#project365 — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #project365, aggregated by home.social.
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Schafe aus allen vier Himmelrichtungen im Wildpark Ernstbrunn.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #FilmDiary #Monochrome #Ernstbrunn #Weinviertel #Wildpark #Fauna #Schafe
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Schafe aus allen vier Himmelrichtungen im Wildpark Ernstbrunn.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #FilmDiary #Monochrome #Ernstbrunn #Weinviertel #Wildpark #Fauna #Schafe
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Schafe aus allen vier Himmelrichtungen im Wildpark Ernstbrunn.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #FilmDiary #Monochrome #Ernstbrunn #Weinviertel #Wildpark #Fauna #Schafe
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Schafe aus allen vier Himmelrichtungen im Wildpark Ernstbrunn.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #FilmDiary #Monochrome #Ernstbrunn #Weinviertel #Wildpark #Fauna #Schafe
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Ein Widder im Wildpark Ernstbrunn.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #FilmDiary #Monochrome #Ernstbrunn #Weinviertel #Wildpark #Fauna #Schafe #Widder
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Fassade vom Hochhaus in der Herrengasse.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #Wien #FilmDiary #Monochrome #AltStadt #Architecture #Hochhaus #Herrengasse
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Geht man auf den Stephansdom, hat man einen außergewöhnlichen Blick auf die wiener Innenstadt. Im Westen sieht man das Haas-Haus von Hans Hollein.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #Wien #FilmDiary #Monochrome #AltStadt #Architecture #HansHollein #HaasHaus #Hans Hollein #80er
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Geht man auf den Stephansdom, hat man einen außergewöhnlichen Blick auf die wiener Innenstadt. Hier erkennt man am dunstigen Horizont die Tafelrunde.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #Wien #FilmDiary #Monochrome #AltStadt #Horizont
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Geht man auf den Stephansdom, hat man einen außergewöhnlichen Blick auf die wiener Innenstadt mit wirklich alten Gemäuern rund um den Dom.
#filmphotography #believeinfilm #FilmIsNotDead #35mm #project365 #Wien #FilmDiary #Monochrome #AltStadt
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i've never made a collage in Affinity Photo before so I made a practice one for today's Project 365 from some phone grabs of Nyota the Loveborb & Boobear the 27 year old Cockatiel
I'm proud to say this is the worst collage you will see all day! one day, we'll all look back on this & laugh...
#Project365 #PhotoADay #PhotographyChallenge #Birds #PetBirds #BirdRescue #Lovebird #Cockatiel #Collage #Beginner
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December 31, 2023 - Day 365 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: **400**Game: Dave The Diver
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 28, 2023 (PC)
Installation Date: Dec 31, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 43mDave The Diver is a 2D sideways-scrolling pixel-art* game that's part management sim, part fishing sim, part restaurant game, and part action-adventure RPG.
When Dave the Diver first showed up on Steam a few months ago, I was still very much of the "pixel-art-no-thank-you" mindset, so it was a pass.
Then I saw some folks raving about how good it is, and then the free Dredge DLC was announced, and I went back and added it to my wishlist.
As they're currently offering a "Dredging & Diving Bundle" on Steam which meant the game was cheaper than the sale price (by a couple of bucks), I decided to add one more game to my pile of shame, and then take it off again, and what a way to finish this project out.
It is REALLY hard to categorise, because it pulls gameplay aspects from multiple different genres, and it's probably best if I lay it out.
Firstly, to address that asterisk against pixel-art, the game uses pixel-art for the gameplay, but uses vector art for the UI, which is a great way to make the game feel up-to-date.
The game opens with Dave relaxing on a beach, drinking a beer, when his phone rings, and he gets a job offer. Queue plane & map intro cut-scene.
A guy named Cobra has offered Dave a job diving in "the Blue Hole", which is a procedurally generated environment that is different on each dive.
After a tutorial sequence, where you learn to catch fish with a harpoon (fishing sim!), you learn that you've been roped into managing a sushi bar as well (management sim!).
