losing loyalty is nothing but an empty threat. I have no doubt that differs on higher levels. By the end of my 50 hours, I found myself comfortable with some of the game's more intricate systems such as diplomatic favors, earning great people, and so forth. My point? If me, a complete neanderthal can capture the learning curve of this game, don't let its initial intimidating nature prevent you from playing it. I'm glad I overcame my initial trepidations in order to properly enjoy it myself.

 

Would I recommend Civilization 6? For most players, no. If you've been drawn to the series in the past, absolutely! I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending this game blindly to someone. I have no doubt most of you here have at least HEARD of the game but to take a flyer and get invested is far too great a leap I'd want someone to take on my word alone. This is also a game that I feel will be far more enjoyed by those who AREN'T completionists and would rather just enjoy a fun game of Civ on Prince difficulty every now and then to enjoy the game all over again. At it's core, that's what this game is about. Choose your starting leader, try and take advantage of their specialities, and then enjoy the world around your prosper as the game writes its own story with the unique and quirky narratives you'll enjoy. I felt this best in my Babylon playthrough. I had a surprise war declared on me by Matthias Corvinus of the Hungarians. This was the first time a surprise war completely blindsided me. But the thrill of it happening and needing to take immediate action was where all the fun was had. It's been a blast to get sucked back into the Civilization vortex for this month of June and I have no doubt it's one of the rare games I'll return to in the future due to how damn replayable it is. Until next time!

 

Panda Score: 8.4 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 3.8 / 10

Spoiler

Start Date: June 10th, 2022

 

Super excited to finally play Civ 6! I’ve seen a handful of YouTube let’s plays from AGES ago but have never played a game in the series myself. I’m sure it’s going to go wonderfully with me bumbling about trying to figure out how to keep my feeble nation afloat. While there are A LOT of trophies to go after, to get my feet wet and get an organic, 1st Timer Experience, I will be playing the game without looking at trophies my first go around just to get familiar with it. Afterwards, we can go into ruthless trophy focused mode. Sooooo yea! Lessgo!

 

Blind Initial Play-through:

• Aight that was a baller intro
• On second thought, lemme do the Tutorial first (trophies unobtainable in this mode) just to get the BASICS down pat
• Food and production… food grows city, population, more food means more growth
• Production is used to build new items, more production, faster you can build things
• AYYYYY! It took us 88 turns but we took the city of Uruk from Gilgamesh. He didn’t stand a chance. Loser built 4 weak baby cities and we crushed him with our spearmen.
• Basically - get amenities, builders, warriors, etc. .. LETS DO A REAL GAME!
• WOW okay I just went to “Create Game” and holy crap this is intimidating
• Let’s play on Standard Rules to start out.
• I have decided to play as Simón Bolívar as Gran Colombia… don’t ask why
• He has the benefits of the Comandante General, Llanero in the Industrial Era which replaces Cavalry, and the Hacienda which is a builder ability. Increwases gold, production, housing, and food for every two adjacent plantations
• We’re going with a SMALL continents map. Everything on Map Options is labeled to “Standard”
• All victory conditions are eligible
• Instead of playing on Prince Difficulty, I’ve picked Chieftain as this is my 1st ever game
• I’ve set the game speed to “Quick” in order to make things progress well
• Not touching any of the game modes
• I will be competing against 6 other nations, completely random.. LETS GOOOO!!!!
• OH DAMN we ran into our first opponent, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick…
• Found a natural wonder in Crater Lake, nice!
• Welp we also just came across Clepatra to the North, wooo body
• DAMMIT WE ALSO RAN INTO GILAGAMESH LMAO C’MON MAN
• Ay we built the hanging gardens! Woohoo! Increase 15% to all cities!
• Okay… wow… 156 turns later flew by like THAT. I managed to absolutely body this fool Frederick and take his capital without too much of a hassle thanks to my trebuchet. I left him with Hamburg so he’d be able to witness my greatness for the next millennia. Gilgamesh got his panties in a bunch and after a few hundred years, I took his capital as well. Now all that’s left bothering me on my content is the feeling nation of Egypt which has a capital city of 7 population while Bogota reigns supreme at 19. Tempted to take hers, build up, and then sail in conquest of the remaining nations on other continents as they bow to Colombia’s greatness
• WOW!!!! Okay I had so much freaking fun with that 1st game bumbling about. I actually LOST despite conquering an entire continent containing Ethiopia, Russia, & Mayan Empire since freaking Tsar Peter spread his wack Eastern Orthodoxy and got a religious victory. Too bad I RELOADED. Turns out he had a hidden city and I couldn’t fathom how he was still on the map. I protected Germany (BY GOING TO WAR WITH FREDERICK), stopped his missionaries from getting there, and be-lined for a heavily defended Mayan capital and finally cracked it just eeking out the domination victory! This game is freaking awesome lol

