Thursday, September 25, 2014

Cosmonautica: Thoughts

Cosmonautica is an interesting little game. It's in Early Access, starting just last week - but there's some potential here. Basically, you captain a ship with up to 8 crew members, cruising around the solar system (around 15 planets) trading, fighting pirates, completing missions and whatnot. There's some story to it, but the main campaign isn't available yet, just the prologue.

The ships are modular, with a certain layout and specs, and you have to decide what you want to prioritize. Do you want a smaller, faster ship with more weapon capacity, to fight off pirates, or become a pirate yourself? A fast passenger liner? Or a huge freighter with space for a ton of cargo - and all the amenities to support a huge crew? (There's 4 ships in the game so far, one starter and three others, each fulfilling one of the archetypes I mentioned above. I went with the passenger liner, although I was more focused on cargo than passengers, who are dependent on missions instead of the procedurally-generated prices)

Each crew member has certain skills, and you manage their time spent performing those tasks and free time, to take care of their needs - food, hygiene, exercise, etc. As they level up, they become much better at their tasks, but they also have more needs, requiring more room on your ship to satisfy those needs. It starts out simple - with a pilot, mechanic, and janitor - but relatively quickly ramps up as you add a scientist, maybe a weapons tech or a hacker, and have to balance their needs and tasks.

The trading system seems to work quite well for such a small game. I'm not 100% sure if prices fluctuate, but you can't buy and sell infinite numbers of goods (actually, the good routes are fairly harshly limited, if incredibly lucrative), which is good. The customs/smuggling system also seems pretty neat, although I think it could bear with a bit more fleshing out. I wish it told you the success chance for bribes, and there's only one type of non-mission-specific contraband so far.

One thing that makes Cosmonautica particularly interesting in my opinion, particularly when more content is added, is the research system. You have to unlock the outer areas of the system, where the trade routes are much more lucrative and the pirates much more dangerous (although I don't think the pirates are actually IN the game right now? It's very early access.) The interface promises more things to research later on, as well - new ships, new weapons, new rooms, etc etc. It makes for surprisingly effective progression and pacing, allowing you to putter around in the small starter area before pushing you out to the far reaches of the system.

The basics of the game are pretty simple, but I'm a sucker for trading in games like this so I found it reasonably fun for a couple hours - although very quickly I totally ran out of things to spend money on, and that 2 hours was enough to do basically everything as far as I could tell (well, I didn't mess with combat so I don't know how that works) Again, early access. If you want to take a look, here's the steam store page, where you can get Cosmonautica for just $10, ramping up to $15 when it hits full release in 4 months, according to the steam page. I'm looking forward to seeing them add features over the next weeks and months.

Disclaimer: I got this game for free from a giveaway IndieGamerChick has been doing on twitter, so thanks to her and Chasing Carrots, the developer, for letting me take a look!

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Remember Me: Thoughts

Remember Me is the first game I've ever played where my end conclusion was 'this would be better as a movie.'

It's not a bad game, it just doesn't seem ... excited about being a game. It has boss fights, and combos, and chase scenes, and puzzles... and almost all of it feels totally superfluous and unnecessary. The only interesting thing mechanically is the memory remixes, where you dive into someone's mind to change a memory, but they're used more for narrative impact than as a regular gameplay mechanic, mostly consisting of choosing out of a set of variables to get the event you want.

The phrase 'more than the sum of its parts' often applies to games, but in this case I think it's the reverse - Remember Me is less than the sum of its parts. Everything is competent, but very little is unique and in the process it becomes a game without its own identity. The most positive thing I have to say about it is that it is paced rather well. Combat is broken up with exploration, boss fights are few and far between, and the memory remixes never stop being a big deal.

The concept of the game's narrative is stellar, but the only times it comes even close to following through are the opening and the oft-mentioned memory remix sequences. It never feels content to really dive into the ethical dilemmas it presents with the technology of memory manipulation, but instead presents them almost without comment, letting the player draw their own conclusions.

For better or for worse, I think I will remember Remember Me for quite a while. A shame it didn't live up to its premise.

