Gone Home

"Gone Home" was a really interesting game. It's what one might call a narrative exploration game. I'd never played one of those before, but for those who don't know what that is, it's a game where there are no enemies to fight, merely a space to explore, and a story to uncover.

You are a 21 year old girl, Katie, returning home from a year long trip to Europe. Your family has moved to a new house since you've been away, and when you arrive there for the first time, no one's home, and your sister has left a perplexing note on the door.

As you make your way through the house, you'll find notes and clues that you can piece together to figure out where the hell everybody has gone to. Like I mentioned, there are no enemies to battle in this game, there's no beasties going to jump out to scare you, but the game still manages to keep you on edge at all times. Making your way through this eerily empty house while a thunderstorm rages on outside, you fully expect something to be lurking in the shadows. Every dark room or area I entered, my first priority was to find a light to turn on. Every creak of the house kept me on high alert.

And it's surprising how compelling a game that's based on simply reading bits of paper can be. As you explore the house, you'll start getting a sense of who each character is and hypothesizing on what happened. Those hypothesis will probably be wrong, and you might get them wrong a couple times as this game is quite good on playing with your expectations.

"Gone Home" is a fairly short game, being only a couple hours long, but you'd do well not to rush through it. Entire character storylines can go over your head if you don't piece together all the data that's available. Take your time, explore everything thoroughly, and enjoy the interesting experience that these developers crafted.

Hammerwatch

I'm going to write this while my rage is still fresh.

Hammerwatch is a dungeon crawly hack and slash title that feels kind of old school NES. My opinion of it changed from "It's alright, I guess" to "Fuck you" after I beat the game. I actually wanted to quit playing numerous times and almost did after beating the first boss. At that point, I had played enough to learn what the game was about and realize that it didn't have a lot extra to offer me, but I continued because I had quitter guilt.

It's a rather simple game. You're in a dungeon. There are monsters and puzzles. Why you're there, who you're fighting, who the fuck you are...you won't find answers to these. Story driven this ain't. Kill the monsters and solve the puzzles to make your way through the dungeon. Got it? Got it. Now, I said "puzzles", but what I meant was buttons strewn about that you'll press simply by clearing each room of monsters and loot. Brain busting this also ain't.

The controls are simple. WASD moves you around, the up arrow performs your attack, and the left arrow performs your special ability. These differ depending on which class you choose: Paladin, Ranger, Wizard or Warlock.

I chose Ranger. The ranged main attack was good at picking off beasties from a distance. The general tactic was to kite a group of critters around a corner, and pew pew pew the lot of them as they so kindly line up single file to turn the corner. The main hinderance to progression was finding all the switches around the level. This was made difficult at the beginning because my screen was not cranked up on brightness. It made some of the monsters hard to see, it made switches hard to find, and I was unable to find many of the secret areas because of this. My Hammerwatch life got much better once I turned my brightness all the way up.

And thus I continued to play, though I probably shouldn't have. The entire game is very samey. You're just shooting a bunch of assholes that don't differ that greatly from one another. Murder all the dudes on 4 floors then kill a boss, murder more floors full of beasties and another boss, lather, rinse, repeat for 12 total floors until you get to the dragon.

It's after the dragon is slain that I go from apathetic to angry. The dragon is slain, huzzah! But the castle begins to crumble and I must run. I run to a passage that has opened, and there is no walkway but a series of columns that you must put planks on in order to cross. You need to have found 12 planks throughout the game or you're just fucked at this point. I found about 5 because I had no idea what those motherfuckers were for and I wasn't going to spend anymore time than I had to on each floor to find some bullshit that hadn't been useful to me the entire game. I use my 5 sad little planks and a score screen pops up saying you have slain the dragon but didn't escape the castle, here's your score. Uhh...that's it?

I look on Youtube for someone who finished the game with all the planks. They use all 12 and are then required to run through a few floors to escape as the camera shakes to say, "Hey, shit's crumbling. Nothing's really visually breaking but trust me, it's crumbling." When they reached the exit, that same score screen pops up but with no text except for their score. Great... Way to wrap that up nicely...

