The next game that I'm playing is Bionic Commando: Rearmed.
First released on August 14th, 2008, I bought it as part of the Humble Capcom Bundle in October, 2015.
This is a remake of the NES side-scroller Bionic Commando which is kind of like Contra but with a grappling hook. I never played the original, so this will be a new experience for me. The description copy claims that this version has a "2.5D" world, which is odd because the original was straight 2D, and 2.5D typically means there are several "lanes" that you can switch between while moving left and right. We'll see if there's free movement around the platforms and how that affects aiming the grappling arm.
Currently the overall rating on Steam is "Mostly Positive" with 76% of reviews rate the game positively, we shall see how feel about it after my play session this weekend.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
May Game Purchases
Here are the games I purchased in May.
Humble Very Positive Bundle
- Super Mega Baseball: Mega Innings
- Deadly Tower of Monsters
- Hacknet
- Crashlands
- UnderRail
- Stephen's Sausage Roll
- Curious Expedition
Humble TinyBuild Bundle
- Divide by Sheep
- SpeedRunners
- Party Hard
- Final Station
- Cluster Truck
- Guts and Glory
- Streets of Rogue
Humble Indie Bundle 18
- Ziggurat
- Windward
- SteamWorld Heist
- Kentucky Route Zero
- Beholder
- Goat Simulator GOATY Edition
- Owlboy
- Neon Drive
Free Games
- Rising Storm GOTY - Humble Store Promotion
- Starpoint Gemini 2 - Steam Store Promotion
$38 spent on 22 games plus 2 more on promo, Steam retail value of $405.51. So a savings of nearly 91% over retail, which is about par for the course. This brings my Steam-reported game library to 1,045.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
The Cave Impressions
Well, it's definitely a Ron Gilbert game. I've been stuck on the first puzzle for half an hour.
The game starts off with minimal information. The cave itself narrates the intro to the game, saying that all the characters have come seeking... something... within its depths. The screen then goes to a campfire with the seven playable characters around it: The Knight, The Hillbilly, The Time-Traveler, The Scientist, The Adventurer, The Twins, and The Monk. The only on screen instructions are to move the character selection left and right between the seven.
Eventually I figured out that you don't need to confirm your character selection and can just start running around with the character you've highlighted. There are also four action buttons, Jump, Pickup/Drop, Interact, and Special Power. Each character has a special power for you to use at various times during your exploration. You pick your three characters by way of a precarious bridge over a precipice that's "not safe for more than two people" so as soon as your third sets foot on it it collapses and they all fall very far down into the pit.
My chosen three were The Adventurer, The Twins, and The Hillbilly. First we went through some sort of simulacrum of a carnival which was something from the Hillbilly's past, then an in-between puzzle dealing with collecting mine carts for an ornery prospector. Now I'm in the latter section of stealing a golden sarcophagus from a pyramid which is from the Adventurer's past. I felt like the puzzles in the carnival were much more up front about their solutions, at least compared to the pyramid. Maybe it's just that all three of my characters are now trapped in a couple different rooms and I'm at a complete loss as to how to move forward.
I know that Ron Gilbert's design philosophy is to never have unwinnable situations in his adventure games-unlike other adventure games by Sierra in the early 90s where you could die from taking too long to make a decision-so I doubt that I'm permanently stuck.
Anyway after a couple hours of play time the game has grown on me. I'll definitely play it again, and it seems like that's the idea as there are eight collectible "Cave Paintings" that give vignettes of the characters' back stories, but you only collect cave paintings of the characters you're actively playing rather than the other four. So I'll have to play through two more times after this one with the other characters.
My only complaint is the default keymapping: both WASD and the arrow keys move the characters around and the action keys are bound to Q, E, C, and Spacebar. Also, switching between characters is done by the 1, 2, and 3 keys. Unless you're a touch-typist and you have muscle memory for the difference between Q and 1 or E and 3, you'll accidentally switch characters when you don't mean to fairly often. With a controller it's better laid out: Left Analog moves you around; Left, Up, and Right on the D-Pad switch between characters; A is Jump, B is Pick Up/Drop, X is Interact, and Y is Special Power.
For $15 I'd say it's worth the price, of course you can get it on sale if you wait. It's been 75% off on the last 3 Summer & Winter Steam Sales, so you could get it for as little as $3.74 if you wait. I'd say it's definitely worth it for that price.
The game starts off with minimal information. The cave itself narrates the intro to the game, saying that all the characters have come seeking... something... within its depths. The screen then goes to a campfire with the seven playable characters around it: The Knight, The Hillbilly, The Time-Traveler, The Scientist, The Adventurer, The Twins, and The Monk. The only on screen instructions are to move the character selection left and right between the seven.
Eventually I figured out that you don't need to confirm your character selection and can just start running around with the character you've highlighted. There are also four action buttons, Jump, Pickup/Drop, Interact, and Special Power. Each character has a special power for you to use at various times during your exploration. You pick your three characters by way of a precarious bridge over a precipice that's "not safe for more than two people" so as soon as your third sets foot on it it collapses and they all fall very far down into the pit.
My chosen three were The Adventurer, The Twins, and The Hillbilly. First we went through some sort of simulacrum of a carnival which was something from the Hillbilly's past, then an in-between puzzle dealing with collecting mine carts for an ornery prospector. Now I'm in the latter section of stealing a golden sarcophagus from a pyramid which is from the Adventurer's past. I felt like the puzzles in the carnival were much more up front about their solutions, at least compared to the pyramid. Maybe it's just that all three of my characters are now trapped in a couple different rooms and I'm at a complete loss as to how to move forward.
I know that Ron Gilbert's design philosophy is to never have unwinnable situations in his adventure games-unlike other adventure games by Sierra in the early 90s where you could die from taking too long to make a decision-so I doubt that I'm permanently stuck.
