Computerchairgeneral

Tunic is a great little game. I can’t think of any other game that captures that feeling of playing a game for the first time and slowly testing the boundaries of what you can and cannot do. Definitely one of the better love letters to the old Zelda games out there. My main issue with it was the fact that the end-game is mostly just puzzle-solving. It kind of felt like the game had changed genres on me, especially since I had seen it recommended so many times as “Zelda meets Dark Souls”.

Mildly surprised Sony actually budged on this. Of course, they really should have had this setup from the start. No one is going to like being forced to set up a PSN account to play a game, but I imagine a lot of people will do it for a free cosmetic skin or whatever in-game incentives they come up with.

Been playing through Tunic this last week and I don’t think I’ve had a game leave me this conflicted in a while. I picked Tunic up on all the recommendations of it being classic Zelda with elements from Dark Souls and that’s definitely what I got, for most of the game at least. I also enjoyed the puzzle elements with the manual, trying to decipher what it was telling me based on the images and the odd English word. If there’s one thing the game does well it’s capturing that feeling of playing a game as a kid and not really knowing what’s possible. I had quite a few “Ah-ha!” moments where the game hinted at something just enough to let me figure it out on my own. But then you get to the end-game, the game takes away all your upgrades, and makes you go through a gauntlet of enemies to get them back. I get what they were going for here, but playing through it was just a slog. In theory, I like the idea of being powerless again and having to treat every enemy with caution, but in practice this segment just dragged on for too long,

Another mechanic that overstays it’s welcome is the “Holy Cross” mechanic. It’s neat the first time you use it and figuring out how to use it on all the sealed doors and golden statues I had seen was fun. But the issue is this is where the game completely changes genres on you, at least if you want to see the true ending. The Zelda/Dark Souls elements are now completely secondary to deciphering the manual and completing the Holy Cross puzzles. Enemies are just obstacles between you and where you have to go to solve the next puzzle, culminating in the Golden Path puzzle, which the true ending is gated behind.

I did enjoy everything up until that point, but once it became about this meta-puzzle and flipping through the manual to solve it I just lost interest. Yeah, I was stuck with the “Bad Ending”, but the amount of effort the game wanted me to put in for a cut-scene just didn’t seem worth it.

No, vampires usually leave that sort of “exact words” trickery to faeries and genies.

Focus on what you can control is pretty cliche advice, but it really is all you can do in situations like this. Something I’ve started doing is a “news diet” where I sit down on Monday and basically skim through the last week of political news. Then I just try and ignore political news as much as possible until the next Monday. It’s not a perfect system, but it helps deal with the fire hose style news coverage the media gives to Trump.

It’s almost impressive how companies can think up the worst ways to experience games when they want to show something off at these events.

This console generation is ending already? Like, logically I know it’s been six years, but it still feels short for a console generation. Curious to see if the handheld rumors pan out and what confusing name they give it.

Curious what industry standard Senator Warner is judging Valve against because a social media site, which Warner is comparing Valve to, being filled with Nazis and the far right feels like the standard, even if some sites at better at quarantining them than others. Also, “intense scrutiny” from Congress is kind of an empty threat at the best of times, but especially when Congress is about to be run by the sort of people who aren’t going to see this as a problem.

Doing things and not spiraling is about all we can do at this point. I suppose it depends on the things you care about or want to prioritize The massive cuts to government spending Trump has talked about are inevitably going to impact services like Social Security and Medicare so mutual aid resources are going to be important for a lot of people:

Mutual Aid Hub-Resources Food Not Bombs FAQ

If you’re concerned about what will happen in places like Gaza and Ukraine there are charities that are helping those affected by those conflicts:

Charity Navigator Gaza UNITED24-Offical Ukranian Fundraising Platform

Finally, if you are not in a position to donate money then there are ongoing election efforts that need volunteers. At this point that’s mostly ballot curing, helping voters sort out issues with their absentee or mail in ballot. Some of these ongoing elections are incredibly tight and making sure those ballots are accepted could make a difference, especially in low profile races:

