Your boy played some games this weekend.
Spent some quality time with my new Steam Deck. Boy howdy is this a fine little machine, I love it. Of course I am playing it safe- no weird operating systems or add-ons, just trying a couple of games that Valve assures me will work. And I played some PS5 demos.
Soul Caliber 6
This came out so long ago already though it still feels "new" to my brain because I been meaning to check it out but I just couldn't justify paying more than 5 bucks for a fighting game, a genre I essentially swore off since I stopped having IRL friends to game with. But as something to have on my new portable device and it being super discounted, this is the time.
Well overall the combat is super fluid and fast, almost too fluid and fast because a lot of it "feels" luck-based and button-mashy, which is great because it lets me win some fights and progress, but also never feels deep. I know for that I would have to commit the time and energy to git gud but, eh, we'll see.
There are two story modes- one called "Libra" which has level numbers and a map and side quests and all the story is just text based and it's terrible. Just press x to read all the boring words then do some fights which are OK but you're using a character you "create" (which is really just one of the existing players with a skin) and you watch your stat numbers go up and very long loading screens. I think I made it about half-way through that and will not be continuing.
The other story mode I think is like with Mortal Kombat where you play as all the characters and that one looks more fun. I haven't gotten into that one yet.
Darksiders 2
I bought this many years ago after enjoying the first Darksiders, and for some reason the controls just didn't work or something. I'd press jump and the dude didn't jump or whatever, and I don't know why I couldn't just get a refund. So it's been sitting in my library all this time and I decided to give it a whirl on my Deck and lo and behold, it works now *shrugs*
Man, this is what a "video game" feels like to me. Stupid action but requires some skill but not too much and looks awesome and is fun. There are puzzles but it's mostly about understanding the environment. The game is 10 years old at this point but looked great for its time which means it translates brilliantly to the Deck.
Yes, I recognize that Darksiders is just an conjunction of greater games: Zelda + God of War, basically. But it's the best parts of both without the extremes of neither. It's like a really great blues-rock bar band- I'm not here for innovation or genius, I'm here for a consistent good time.
You play as "Death" and the design of the character is very heavy metal, I love it- he's just a bare chested brute as opposed to the heavily armored cosplayer of War from the first game. Most important is the main weapon is a pair of scythes which looks and feels great to fight with.
My only real annoyance so far is the wall jumps, I struggle with the timing and angle sometimes. And for combat, it's easy to lose sight of the enemy and you have to constantly smush left trigger to simulate a lock-on. If these things get too annoying as the game gets harder I'll probably quit but for now I'm good.
Brotato
This is a case of me not reading the description carefully and regretting the purchase but for $5 I'm not gonna cry about it. It's basically if Vampire Survivors looked like Binding of Isaac. I incorrectly assumed it would play more like Isaac, but this whole trend of walking while the game does the shooting and you only worry about how to level up is in effect here. I was looking for casual, but this is too casual.
But, I like it more than Vampire because it's a series of small areas and short rounds so there's a better feedback loop of progress and reward. And the cleaner simpler visual style is more appealing to me.
Sony offered 5 free demos as some sort of Game Awards cross-marketing something or other. I never get to play demos so this was exciting for me, and two of the games were games I had my eye on.
You Suck At Parking
I already tried this one out via Game Pass but just wanted to mention here in case any PS5 folks are here. It's a cute little "racing" game with physics-based mechanics.
Bramble: The Mountain King
Another entry in the little boy in a creepy world genre, this one is sorta 3D and has a fairy-tale nature vibe. The environment is absolutely stunning and I think the visuals are going to be its selling point. Unfortunately, I only "played" for a couple of minutes because I got to a big sleeping statue-creature and could not figure out what to do next- it wouldn't wake up, there was nowhere else to traverse, and none of the buttons did anything. So either I'm an idiot (likely), or it's broken or whatever, and I just stopped caring.
