MMO that isn't an MMO (Wayfinder) Interesting one this - it's about £2.50 on Steam at the moment, and is essentially a game where a publisher backed out and the devs decided to release it anyway. They retrofitted a single/3 player co-op game into what was going to be a microtransaction hell MMO (or maybe something more akin to Destiny/Anthem, with a hub world full of people and then raids with smaller groups into the world to collect items).
It's very much Videogame The Videogame - the plot looks AI generated and the graphics are the sort of pleasant cartoonish thing that runs well on a potato. It has action style RPG combat, a bit like the last Dragon Age. But…. I've been finding it quite fun to play. It feels a bit like a ghost world at times (there's a massive tavern in the hub world that I'm sure they expected to be filled with players, but now feels a bit like a Weatherspoons in Hull on a Tuesday morning). I even think they've stolen the font from another game. The combat though…. I like it. It's fast paced, 3rd person action adventure hack and slash, and each of the 3 characters is satisfying to play. It also doles out XP and upgrades at the same rate Splatoon Raiders does, which I enjoy.
For £2.50 it's sort of fun. And also, quite interesting spotting the seams, retooling and promise that might've been there (not a lot, but some, maybe).
I'm really enjoying Splatoon Raiders still. it's as if someone has distilled the bloat of Borderlands into a game you can play in tiny little blasts. I do find myself coming back to it a lot, as you can go through an entire level, grab some loot and then rebuild your character in about 15 minutes. It's incredibly respectful of your time.
Ahhh, that would be it.
I must admit, I'm now totally checked out on all things superhero, apart from the Robert Downy Jr not being Ironman or something in the new Avengers film. I think what broke me were the three Spiderman movies which all had a very similar name and the need to watch shows about the Hulk's third cousin on Disney Plus to have any idea what was going on. Oh, and Ant Man, which was shite.
It it an anniversary or something as I've had loads of XMen clips on the socials.
Early superhero stuff is a hard watch now after the later stages of the Marvel stuff, which was finessed and buffed to a shine. With extra quips. I wonder if the modern stuff will date quite as much.
A few PLAYZ
My quest for a game to compete with Monster Train 2 turned up at recent release Lootbound. A pixel art, turn based Hades-like. I was sold by adverts that it was more dice-based. it isn't really (there are dice, but only used sparingly). It's nice looking, but a little like Slay takes too long to get going for me. I'm in the meh camp at the moment. It also features text too small to really read on a portable - which is annoying.
More successfully Cobalt Core at least nails something a bit more interesting mechanically. Another pixel art, turn-based card game, this time themed a bit like Starfox (in space with talking animals). Great script (genuinely quite amusing) and mechanically interesting - using cards to do ship to ship combat. Only issue so far is, possibly it seems a bit easy. And I can't see really where the really deep builds will come from. But pleasantly surprised.
Strange Jigsaws this was recommended on rllmuk as a MUST BUY. I think a lot ofyou here would like it. But, unfortunately after two puzzles my game is bugged and I can't proceed. I've solved a puzzle but the game doesn't recognise it. It's a bug the dev knows about, so I may be waiting for a patch on this one. It's essentially a meta-jigsaw puzzle game, that pushes the fringes of what a jigsaw can be. Requires lateral thinking and leaps of deducation. Only about 2 quid, so if it sounds like your thing, give it a look.
Tetris Forever a sort of love letter to Tetris, with documentaries and then a selection of games across the history of the game. It's a bit like a puff piece, and they haven't got the licence for any of the better versions of the game, but for what's there it was quite interesting to play a few of the versions I'd never tried.
cavalcade