 

 

Pannotia

Asiaamerica

Arctica x2

Lemuria x3

Euramerica

Congo Craton x4

Rodinia

Antarctica

Laurasia

Mu x5

Kernorland

Baltica x3

Oceania x2

Columbia x2

Vendian x3

America

Gondwana x3

Vaalbara x4

Pangea

Cimmeria x4

Australia

Novopangea

Africa x3

North America x2

Kumari Kandam

Europe x2

Nuna x4

Azania x4

Panga Ultimate

Avalonia x2

Ur

Siberia x2

South America x3

Asia

Atlantis

Kazakhstania x3

Kalaharia

Zelandia x2

Atlantica

Laurentia

 

[NetoStyle]

Congrats big fella! I always wanted that plat + 100% but never took that extra step to start working on the game, I suck at those type of games so it would have been a disaster for myself ?

 

but happy for you man that’s a very nice 100% to have! ???

[YaManSmevz]

Good job dude! And great write-up as well, of course. I been playin the should-I-shouldn't-I game with Cities for a long time now, seeing how your experience went with this gives me hope?

[realm722]

Game: Unpacking

 

Analysis: I bought Unpacking for $15.99 this past Friday and it has become my most common platinum to date sitting in at around 76% completion. That's back-to-back months of platinums over 70% completion. Am I getting soft or are we just getting more awesome chill games on consoles nowadays? I hope it's the latter. 

 

Why Unpacking? I had originally heard of Unpacking when it apparently took off on Twitch several months back as an extremely relaxing game to enjoy to break up the monotony of most video game genres which are action-packed. Once I saw the adorable art style, I figured I'd check it out if it ever came to consoles. Thanks to @TalesofGaming's review of it - I added it to my wishlist to be bought way down the line when it went on sale for $5-10. Yet as I wanted to make the Civ 6 platinum icon my 8,000th trophy, I wanted to find a quick way to earn 28 trophies in order to precisely line up the milestone. I got a few in Mark of the Ninja (review coming Jul. 2022) but said what the heck after seeing the game went on sale. It's far more than I'd typically pay for a game of this ilk but I figured it'd be for a good cause for a relatively niche indie developer and the fact it's so short I could get right back to Civ 6 and give it the send off I wanted.

 

Marie Kondo's Dream Game - Depending on your type of personality and habits, this game could hit a sweet spot you never knew you had in video games. The fun of meticulous organization and planning. I am someone who considers myself of this group. I've made detailed spreadsheets covering every video game and movie I've seen in recent years. I have private papers where I document inane details of my life such as every time I try a new type of food, eat at a restaurant, hang out with friends, read articles online, listen to a new music album, etc... I love documenting all of it. I don't share it with anyone. It's not for anyone else to read and its deeply personal to me as anyone's most inner thoughts would be. Hell, I don't even ever go back and read what I write. I just like knowing I have the option to go back and read how I felt immediately after dining out with a few friends for 3 hours at an Italian restaurant in November of 2019. I call these my "archives". In reality, it's a diary juiced with the hyper codification of an Excel using Data Analyst. This attention to the micro extends itself to the physical world as even as a teenager I enjoyed having a clean and orderly room. How is all of this relevant to the game? It's not. But I hope it gave you some insight into the type of person who'd probably enjoy this game.

