written by Blain Newport on Sunday, 20 July 2014
A Bunch of Stuff I Don't Care About
That's a bit harsh, but it's basically true. I finished Lifeless Planet, a game where you were supposed to be colonizing a planet full of life, but when you arrive it's a wasteland, and there are vintage Russian buildings there for some reason. It was fine but never really grabbed me.
Darkout and Windforge I played for a bit and immediately put down. I've played Terraria. I've played Minecraft. Starting at the bottom of a tech tree, mining copper and coal... no thanks. Plus both games have pretty bad visibility, Darkout because dark and Windforge because of it's attempt to give it's blocks some isometric perspective. I only ever died from falling in both.
Abyss Odyssey is a new 2D brawler by Ace Team, who did the bizarre 3D fighter Zeno Clash. The fighting in Zeno Clash was never perfect, but I remember it being better than Abyss Odyssey, where certain attacks seem to come from nowhere and the whole thing just doesn't feel like it has any weight to it.
I probably spent the most time with Reign Maker, a match 3 fantasy game. But that's mostly because it's easy to play while listening to podcasts. I'm not really a fan of match 3 games. I think the last one I was into was Wario's Woods for the NES, and that's mostly just because it's the closest Toad's been to the badass he was in Super Mario 2.
I think part of the reason I'm not being particularly patient with these games is because I finally organized my Steam list to show "backlog" games at the top. I had a little over thirty, and now I'm a bit under thirty. Some of these are games I had laying around for years and was just never in the mood for. So now they'll get played for maybe half an hour and summarily dismissed because they don't have a great feel right away. :P
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 3 Full Burst
I'm never writing that out again.
But speaking of great feel...
Nothing is even happening in this picture. Naruto and Sasuke are just flipping around the environment for no reason. But it makes simple maneuvering for position look flashy and delightfully absurd.
Sort of like throwing exploding clones of yourself at someone.
Or being rewarded for doing well with a golden pig statue.
Yeah. It's my kind of nonsense.
I won't give the cut scenes as high of marks. Pacing is often weak. And so far the female characters are mostly sex objects or hopelessly devoted to a male character. :\
And the lack of any tutorial also put me off initially. I had to go into practice mode and look at the poorly implemented (two moves per page) command list to figure things out.
But it's made by CyberConnect2 (who also developed Asura's Wrath) so the fighting is serviceable and the set piece battles are suitably huge and ridiculous. I'll keep playing it.
Stacking
It's a cute puzzle game where you play a nesting doll that gets inside of other nesting dolls and uses their special abilities to solve puzzles.
And it's very pretty.
Xenoblade Chronicles
It's still there in the background and nice when I'm in the mood for something fairly low key.