Dive twice during the day to complete quests (RPG gameplay!) and catch the fish that you then use at night to set the nightly sushi bar menu.
Oh, and you're also the sushi bar waiter; this takes partial gameplay ideas from cooking sims like "Cook, Serve, Delicious!" in that the various customers will order the things that you've added to the menu, and the cook (thank goodness!) prepares each meal, as you run back and forth serving them, and cleaning up after some detty pigs, as well as another mini-game where you need to pour green tea and fill the cup perfectly.
Some of the RPG gameplay elements like equipment upgrades and weapon upgrades are handled through unlockable "apps" on an in-game "smartphone", and given that there are a number of preloaded apps on the phone with locks on them, looks like there are more mini-games as well.
Somehow, though, the devs managed to pull this off in such a way that it all fits together seamlessly, and is a lot of fun as well.
So, there you have it; for my final game review of 2023, Dave the Diver is:
5: Excellent
#DaveTheDiver #2D #SidewaysScroller #FishingSim #ManagementSim #CookingSim #ActionAdventure #RPG #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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December 23, 2023 - Day 357 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 379Game: Venba
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 31, 2023
Installation Date: Dec 17, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 79mVenba is a 2D narrative-based cooking game.
The game tells the story of a Tamil couple, Venba and her husband Paavalan, who have emigrated from Tamil Nadu, to make a new life in Canada.
Throughout the game, you proceed by preparing dishes from Venba's mother's tattered cookbook, frequently needing to solve what are, effectively, simple puzzles to complete each recipe.
There is so much that I'd like to say about this game, but to do so would spoil many of the emotional beats of the narrative.
It's not a long game; I completed it in a single sitting, and collected most of the achievements along the way.
Venba is a lovely, and occasionally heart-wrenching game; it is:
5: Excellent
#Venba #2D #Narrative #Cooking #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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November 11, 2023 - Day 315 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 334Game: Prodeus
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 24, 2022
Installation Date: Nov 11, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 28mProdeus is a post-modern retro FPS, and is number 5 in this month's Humble Choice bundle.
Some time in 1994, a 20yo sat down in front of a friend's PC, as the friend said "You have to see this!" and fired up a new game his dad had downloaded.
I was stunned. The same computer we'd played Captain Keen & Wolfenstein 3D was showing a true 3D environment first-person shooter (even IF the mobs were bitmaps).
But it wasn't just the visuals. It was the sound. The cheap speakers plugged into the SoundBlaster were emitting snarls and growls, that felt like they were just about to burst in and kill us, and all of my hairs stood on end.
I'd never experienced anything like it. I was watching him play Doom.
I've lost count of the number of FPS's I've played since. Tens of thousands of digital opponents have been blasted into pixels in all kinds of environments, and it's rare now to get a chill playing a FPS.
Yet firing up Doom (or Doom 2), and hearing those snarls & growls can still give me chills, and in spite of having them installed, I don't play them.
When I played Doom Eternal for the first time, it felt like they'd captured the spirit of Doom, with all the advances of modern tech. It was fun, but it didn't feel like that moment in 1994.
Prodeus has all the little Doom-like touches; armor shards & health bottles, exploding barrels, secrets stashed here and there, but with added up & down mouse camera movement.
However, that could still describe countless boomer shooters; the difference is that Prodeus has somehow managed to capture the *atmosphere* of Doom, in a way that I can't remember experiencing in a very long time.
I felt like I was playing a true spiritual successor to Doom, and that's tough to pull off.
But technology is not the only thing that's changed in the last almost-30 years. I've lived through some real-life horror. The mix of adrenaline and fear, that rush that I got from playing Doom in 1994, it hits differently now.
Reaching the end of the first level, seeing that Doom-like end-screen didn't give me a rush of excitement, just a sense of relief. My jaw and my shoulders are tight and sore. My body reacts in a different way.
This was a hard review to write. It's taken me almost three times as long to write as I spent playing.
These reviews are primarily about my feelings towards a game, and whether I want to play it again, and Prodeus is difficult.