 

The Simple Puzzle Mechanics of Unpacking - The game is broken up into 7 levels, each expanding the scope of your house item expertise the more you play. The initial level, you'll have a simple child's room to organize. (SPOILER HERE) As a surprise to me, once I had unpacked everything, I noticed a huge number of items flashed in red & white which meant that they were not in the adequate place that the game developers would consider appropriate. You actually needed to place things within reasonable regard for their typical resting place in the real world. I had no idea about this mechanic before buying but absolutely loved it. It's lowkey a judgment of the game developers on where YOU may place things in your own house. I literally have a radio of that exact same size and shape in the bathroom in my house and apparently, you're not supposed to have it on the toilet while you're showering. The game also appeals to two types of people. Those who enjoy switching and shifting every tchotchke in their home so the room is as aesthetically pleasing as can be AS WELL as those who will sacrifice appearance for efficiency and try to fit as many items as possible in order to maximize space for more items on the way. I found myself leaning towards the latter. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a monster. I'd absolutely rotate the action figure when I'd pick it up to make sure it's facing forward when being placed on a shelf but I'm not so obsessed that I'll make sure every sock and piece of underwear is color-coded and facing the same direction in each drawer. 

 

Would I recommend Unpacking? 100%! Unpacking is a game that perfectly accomplishes everything the developers set out for when creating it. This is far more plausible in games that are smaller in scope such as Lucas Pope's Papers Please but the sensation of putting everything in its proper place in a home and doing so in a pleasant atmosphere was delightful. You'll undoubtedly have a few items that force you to zoom in extremely close in order to distinguish what exactly your phantom clicker is holding (the freaking koala magnet man), but I think most items will come to you naturally with every trial and error(except for the dish rack dryer I had to look that one up don't shame me). You'll also get a chuckle out of how detailed the developers were to include some absurdly small items. I thought the fact that the postcard with the boyfriend needed to be put away in a drawer or hidden area after breaking up with him was magnificent if a bit heartbreaking. Some items also come with unique properties which go along with trophies such as the Rubix cube which can be solved or the artist's figure which can be posed in different positions. It's all wonderful, and if you're bored, at least it's short! I ultimately earned the 76.30% rarity platinum in 22 hours and 23 minutes. 

 

Panda Score: 7.5 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 1.5 / 10

18 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

I been playin the should-I-shouldn't-I game with Cities for a long time now, seeing how your experience went with this gives me hope

 

Oh man.... Cities: Skylines. Of all my non-platinums in my collection, it is the only one that is a non-sports game. I remember buying the game for $30 back in 2018 and of course, back then it had none of the DLC it has now. The shameful thing is I'm only two trophies away from earning the platinum which would at least make it respectable but that 1001 nights trophy and "Happy Town" are downright frightening as someone who has stepped away from the game for 3+ years. If you do decide to rush the plat, please make some detailed notes to help a brother out ?

[YaManSmevz]

7 minutes ago, realm722 said:

Game: Unpacking

 

Jesus, man.

 

Between you, Doc, and Mr. Clarke, I simply have no chance of keeping my backlog down. Y'all are monsters and I hope you know that???

 

I really enjoyed how you set this one up. It's a difficult thing to define, the joy of a tidy space and having everything in its right place (surely of all the languages in the world, one has a word for that). I was very neat when I was younger as well, and while I must confess to some bad habits creepin in over the years, I'm 100% intrigued, and I can sense this is a game that would speak to me. I'm actually getting a vibe similar to the one I got when I read your excellent Islanders review.

 

Speaking of reviews, Mark of the Ninja??? I'll be posted outside in a sleeping bag waiting for that one to drop, I already know that's gonna be fire!

 

7 minutes ago, realm722 said:

Oh man.... Cities: Skylines. Of all my non-platinums in my collection, it is the only one that is a non-sports game. I remember buying the game for $30 back in 2018 and of course, back then it had none of the DLC it has now. The shameful thing is I'm only two trophies away from earning the platinum which would at least make it respectable but that 1001 nights trophy and "Happy Town" are downright frightening as someone who has stepped away from the game for 3+ years. If you do decide to rush the plat, please make some detailed notes to help a brother out 

 

Yo every time I buckle down and start playing and get a string of trophies, I just stop. It's weird, everything's goin well and I'm having a good time but suddenly I'll become like this nervous jittery guy who's like "I can't do this, IT'S TOO MUCH PRESSURE" or somethin. Frightening is an adjective I completely identify with on this one!

 

If I can manage to topple this monstrosity, I will definitely keep you in mind??