P.S. What are leapers, again? I feel like the only reason they exist is to give you something to fight. Another decision made in service of video game conventions?

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Neverwinter Nights 2: Thoughts

Well, that was interesting. I've spent the last couple weeks playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and its first expansion (and the only one that's a direct sequel), Mask of the Betrayer and... wow, are those two very different stories. For this post I'm just going to talk about the original campaign (OC for short), since if I wrote about both it would have ended up being quite unwieldy

I first played NWN2 (just the OC) a long time ago - maybe '07? - and I'm pretty sure served as my introduction to Dungeons and Dragons and was one of the first party-based CRPGs I played (I might have played Knights of the Old Republic before it). It's a very typical CRPG story, what with the protagonist growing from humble beginnings into the Chosen One, and the main plot being mostly concerned with an ancient empire torn down by their own hubris kind of stuff. How NWN2 handled companions and character interaction did a lot to influence my expectations of later games - including the Bioware games I had yet to play.

Mechanically, it's passable at best. D&D wasn't really meant for a computer screen, but NWN2 is the best translation I've seen, and quite likely better than some later CRPGs that drew inspiration from it (Dragon Age, I'm looking at you). I do appreciate that it starts off slow, instead of doing like Baldur's Gate did and throwing you to the wolves at level 1 (literally). That said, it's a bit TOO slow. Act 1 and it's artificial plot gate are probably half the game, and easily the least interesting part of it. I could have done without the hours and hours of politics and fetch quests. I'm not saying the main storyline is the best thing ever, but it's significantly better than playing guard.

Later on, though, you're awarded your very own castle and troops to control. Crossroad Keep is awesome and feels awesome. It's a bit buggy, because Obsidian, but it's just COOL. Training your troops up, getting them equipment, sending them out on missions, and just generally becoming the best Knight-Captain ever is pretty awesome, including how it's implemented in the endgame.

The story is nothing special, really, but I've always enjoyed a good hero's journey, and aside from that ridiculous plot door (I forgot just how long that really is. It's around 15-20 hours), I don't think there's anything particularly egregious. I liked how Jerro's Haven was presented, both from a story presentation and a gameplay one, and from then on Act 3 just kind of keeps ramping up to the end. The siege of Crossroad Keep was a pretty interesting sequence as well.

Overall, it's a pretty.. average game, I guess (Except for its length!). Sometimes that's not bad, though, especially in a genre that doesn't really have that many entries. I certainly enjoyed it enough myself.

Next time, however, I'm going to talk about Mask of the Betrayer, which is anything but typical.

Monday, January 13, 2014

VVVVVV: Thoughts

Wow, I haven't posted anything on this blog since last April? Man, I should fix that. So I am!

I'm planning on writing at least one post about every new game I play this year, and here's the first, for VVVVVV.

VVVVVV is a puzzle platformer designed by Terry Cavanagh (who also did Super Hexagon, which I've enjoyed immensely over the past few months) that I picked up for like 30 cents in the holiday steam sale. I'd played the demo before, and I've played several flash games with similar conceits.

The main mechanic in the game is a simple gravity switch - notably, however, you can only activate it when you're actually on the ground (or the ceiling). The objective is basically to explore and find your missing crewmates, puzzling your way through gauntlets of laser beams and spikes and such. There's also 20 collectibles that serve as much more difficult bonus challenges.

The story and art style are both pretty unremarkable, but I enjoyed my time with the game as far as it went. There's a definite speedrunning bent to it (including a time trial mode), and I believe there are also plenty of community made map packs and such, so if it does grab your interest there's plenty of content beyond the hour or two a basic playthrough will last.

Controls are THE most important part of a platformer, and they seemed a bit finicky to me at first - lots of platformers have momentum when you're running, so you don't just stop when you stop hitting the key, and sometimes it doesn't feel right. That said, I definitely got used to it, only coming close to ragequitting a couple of times. I think the most times I died on a single puzzle was... 28?

Overall, it's a nice, super cheap flash-style game. I especially appreciate the presence of the map packs - it's a good way of just providing more content for a game that people enjoy.