Mobilize.us Ballot Curing

At this point we can only really guess. It’ll probably be days or weeks before people can dig through the voting data and do substantive post-mortems on the 2024 campaign. Th economy seems to have played a big part. People are angry at high prices and they naturally punish the incumbent party even if the President doesn’t realistically control how much eggs and gas cost. Along with that it’s looking like there was a collapse in Democratic turnout in the Rust Belt while Republican turnout stayed steady, handing Trump narrow wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It also looks like the Harris campaign’s bet on Republicans who didn’t vote for Trump in the primary breaking for her failed to pay off.

Clicked for a game announcement. Got a political manifesto about art and culture. Not disappointed. Definitely interested to see how this develops.

It looks cool and I like some of the little callbacks to the original PlayStation, but I imagine the price for this is going to be ridiculous and that’s before the scalpers inevitably get their hands on them.

Been bouncing between Wizordum and Void Stranger over the last few days. Wizordum is a fun “boomer shooter” that takes a lot of inspiration from games like Hexen and I’ve been enjoying mowing down monsters with fireballs and a magical shotgun. Void Stranger I’m still not sure how I feel about. Heard it mentioned a few times as a very meta game with a lot of layers. In theory I like games like that. Figuring out the core puzzle gameplay of moving blocks around has been fun, even if I don’t consider myself that great at puzzles, but the meta stuff is riding that fine line between being just cryptic enough to be intriguing to being so cryptic that I’m not sure how I’m supposed to figure this out without a guide.

Glad to see the campaign still going strong. Almost being past the minimum threshold requirement for seven countries is impressive. Hopefully it can reach one million signatures, even if I’m a little skeptical about the EU taking this seriously and passing a decent law. Still, anything that keeps the topic on peoples minds is a good thing.

Well, my expectations for this game were already on the floor. Guess it’s time to put them in the basement. I mean I want a good sequel to Bloodlines, but that’s looking less and less likely.

I have a lot of nostalgia for The Force Unleashed, but even playing it back then I remember thinking the combat was kind of rough. I can only imagine how dated the gameplay must feel for someone picking it up for the first time these days. The idea of being this unstoppable Force-user was cool, but from what I remember the game struggled to live up to that promise. Like pulling down the Star Destroyer. It was everywhere in the marketing to show just how powerful you were going to be, but in the game itself it was just this tedious section that dragged on longer than it needed to. At least that’s how I remember it.

I’ve been working my way through the Baldur’s Gate series after putting about ninety hours in BG3. BG1 was fun even if the story was a bit predictable and generic, although it did feel like playing through a DnD campaign. Really enjoyed Shadows of Amn, but Throne of Bhaal just turned into a slog at the end. I think the most interesting part of playing through the trilogy was watching Bioware’s style develop over the course of the three games. As someone who was introduced to Bioware through Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire I’ve always thought Bioware’s character writing stood out, especially in the old days, so it was a bit jarring to play through BG1 where the companions feel more like hirelings you pick up for their class rather than full-fledged characters. BG2 felt more like a classic Bioware game with banter, romance, and companion quests, although the Real Time advancement system kept glitching out on me. I was hoping to move on to Planescape: Torment after TOB, but I’m feeling burnt out on Infinity Engine games. So right now I’m trying to find something in the Summer Sale to serve as a palate cleanser.

Amazing game. One of the few shooters I can think of that really drove the “War is Hell” message home. Shame it got delisted over an expired music license.

I had genuinely forgotten about the sequel until I saw this. Started wondering how I had missed that and then I remembered it was a straight to streaming cash grab. Time to go back to being blissfully ignorant.

Accidents happen. Your finger slips and suddenly your game is full of Nazi symbols. Happens all the time. Also, I get the gist of Garriss’s response, but mentioning that he had men and women at his house and his mother was always present just makes things sound weirder than a simple denial. Sounds like a horrible situation all around.