January's Video Games

Posted this on the Bookface, so hey, it goes here, too. I plan to make this a monthly thing. Hooray! Note: Since originally posting this, I have completed Analogue: A Hate Story, but expanded thoughts will still go in my February post because I am lazy.

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Writing about everything I finished at the end of the year is a lot of work, so I figured I would spread it throughout the year. Also, I suddenly feel like including stuff I haven't completed but still played. Fun!

Journey: I thought it was quite the moving experience and an interesting way of doing multiplayer. Also, it caused me to have a wonderful time with a user named JuicyMullet, so that was something. (Everyone is anonymous in Journey until the end when the game reveals to you the names of all the users with whom you interacted in the course of the game.) I don't think I'll play it again right away, but experiencing it every so often a few months down the road would be nice.

Sam and Max: I'll just lump the three Telltale Sam and Max shorts into here. They're amusing, but it's pretty clear how far Telltale has leaped in the interim between these games and The Walking Dead. There's a lot of annoying backtracking in the games if you don't collect necessary items in the correct order, and much of the length comes from this walking around. These games don't feel all that substantial.

Hotline Miami: I have sunk a ridiculous amount of time into what is basically a twitch shooter. The way it's built is phenomenal, though; the tension is absolute, and the difficulty is such that clearing a room is tough, but you'll always want to soldier on even after a gangster blasts you for the millionth time. I think I spent upwards of an hour on certain levels, even though you can clear any level in a matter of minutes once you hone your skills. It's worth it when you finally kill everyone. The gameplay is what kept me coming back, but I also love the minimalist storytelling (although it's a familiar story), the psychedelic visuals, and most of all, the amazing soundtrack. You haven't lived until you've driven around at night to "Knock Knock." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR1SvoPhCVg)

Limbo: I started out enthusiastic and was worn out by the end. Seeing the devolution of this world and parsing the story is kind of neat, but the puzzles frustrated me more than they made me want to think and solve them. Getting to the "Aha!" moment is not that fun in this game, whereas in, say, Portal, that moment is almost always worthwhile.

FTL: Faster than Light: I am shit at strategy games and almost never have fun playing them. That said, this is a fun strategy game. It seems a bit overwhelming at first, but just go through the tutorial once and it's easy to see that everything is streamlined and clearly understood. It's a good thing the fundamentals are easy to understand, because this game has a knack for lulling the player into a false sense of security and then turning everything to shit at a moment's notice. Basically all of my playthroughs so far have ended spectacularly, with me getting nowhere near the rebel flagship. One moment you're flying high with tons of crew members and scrap; the next, everything is up in flames. I have cursed this game so much, and yet I keep going back for more. It is too addicting. The key is that even when everything goes to shit, it's still possible to pull through. It all depends on whether the player can manage the multitude of disasters that crop up.

Spec Ops: The Line: This may be because I played the game after the height of the hype, but I was underwhelmed, even after hearing that it's more worth playing for the story than the gameplay. This is true. The gameplay is standard third-person shooter stuff with some squad elements thrown in. I thought some of the battles were properly intense, but on the whole, I wasn't that into shooting a bunch of people. That, however, is part of the point, since the narrative is basically what would happen if Apocalypse Now were solid rather than amazing. It is at least interesting to get this sort of narrative in a video game.

Analogue: A Hate Story: Not finished yet, but it's definitely interesting. I like how it throws you into the scenario and demands that you connect and parse a complex backstory. (Though I imagine it would be slightly less complex if I weren't so ignorant and could keep track of all the Korean names.) Gets points for being a visual novel that focuses on clear, engaging writing over babbling nonsense. Now I have to figure out how to not royally fuck up the reactor sequence ...

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