As a game, it deserves an "excellent", but as I game that I'll play again? I don't know. As I wrote earlier, I have Doom and Doom II installed on Steam (and Doom 3). I have less than two hours playtime across all three games.
Prodeus' 1.29Gb install can stay on my SSD, because it's:
4: Good
#Prodeus #FPS #Retro #BoomerShooter #HumbleChoice #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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October 20, 2023 - Day 293 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 312Game: The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 22, 2021
Installation Date: Oct 20, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 26mThe Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is a third-person interactive survival horror game.
This is the third of this month's Humble Choice Bundle games, and by the same developer as The Quarry, Supermassive Games.
Unfortunately, like The Quarry, this is another playable horror movie, and like The Quarry, I have no desire to play it.
In one sense, I'm disappointed. It's not like this is a bad game. The design quality and atmosphere are great, the sound design is excellent.
This is very much a me problem, rather than a gameplay issue.
If interactive survival horror movies are your thing, you'll probably get a kick out of it.
On the other hand, I'm going to have to play *something* else to be able to relax enough to sleep.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is:
1: Nope
#DarkPicturesAnthology #HouseOfAshes #ThirdPerson #Survival #Horror #HumbleChoice #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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October 9, 2023 - Day 282 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 301Game: NiGHTS Into Dreams
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Dec 18, 2012
Installation Date: Oct 15, 2020
Unplayed: 1089d (2y11m24d)
Playtime: 15mNiGHTS Into Dreams is a remaster of a Sega Saturn game from 1996. I genuinely have no idea how to characterise this game.
You're dropped almost straight into this bizarre game after choosing an avatar without any explanation whatsoever about what you need to do or why.
Apparently it was really popular, and I honestly don't understand why.
It's kind of 2.5D-ish. Your avatar merges with this weird-looking character, and you fly around the level collecting bubbles which somehow enable you to kill the level boss when you collect 20 of them, after which you get bonus time to collect more bubbles.
After the first time I died in-game, I then got semi-helpful instructions on what was happening in the levels.
The boss level? No such luck. It's almost completely different, no bubbles to collect, and somehow you need to attack the boss, but I couldn't for the life of me work out how, and eventually ran out of time.
NiGHTS Into Dreams is a big old:
1: Nope
#NiGHTSIntoDreams #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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August 2, 2023 - Day 214 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 233Game: The Artful Escape
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Library Date: Oct 1, 2022
Unplayed: 306d (10m2d)
Playtime: 48mDo you wanna rock?
I SAID DO YOU WANNA ROCK?!?
The Artful Escape is a game about the distance between who you are, and who you want to be.
Francis Vendetti is the nephew of a Dylanesque folk singer, and feels trapped in the shadow cast by his long-departed uncle.
Living in a small town, where his uncle was the primary export, the town is looking to him to bring back the glory days during the 20th anniversary celebration of his uncle's album.
The Artful Escape is essentially a (musical?) platformer, but not in a traditional platformer sense. There are no hit-the-button-at-the-right-time-or-die sequences (at least so far).
Once the story gets going, you're required to do some Simon-style pattern matching with the controller buttons, and you do, indeed, get to rock.
Graphically, this game is utterly gorgeous, and for a game that is about music, the sound is excellent.
The Artful Escape is:
4: Good
#TheArtfulEscape #Platformer #Music #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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August 2, 2023 - Day 214 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 233Game: The Artful Escape
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Library Date: Oct 1, 2022
Unplayed: 306d (10m2d)
Playtime: 48mDo you wanna rock?
I SAID DO YOU WANNA ROCK?!?
The Artful Escape is a game about the distance between who you are, and who you want to be.
Francis Vendetti is the nephew of a Dylanesque folk singer, and feels trapped in the shadow cast by his long-departed uncle.
Living in a small town, where his uncle was the primary export, the town is looking to him to bring back the glory days during the 20th anniversary celebration of his uncle's album.
The Artful Escape is essentially a (musical?) platformer, but not in a traditional platformer sense. There are no hit-the-button-at-the-right-time-or-die sequences (at least so far).
Once the story gets going, you're required to do some Simon-style pattern matching with the controller buttons, and you do, indeed, get to rock.
