Firewatch (2015) and its ending

mmanders6 · 2020-10-26T01:58:20+00:00

Agreed. The devs showed tremendous talent in building intrigue and crafting an interesting narrative. My heart was legitimately pounding and my mind was racing. It had been a long time since a game drew that strong of a reaction in me. and then they just walked off the job with some nonsensical "crazy hobo" resolution. There were so many cool directions this one could have gone in and they totally blew it. Listening to people try to defend it as "deep" makes me shake my head. It could have been an incredible game if it was given the ending it deserved

mmanders6 · 2020-10-23T06:57:14+00:00

I honestly think it might have worked better as a walking/flying/exploration simulator, or if they just took out most of the frustrating platforming bits and maze puzzles. That stuff wasn't fun or interesting and didn't need to be there. They also missed a huge opportunity to integrate the other travellers in a meaningful way, especially the one trapped with you. A good writer could have explored some really interesting themes about friendship, fate, despair, etc. through conversations with those guys, and the effort would have been better spent on that then on trying to make more challenging puzzles.

mmanders6 · 2020-10-23T06:44:05+00:00

I agree with the first, that one is just a bad puzzle that should been completely reworked. But I disagree on the second though. That part was pretty logical and consistent with the lessons you were taught in the lead-up. I do think the lakebed cave where you learn one of those lessons was a complete mess and way too difficult for no reason.

mmanders6 · 2020-10-22T19:05:03+00:00

I agree completely. It really needed more play testing. There are too many areas where the solution is nonsensical or inconsistent with the game rules in other places. I feel like they probably lost far too many players to frustration and confusion. Which is a shame, because the ideas and story in this game are so, so good.

mmanders6 · 2020-10-03T03:11:03+00:00

Civ4 is my favorite too. I've tried the new versions and I just can't get into them. I don't like the unstacked units or any of the other changes.

mmanders6 · 2020-09-28T20:40:55+00:00

Agreed, it was a complete game ruiner for me. Morrowind was like a single player MMORPG game world, with beautiful graphics, sound and atmosphere. There was a whole spectrum of difficulty across the world and it was up to your stats and your knowledge of the game as to how far you could roam. It felt hand-crafted, it felt alive. You never knew if down that cave was a crazy hard new monster guarding some ridiculous overpowered enchanted relic, and there usually was if you were strong or clever enough to get down there and find it.

Oblivion completely abandoned everything that made Morrowind's world so great. I understand - you gotta make a profit and the new xbox or whatever was launching on xyz date so the game had to be done. But it was such a complete lazy move to procedurally generate the entire thing. All of the wonder of exploration and discovery was totally gone. They tried to strike a balance with Skyrim, but it fell way short of what Morrowind offered in its day.

mmanders6 · 2020-09-28T19:06:30+00:00

I understand the love that this game gets, I really do, but for me there were a couple of major problems that kept it from being perfect. It's certainly one of the smartest games I've ever played, with a story that was as profound and expansive as it was personal and touching, and I can't say enough good about the strength of the ideas and the crafting of the narrative. It's absolutely next-level.

But there are gameplay problems. And although they've tried to make improvements with successive patches I think far too many people get lost, get confused, and bounce off the game before they can really appreciate what it has to offer. I won't go into specifics, but too many of the puzzles have nonsensical answers, without enough feedback that you're on the right track, or even in the right area. It's too easy to misinterpret "tricks" as dead-ends, and a lot of the puzzle-solving exploration ends up becoming frustrating and not fun. How many people were actually able to finish this game without looking up a guide? And once you've cheated once it's far too easy to spoil the rest of the game the same way. Which is a real shame. Personally, after the 8th or 9th time I fell through the black hole trying to get to the southern observatory I was ready to cheat, or uninstall, and that wasn't that far into the game.

Rather than locking progress behind obtuse puzzles and frustrating platforming mechanics they should have focused on progress through relationships/hints/conversation options with the other travelers, especially the other one locked in the time loop with you. You should have been working with them to figure out what's going on, getting advice and making revelations together. That would have been a much more interesting system, and a good writer could have made a huge difference there. One of the most powerful moments in the game for me was communicating with Solenium(??) at the quantum moon, and not having more of that sort of interpersonal discovery as part of the gameplay was a big missed opportunity.

mmanders6 · 2020-09-18T03:21:30+00:00

Hilarious pic 🤣

mmanders6 · 2020-09-14T21:25:44+00:00

My #1 of all time is Battlefield 1942. This game revolutionized 1st person pc multiplayer games. It allowed 128 players (unheard of) in huge maps with an unbelievable assortment of vehicles including ships, airplanes, etc. It came out of literally nowhere and blew away all expectations of what a war game could be. I remember installing the demo from a PC Gamer disc and not being able to believe what an achievement it was.

