Category: First Impression

The Town of Light
by LepcisMagna

There are walking simulators and then there are walking simulators.  The Town of Light is an exploration of a mid-century sanitarium.  It might have been an interesting, contemplative experience except for one thing – the thing that can be the downfall of any walking simulator: a slow walking speed.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten out of my chair after playing a video game and thought “Wow!  I walk so fast!  It’s great!”.  Certainly, I do like my DOOM “walking faster than Usain Bolt running” speed, but this is the first time I’ve actually felt like my brain was moving in slow motion because getting from point A to point B was so

 

 

painfully,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tediously,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

laboriously,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ponderously,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

excrutiatingly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

slow!

 

Beyond that, there are even times that the limited control a walking simulator is taken away – you can’t actually turn around, you can’t even look away from the 20 degrees in front of you – which makes me wonder why it wasn’t just a cutscene.  I do understand that this is meant to be an exploration of deep psychological issues, but the way to represent that would be to make your choices meaningless (turning around doing the dream-like running thing), not to pretend you still have control.  And so I add another game to Tier Four – for reasons that were entirely preventable.

Neon Drive
by LepcisMagna

Even if it is pretty, Neon Drive is just a prettier version of BIT.TRIP Runner.  It has a few improvements – you get one free mistake and only rewind to the last checkpoint (of which there are more).  But in the end, it’s just another game requiring perfection and no human creativity.  Which is sad, because it has a fantastic aesthetic.

Steam link

Illuminascii
by LepcisMagna

The promise of this game is pretty good: you are slowly waking up to a global conspiracy of some sort, in a 3D ASCII-inspired world.  Unfortunately – unless I’m missing something – waking up consists of finding floating purple things and right-clicking on them.  It’s…less than entertaining – just the same few pieces randomly placed again and again.  I wanted to like this, but there just isn’t anything there.  Tier Three.

Steam link

Girls Like Robots
by LepcisMagna

In Girls Like Robots, you must place girls, robots, nerds, cows, and more on a grid while keeping them happy on average.  Girls like robots (as you might expect) and dislike nerds.  Nerds dislike nerds, but like corners and girls.  Robots like girls but no more than three at a time.  Cows…have their own thing.

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Pathos
by LepcisMagna

Nethack and Dwarf Fortress are known as some of the toughest games around – both for their unforgiving gameplay (the former being an expanded version of the actual Rogue…kinda), their remarkably complex rule sets, and for their occasionally impenetrable user interface.  Roguelikes probably deserve an entire article on their own on any self-respecting games review site…okay…new article idea.

Anyway – in an attempt to make Nethack more accessible (or at least have a user interface that clues you in a bit more to the rules underlying the game), Pathos was born.  Perhaps it loses a bit by showing you the statistics and cluing you in to what actions you can take – and I’m pretty sure the food randomization was tweaked.  My only real complaint is that it handles boundaries poorly – sometimes you won’t be able to see the other side of a room until you enter the tile right next to the edge of the screen.  But in the end, it’s the first version of Nethack I’ve been able to play on the go, on my iPad, without slowly losing the will to live.  Someday, I will ascend.

Link

SimplePlanes
by LepcisMagna

I can see why this game attracted my attention.  You design a plane and then fly it.  Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough “simulator” to this plane simulator for my taste.  It feels just a little too simple.  Maybe that’s okay – but coming from X-Plane, it feels lacking, so it must go to Tier Three.

Steam link

…oh.  It’s a mobile game.  Never mind – it would be great on a mobile device.

Semispheres
by LepcisMagna

Though it looks like it’ll be on the short side, Semispheres is a fun little puzzle game based around two versions of the same map with different item and enemy placements.  The brilliance is that each side can interact with the other, allowing for a back and forth that makes you think about each side simultaneously.  It’s a fun game, and I’ll likely come back to it eventually – Tier Two.

Steam link

Secrets of Rætikon
by LepcisMagna

In Secrets of Rætikon, you play a bird.  I’m not actually sure of the plot beyond that, other than you fly about collecting triangles.  The trouble is, I’m just not sure what this game is supposed to accomplish – other than sounding suspiciously like “retcon”.  I mean, it’s kinda pretty… but there’s no plot, no beautiful soundtrack, no difficult to master mechanics – just flying and triangle-collecting.  It’s not bad (though the “you can’t fly above this point” line is annoying), it’s just entirely mediocre.  Tier Three – play William and Sly or its sequel for free instead.

Steam link

rymdkapsel
by LepcisMagna

rymdkapsel is a strange cross between Tetris, tower defense, and a base building game.  It’s a pretty simple game, but I think it was well worth the hour or so I played.  It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it is and what it does, it does well.

You start out building a small station out of Tetris blocks to house your minions and defend against an onslaught of red floaty things.  Inevitably, you find some strange monoliths which give you powers.  That’s pretty much the entire game, so there isn’t much more to say.  Still, I will be coming back for NG+ on some lazy Sunday afternoon, I think.  Tier One.

Steam link

Star Wolves
by LepcisMagna

I’ve loved space games ever since Homeworld.  Unfortunately, Homeworld is pretty much the only good 3D RTS space game (I could never get into Nexus: The Jupiter Incident).  Don’t even try with Sins of a Solar Empire – if ships fly around in a plane, the game is space themed, not a space game.  Star Wolves is somewhat in the middle – there is no definite, flat play area, but the levels seem to be designed without thinking in three dimensions.  Homeworld had a bit of the same problem, so we’ll see if Star Wolves can hold up to the original 3D RTS in other ways.

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