Graphically, this game is utterly gorgeous, and for a game that is about music, the sound is excellent.
The Artful Escape is:
4: Good
#TheArtfulEscape #Platformer #Music #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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August 2, 2023 - Day 214 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 233Game: The Artful Escape
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Library Date: Oct 1, 2022
Unplayed: 306d (10m2d)
Playtime: 48mDo you wanna rock?
I SAID DO YOU WANNA ROCK?!?
The Artful Escape is a game about the distance between who you are, and who you want to be.
Francis Vendetti is the nephew of a Dylanesque folk singer, and feels trapped in the shadow cast by his long-departed uncle.
Living in a small town, where his uncle was the primary export, the town is looking to him to bring back the glory days during the 20th anniversary celebration of his uncle's album.
The Artful Escape is essentially a (musical?) platformer, but not in a traditional platformer sense. There are no hit-the-button-at-the-right-time-or-die sequences (at least so far).
Once the story gets going, you're required to do some Simon-style pattern matching with the controller buttons, and you do, indeed, get to rock.
Graphically, this game is utterly gorgeous, and for a game that is about music, the sound is excellent.
The Artful Escape is:
4: Good
#TheArtfulEscape #Platformer #Music #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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August 2, 2023 - Day 214 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 233Game: The Artful Escape
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Library Date: Oct 1, 2022
Unplayed: 306d (10m2d)
Playtime: 48mDo you wanna rock?
I SAID DO YOU WANNA ROCK?!?
The Artful Escape is a game about the distance between who you are, and who you want to be.
Francis Vendetti is the nephew of a Dylanesque folk singer, and feels trapped in the shadow cast by his long-departed uncle.
Living in a small town, where his uncle was the primary export, the town is looking to him to bring back the glory days during the 20th anniversary celebration of his uncle's album.
The Artful Escape is essentially a (musical?) platformer, but not in a traditional platformer sense. There are no hit-the-button-at-the-right-time-or-die sequences (at least so far).
Once the story gets going, you're required to do some Simon-style pattern matching with the controller buttons, and you do, indeed, get to rock.
Graphically, this game is utterly gorgeous, and for a game that is about music, the sound is excellent.
The Artful Escape is:
4: Good
#TheArtfulEscape #Platformer #Music #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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August 2, 2023 - Day 214 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 233Game: The Artful Escape
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Library Date: Oct 1, 2022
Unplayed: 306d (10m2d)
Playtime: 48mDo you wanna rock?
I SAID DO YOU WANNA ROCK?!?
The Artful Escape is a game about the distance between who you are, and who you want to be.
Francis Vendetti is the nephew of a Dylanesque folk singer, and feels trapped in the shadow cast by his long-departed uncle.
Living in a small town, where his uncle was the primary export, the town is looking to him to bring back the glory days during the 20th anniversary celebration of his uncle's album.
The Artful Escape is essentially a (musical?) platformer, but not in a traditional platformer sense. There are no hit-the-button-at-the-right-time-or-die sequences (at least so far).
Once the story gets going, you're required to do some Simon-style pattern matching with the controller buttons, and you do, indeed, get to rock.
Graphically, this game is utterly gorgeous, and for a game that is about music, the sound is excellent.
The Artful Escape is:
4: Good
#TheArtfulEscape #Platformer #Music #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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July 15, 2023 - Day 196 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 216Game: Vampyr
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 5, 2018
Library Date: Sep 25, 2022
Unplayed: 293d (9m20d)
Playtime: 27mVampyr (or "I don't vant to suck your blood, but I might have to), is an open-world third-person ARPG, set in London during the 1918 Spanish Flu.
Yesterday's "I feel like hot garbage due to lack of sleep" turned out to be "Actually, sick. Again." so a game set during the Spanish flu feels vaguely appropriate.
The setup of the game is interesting, but gameplay turned out to be a little more frustrating than expected. You're a doctor who wakes up in a mass grave to find he's been turned into a vampire.