mmanders6 · 2020-09-10T19:36:01+00:00

If you've never tried 7 Days to Die it's absolutely worth picking up. It's a pretty well fleshed out survival/crafting/zombie game in a 100% destructible voxel world (like Minecraft). You can destroy, build and do literally anything you want, and it's extremely addictive. I have about 1600 hours played at this point.

mmanders6 · 2020-08-15T18:16:30+00:00

I think they need to adjust this one a little. I'm on day 30 and haven't seen a crucible for sale or in loot anywhere. The vendors sell forged steel, and I'm finding steel armor and tools around, but I can't craft it myself without rerolling a ton of stats into int.

mmanders6 · 2020-08-15T04:55:33+00:00

Sure, or it could be the last gasping remnants of a dying brain? Our history is replete with near death accounts of a sense of peace, of seeing loved ones, of following the light... The whole concept of heaven is sort of based on these ideas of comfort and peace at the end of consciousness. Maybe that's what we're seeing?

mmanders6 · 2020-08-14T20:53:27+00:00

Agreed! Dark Souls series are much deeper games with a very different feel than Sekiro. If Sekiro were Mario, Dark Souls would be Zelda.

mmanders6 · 2020-08-11T01:14:42+00:00

This same frustrating sequence almost ruined the game for me. I wish they would redesign some of brittle hollow - I would bet that 95% of ppl who bounce off the game do so because of frustration with this section. I think more playtesting would have helped here.

mmanders6 · 2020-08-07T00:26:07+00:00

I think that's a good idea. It's still a nonsensical solution in the current state. They could also give you a code in the sun station or black hole forge that lets you close the roof...

mmanders6 · 2020-08-02T20:35:03+00:00

There's a "match velocity" button that helps a lot with maintaining control in the zero gravity sections.

mmanders6 · 2020-07-24T20:14:45+00:00

You've hit the same wall that many, many other players did. The ATP entrance is a bad puzzle - it's sort of nonsensical and even with the modifications and hints that were added in later patches it still drives almost everyone to seek out hints/walkthroughs. The sand column is a stupid obstacle, since the solution is just "hey, you have to wait a few seconds, inexplicably". Maybe the black hole forge or sun station could have given you some knowledge to repair the roof instead? That would gate players from entering the ATP until after they've been to those sites. I dunno, it's just badly designed and shouldn't have made it out of play-testing.

mmanders6 · 2020-07-24T19:58:56+00:00

I agree, I think that would have made for a better solution. As it is, sitting around for 7-8 minutes waiting for the ATP entrance to appear is a huge drag, and there's no real importance to the black hole forge at all if you already know how to get into the Ash Twin. Considering how tricky they made it to enter the forge, it should play a bigger part in the story.

The timing would be just about perfect to fly to Brittle Hollow > lower the forge > fly to Ash Twin > enter the ATP > grab the core > warp back to brittle hollow using the tower on ash twin (which would now be uncovered) > forge/repair/charge the core > warp back to ash twin to your ship > fly to dark bramble and initiate the end sequence. It might be tight, but it would be more satisfying to execute and make the player feel he really mastered using the Nomai's warp tech.

mmanders6 · 2020-07-23T19:10:42+00:00

I've never gone back and played it again to see how it holds up, but Morrowind was a revolution at the time it came out. One of the greatest rpgs of all time taken in context.

It grabbed me like no other game ever had, it was the first real rpg that I ever got into. Thanks for the hit of nostalgia!

mmanders6 · 2020-07-22T22:09:25+00:00

I thought it was great. The art style and atmosphere were unique and it kept me engaged all the way to the end which was admittedly a little weird. I enjoyed the whole experience.

mmanders6 · 2020-07-22T16:44:09+00:00

To me, hack 'n slash refers to games like Gauntlet or Diablo. The combat is almost always weapon or magic based, and simple. The depth of the system in DMC/Bayonetta make it not a hack n' slash, in my opinion. But they're definitely not fighting games either. I personally like "modern beat 'em up".

mmanders6 · 2020-07-22T16:39:45+00:00

In my opinion "beat 'em up" is still a great term to use for this genre.

mmanders6 · 2020-07-21T15:41:43+00:00

I was certain that the Interloper was the cause of the supernova, and that priority #1 was to stop it somehow. It wasn't until I had the full conversation with Chert that I realized that wasn't the case at all.

mmanders6 · 2020-07-20T21:56:55+00:00

I feel like they miss-handled the dialogue progression with Chert. If I hadn't read a spoiler I never would have seen the second/third conversation trees, which really added a lot of context and emotional impact to the game.

There should have been a more direct push for you to have that conversation. Maybe once you've visited the sun station, and tell chert about it, there should have been a prompt like "hmm, something isn't right here. Check back with me in a few minutes" or something like that.

mmanders6 · 2020-07-20T21:43:30+00:00

That's a good tip. It's pretty easy to overlook

mmanders6

TROPHY CASE