In summary and conclusion, suck 14,000 dicks, Hammerwatch. You were boring. I can't believe I wasted as much time as I did on you, and your ending was bad and you should feel bad.

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Back in the day, I played Baldur's Gate II on Mac but never had an opportunity to play the first one because it was only on PC. When Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition came out, it seemed like a good opportunity to fill that hole in my gaming history.

Baldur's Gate II is pretty much my favorite game, and the first one was pretty much along the lines of what I expected. Isometric RPG style that I love, focus on story, and it kept my interest like whoa. When I started out, I did every side quest and searched every inch of every map. My Labor Day weekend consisted of playing this game and only playing this game. That next day at work, my forearms hurt. I temporarily carpal tunneled myself.

This madness kind of ended after a timed quest screwed me over. In my enjoyment of every side quest and every map, I had dicked around too long, and there was a timed quest I didn't realize was counting down. One of my NPC buddies, Minsc, wanted me to rescue a woman from gnolls. After completing a bajillion side quests beforehand, I showed up to the place to rescue Dynaheir, and Minsc flipped his shit, saying I took too long. He then attacks the party. The 20 in-game hours it took to travel to that location put me over the time limit. I had to load a saved game from way before to make it in time, which made me lose a ton of playtime.

Most of that lost progress was spent on fluff, extra maps. I kind of stuck to the main quest line after that. I was paranoid that any one of my companions could have been a ticking time bomb.

It took me about 40 hours to finish, but I could have spent far more if that whole Minsc thing hadn't put a damper on my funtimes. Baldur's Gate II is still better, but this one's certainly worth the play.

Papers, Please

"Papers, Please" is surprisingly intriguing. I've never seen anything like it, and when I try to explain to people what it's about, they all think it sounds ridiculous and the opposite fun. They'd be wrong. In "Papers, Please", you are an immigration officer for the country of Arstotzka. You have to look at peoples passports and various paperwork and verify if they are fraudulent or valid, letting them in or denying them entry into the country.

Your choices affect the lives of the people you interact with. How well you do your job and what you're willing to do to make an extra buck will affect your ability to provide for your family.

My first playthrough was a disaster. I was thorough in my job at the expense of speed. Each day, you only have so many hours in the day, and it's in your best interest to go fast to process as many people as possible. You get more money the more people you process, but if you go too fast, you're going to start making mistakes. Make too many mistakes, and they'll penalize you with fines, and you might let a dangerous person through unwittingly.

My slow ass didn't make enough money to pay for heat AND food, so my family was cold and hungry and eventually sick. I had to spend what little I made on medicine, but without food and warmth, assholes still died. Eventually, wife DEAD, son DEAD, uncle DEAD, mother in law DEAD. Since I couldn't take care of my family, they assumed I couldn't be trusted to perform my work duties, so I got fired. Whoops...

The second time, I realized how important it was to make as much money as possible in order to keep my family alive, so I whored myself out at any opportunity. Detain people to get a bonus? SURE. Advertise jobs to all engineers you meet? SURE. Accept mystery money you have no idea where it came from? SURE. This was an interesting departure from my normal game playing M-O. In all games, I try to make the "right" moral decision. I'm the good guy, but here, I chose to do things that weren't very moral in order to help my family. The one I felt the worst about involved a guy trying to bribe me to let him through. He placed some money and a nice watch on the counter. I had him detained and still took his shit. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!

That particular strategy did not serve we well in the end. That mystery money got me thrown in jail, and who the hell knows what happened to my family.

This game required you to make tough decisions. Most times I needed all the money I could get. On one occasion a woman begged me not to let a certain person through that was waiting in line after her. She feared he was going to sell her into slavery. When he came to the window, all his papers checked out. Do you deny him entry and take the hit to your paycheck, risk getting fined, and lose that money you need to buy medicine for your dying son, risking his life...or do you let the guy through and endanger this frightened woman? These types of debacles are an interesting balancing act, and you'll have to make these decisions frequently.