Anyway after a couple hours of play time the game has grown on me. I'll definitely play it again, and it seems like that's the idea as there are eight collectible "Cave Paintings" that give vignettes of the characters' back stories, but you only collect cave paintings of the characters you're actively playing rather than the other four. So I'll have to play through two more times after this one with the other characters.
My only complaint is the default keymapping: both WASD and the arrow keys move the characters around and the action keys are bound to Q, E, C, and Spacebar. Also, switching between characters is done by the 1, 2, and 3 keys. Unless you're a touch-typist and you have muscle memory for the difference between Q and 1 or E and 3, you'll accidentally switch characters when you don't mean to fairly often. With a controller it's better laid out: Left Analog moves you around; Left, Up, and Right on the D-Pad switch between characters; A is Jump, B is Pick Up/Drop, X is Interact, and Y is Special Power.
For $15 I'd say it's worth the price, of course you can get it on sale if you wait. It's been 75% off on the last 3 Summer & Winter Steam Sales, so you could get it for as little as $3.74 if you wait. I'd say it's definitely worth it for that price.
Monday, May 1, 2017
April Game Purchases
Here are the games I bought in April.
The Intergalactic Bundle was $15 and the Wild Frontier bundle was $13 and between the two the only game I already had was Spintires from the Wild Frontier bundle.
So, $28 for $280 of games at retail.
Humble Intergalactic Bundle
- Space Hulk Ascension
- Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity
- Planetary Annihilation TITANS
- Rebel Galaxy
- Galactic Civilizations 3
- Offworld Trading Company
Humble Wild Frontier Bundle
- Gods Will Be Watching
- Ice Lakes
- FRONTIERS
- Hard West
- Renowned Explorers: International Society
- Slime Rancher
The Intergalactic Bundle was $15 and the Wild Frontier bundle was $13 and between the two the only game I already had was Spintires from the Wild Frontier bundle.
So, $28 for $280 of games at retail.
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Unintentional Hiatus
Sorry, folks. I've come to a point where I can't play any more Steam games for a few weeks, so I won't be able to make any new posts until the middle of May.
I thought I could keep ahead enough to have some posts in the queue for any time I get too busy to play over a weekend, but so far I've found myself too busy to play at all over every weekend in April. On top of that I'm going on vacation for two weeks next weekend so I won't have any time then to play, either.
I've got my list of the next five games to play after The Cave, so when I get back and settled, hopefully I can get back on top of things and keep ahead of the posting schedule as I originally had hoped.
See you again in about a month!
I thought I could keep ahead enough to have some posts in the queue for any time I get too busy to play over a weekend, but so far I've found myself too busy to play at all over every weekend in April. On top of that I'm going on vacation for two weeks next weekend so I won't have any time then to play, either.
I've got my list of the next five games to play after The Cave, so when I get back and settled, hopefully I can get back on top of things and keep ahead of the posting schedule as I originally had hoped.
See you again in about a month!
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Playthrough 006: The Cave
The sixth game I will be playing through is The Cave.
The Cave is a puzzle platformer released on January 23rd, 2013. Developed by Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions, The Cave was created by Ron Gilbert, who also created Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games on PC in the early '90s.
I bought The Cave in the summer of 2013 as part of the Amazon Sega Fun Pack which was a promotional deal with several other Sega published games including PC ports of Jet Set Radio and NIGHTS: Into Dreams.
I loved the Monkey Island games when I was younger, and though I never got into Maniac Mansion I understand that The Cave has a similar game mechanic to MM where you have a pool of protagonists to choose from but each time you go into the game you can only select up to three.
We'll see how far I get in three hours spelunking in The Cave!
The Cave is a puzzle platformer released on January 23rd, 2013. Developed by Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions, The Cave was created by Ron Gilbert, who also created Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games on PC in the early '90s.
I bought The Cave in the summer of 2013 as part of the Amazon Sega Fun Pack which was a promotional deal with several other Sega published games including PC ports of Jet Set Radio and NIGHTS: Into Dreams.
I loved the Monkey Island games when I was younger, and though I never got into Maniac Mansion I understand that The Cave has a similar game mechanic to MM where you have a pool of protagonists to choose from but each time you go into the game you can only select up to three.
We'll see how far I get in three hours spelunking in The Cave!
Saturday, April 1, 2017
March Game Purchases
Sorry for another week delay in the regular posts. I was part of a 50-hour comedy marathon fundraiser from Friday night through Sunday night, March 31st to April 2nd, with about 9 hours of load-in starting Thursday night.
Here are the games that I bought in March:
Here are the games that I bought in March:
The Humble Jumbo Bundle 8
- Valhalla Hills
- Legends of Eisenwald
- Journey Down 1 + 2 Bundle
- Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide
- Jotun
- Turmoil
- Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan
- Void Destroyer
- The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy
Square-Enix Spring Surprise Box 2017
- Murdered: Soul Suspect
- Dungeon Siege III
Free Games
- Dropzone - PC Gamer online drawing
- Speed Kills - IndieGala giveaway
- AX:EL - Air XenoDawn - IndieGala Giveaway
- Lichdom: Battlemage - BundleStars online drawing
- Reverse Crawl - PC Gamer online drawing
The Square Enix Spring Surprise Box 2017 was a huge disappointment, the Surprise Boxes are advertised as $10 for "$80 worth of games" but you don't know the games until they are revealed a week after they stop selling the bundle. The two games in the list are the only two I didn't already own. The other three are: Hitman Absolution Elite Edition (basically w/ all DLC), The Last Remnant, and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. It is my understanding that this is the first Surprise Box without a Final Fantasy title since they started this bundle offer at Christmas and Easter a couple years ago.
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