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| Impressions of my 2022 GOG Black Friday Sale purchases by Mischief Maker 11/29/2022, 4:08pm PST | ||||
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Spectacular Sparky
A perfect example of ES' recent video on why Good Games suck. Spectacular Sparky is clearly meant as a spiritual sequel to Gunstar Heroes with a dash of Alien Soldier... and it's fine... it's just not as spectacular as those classics. The voice acting is great -especially the titular Sparky who's basically Max from the Sam & Max games in an action platformer. The music is phenomenal! But the guns feel underpowered and the level design feels like they have a lot of filler between the minibosses. And that lousy shmup section from Gunstar Heroes? Every level from 2 starts with one of those. It's not bad, I definitely had fun and laughs, but I'm never going to touch it again. Try Freedom Planet, Huntdown, or Bleed 2 before dropping the money on this. Starship Troopers: Terran Command 
I know I poo-poohed the preview trailer, but after seeing its 9/10 rating on Steam and several reviews calling the game "surprisingly good" I decided to do my part. The graphics have improved, troopers do indeed die horribly gory deaths if you fuck up, and the game includes plenty of NPC squads and civilians in the surrounding area to deliver the gore when you aren't fucking up. It keeps the whole "satire of fascist propaganda" theme of the film, with absurdly bombastic military music in the background and an unreliable narrator who is more concerned with sending an inspiring message back home than accurately describing the situation on the ground. Gameplay-wise it's the economy of Infested Planet meets the positional tactics of Ground Control. Once you have at least one base camp seized, troops are as free and endlessly replaceable as the bug swarms, you just have a steadily increasing population cap that grows every time you destroy a bug-spawning nest. In addition to the machine gun troopers of the films you have things from sniper squads to flame-thrower engineers all the way up to the mechs from the later sequels. Line-of-sight is the name of the game here. Troopers can't shoot directly through one another and their guns are about as useless as the ones in the movie so you need to keep your infantry in clean firing lines to kill the bugs faster than they can approach or make use of high ground to shoot over their heads. Whaddya know? I like it and that's a shock. Everhood 
I have not played Undertale, so I can't comment on any similarities. This is an Earthbound-esque jRPG taking place in a bizarre and often psychedelic world where the first half of the game will leave you feeling lost and disoriented, and the second half will turn all your assumptions about the game's characters on its head. The game's main hook is that instead of turn-based jRPG battles, combat is a weird mix of guitar hero and bullet-hell shmupping. Your puppet-protagonist is standing at the bottom of a guitar hero fret board, and the enemy plays a song that sends glowing notes down five lanes toward you. Connecting with the notes will damage you, so it's a game of dodging until the song is over. In contrast to the crunchy spritework of the overworld, the battles use bright bloomy modern visuals. It's a lot of fun, and this is one of those games that plays with the rules of its battle system throughout its runtime. It's unique and I enjoyed it. Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga 
This was the cream of the crop. It's a mix of ideas from several SRPGs, most notably Fire Emblem, but the final product is something unique. Instead of directing individual units, each square is occupied by a custom-built squad of troops, limited in size by the commander's leadership stat. The squad customization and formation options are dizzying. Do you go for a frontline of heavy infantry made nearly indestructible by a line of healers except if they cross swords with someone who can attack the rear? A pure archer squad that can cut down an infantry squad before it has a chance to get close enough to attack at the cost of melting if they shoot at a squad with archers of its own to return fire? A squad of shock troops that nukes enemies with fragile and slow-casting wizards? If you have a squad with a healer that doesn't attack anyone this turn, they can elect to trade this turn's attack for healing themselves or an adjacent squad. And each individual soldier within their named character's crew can not only level up but switch into more elite classes, like the samurai that's adept with a bow but armored like heavy infantry. |
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Impressions of my 2022 GOG Black Friday Sale purchases by 11/29/2022, 4:08pm PST  I think it's time you gave up the aversion to DRM. NT by 11/29/2022, 6:47pm PST Never! NT by 11/29/2022, 7:14pm PST Fine by 11/30/2022, 4:59am PST |