To add moral dilemma on top of moral dilemma, this game makes you feel kind of icky about the whole process. On occasion, the potential immigrant will have a discrepancy where their gender on their ID doesn't seem to match. This requires a search, and when the nude photos that were taken pop up, it's pretty horrifying. Sometimes searches are also required if the person's weight doesn't match. Sometimes that reveals nothing. Dude probably just ate too many cheeseburgers. Other times that will reveal motherfuckers with grenades strapped to their thighs. I can't be sure and therefore I must check.

Prior to playing this game, I had never thought too much about either party involved in this kind of situation, but after playing, you can't help but look with some compassion to both sides. Things are not always black and white. There's a shit ton of grey.

Whether or not I "won" was even hanging out in this grey zone. My gauge for success was that I wasn't in jail, wasn't executed, my 5 family members that depended on me were still alive, and I get to keep working a horrible job that barely supports me. #thisshitisreallife

Pokemon 2048

I don't normally talk about mobile games here, but when one monopolizes my thoughts and time as much as this one did, it's worth mentioning.

Pokemon 2048 is a clone of a clone of a tweak of a clone. It was the theme that made me want to play this one though. The standard 2048 game is a sliding tile puzzle game where you combine like numbers together to form the square of that number. Match the numbers to make bigger numbers. Turn bigger numbers into bigger numbers until you get a tile that reads 2048.

The goal in Pokemon 2048 is exactly the same...except, you know, Pokemon. Match two Bulbasaurs to make a Ivysaur, two Ivysaurs make a Venusaur. The Bulbasaur evolution is followed by the Charmander evolution, which is followed by the Squirtle evolution, and finally the Pikachu evolution. Once you reach Raichu, you win.

My friend that's all hot for math is obsessed with the classic 2048, but turning 2s into 4s just isn't as fun to me as turning Charizards into Squirtles. Call me crazy.

It may not sound exciting but it's addictive for sure. I played it on the train, during any second of downtime at work, while eating... I am tired today because I stayed up later than I should, trying to see that elusive Raichu. It even screwed with my brain a little bit. While I was driving, I would see similar cars and match then in my mind, like that was going to make them get the hell out of my way. (Apparently my friend who likes 2048 also had this experience, so I'm not certifiable or anything.)

Today at lunch, I finally saw a Raichu.

And now I'm done.

Fairwell, Pokemon 2048. May we never cross paths again.

Prison Architect

I've just sat here for the past 5 hours, building a prison. I guess I was having fun. I'm still not quite sure.

"Prison Architect" is not the kind of game I play too much anymore, a build it and watch what happens/design on the fly type game. You build a prison, prisoners arrive at regular intervals, and you have to make room for them and fulfill their various needs or you'll have riots on your hands. It kind of reminded me of the game "Theme Park" that I used to play as a kid. There's no real end or way to win, you just keep accommodating more and more people and upgrading your facility until you get sick of it, which I have.

You have to build spaces for the prisoners to sleep, eat, exercise, visit family, etc. And as you research and unlock new abilities in your...it's not technology, but it's like a technology tree...you can build rooms in which to give medical attention, do laundry, press license plates, etc.

The game is still technically in alpha, so some of the tech tree options don't work 100% quite yet. There were some issues I ran into that I wasn't sure if it was a bug or if I just did something wrong. For example, I could never get people into my workshop to do the license plate pressing thing. I couldn't assign people to work there for some reason. Also, I could only assign 2 workers to the kitchen and laundry room when I needed to have three to fulfill the objective of one of my grants. Not sure if I needed a bigger room...or if shit was just broke.

Speaking of grants... The grants system is probably what kept me playing as long as I did. You can have two grants active at a time, and to get all the grant money, you have to fulfill the objectives outlined within it. For example, the Health and Wellbeing grant required you to build an infirmary, hire at least two doctors, and hire a psychologist. An infirmary requires medical beds and a psychologist requires an office to work out of, which has to be at least 4x4 and contain a filing cabinet, office desk, and chair. Grants kept me busy building new things.