[realm722]

RealM722's Monstrosity of a Google Sheets Document for Trophy Hunting V2.0

 

(CLICK HERE TO VIEW) (or use the HTML published version)

 

  Nearly a year ago, I published the V1.0 of My Monstrosity and debuted it in this post. It was an absolutely mammoth undertaking given I had to make the document from scratch. Over the course of the past year, its served me very well and I've always enjoyed filling in each new entry in unison with when I write a review about a game on this forum. Still, I knew there was always room for improvement. With a PS5, I was now able to see a rough estimate of how many hours I had spent in each game. I also debuted new categories such as my scale of difficulty, whether or not I found a game to be replayable, and finally some more information behind the creators of the game such as what country the studio is based out of and what engine they used to create the game. I also increased the overall text size since the previous one was for ants. On the large, it's not perfect but I'm happy with it. 

 

The Impossibility of Classifying Game Genres - Honestly, what took me the longest when it came to making V2.0 was this aspect. Defining video games by genre freaking SUCKS. There is NO good system out there. Trust me, I've scoured the internet. I initially tried to use the Wikipedia tactic of typing in whatever pops up there as I do with my movies spreadsheet. Sadly, it'll tell you that Pyre is a Visual Novel with Sports Gameplay and Transistor is an Action Role-Playing Game while Dragon Quest 11 is a mere Role-Playing Game. In essence, they're either far too specific or far too vague. IDGB also isn't helpful. They'll put any ol' category next to any game. Catlateral Damage is listed under an "indie shooter simulation". Desert Child is an "adventure, arcade, indie, racing, role-playing game, shooter, simulator. WOW! That really narrows it down! What I realized is that there is no good classifying system available. Thus I needed to make my own that made sense to me. I added a few dividers that hopefully help distinguish games that I find radically different. I created "Action Role-Playing" vs. "Turn-Based Role-Playing" as they're wildly different. The same for "3D Platformer" vs. "2D Platformer" to distinguish the likes of A Hat in Time & Astro's Playroom from Unravel and Celeste. "Roguelike" is an all-encompassing term for roguelites AND roguelikes. I consider those games to be of the same ilk and their differences aren't significant enough for me to justify the distinction. "Farming" should truthfully be renamed "Harvest Moon Vibes" as in a handful of those games (My Time at Portia, Spiritfarer) farming is not even 10% of what you spend your time doing. "Indie Adventure" is my way to separate games from the AAA big boys in a respectful manner. Lost in Random may be an Action-Adventure game, I still don't classify it in the same group as the Batman games or Okami HD. On the whole, this was a near-impossible task and I came away relatively happy with the outcome. Inevitably, I'll probably switch some terms around I've used for games another year from now but we'll worry about that in 2023.

 

Country Counts - Arguably the most fun part of this entire reorganization was this category. I am SHOCKED by the number of games that aren't made by United States-based game developers. Under this category, you'll see that at the time of this writing of the 221 games cataloged, only 70 of them were made in the US ??. That's just a hash over 30%! I've played nearly 30 games a piece from developers in Japan ??, Canada ??, and the United Kingdom ?? which all makes sense once you discover how many indie studios are based in Toronto, Canada. Apart from those three, I've also played a surprisingly large amount from both Sweden ?? and France ?? with the latter being particularly surprising considering I barely touch Ubisoft games. The lowest-ranked country at the moment (with a minimum of 3 games played from the region) is Germany ??. Apparently, German engineering does not transfer to German game design. OR perhaps I'm just not playing enough of their best games being those bus-driving simulators. The Top 3 nations on the other hand are Australia ??, the Netherlands ??, & Russia ??. Russia reminds me most for their bleak outlooks on life (Beholder series, Graveyard Keeper, Ash of Gods) and yet they're all very well done and distinct. The Netherlands is only up there since that's where Guerrilla Games (makers of the Horizon franchise) are based. I've gotta say, I'm REALLY impressed by the Australian indie developers! These are 4 distinct indie studios that made 4 very different games (The Forgotten City, Hollow Knight, Unpacking, & The Adventure Pals) and yet I found something to enjoy in all of them. I also discovered I have single games from Brazil ??, Bulgaria ??, Finland ??, Indonesia ??, Singapore ??, & Ukraine ??. This was something I've never paid much attention to previously but I'm easily gonna keep an eye out for foreign studios going forward.

 

Closing Remarks - This was a very fun endeavor and I'm glad I expanded on the foundation I had left for myself previously. There are some more categories such as my favorite game developers officially ranked (Supergiant Games reigns supreme by a whole 0.1 points!) as well as the fact I could bemoan the lack of information out there by many developers on what game engine they use buuuuut I think I've gone on long enough. I may be conducting a few experiments in the future of trying to find games that hit certain requirements to see if I can mathematically find a game that by data, I should enjoy based on my past experiences! Until then, see y'all!

