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Comments
It's amazing that GoldenEye 007 was the result of the developers having the right amount of experience, which is to say very little experience that they made up for by winging it trying as many things as they could.
Also TIL there's a grenade launcher in the first Bunker level and that plastic explosives don't need to go directly on the missiles.
TL;DW - a petition effort has been recently launched to make videogame preservation part of EU consumer law. (attention EU citizens!)
for more info: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
As for the setting, I was skeptical at first, but it works out. See, it's set on a huge generation ship that suffered a failed mutiny some century ago. Parts of the ship are ruled by warring factions or plain gangs, others are scavenger territory. As a result, thematically-wise it's a very fun three-way mix of cyberpunk, post-apo, and hard sci-fi.
tj;dr i recommend
Anyways, I built the Citadel Station and Stellar Engine and I was kinda just developing out all the rest of my civ while waiting to see what happens once enough mass is dumped into the black hole. I wasn't even thinking about the Jump Ship because the amount of aerogel needed is tremendous.
I did buy it within the last few years, so it's not from too long ago; it's one of the many games on GOG I've gotten since I stopped using Steam a few years ago.
Roguelite action platformer. The levels actually don't change *that* much, but the exact placement of the level elements is slightly randomized. The equipment you get definitely is. Also there's permadeath.
Oh, equipment. You randomly pick up weapons, but most of the action is picking up "chips", which give stat/ability enhancements. You can't have an unlimited number of them, though -- there's a hex-grid-style list of the ones you have (the grid order doesn't actually matter), and that grid has a limited capacity for the "energy" each chip needs. You'll get far more than chips than you can hold, but you can grind them into crystals, a sort of in-game currency that you can use to upgrade your capacity, your skill with different weapon types, your aptitude for each type of chip, and your other abilities, like special attacks and a multiple jump and a healing injection.
I heard that this game is like Dead Cells, but I've never played Dead Cells.
Also I've heard that there's a setting that lets you play with normal saves and no permadeath, but I can't find it. Oh well, I beat it with permadeath (including losing to the final boss a few times, yes) anyway.
Game is slightly buggy (in amusing ways) but definitely playable and fun. Also, the translation is iffy at times (which I attribute to the Chinese devteam not being great at English), but the story is straightforward, and if anything, the flubs just add humor.
Although something tells me one of us might not have the taste for it.okay i copypasted it to the proper threadhttps://www.gog.com/en/game/the_suffering
https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_suffering_ties_that_bind
pay attention to the date these discounts end (August 31). this is basically the last place to get them; they're not on Steam anymore.
there's actually a Back to School Sale going on on GOG right now, too, and that ends on September 10.
Let me guess, Bully, Postal, Postal 2... did I miss something fitting the theme? (edit: oh yes, Hatred.)
Bully isn't on GOG, nor is Hatred. There are various Postal games, but I thought that was about someone going crazy in their career rather than in school?
Meanwhile, there's a variety of games about school-age characters from primarily Japanese devs, from actual story-focused games like Tokyo Xanadu to fanservicey things like Akiba's Trip to horror games like Corpse Party.
An upcoming update to the original Alan Wake game (not the remake) will be removing a David Bowie song, presumably due to licensing issues.
If you wanna keep it in your copy of the game, download it and back it up before September 10.
(Sidenote: This is where standalone installers are particularly useful...)
Here's a Moon Channel video about one case where it "works"(?) which also says how it's a mess
also that game is on sale now on GOG
https://www.gog.com/en/game/urbek_city_builder
disclaimer: i haven't played it; it just sounds like a very neat game
I was looking for something to play after finishing Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial, and I gave Tonight We Riot a try. This is an action game where you control a...literal mob of player-characters, who the workers leading a revolution against the evil capitalists in charge of the place. And yes, the game has an explicitly Marxist theming to it. Amusingly, but perhaps fittingly, it's also a free game.
Basically, you control one specific member of a crowd, and everyone else follows you around, roaming around somewhat near you, and automatically meleeing enemies and obstacles they come across. They'll also duplicate any ranged attacks you do, such as throwing bricks or molotov cocktails, supplies of which you can collect while moving through each level. Occasionally, at predetermined locations, you can also rally more workers to join your cause, which means more of these computer-controlled units to help you, which is always a good thing, as you'll be fighting a variety of enemies who are of course out to kill you (all of you). A neat thing is that if your player-controlled character dies in combat (each unit has its own HP bar), your control is automatically switched to another member of your squad, as long as there's at least one other person still alive -- as the game tells you, the revolution lives on as long as at least one of you survives to the end of the level. But, if you can keep more of your comrades alive, the game will reward you with perks, like extra weapon options and equipment, which you can toggle on/off (this is a good design decision). The game basically works like a beat-em-up, but with relatively small sprites.
I finished the first set of levels, and even got the highest rank (i.e. most of your fellow workers survived) on each level (thus getting the unlock), but I lost interest by the second area, partly because I felt the controls were a little loose, and the AI is occasionally a little suicidal e.g. not standing far enough away from exploding fuel tanks.
Anyway, I was back to choosing a game...so I gave Way of the Red a try.