However, for some reason that I would dig around and find if I was feeling a little less half-dead, any time I turned in game, the experience would make a whip-pan seem positively leisurely in comparison.
More than once while I was trying to escape the men pursuing me, and seeking to kill me... again?... in attempting to turn a corner, I'd find myself having turned so fast I was disoriented, or worse still, running TOWARD my pursuers.
It hasn't really grabbed me at this point; if I'm in the mood for a supernaturally themed ARPG, I'm more likely to load up Ghostwire: Tokyo than Vampyr, or for vampire-on-vampire violence, probably Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt (at least as long as the servers are live).
I'll probably give Vampyr another shot when my hearing isn't going wild, but for now it's:
3: OK
#Vampyr #ThirdPerson #ARPG #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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June 7, 2023 - Day 158 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 175Game: Honey, I Joined a Cult
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 4, 2022
Library Date: Jun 7, 2023
Unplayed: 0d (0d)
Playtime: 19mHoney, I Joined a Cult is a top-down tycoon/management sim, in which you create a cult.
When June's Humble Choice bundle dropped today, I went through and added the 5 games I didn't already have to Steam.
With the idea of reviewing the bundle over the next week.
This is a tycoon management game about building a cult. I really did not think this through.
For those of you new to my story, my family & personal history is intertwined with two separate cults. This game was starting off from a long way behind, and literally started causing me anxiety.
Firstly, the music. I didn't get around to turning it down, but disco funk is somewhere below Kenny G for me, and definitely didn't not enhance my calm, or gameplay experience.
Secondly, the game visually feels a bit like The Escapists but with vector art graphics instead of pixel graphics.
Finally, coming off a city-builder management sim last night into this was like jumping off a moving bullet train into a push wagon. It... was not pleasant.
I wanted to give this a chance, but at 19 minutes, it was all a bit too much, and I was out.
Honey, I Joined a Cult? Actually:
1: Nope
#HoneyIJoinedACult #TopDown #ManagementSim #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 26, 2023 - Day 85 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 90Game: Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jun 5, 2007
Library Date: Mar 4, 2018
Unplayed: 1848d (5y22d)
Playtime: 22mThe Tomb Raider series has a long and storied history, as I learned when I reviewed Tomb Raider (2013) on March 4th.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released in 2007, by Crystal Dynamics. It's a sequel that's a prequel to "Tomb Raider: Legend", and is a remake of the original Tomb Raider from 1996.
Released 4 years after the second Tomb Raider movie, I got an Angelina Jolie vibe from the character design, and it's entirely unclear to me whether Jolie was just well cast in the movies, or whether the design team were making a deliberate callback.
Unfortunately, as with a lot of older games I've tried to play this year, this Tomb Raider has not aged well. Graphically it feels rather bland, but more critically, the follow-camera seems like it's never quite sure what it's following, and shimmies & bounces all over the place, making me feel slightly queasy trying to navigate.
The initial tomb-opening sequence sees your helpful "native" guide die; it's entirely unclear whether it's the wolves who came running out of the freshly opened tomb, or a stray bullet from Lara's dual-pistols, but Lara's "shrug-and-move-on" left me cold.
I don't think I'll be coming back to Tomb Raider: Anniversary, it's just:
2: Meh
#TombRaiderAnniversary #ThirdPerson #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 26, 2023 - Day 85 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 90Game: Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jun 5, 2007
Library Date: Mar 4, 2018
Unplayed: 1848d (5y22d)
Playtime: 22mThe Tomb Raider series has a long and storied history, as I learned when I reviewed Tomb Raider (2013) on March 4th.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released in 2007, by Crystal Dynamics. It's a sequel that's a prequel to "Tomb Raider: Legend", and is a remake of the original Tomb Raider from 1996.
Released 4 years after the second Tomb Raider movie, I got an Angelina Jolie vibe from the character design, and it's entirely unclear to me whether Jolie was just well cast in the movies, or whether the design team were making a deliberate callback.
Unfortunately, as with a lot of older games I've tried to play this year, this Tomb Raider has not aged well. Graphically it feels rather bland, but more critically, the follow-camera seems like it's never quite sure what it's following, and shimmies & bounces all over the place, making me feel slightly queasy trying to navigate.