[kingofbattle8174]

That is one hell of spreadsheet, I am thoroughly impressed. Does it come with Pivot tables though?

[Platinum_Vice]

9 hours ago, realm722 said:

There are some more categories such as my favorite game developers officially ranked (Supergiant Games reigns supreme by a whole 0.1 points!)

 

How did you come to this conclusion?

 

Would you consider (purely for the sake of this random on the internet), finding the 'mean' average of all scores per developer, and then posting them? 

 

As a fellow 'record keeper/stat collector' I applause your effort and hope you keep this up!

[realm722]

On 6/27/2022 at 4:50 PM, kingofbattle8174 said:

That is one hell of spreadsheet, I am thoroughly impressed. Does it come with Pivot tables though?

 

I am sad to report no.  The only old one did have a sheet dedicated to them but I found it to be a bit obtuse. I honestly am horrible at thinking of good ways to represent data visually (see: bad pie chart sheet) and have gotta take a few lessons to figure out how to easily convey lots of info in a digestible matter. Maybe V3.0 lmao

 

On 6/27/2022 at 11:19 PM, Platinum_Vice said:

Would you consider (purely for the sake of this random on the internet), finding the 'mean' average of all scores per developer, and then posting them? 

 

 

This is found on the 3rd sheet under "Supreme Studios". I'd say it looks about right. The fact Supergiant Games finishes in 1st place against of the Banner Saga dudes is so perfect yet I didn't even try to do it intentionally. After that's it's both Horizon's by Guerrilla Games, both Unravel's by Coldwood Interactive, and the first real big boy studio in Square Enix. The Game Bakers hit a home run with Furi and had a lil bit of a come back to earth game with Haven. Hopoo is the Risk fo Rain 1 & 2 dev,s  EA Canada encapsulates my FIFA obsession, Thunder Lotus has had ups and downs (Jotun, Sundered, Spiritfarer) but I'll play anything they make next as they've done well enough to keep me intrigued(and I write A LOT about their games apparently).

 

After that is Drinkbox Studios whos latest game "Nobody Saves the World" is 10000% gonna get picked up by me when it goes on sale for $15 or less. Rocksteady Studios has that Suicide Squad game coming out. I'm... not intrigued. San Diego Studio is the MLB The Show crew, Quantic Dream is making a Star Wars game which should be freaking hilarious, Night School Studio are the Oxenfree/Afterparty gang and I will 100% play Oxenfree 2, Insomniac Games has two games I need to catch up on in Miles Morales & Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Criterion is making another NFS so we'll see how that goes. Warm Lamp is the Beholder 1 & 2 developers and they've now released a Beholder 3 but it has mixed reviews so I may dodge it for now to avoid it damaging my reputation of them. Japan Studio is no more but was fun while it was around. Sumo Digital made that Sackboy platformer I'll get around to one day. Ghost Games is no more and is now EA Gothenburg. Giant Sparrow are the Unfinished Swan / Edith Finch devs and I'll play whatever they drop next. Bithell Games is one I'd 1000% love to play Volume if it ever went on sale again. Toys for Bob are the Spyro Trilogy Reignited devs and I'm eh on them. Sucker Punch amde the inFamous games which were just aight for me and I don't have much interest in Ghost of Tsushima. EA Tiburon produces Madden. Bandai Namco is the old Arcade games, Milestone is a crappy developer which makes crappy racing games, and finally Zoink rounds out the bottom of the list since I just did not vibe with Lost in Random lol. 

 

Wayyyyyy more detailed than you probably could have asked for but yea! This'll be fun to have for posterity in case anything drastically changes in the future. 

[YaManSmevz]

2 hours ago, realm722 said:

 (see: bad pie chart sheet)

 

*struggling to not reference that played out Pac Man pie chart joke*

 

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Drinkbox Studios whos latest game "Nobody Saves the World" is 10000% gonna get picked up by me when it goes on sale for $15 or less.

 

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I will 100% play Oxenfree 2

 

That's a hard same on both, bro?