This is a metroidvania-ish 2D action platformer, about a warrior from a race of anthromorphic bird-people, who wanders into lands that are controlled by a human kingdom that enslaves them. He is captured by them, and has to fight his way out of captivity, and there's other plot lines that I won't spoil.
Pretty decent little game -- it took me about 6 hours to get to an ending, and there are actually multiple endings. The controls are nice, and while the combat is a little on the difficult side (which isn't necessarily a bad thing itself), there's a lot of exploration the player can do, including a variety of secrets with gameplay and/or story significance. The story is reasonably interesting, and there's multiple endings (and even some different bosses) depending on whether one finds certain hidden items and what one does with them. The spritework is simple, but effective. And the music is some satisfying chiptune. Not necessarily the best game in any particular aspect, but it's a work well put together, and it's also only like US$4, or half that or less when on sale.
Anyhow, after finishing that, I was again looking for something to play. Was thinking of playing Dex but I think I've kinda lost track of the fifty or so quests I had opened up. Was also thinking of familiarizing myself with Gauntlet (Slayer Edition), i.e. not any of the arcade games, but the more modern PC game in the series. But then I started another game...and I'm absolutely loving it.
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap is a remake of the third game in the Wonder Boy series, whose legacy is...surprisingly complicated.
There's the mainline Wonder Boy games, then there's the spinoff/reskin of the first game that spawned its own series called Adventure Island, which is arguably ironically more faithful to the very first game of the series -- linear action platforming with tight time limits and fruit collecting and skateboard-riding, whereas the actual Wonder Boy flagship veered toward a more fantasy bent and eventually spawned the Monster World subseries, with what's basically the fourth mainline game being just Monster World IV and starring a different (and female) protagonist instead (probably why it doesn't have the Wonder Boy label). And this whole Monster Land/Monster World side of things is where Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap is as well, which was remade in 2017 by the French developer Lizardcube, with help from the original developers. The remake drops the "III" in the title. Eventually, this side of the franchise also produced a whole new game in recent years, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. (And then there's even a Brazil-specific rebrand of some of the games, using the locally-famous comic book series Monica's Gang.)
In The Dragon's Trap (both versions, as well as the more recent Monster Boy game, from what I've heard), you have the ability to transform into various animals -- or, more accurately, you're transformed into them involuntarily, because you start off fighting the final boss of Wonder Boy II, the Meka Dragon (or Mecha Dragon, according to some translations, and this is frankly a more accurately descriptive name, lol, but the official canon name seems to be "Meka")...whose defeat puts a curse on the protagonist, turning him into a lizard (well, one inspired by dragons, because it can breath fire, but yeah). So now he's gotta figure out how to turn himself back...so he eventually finds another dragon!...whose defeat curses him and transforms him a mouse. This keeps happening, of course, with each new transformation being a case of "cursed with awesome" that allows the protagonist to access new areas of the game -- Mouse-Man, for example, can crawl around small spaces and even stick to certain walls and ceilings. The result is a non-linear 2D platformer adventure, or what we'd today call a "metroidvania", with an ample variety of areas, features, secrets, and easter eggs, more and more of which become accessible the further you get into the game.
And the game is chock full of fun things, especially given that this is a remake -- and one that's somehow simultaneously quite faithful to the original yet also puts a fresh coat of paint on everything, in addition to improving a handful of gameplay features. The game distinctively offers the players the option to switch -- at will! -- between modern and retro graphics (with further optional CRT effects), as well as modern and retro audio (including a second toggle for the FM sound chip, thus effectively offering three soundtracks!). The game world's layout, and most mechanics (including the physics), have been meticulously reverse-engineered from the original game and ported to the new game -- this even includes the password system, as the new game (which autosaves the game) can register "retro passwords" on starting a new file, allowing people to continue their progress if they happen to have an old password on hand, and can even produce new passwords compatible with the old game! (If you listen to the developer commentary during a speedrun of the game at one of the GDQ events a few years back, you'll learn that the remake's devs even discovered secrets never known before in the original game, and preserved them in the remake.) Meanwhile, the modern graphics offer a delightfully charming comic-book-style aesthetic, with the chibi cuteness of the original, but adding in a variety of thoughtful new touches, such as far more fleshed-out setting details as well as new (and frequently humorous) dialogue for NPCs -- all of which are faithfully tucked away if you switch to retro graphics. And the remixed soundtrack, recorded in studio, adds a touch of jazz or other genres to the music, with some tracks getting multiple remixes, each for different applications (e.g. shops with their dinky radio, vs. clinics with smooth jazz), further adding new dimensions to the presentation. Oh, and you also get a nice gallery of concept art and recording sessions, which is gradually unlocked as you play through the game.
Basically everything about this game is so delightful. I never played the original before, having never grown up with a Sega Master System, but I thoroughly enjoyed this game, which I actually just beat a few minutes ago (I took a break from writing this giant post to finish the final dungeon lol). It has a similarly charming nature to it like that of DuckTales Remastered, and it's certainly there even for someone like me who didn't experience it as a kid, so it's not just the nostalgia talking -- this really is a great game.
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Games finished this year so far:
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue
Games in progress: Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force, Pokémon Perfect Crystal
Tabled: Lost Ruins, Dark Devotion, Dex, Tonight We Riot
(I really wanna get at least one big RPG done this year...)