The initial tomb-opening sequence sees your helpful "native" guide die; it's entirely unclear whether it's the wolves who came running out of the freshly opened tomb, or a stray bullet from Lara's dual-pistols, but Lara's "shrug-and-move-on" left me cold.
I don't think I'll be coming back to Tomb Raider: Anniversary, it's just:
2: Meh
#TombRaiderAnniversary #ThirdPerson #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 26, 2023 - Day 85 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 90Game: Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jun 5, 2007
Library Date: Mar 4, 2018
Unplayed: 1848d (5y22d)
Playtime: 22mThe Tomb Raider series has a long and storied history, as I learned when I reviewed Tomb Raider (2013) on March 4th.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released in 2007, by Crystal Dynamics. It's a sequel that's a prequel to "Tomb Raider: Legend", and is a remake of the original Tomb Raider from 1996.
Released 4 years after the second Tomb Raider movie, I got an Angelina Jolie vibe from the character design, and it's entirely unclear to me whether Jolie was just well cast in the movies, or whether the design team were making a deliberate callback.
Unfortunately, as with a lot of older games I've tried to play this year, this Tomb Raider has not aged well. Graphically it feels rather bland, but more critically, the follow-camera seems like it's never quite sure what it's following, and shimmies & bounces all over the place, making me feel slightly queasy trying to navigate.
The initial tomb-opening sequence sees your helpful "native" guide die; it's entirely unclear whether it's the wolves who came running out of the freshly opened tomb, or a stray bullet from Lara's dual-pistols, but Lara's "shrug-and-move-on" left me cold.
I don't think I'll be coming back to Tomb Raider: Anniversary, it's just:
2: Meh
#TombRaiderAnniversary #ThirdPerson #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 26, 2023 - Day 85 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 90Game: Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jun 5, 2007
Library Date: Mar 4, 2018
Unplayed: 1848d (5y22d)
Playtime: 22mThe Tomb Raider series has a long and storied history, as I learned when I reviewed Tomb Raider (2013) on March 4th.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released in 2007, by Crystal Dynamics. It's a sequel that's a prequel to "Tomb Raider: Legend", and is a remake of the original Tomb Raider from 1996.
Released 4 years after the second Tomb Raider movie, I got an Angelina Jolie vibe from the character design, and it's entirely unclear to me whether Jolie was just well cast in the movies, or whether the design team were making a deliberate callback.
Unfortunately, as with a lot of older games I've tried to play this year, this Tomb Raider has not aged well. Graphically it feels rather bland, but more critically, the follow-camera seems like it's never quite sure what it's following, and shimmies & bounces all over the place, making me feel slightly queasy trying to navigate.
The initial tomb-opening sequence sees your helpful "native" guide die; it's entirely unclear whether it's the wolves who came running out of the freshly opened tomb, or a stray bullet from Lara's dual-pistols, but Lara's "shrug-and-move-on" left me cold.
I don't think I'll be coming back to Tomb Raider: Anniversary, it's just:
2: Meh
#TombRaiderAnniversary #ThirdPerson #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 26, 2023 - Day 85 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 90Game: Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jun 5, 2007
Library Date: Mar 4, 2018
Unplayed: 1848d (5y22d)
Playtime: 22mThe Tomb Raider series has a long and storied history, as I learned when I reviewed Tomb Raider (2013) on March 4th.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released in 2007, by Crystal Dynamics. It's a sequel that's a prequel to "Tomb Raider: Legend", and is a remake of the original Tomb Raider from 1996.
Released 4 years after the second Tomb Raider movie, I got an Angelina Jolie vibe from the character design, and it's entirely unclear to me whether Jolie was just well cast in the movies, or whether the design team were making a deliberate callback.
Unfortunately, as with a lot of older games I've tried to play this year, this Tomb Raider has not aged well. Graphically it feels rather bland, but more critically, the follow-camera seems like it's never quite sure what it's following, and shimmies & bounces all over the place, making me feel slightly queasy trying to navigate.
