#project365ong — Public Fediverse posts

December 26, 2023 - Day 360 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 383

Game: Niffelheim

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 26, 2018
Installation Date: Dec 26, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 45m

Niffelheim is a Norse-themed 2D survival crafting game with some RPG elements.

As part of my two remaining goals of attempting to review 400 new games by the end of the year, and to get my unredeemed keys list down to under 200 (current count: 201 left), I had no idea what this key was actually for.

At some stage I'd overtyped the title without noticing. Niffelheim it is.

The game opens up with a Viking funeral boat, aflame and disappearing into the mist, while a narrator intones about how my boat has been hijacked on the way to Valhalla.

I then found myself at a character selection screen with a choice between three burly male warriors, and a well-endowed Valkyrie.

My Valkyrie then found herself armed with some basic weapons, and a basic hut, and a series of quests delivered by a raven.

Other than that, you're in pretty standard survival game mechanics; kill things, cut down trees, gather food. The 2D aspect makes playing with a controller natural, and before I noticed, I'd been in-game for 45 minutes.

I found Niffelheim strangely compelling, so let's say that it's:

4: Good

#Niffelheim #2D #RPG #Survival #Crafting #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

November 19, 2023 - Day 323 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 342

Game: Injustice 2

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 15, 2017
Installation Date: Mar 18, 2023
Unplayed: 246d (8m1d)
Playtime: 32m

Injustice 2 is a 3Dish beat-em-up fighting game, and a sequel to Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Fighting games aren't really my go-to, because it comes back to that same issue of fine motion control and hand-eye coordination. I'd made two serious attempts to play Injustice: Gods Among Us, and failed miserably both times.

However, after playing & reviewing SOULCALIBUR VI on January 2nd, I gave Injustice a third go, and it clicked.

Still not really my go-to, and I haven't played either game since January.

In March, Injustice 2 popped up for AUD$7, and I figured it was worth a shot.

I finally took that shot.

It was not worth a shot.

I did not get off to a good start. My first attempt involved me taking a run at the tutorial in a game that insisted it had "Full Xbox One controller support" (as did Steam), and then consistently showed a PS4 controller on-screen, and showing the wrong buttons for combos.

After fiddling with the controller mapping, I quit the game, hit the forums, enabled Steam input, and finally had a working controller.

I stormed through the first part of the tutorial until I hit the combos, where I finally got stuck for five minutes just trying to get the timing and pattern right on a particular combo.

I'd probably need to go back and have yet another go at Injustice to see if there's a difference, but fundamentally, I am completely unable to time the combo moves correctly to even complete the tutorial.

After almost half an hour, my hands were sore, I was making zero progress, and the only thing I had to show for it was frustration.

It's a good looking game, and if you're a big DC fan and good at fighting games, this might be right up your alley.

Unfortunately, Injustice 2 was a waste of seven bucks, and 45Gb of SSD space; it's yet another:

1: Nope

#Injustice2 #BeatEmUp #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

November 11, 2023 - Day 315 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 334

Game: Prodeus

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 24, 2022
Installation Date: Nov 11, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 28m

Prodeus 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

July 15, 2023 - Day 196 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 216

Game: Vampyr

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 5, 2018
Library Date: Sep 25, 2022
Unplayed: 293d (9m20d)
Playtime: 27m

Vampyr (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

Mar 3, 2023 - Day 62 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 68

Game: What Remains of Edith Finch
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Apr 25, 2017
Library Date: Dec 26, 2022
Unplayed: 67 days (2m5d)
Playtime: 24m

I'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