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From: ant@zimage.comANT (Ant)
Subject: Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN APRIL 2024?
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Diablo 4 in WIndows and Doo Lingo in my iPhone. :P


Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:


> It's that moment you've all been waiting for, kids. No, not the
> opening of the bar (that comes later). It's our monthly thread where
> we all share what video games have occupied our time for the past
> thirty days! Yaaaaay!

> Me first, me first!!!



> Quite Short
> ---------------------------------------
> * Dead Space 3
> * BeamNG.drive
> * Hitman: Codename 47
> * Crysis Remastered
> * Ghostrunner
> * Industria



> Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
> very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very Long
> ---------------------------------------

> * Dead Space 3
> "Dead Space 3" is not a bad game.

> I just felt I had to get that out there first, because it might be
> easy, given my following comments, for you to assume that I think it's
> terrible. I'll admit, I don't really /enjoy/ playing "Dead Space 3";
> it is often more chore than pleasure. There's a variety of reasons for
> that, but my dislike doesn't mean the game is all bad. It has its
> moments, after all.

> It's combat is fun. It's much more relaxed than earlier games in the
> franchise; although the enemies seem a bit spongier, their placement
> and the level design makes it easier to mow them down, Call of Duty
> style. Your overpowered weapons and powers make this game more
> power-fantasy than survival horror, but that's fine, if you're into
> that thing. While the game lacks some really impressive set-pieces
> -those moments in the game where you just gaze about going 'wow, that
> looks really cool!"- there's a lot of incidental detail that gives the
> game's maps a verisimilitude that still holds up after all these
> years. The sequences when you're floating around in orbit look quite
> nice, and the ice and snow made me feel cold just looking at it. 

> I'd forgotten how generous the game was with health and ammo pickups.
> Unlike earlier "Dead Space" games, I was never running short, and even
> if I were, tech-benches (which doubles as your stash and crafting
> location) are so frequent that you can easily restock. And if you ever
> started running low on supplies, the optional side-missions filled
> your coffers with so many crafting materials that I had to leave some
> behind because my inventory couldn't hold it all. Sure, all these
> beneficence take away a good deal of the game's challenge, but that's
> okay.

> Some of the gameplay was iffy, though. Because it was designed also as
> a co-op game, your AI companion appears and disappears in a way that
> breaks immersion; in fact, I sometimes suspected he was entirely a
> figment of the main protagonist's imagination (nobody else seems to
> notice he's even there, although the game's canon insists he's a real
> person). It always made me feel that I was missing out, that my AI
> companion was off having more exciting adventures than I was whenever
> he was out of sight. 

> The various mini-games (the mountain climbing bits, the electronic
> locks) weren't much fun either; they weren't difficult but felt clunky
> and tacked on. Even the optional missions quickly lost their charm;
> while each featured its own map - most with unique textures - the
> mission structure was simplistic and repetitive. The craftable weapons
> - as noted - also were poorly balanced, and it was quite easy to end
> up so overpowered as to make combat a breeze (once I got my machine
> gun with underslung rocket-launcher (which, as a bonus, slowed down
> time), even the biggest bad guys crumbled beneath my firepower.

> As for the story and characters... well, they were never the strongest
> points of the "Dead Space" franchise, and this third game doesn't
> reverse the trend. In fact, it pretty much ignores any growth the
> protagonist had in the second game, forcing him to once again go from
> selfish, wounded jerk back into hero-willing-to-sacrifice-
> himself-to-save-the-world. It was very much a sense of deja vu;
> haven't I played this before?

> But still, despite all those issues, I don't think "Dead Space 3" is a
> bad game. It's not a great one, but it's passable popcorn-movie action
> fun. It has a stupid plot, shallow characters, big guns, and lots of
> aliens that explode in cartoony violence. It's fine. It's not a bad
> game at all. But it's a terrible "Dead Space".