The initial tomb-opening sequence sees your helpful "native" guide die; it's entirely unclear whether it's the wolves who came running out of the freshly opened tomb, or a stray bullet from Lara's dual-pistols, but Lara's "shrug-and-move-on" left me cold.
I don't think I'll be coming back to Tomb Raider: Anniversary, it's just:
2: Meh
#TombRaiderAnniversary #ThirdPerson #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 18, 2023 - Day 77 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 83Game: Horatio Goes Snowboarding
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jul 10, 2021
Library Date: Jul 23, 2021
Unplayed: 603d (1y7m23d)
Playtime: 16mThere are some games that are difficult for me to review, that are not necessarily bad games, but I feel like my wiring makes it hard to assess them properly.
Horatio Goes Snowboarding (HGS) is one of those games.
HGS is a reasonably simple score attack game. You play a blue sphere in snow gear, who goes snowboarding.It feels like a modernised mashup of Frogger, and Ski or Die, with a DnB soundtrack.
The first part of the game (or Frogger) has you crossing several roads and trying to avoid cars, to pick up a snowboard, and then get to the choppa!
The second part (Ski or Die), has you snowboarding downhill, trying to chain slaloms, and avoid obstacles, until you reach the end... and do the same thing again, until you run out of money (crashing results in medical bills, and the snowboards must be purchased).
And that's it.
My fine motor control isn't fantastic, and I end up missing most of the slaloms, but collecting a lot of trees. The controls (L & R triggers, or the LH stick) feel a little sloppy.
I just find it a little too frustrating to remain interested, and was counting down the minutes.
I'm sorry, Horatio Goes Snowboarding. It's not you, it's me. It's just a bit:
2: Meh
#HoratioGoesSnowboarding #ScoreAttack #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 7, 2023 - Day 66 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 72Game: Norco
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Mar 25, 2022
Library Date: Aug 8, 2022
Unplayed: 211 days (6m27d)
Playtime: 41mI am, quite vocally, not a fan of pixel art games. As I'm reasonably certain I've said before, I lived through pixel art when it was a necessity, and I have no nostalgic sentimentality towards that era that makes me look back wistfully to a more "simple" time.
Which is why, upon starting Norco, I sighed. It was immediately obvious that I'd overlooked the fact it was a pixel art game when I bought it, and I figured I'd just suffer through it for 15 minutes and get it out of the way.
I was wrong.
Norco is a point-and-click adventure, set in and around a suburb of New Orleans, some time in a run-down future.
The soundtrack is moody & evocative, and the storyline drew me in. The only reason I didn't keep playing is that I'm somewhere south of exhausted and desperately need some sleep.
Far from my initial impression, Norco is:
4: Good
#Norco #PointAndClick #Adventure #PixelArt #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 3, 2023 - Day 62 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 68Game: What Remains of Edith Finch
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Apr 25, 2017
Library Date: Dec 26, 2022
Unplayed: 67 days (2m5d)
Playtime: 24mI'm not quite sure what kind of game What Remains of Edith Finch is. I think it's an exploration game?
What I do know is that it hooked me pretty quickly; the story was fascinating from the get-go.
I've slowly worked my way through the story to the point I feel like I'm on the verge of something, and it's a game I'm going to need to come back to when I'm not utterly exhausted.
What Remains of Edith Finch has grabbed me in that short time, and I'm rating it:
4: Good
#WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch #Exploration #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 3, 2023 - Day 62 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 68Game: What Remains of Edith Finch
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Apr 25, 2017
Library Date: Dec 26, 2022
Unplayed: 67 days (2m5d)
Playtime: 24mI'm not quite sure what kind of game What Remains of Edith Finch is. I think it's an exploration game?
What I do know is that it hooked me pretty quickly; the story was fascinating from the get-go.
I've slowly worked my way through the story to the point I feel like I'm on the verge of something, and it's a game I'm going to need to come back to when I'm not utterly exhausted.