Season: A Letter to the Future
A chill exploration walking-sim game where you go around from location to location in 3rd person. Though it's being promoted as a bike-riding adventure, the demo focused on the walking around part and you are supposed to observe the environment and take pictures and audio recordings. It's all about figuring out what happened or is happening to areas that are disappearing or something like that. I suspect this will be a hit for folks who like this type of thing.
Thirsty Suitors
One of the games that struck my interest when it was revealed in the summer, it's a turn-based combat dating sim thing. Its hook is that it's by and about South Asians and it's explicitly a modern setting and story. So you're this young woman and you got boyfriends and girlfriends and the combat is representing conversations so you "attack" opponents by insulting or flirting with them and your mom is the kaiju summon. It's a very cute idea and I love the diverse representation.
Unfortunately, the demo rubbed me the wrong way. Most significant is the problem that happens with small games that focus on a uniquely clever idea- the actual mechanics are lame. It's all the most simplistic turn-based combat but the QTE's. Blech.
The tone was off-putting at times. The protagonist has purple hair and nose-peircing and listens to "cool" music all the time- it's just so try-hard. Like I get they're going for very modern vibe and to put Indian and South Asian characters in a relatable context, but it all feels like an old person's idea of young people. Then during the combat my narrator character kept using the world "thirsty" so much it felt like an old timer in the 1980's calling everything "groovy."
Forspoken
This is now my most anticipated game of 2023- less for the game itself then for the... say it with me now.. DISCOURSE. This is the one where a trailer came out and there's a young woman of color doing magic/fighting and saying snarky things and everybody made fun of it like it was the greatest marketing crime since Crystal Pepsi. Frost and KC played the demo over the weekend and they were underwhelmed, while folks in the chat were crapping on is mercilessly before the stream even started. The hate for this one is strong.
And, yeah, it is basically you go around a fantasy-ish open world on a map with icons and waypoints, which apparently these days is an offense to tru gamurz worse than death.
The demo is just a taste of the combat and traversal, deliberately skipping on story which KC oddly criticized. It is third person action-y which I like. IMO there is the core potential of a fun game but it needs refinement. The "feel" of the combat seems like it's trying to be both free and float-y like Assassins Creed- where the priority for the player is progressing quickly- but also sticky and weighty like God of War. But you can't do both and if they insist on trying to do that, it will fail for me. But if they refine the speed, interaction and camera a bit it can be good. The little bit they preview on cut scenes and facial animations and such looks absolutely next-gen gorgeous.
All of the combat and most of the movement uses magic, which is a clever way to add a bit of flair to this old formula. Everything is a "spell," and you can switch between spell loadouts pretty quickly, though sometimes it seemed to switch without me wanting to which was annoying. The game has "magic parkour" which means in order to go very fast or to scale walls you gotta do a magic thing.
The story set-up is that you're a modern day young woman from New York that gets Connecticut Yankeed into like a Zelda world and you have a talking magic bracelet that sounds like Vision from MCU. This is where the controversial dialogue tone of the game comes in, as the playable character and the bracelet smarm at each other. And, yeah, this will get annoying, for sure. I also agree with KC and Frost that her swearing while you're running around this cartoony world is very jarring.
Mark my prediction for this game now: it will come out, get absolutely savaged by critics for its tone and unoriginality (both real and exaggeratedly perceived), and become the thing that gamers pile on and crap on even if they never play it or have any interest in. And because the protagonist is a woman of color, some of the criticism will be exaggerated and criticize it for stuff other, popular games do with the "go woke or go broke" crowd harping on about insignificant details. But also the game won't be so great as to merit hardcore defenders. So, kinda like what Horizon got.
Then after a year or two, it will be praised as a sleeper hit and an actually good game once it becomes discounted or added to subscription services. I call this the "Immortals: Fenyx Rising" cycle. See also: Days Gone, before one of its creators peed his diapers on Twitter.