> * BeamNG.drive
> "BeamNG.drive" is a great game. It's also one that didn't really
> entertain me for long.

> In some ways, "BeamNG" is a gimmick game. It's extremely robust
> physics model -including full soft-body physics for all the cars - is
> the game's primary hook, and exploring how those physics affect the
> gameplay is really what the game is all about. The cars roll and drive
> very convincingly, and the crashes are probably unmatched outside of
> dedicated test suites used by automobile manufacturers or researchers.
> Driving 90 miles an hour down a highway and then plowing into a wall
> result in some extremely realistic results, and "BeamNG" gets a lot of
> longevity from that feature alone.

> But beyond that there's not much to the game. There's very little in
> the way of progression, partially because it's a 'sandbox' game, and
> partly because the game is still in open access. There are a variety
> of modes - races and whatnot - to play around with, but none of them
> are very satisfying. There's a reason the "Need for Speed" and "Forza"
> games eschew extremely realistic physics, and that's because the
> fantasy of high-speed racing doesn't work all that well in a universe
> where your car crumples into pancaked steel and plastic even at 'low
> speed' impacts.

> "BeamNG" does have a huge variety of game-mods made by fans that can
> keep the fun going (the "Flood" mod in particular is fun) but these
> aren't always the easiest to get running. The interface on the whole
> isn't particularly clean or intuitive, for that matter (again, likely
> a result of that whole 'early access' thing). And the playing the game
> with digital controls is pure misery; a keyboard is right out, and
> even a gamepad is pretty disappointing. If you don't have a wheel, you
> won't get half of what the game has to offer.

> "BeamNG.drive" is a fascinating project, and what it does well - its
> physics model - it does very, very well. I also have full confidence
> that eventually this game will evolve into a well-rounded, polished
> experience. Even now, its physics engine make it something I think
> anyone even marginally interested should experience. I just don't
> think that - at this point - it has the longevity to entertain any but
> the most hardcore players, and outside of that group, isn't really
> worth the price the developers are asking.

> But I eagerly await the day when it does.




> * Hitman: Codename 47
> The forgotten first game of the "Hitman" franchise is often seen as
> the weakest of the series, and I can totally understand that. Compared
> to the sophistication of the newer games, it is an extremely
> simplistic and clunky game. Nonetheless, for years I've also held it
> up as my favorite of all the Hitman games. But, not having played the
> original in over a decade, I wondered if that was still true. So there
> was nothing to do but give the game another try.

> Just getting the game to run on modern hardware was a chore. Or
> rather, I could get it to run but not without glitches and graphical
> flaws. In the end, rather than struggle with various config files and
> patches, I chose a simpler path; I pulled out the original CD-ROM,
> stuck it into WindowsXP computer, and played it on era-appropriate
> hardware.

> Visually, the game wasn't going to win me over its more advanced
> sequels. Still, for a game released in 2000, it had some impressive
> tricks up its sleeve: vegetation that reacted to my passage, an
> impressive roiling river, and banners fluttering in the breeze. The
> levels themselves were notably large and detailed for a game released
> twenty-plus years ago too. The models and animations were less
> remarkable, but got the job done well enough.

> The game-play was... stiff. This first Hitman was more puzzle game
> than shooter, and its sandbox was relatively limited. There really was
> only one way to get through the level properly; sure, you could just
> start shooting your way to your victim, but clunky controls (and - on
> later missions - scripted AI that made the target flee off the map at
> the first sign of trouble) made this method of limited utility. No,
> the game expected the player to engage in a lot of trial-and-error
> play-throughs to figure out what needed to be done, and when.
> Sometimes it wasn't even obvious what options were available (for
> instance, there was no clue that I needed to talk to the bartender
> twice in the third mission), which often meant that the only solution
> was to look for guidance from a walkthrough. Fortunately, even after
> all these years I /mostly/ remembered what steps were needed to finish
> each level, which made the whole thing far less frustrating. But for
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