llsorts 3
Fallout Shelter
This is a surprisingly amazing mobile game. It stands among examples such as Gwent and Hearthstone that prove if you leave a small team alone with some AAA resources to play with, they can still dish out something great and fun. It even had me questioning that; for the game its trying to be is it a better game than Fallout 4? There are two major reasons I love this game. As a Fallout fan the pip-boy art-deco cartoon style come to life is amazing. You could totally envision these characters as a Vault Tec cartoon in this world. But it also stands up on its own as a great game. The X-com style base management, managing your resources so the vault can expand and survive. Training them to get better at their trade, get an education, mate and create new dwellers and of course venture out into the wasteland to scavenge and explore; completing quests along the way. The quest system was a game changer. I enjoyed sending a dweller into the wasteland and watching the adventure style scrolling text to see what they encounter in their travels. But sending a veteran crew of survivors to explore a building or vault which may contain various enemies, minigames or characters to negotiate with is what kept the game fresh and playable for much longer. Speaking of survivors you can name your characters in typical XCOM fashion, making their loss that more devastating. My only wish is that it had a hardcore mode. When a character dies you can buy them back if you have the caps (and not all that much). So, death has little impact and instead becomes an economic decision. Giving it much more of a meta micro-management feeling rather than immersing you in the survival of the wasteland. Beyond that it’s a great game to expand your Vault, dress up your Dwellers and find and craft awesome weapons so they can defend and brave the wastes for all the mutants and treasures they hold.
Pac-Man 256
Wasn’t sure to think about this at first. On one hand it’s an interesting take with the endless runner style pac-man with power ups. On the other hand the mobile mechanics are clearly felt here in the gameplay and art style – and the purist in me didn’t know how to feel about that. There were two things that swayed me. The first and most obvious was I unlocked and changed the art style back to the original. Crazy how much an art style can influence the brand of a game, especially when nostalgia is involved. The second is the multiplayer; playing 2 player co-op especially on a keyboard was a joy and set it apart from what felt like a direct mobile port. However I do feel the mobile format holds it back a little. With 2-players it was feeling a little cramped and they could have expanded the map horizontally to suit. Classic Pac has two primary lanes, if this was expanded by 1-2 lanes per player not only would it be more optimized and balanced, it would be incredibly hectic and repayable with more power-ups. Allow players to choose their own power-ups to make it even more hectic. Speaking of, the power ups are a nice touch. Laser down ghosts, set a fire trail, freeze, bomb, go big chompy and more. Overall it’s a refreshing take, but I still think DX is a better evolution of that classic Pac-Man experience. It kept the same template but threw in same snake like combo mechanics. The arcadey injection felt at home, where here the endless runner and power-ups still feel “mobile”. My only other gripe is the house always wins. Sometimes RNG just screws you with nowhere to go.
All this got me thinking; what would the perfect Pac-Man game look like? Personally I loved Pac-Man World and think it is one of the great 3D platformers and highly underrated. So something that combines 2D and 3D and transitions between them seamlessly would be nothing short of amazing. Hell, perhaps make it a mechanic or power-up. Give the player the control to switch between and make it an integral mechanic in solving Metroid-style puzzles. Perhaps the player unlocks and equips power-ups along the way similar to 256 and you could have endless runner boulder chase scenes similar to 256. Who knows, perhaps I could make the ultimate Pac-Man game and pitch it to Namco as a flagship re-entry? Back to the top at hand: While 256 isn’t particularly a game I want to play on PC, it’d be perfect on Steam deck (or sweet sweet prince how I want my ultimate indie machine) or my big TV. So sure enough I’ve filed the game away in the Steam-Deck pile on Seam and wishlisted the Pac-Man Museum+ on PSN. Can't wait for that to go on special…
Granblue Fantasy: Versus
Now this was a surprise. By going off looks alone it looks like a generic anime fighter; but to my astonishment it’s actually a good technical fighter. Straight off the bat it’s annoying half the characters are locked; requiring me to play a campaign I have no interest in to unlock them (or even worse, if they're all DLC characters). At the risk of a diatribe; why haven’t the eastern studios stopped this in their fighting games yet? One or two is fine like Mortal Kombat locking the final boss/es behind the story; but half the roster is ridiculous. It highlights are grander topic of the East being behind in a lot of their game design. Even now you recognise some of their design is no different to games of the 90s. Blurring the lines between what is Japanese game design and what is outdated tradition. Menus being the prime example; sure they’re functional but that classic Capcom menu could really do with an Eastern makeover. Main menu’s that trainsition right into the story; especially on console focused games like Resident Evil 2 or Final Fantasy would be amazing. Imagine: press Start and you’re smashed in the face with a beautiful cutscene that leads into the story. Want to change the options? That’s okay just do it after the cutscene and in the game where you can actually test it. The only absolutely necessary setting is gamma/lighting, and if you’re in the 1% of PC master race donkeys who want to spend an hour playing with settings before you can into the game, that’s fine, back out and do that after the opening cutscene. Anyway, back to the game. The game reminds me of Dragonball FighterZ, a game that was smooth with great move sets, flow and hitboxes which makes Street Fighter 5 look embarrassing. Some favourites include Katalina with her fencing parry skills, Ferry with her spirit wolves and whips and Lowain with his dual daggers and cat ears, because of course…. The boys gravitated towards Ladiva, the muscle bound JoJo character spitting round house kicks, love hearts and cat ears for the ultimate troll. Now remember, before you start you must Believe in the fight!
Knowledge is Power
I’ve been meaning to cancel my PS Plus for a while now.
Usually I resub when a banger comes out that I want; or the gang gets together
for some co-op games. The offside to that however is every so often it forces
me to try a game that at first glance doesn’t interest me but once I give it a
go it sends shockwaves throughout my couch co-op group and becomes a staple for
us. Laser League is probably the biggest example of that; but Knowledge is
Power is shaping up to be another. The premise is simple, yet satisfying. Four doors, pick a
topic. Each topic you choose then goes down a path of sub-topics to choose
from. For example a generic ‘History’ question about Stalin might then give
sub-topics of European figures, Political Studies or Russian history. This is marked
by resets every few rounds. The first to guess gets the most points (if they
get it right) with 300, 200 and 100 to all those that answered third to last.
Each round you can use powers to disable other players; goop that covers
questions, ice to break through, nibblers that hide letters; and they all stack.
It’s a simple mechanic that turns what would be basic trivia into a combination
of Mario Kart and Trivial Pursuit. Throw in some charm with a cute art style
and the ability to take goofy photos as your avatar and you have quite the
endearing game. The final round has a rapid fire pyramid where you can race to
the top. Depending on your performance you have a headstart; but I’ve seen some
major comebacks here and it turns the game on its head. Throw in the sabotage
mechanics and you have a winning formula that prevents snowballing by the most
knowledgeable trivia vertans; which is a common issue in trivia that kills mid-late game enthusiasm for
most players in my experience. All these sum up to a whole that leverages game
mechanics in a way that general trivia cannot. In the same way that Hearthstone
leveraged game mechanics to make an exceptionally unique card game that could
only be done as a video game. Moving forward its likely that games and wings night will now be trivia, games and wings nights.
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