 

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Warm Lamp is the Beholder 1 & 2 developers and they've now released a Beholder 3 but it has mixed reviews so I may dodge it for now to avoid it damaging my reputation of them.

 

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

 

So happy that exists but I'm suddenly scared!

 

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Zoink rounds out the bottom of the list since I just did not vibe with Lost in Random lol. 

 

I'unno man, can't speak for that game but I thought Stick It to the Man and Flipping Death were a great time. I fuck with Zoink based on those alone.

 

No surprise that this was another awesome post! I love the genre breakdown - I'd argue that video games have reached the same level as music as far as complexity is concerned.

 

I used to painstakingly label my music by genre so I get you. Like R&B and Neo-Soul lumped in under "Urban?" ???

[Platinum_Vice]

3 hours ago, realm722 said:

Wayyyyyy more detailed than you probably could have asked for but yea! This'll be fun to have for posterity in case anything drastically changes in the future. 

 

Not at all, that was PERFECT. Thanks Realm! Very impressed (and very interested in these conclusions)!!

 

[DrBloodmoney]

As someone who approaches trophy hunting like MrMagoo, stumbling from one game to another without any rhyme or reason, your organisational and record keeping skills scare the shit outta me ?

 

On the developers though, I can't help but notice a distinct lack of Housemarque and Klei... ?

[realm722]

Game: Kiai Resonance

 

Analysis: I bought this game you've never heard of for $4.19 earlier this June 2022 and this is my 1st ever game played by a Belgian developer!

 

Why Kiai Resonance? Honestly, this selection was pretty much a heat check by me. This game had NEVER been on sale, has less than 35 game owners at the time that I write this, and I did not even bother to look up a YouTube video of how the gameplay was. I just liked the image that showed up for it on PlatPrices, saw it had a decent 100% rate, and wanted to scoop it up whenver possible. What are the results? Eh. It's a bit rough. This is a fighting/dueling game made in the art style of old classic Japanese paintings. The art is well done in my mind. Unfortunately, the actual fighting mechanics leave a lot to be desired. I recommend going into the Tutorial to learn them as trying to win without knowing the controls will quickly prove impossible in either the 1 v. 1 mode or in the many challenges. You can alternate between 3 possible stances. You have a defensive stance (default, middle position with sword facing forward), counter-attacking stance (□ button, must be timed as the opponent goes to strike you), and finally an offensive stance (∆ button, sword high overhead of fighter). You can switch between these freely and striking your opponent once or being hit once will end the round. It's not.... very deep. But that's okay! That's why there are challenges! GOOD LORD MAN. These were absolutely hilarious, frustrating, and admittedly challenging for such a small and quick 100%. Under "Strength", I got stuck on "Ghost Attack" and had no idea how I'd ever advance and legitamately thought I had just locked myself into an unobtainable 100%. Then I found this video and got it done 1st try. "Speed" has a tricky final one where you must strike your opponent the second a gong sound is heard. This will take you a handful of attempts as the sheer anticipation in the tips of your fingers as you try to get the jump on the cheating AI will have you on the edge of your seat. Finally, the Windmill challenge and Echoes challenge under the "Mind" category would have been impossible without other help online. Hell, on the latter, I legit needed to record the TV audio with my phone so I could ever so delicately distinguish between the sounds in order to offer the proper inputs. To put it simply, this 100% gave me more of a handful than I expected!

 

Would I recommend Kiai Resonance? Probably not. The majority of your time with the game will be spent completing all of the challenges and while some of them offered a cheeky now and then, the majority of the game's difficulty comes from it being so vague on what it's asking out of the player. You'll try a bunch of random inputs, have little success, and then look it up online and think: "well damn the game could have been a bit clearer about that." If you're someone who enjoys mildly annoying challenges that take you handfuls of attempts to complete, this game may be for you! I don't hate it. I just think it's one of the lower-ranking 100%'s I've completed this year only ranking ahead of the infamous Popeye. If you care about leaderboards at all, you can go for it as I'm only the 9th achiever ever to complete the 100% and apparently the 5th fastest as well! It took me 1 hour and 42 minutes to earn the 23.53% rarity 100%. I probably overpaid for it in the end but that's the gamble you take when you venture into unknown indie land every now and then. (Future Targets for going in 100% blind purely on art: Heaven's Vault, Olija, Paradise Killer)

 

Panda Score: 6.0 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 3.1 / 10

On 6/29/2022 at 4:23 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

On the developers though, I can't help but notice a distinct lack of Housemarque and Klei... 

Hah, Housemarque is a developer I 100% want to get around to eventually. I bought Resogun but am wholly intimidated by DLC that apprently requires a co-op partner in order to be doable and I'm not too interested in Mex Machina or Matterfall. Returnal on the other hand is 100% a game I'll play sometime in the future. It 10000% gives me "this'll be available for all PS+ Users before the end of 2023" energy so I'm holding out hope I can attain it that way. Klei Entertainment on the other hand is being rectified at this very moment with Mark of the Ninja! Aside from that - Don't Starve's trophy list intimidates me, Invisible, Inc even MORE SO and those rarity's are completely beyond anything I've ever attempted (though I do know you and Cassy have the platinum, may have to do some tip deep diving on y'alls threads for that). I wish Oxygen Not Included was available on consoles and finally Griftlands got shafted with no platinum :(. Based on my brief experience with Mark of the Ninja though, I can already tell they make hella sophisticated games with good mechanics. Def would like to see more of what they have to offer! 

[realm722]

Game: Mark of the Ninja Remastered

 

Analysis: I bought MotN for $8.99 in mid-June 2022 and this is my 1st ever game played by the folks over at Klei Entertainment!

 

Why Mark of the Ninja? Quite frankly, this game has beaten me into submission over the course of several years. Over at PlatPrices, the user is given the ability to sort by many categories with one of them being the "OpenCritic" filter which ascends games by the rating/score they've been given. I always filter out the games I already have in my library as well as the ones I've hidden. This meant that EVERY damn time I would go to sort through a sale, there I'd find "Mark of the Ninja Remastered" glistening at the top with its spectacular 90 overall score. Eventually, I said screw it, let's check out a game that's extremely highly rated and figure out what all the fuss is about. Once I booted up the game... the developer sounded familiar. Klei, where had I heard that name before? Of course, nearly 2 years ago they were briefly featured on the video game documentary channel NoClip and everything clicked into place. All I remember was that these guys were GOOD developers. You may not love their games, but they make sound, quality games and do so in an ethical manner. 

 

Learning the Control Scheme - I think by far the biggest adjustment and likely frustrating aspect of Mark of the Ninja will be the player needing to understand how the protagonist moves. These are NOT awful controls. They just take some getting used to. In a game built around giving you the option to be sneaky, climb through vents, up walls, through scaffolding, and dash between hiding place in the environment, there's going to be some growing pains to get fully acclimated. I was very annoyed with the first 2 levels since it kept feeling like the ninja was sticking to every damn surface and thought that the game was too rigid. In reality, this is necessary for some of the more complex and unique options the game offers to cause chaos on your foes. By the midway point, I felt fairly comfortable and from then onwards thought the game was very fluid with a few rare exceptions (clicking O and accidentally picking up a body instead of hiding, opening doors when I didn't mean to, etc...) thought the game misinterpreted my inputs. To put it succinctly - stick with the controls and you'll probably get used to them!

 

A Remarkably Generous Game - If you're like me and aiming to knockout many of the objectives, scrolls, and scores necessary for the platinum on your first playthrough, you could be surprised by the relatively high platinum % of nearly 22%. That is until you realize how unbelievably forgiving Klei Entertainment made this game. Basically, you can beat the "restart checkpoint" button like it owes you money and there's zero consequences for doing so. As opposed to needing a flawless full run through a level without getting spotted OR accidentally botching an objective, if you ever mess up in any fashion, you can quickly restart from your last checkpoint and your objectives/score will return to what they were before your botch up. This makes everything in the game 20x easier than it would be if it demanded perfection for the full 8-12 minutes most of the levels last. Hell, you can pick up a scroll, accidentally die, and no matter what, even if you didn't reach a checkpoint, that collectible is permanently collected to your profile. I think this friendly system is delightful because 1) It's a life saver for trophy hunters who would whine if this wasn't implemented and 2) Wonderful for encouraging exprimentation amongst players as there's no real harm in messing up. 

 

Stealthy Ninja vs. Sneaky Serial Killer - There's a GDC talk I want to watch from Klei Entertainment that I am going to watch immediately after typing up this review and I'm curious if my hypothesis is going to be correct. My hypothesis: I don't think the developers original plans was to allow you to kill most enemies. If I had to venture a guess, I imagine they had to change it and give players an option to kill most enemies from behind as otherwise avoiding all enemies with distractions and perfectly timed jumps proved too frustrating for most players. Poeple enjoy stealth when it's optional but when you shove it down a player's throat, you get screeching over the MJ segments in Marvel's Spider-Man (they genuinely weren't THAT bad guys). In Mark of the Ninja, you can earn a 5k+ bonus to your score if you go the entire level without killing any enemies. Once you get beyond the first few, this proves increasingly difficult. You're going to need to get VERY creative with noisecrackers, shattering lights with darts to cause distractions, and legitamately leaping in front of a moving gurd at the precise moment in order to avoid getting detected. I typically played like this on my first playthrough with a few rare exceptions unless incentivized by objectives. On most of them, I caved killing 2-3 on each level out of convenience's sake. Those who love stealth I imagine will find a great deal of joy of figuring each little tactic in order to avoid taking a life. It's where a lot of the critical thinking of the game is found. Then there's... MURDERING EVERY GUARD IN SIGHT. So, on my New Game+, as I had done everything necessary out of a few miscallenous trophies, I essentially tried to speedrun the game. I have two strong observations. 1) Holy crap the levels are super short and you breeze through them once you know what you're doing. 2) Murdering every guard is comical and pulls at the fabrics that keep the game together. It's funny when you reach the end of a level that you gain the full scope of your marauding and likely took out several squadrons of the opposing guards. If I had to give a recommendation, it'd be this, at least on your 1st playthrough, don't murder everyone just out of convenience. I honestly think the game could have benefitted from an end-of-game moment where you're almost slightly judged for your actions of whether or not you killed strictly who was necessary vs. seeked our human life like a bloodthirsty hound. 

 

Would I recommend Mark of the Ninja Remastered? Absolutely! This is a good video game. It's not my favorite, and it's probably not going to crack my Top 10 of the year, but it's a fundamentally sound game with good mechanics and I think you'd be hardpressed to find players who disliked it. They likely have a stick up their butt if they can't appreciate the game's diverse mechanics and detail put into the level design. In terms of additional critcisms, I'd argue that a few of the middle levels felt very "samey" and there wasn't enough distinction between them with regards to being visually diverse. Typical buildings, some underground catacombs, and then temples at the end. I would have enjoyed some more variety. Some of the weapons/distraction tools feel extremely similar and I personally didn't find a need to deviate much from my personal favorites of the Noise Maker and Spike Mine outside of a few forced instances. The story is alright, nothing special but it's decent flavoring and I quite enjoyed Ora (your ninja companion for the whole journey). Finally, with regard to trophies, nothing should prove to be too challenging. I earned 3 seals on every level on my 1st try except for the final and 9th level and I was only a few hundred points off. Here's a nifty 100% playlist for those who need it. I earned the 21.82% rarity platinum in 1 week and 3 days. I absolutely wanna play more Klei Entertainment games after this. I'm almost tempted with Invisible, Inc due to @DrBloodmoney's propaganda but I need to beat a fair number of roguelites I've already purchased before I seriously consider it. Ta ta for now!

 

Panda Score: 7.55 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 3.3 / 10

[YaManSmevz]

6 hours ago, realm722 said:

Game: Mark of the Ninja Remastered

 

As good as hoped!

 

I kinda like that this was a game that has nagged you into trying it out, if that makes sense? Also, Klei is particularly ethical? I gotta do some homework my damn self.

 

Agreed that controls can take a bit of getting used to, I often found it weirdly easy to fall off a wall when I wanted to cling, etc. I really liked how you touched on the encouragement to go kill-free, and basically leave next to no evidence that you were there in the first place.

 

Good shit as always, my dude!

[The_Kopite]

On 6/26/2022 at 10:36 PM, realm722 said:

Would I recommend Unpacking? 100%!

I've only heard good things about this game, and well you keep those good reviews going! Appreciated reading through it, and will definitely be one to keep an eye on when it's on a sale I think. My wife would probably enjoy it too.

[realm722]

On 7/5/2022 at 5:53 AM, The_Kopite said:

My wife would probably enjoy it too.

 

The overwhelming majority of coverage loving it on YouTube is from women so I think you're 100% correct on that! It checks all the boxes on a "cozy/cute' game.