What Remains of Edith Finch has grabbed me in that short time, and I'm rating it:
4: Good
#WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch #Exploration #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 3, 2023 - Day 62 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 68Game: What Remains of Edith Finch
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Apr 25, 2017
Library Date: Dec 26, 2022
Unplayed: 67 days (2m5d)
Playtime: 24mI'm not quite sure what kind of game What Remains of Edith Finch is. I think it's an exploration game?
What I do know is that it hooked me pretty quickly; the story was fascinating from the get-go.
I've slowly worked my way through the story to the point I feel like I'm on the verge of something, and it's a game I'm going to need to come back to when I'm not utterly exhausted.
What Remains of Edith Finch has grabbed me in that short time, and I'm rating it:
4: Good
#WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch #Exploration #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 3, 2023 - Day 62 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 68Game: What Remains of Edith Finch
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Apr 25, 2017
Library Date: Dec 26, 2022
Unplayed: 67 days (2m5d)
Playtime: 24mI'm not quite sure what kind of game What Remains of Edith Finch is. I think it's an exploration game?
What I do know is that it hooked me pretty quickly; the story was fascinating from the get-go.
I've slowly worked my way through the story to the point I feel like I'm on the verge of something, and it's a game I'm going to need to come back to when I'm not utterly exhausted.
What Remains of Edith Finch has grabbed me in that short time, and I'm rating it:
4: Good
#WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch #Exploration #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Mar 1, 2023 - Day 60 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 66Game: X-Morph: Defense
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Aug 30, 2017
Library Date: Jan 10, 2020
Unplayed: 1146 days (3y1m19d)
Playtime: 28mRemember when tower defense games were the flavour of the month, and everyone seemed to be making one?
X-Morph: Defense is an isometric, sci-fi, tower defense/top-down shooter mash-up... in which you play the bad guys.
As part of an alien fleet invading Earth, you control a ship that can attack the ground & airborne defenders, while also building towers, and creating blockages to increase the path lengths of the attackers.
There are five waves per level, and in the last wave, you face off against a single boss.
Loading up, I was a bit "Oh, a tower defense game." By the time I finished the level, it was after midnight, and I was "more, please".
Except, I'm on call, and I really do need to go to bed.
Load up X-Morph: Defense and lay the smackdown on those xenophobic humans, because it's:
4: Good
#XMorphDefense #TowerDefense #Shooter #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Feb 12, 2023 - Day 43 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 49Game: Serena
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jan 31, 2014
Library Date: Oct 6, 2021
Unplayed: 494 days
Playtime: 41mManaged to avoid a platformer hat-trick, but I might have preferred a platformer.
This point-and-click whodunit was completed in a single 41 minute playthrough. It was apparently some kind of collaborative effort, and was given away free.
I was marginally invested in trying to unravel the who, but the limited gameplay was quite frustrating. Click on things repeatedly until you get all the dialogue variations, then move onto the next thing. When the clock chimes start over, with the clicking and the dialogue, and there's 41 minutes of my life I won't get back.
I give Serena a rating of:
2: Meh
#Serena #PointAndClick #Whodunit #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
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Feb 6, 2023 - Day 37 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 44Game: Serial Cleaner
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jul 15, 2017
Library Date: Nov 22, 2019
Unplayed: 1172 days
Playtime: 40mI've updated my NewPlay definition to include games that I've played a few minutes of previously, due to the context of this game.
Serial Cleaner is one of the games I attempted to play in the midst of trying to recover from a mental health breakdown. It's a stressful game, and I dumped it after a few minutes.
Having played it then and again now, it provided an interesting perspective on details of the gameplay that I couldn't really grasp then. Unchecked anxiety and gaming don't really mix.
Serial Cleaner is a stylised 2D action-stealth game. You play a "cleaner", given jobs to clean up after murders, and not in a "working with the police way".
It's another game that plays much better with a controller than keyboard/mouse, and there's a huge buzz for suddenly hiding from a cop who had you in plain view.
While the subject matter is a somewhat tasteless, the gameplay just nails it.
I'm glad I gave Serial Cleaner another go, because it's:
4: Good
#SerialCleaner #Stealth #Action #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay
