#xbox
#xbox
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Most games try to give you some sense of your impact. You can construct stories about your prowess, about what you did to help bring your team to victory. You know how many kills you made, how many objectives you captured, and how you assisted your teammates. The numbers spell out plainly exactly what you’ve accomplished.
In Hell Let Loose, sometimes it’s an achievement just to stay alive. A bomb you had no chance to avoid might take you out seconds after spawning. Or you might run ten minutes to the next objective only to be killed instantly by an enemy you’d never seen.
Sometimes you play a key role in setting a well timed offensive that creates momentum for the whole team. And sometimes you wander around, separated from your squad with no objective, no direction, and wondering if you’re even going to contribute anything in the next 30 minutes of bloody attrition.
Hell Let Loose is both the most exhilarated and bored I’d ever been in a shooter.
By Amr (@siegarettes)
Among easy internet gags “Nintendo game with ultraviolence” is a long time staple. One look at Trigger Witch and it’s easily clear this is its starting point. Everything from the viewpoint, tilesets, structure and even certain melodies mark it as a clear pastiche of A Link to the Past, with AKs and Magnums replacing the swords and magic. Complete with the violent bursts of blood when you finish off an enemy.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
What if a puzzle game removed the cursor and replaced it with a character? That’s Treasure Stack’s big gimmick, turning an otherwise regular competitive puzzle game into a platformer hybrid. The order which you stack blocks not only sets up chains to attack and defend, but creates a space you need to be able to physically traverse to engage with. It’s a solid concept, only rarely explored in other games like Super Puzzle Platformer or Mr. Blocko Super Tournament Edition.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
I love Wargroove. At least, when it isn’t seriously pissing me off. When it’s in the groove, it sets up wonderful capsule strategy scenarios. Each of these make me consider the terrain, the set of units I’m restricted to and forces me to experiment and make hard choices to overcome the enemy. The wonderful animations and lovingly rendered maps enhance every victory and mistake, making me hold my breath as I hope that I’ve made the right move.
All of this helps Wargroove perfectly capture the appeal of the old Advance Wars style strategy games. It’s a refreshing return whose capsule battles generally feel more accessible to people who aren’t strategy mavens. And yet, it isn’t the rousing success it should be, thanks to some BIG problems that soured any high points.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
With so many retro-inspired titles out there, terms like “8-bit” or “NES style” have become muddled. Few of them attempt to match the limitations of the era’s hardware, more often using it as a shorthand for games with pixel art or bad CRT filters. Oniken definitely still has that bad CRT filter, but makes a serious effort to recapture the era’s spirit, in both art direction and combat flow. At the same time its enthusiasm for the hardcore philosophy now associated with the era blinds it to problems that undercut the overall experience.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
I’ve made it out of the seaweed forests. The new chainsaw has allowed me to cut through the thick weeds, and uncover more of the history left behind. There are more of those holograms, and even this far in there are massive screens still running news broadcasts. Did they really discover a truly sustainable energy source while I was gone?
Maybe not. At the least there seems to have been a lot of infighting here. Numerous journals describe eco-terrorists taking radical action to stop the development of these cities. What could have been so awful that it was worth fighting the last remains of humanity?
Well, maybe I’m starting to get a sense of it myself. While investigating it I stumbled into the den of the largest octopus I’ve seen. The creatures so far have been massive, but this one was beyond comprehension. The suckers on its tentacles alone dwarfed me. The sea has seemed so vast, terrifying in the way it seemed to continue on. This beast is the first being I’ve met that seems large enough to live comfortably in that vastness.
Our meeting didn’t go well.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Life in Desert Child was simple when I started. Spend the day racing, sell the extra power cells I didn’t need to make money and fund repairs, and finish the day off with some ramen. It wasn’t a great life, and if you thought the ramen at those hipster shops here were a rip off, wait until you eat this $15 ramen that doesn’t even fill you up. Still it was easygoing, and there wasn’t much to worry about.
Then I got it in my head that I was gonna make it big on Mars, and enter the Grand Prix. So things got complicated.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
The Momodora Diaries are a chronicle through Momodora Under the Moonlight.
I’m lost. I’m hopelessly lost. I knew this would happen it always does. somehow I’ve explored all the available map and haven’t been able to get to any of the obstacles. It’s nothing but dead ends and frustration. I must have run through the three or four available areas seven times trying to figure out what I’m missing.
I’m missing something right? There’s always something obvious you’re missing. something that isn’t telegraphed and is part of the cool mystique but goddammit this is exactly why I can’t deal with this backtracking nonsense. I swear I must have spent over an hour being lost. Give me a damn waypoint. Metroid Fusion had it right all along.