Keeping with this example, having a psychologist opens up one of the reports tabs that was previously empty. With a psychologist, you can see what the prisoners are generally pissed about and do something about it. In my prison, everybody was pissed and fighting each other at one point, and it turned out it was because all the guys I was keeping together in a holding cell weren't getting any sleep. I was building individual cells for them, but that was taking a while. Dudes were getting cranky because the only requirements of a holding cell is a bench and a toilet. They were getting "Deadliest Catch" style sleep debt rage. I threw some beds in there, and they were happy as little clams.

Trying to complete the grant requirements keeps you moving forward and building all the various specialty rooms, and the constant inflow of prisoners keeps you building more and more cells. Kept me busy for about 8 and a half hours total.

I finally called it quits when I encountered problems with one of my grants. I had unlocked most of my research options, built most of the different types of rooms, and this grant required me to research mealtime preferences by serving a meal in which the quantity and quality of the meal both were set to low. Meal time came and went, and the objective didn't complete. I wasn't sure if it was because all the prisoners didn't get to eat it... If that was the reason, I wasn't sure if it was because my dining hall was too small and had too few tables to sit at to accommodate everyone, or if there needed to be more serving tables, or if I needed more cooks in the kitchen, or if the cooks needed more stoves, or if I needed to make the scheduled mealtime longer... There were just too many potential reasons why that mechanic was fucking up, and I had experienced enough of the game that I felt done.

"Prison Architect" is worth giving a try if you like that management/simulator style of game, but I'd probably wait until they're out of alpha to give them a chance to iron out all the kinks.

The Last of Us

Daaaamn, Naughty Dog... You're rull good at making games. "Last of Us" puts story first and accompanies it with great gameplay, excellent sound design, and it's a very pretty game for a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Like the "Uncharted" series, which Naughty Dog also makes, this game has excellent characters, writing, and voice acting. You become immediately invested in these characters and their plight.

In Last of Us, the world has basically gone to shit. Most of the population has fallen victim to infection. And those victims are creepy as fuck. They come in three flavors: Runners, Clickers, and Bloaters. Runners are the newly infected. They're quick, scream like banshee's, and if you call attention to yourself, you're likely going to get 5 of them in your face. Clickers are...well, horrible. They've been infected for a while, and as a result, they've got these crazy growths that cover up their eyes. So, good news, they can't see you, but bad news, they can hear you, and they make this awful clicking/gurgling noise to echolocate your sneaky self. It's kind of terrifying to hear a bunch of Clickers in a dark room. Fabulous sound design...I give this game so much credit for this. Stressed. Me. Out.

The third member of this creepy family are Bloaters. Giant motherfuckers...fat ass infected that huck spore bombs at you and will rip the top of your head from your jaw if they get a hold of you. It's quite unsettling.

The manner at which you deal with these baddies can be via beating the hell out of them with crowbars and such, shooting em in the face with shotguns and such, or stealth killing them via choke out or a shiv to the neck. Melee doesn't work so good against Clickers, and nothing but fire works all that well against a Bloater, so they all require different tactics, and their concentration in one area becomes a major factor with how you deal with them. Alerting any of them to your presence is generally ill advised, as they'll call all their buddies to have a go at you. So..sometimes guns are kind of a bad idea. You don't want to go wasting your ammo if you don't have to either.

Resource management is very important in this game, with ammo and with the crafting system. You can craft med kits, shivs, molotov cocktails, nail bombs, and smoke bombs to give you an added edge. You make these items by finding their components throughout the environment, and boy...do they come in handy. Molotov cocktails are my jam.

In addition to infected, you're also going to have to deal with regular folks trying to murder you too because people can be dicks. The game is very good about balancing the encounters and changing up the scenarios so you're not just constantly hiding and wetting your pants trying to evade infected. There's sneaky combat sections, there's running and gunning, there's puzzle sections, there's perfectly safe areas that you'll probably sneak around in the entire time all stressed out because paranoia, and cutscenes interspersed with some damn fine voice acting and animation. These feel like real characters going through real shit. I'm not going to go into the plot at all because spoilers, but this game will probably make you have some feels.

But the feels are worth it. Go pick it up. You will like.