A Green Mushroom

This is the last of the games I picked up on the Steam Summer Sale that I've been sampling.  It's kind of a mixed bag for me. I typically like South Park's modern episodes and I thought Stick of Truth might be like them but instead it relies a lot on the crude humor and in-jokes of South Park which are kind of the weakest part of the show. The combat system is decent enough and the base of the game is structured like a typical RPG.  But, that's one of my problems... it's just typical.  It doesn't do a lot to break genre conventions or add something new to the game.  The only unique thing about it is that it has a South Park skin slapped on top of it. And that's just not enough for me right now.  Maybe some day I'll come back to this game but not right now.  That being said, if you're a huge fan of South Park I bet you would really like this game.  If you're more of a casual viewer like me... not so much.

This has been one of the biggest hits for me that I picked up in the summer Steam Sale. Chroma Squad is basically Power Rangers behind the scenes of the show but as a turn based strategy game.  Your squad breaks off from the main show and forms their own studio.  You get to start making episodes of the show and it's hilarious. It includes all sorts of RPG mechanics like buying new gear, crafting, and upgrading.  Along with this are some unique things like studio upgrades, marketing agencies, and growing your fans to get a bigger audience watching the show. Battles are fun not just because the core of the turn based strategy is solid but also because you always get "Director Notes" of certain things you should do in battle to make for a better show which will in turn get you a bigger audience.  It's actually a really fun mechanic that pushes you to complicate battles while having fun with it. As of writing this I'm a little past the first chapter of the...

This is another game that came highly recommended so I picked it up on Steam sale.  Unfortunately, this was another flop for me. I think the underlying systems could actually be interesting but the theme is so depressing that I just don't want to spend my time in the game. Making prisons for inmates is dreary and sad. So, if you can get over the theme and aesthetic this game might be for you.  But, if you're like me and find it off-putting then just skip this one completely.

Twilight Struggle is consistently rated as one of the best board games on Board Game Geek so when I saw it for cheap in the Steam Summer Sale I grabbed it and thought it would be a good one to try out. It turns out this game is super complicated and not at all user friendly.  I didn't even make it through the tutorial before I was extremely bored and just completely done with the game. It seems like this is a game that you need a friend to sit down and teach you rather than a tutorial.  Maybe it's better as a board game too?  I dunno.  But trying to learn this on my own through the videogame version of the game was just and exercise in frustration.

I've been messing around with Tabletop Simulator a bit since I picked it up on the summer Steam sale.  It's a really cool product. Basically, you can use your mouse and keyboard to interact with tabletop pieces with other people online.  In doing so you can essentially recreate a ton of tabletop games. It's been fun just messing around with it, but the real reason I got it is because they're slowly patching in HTC Vive support and that's really the way I want to play this game.  I want to be in VR and able to reach out with my hand to interact with the table.  I want to walk around the tabletop looking at the mini animated figures while playing a tabletop RPG. I think it has a ton of potential to be cool, especially for adults since getting schedules lined up for a tabletop night of gaming is super difficult.

The Long Dark was a surprising hit for me.  I don't normally like survival games but this one set such an amazing atmosphere and truly made me feel like I was in the Canadian wilderness. I do wish it had a story mode and also a tutorial but I suppose it is still in early access.  Being thrown into the wild with no real instructions was also fascinating in it's own way, although I really do think a tutorial is called for. Anyway, the goal as far as I can tell it is to survive as long as possible while exploring the surrounding around.  They have a bunch of different sandbox areas set up and you can pick which one you want to start in.  Like many survival games you have a bunch of meters, in this case hunger, temperature, tiredness, and thirst.  You have to make sure none of them fall too low for too long, otherwise you lose. I'm not sure why this survival game held my attention for awhile when most of them I bounce right off of.  I'm really excited...

This is one of the games I grabbed in the summer steam sale for less than five bucks. In Catlateral Damage you are a cat and you have to knock things onto the floor.  That's it, that's the game. It's a first person viewpoint and you just get to be a jerk of a cat.  It's fun enough for what it has to offer.  It does exactly what you would think it would do. If being a jerk cat sounds like fun for you check this one out.

Sunless Sea is a game that got a ton of praise when it came out last year.  It finally fell enough in price that I picked it up in the latest Steam sale. It's a narrative driven game in the vein of Fallen London.  Fallen London is a free browser based story driven game that I got fairly heavily into for about a month a year or two ago.  Sunless Sea is actually created by the same team and with the same engine as Fallen London and it shows. It's basically Fallen London with more gameplay elements tacked on top.  There's a ship that you navigate around the sea while having to manage your crew, inventory, and combat.  It's a smoother and more engaging version of the free Fallen London game that's been available for awhile. My problem is that I got my fill of Fallen London when I dove deep into that game a few years back.  This feels like playing it again.  It's an interesting game and the sea is fun to explore... but I've already gotten my fill ...

Continuing with my new Steam game impressions is The Escapists. I like the premise of this game.  You're an inmate and you need to escape a prison.  There are different difficulties for different levels of prison.  It seems like there are quests, routines, items to buy and sell, and some light crafting.  I really like the premise of this game. I played through a couple levels but on PC I had a lot of frustration with the controls.  It's not intuitive at all when to use which click or how to interact with different types of objects. I think I would much rather be playing this game with a controller.  Sadly, it doesn't support a controller on PC so I can't play the way I want to.  I bet this would even control better on a touch screen. At this point I've basically been striking out on all the games I grabbed on the Steam sale.  I'm mostly ok with that.  I picked up all these games on the cheap for just this reason.  I knew that...

Subnautica is another game I picked up in the latest Steam sale.  I had overheard some people talking about it and the general impression I came away with was that Subnautica is a game about underwater exploration. It starts out with you crashing on an alien water planet and basically just tells you to go. I was really excited to splash into the water and start swimming around to discover new life and strange oddities. What I actually found is an underwater game with a limited oxygen meter that is channeling the crafting mechanics of Minecraft.  I've done enough Minecraft style crafting for one lifetime... I don't really need to do it in any other game again. Granted, Subnautica is still in early access and things could change.  As it stands it isn't a game I want to play.  But if they make a mode with no oxygen meter and free exploration of an underwater realm then I'll jump back in and have fun exploring.

Ori and the Blind Forest is another game I grabbed during the Black Friday Steam Sale. It's a beautiful platformer with great sound design.  It set a mood and made me feel for the characters within the first ten minutes.  It seems like it has high production values and offers a lot for platformer fans. I'm coming to realize that I may have played so many platformers in my life that I'm not nearly the fan I used to be.  I'll still sit down and love all my time with a new Mario game... but beyond that I'm finding the genre less and less interesting.  Everything feel derivative and samey. That's how I feel about Ori and the Blind Forest.  I can tell intellectually that it's a really good platformer with fantastic art direction and a story to tell.  My problem is that moment to moment it's not doing much for me in the gameplay. I'm going to set this one aside and if I'm ever in the mood for a solid platformer that's not Mario I'll...

I picked up a couple new Steam games in the Steam sale over Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  At this point I have almost all the Steam games I want, I just keep indie oddities on my wishlist so if they drop low enough I can grab them on the cheap. Titan Souls is the first one of the games in this category that I grabbed in the latest sale. The basic premise of the game is that you are given one arrow to shoot (and retrieve), one point of health, and one hit kills.  One hit on your character will instantly destroy you but  one arrow in the right spot at the right time will kill a boss too. It makes for an interesting dynamic.  The entire game is made up of boss fights and the open world spaces between them.  In a big way it reminds me of the structure of Shadow of the Colossus. Bosses are scary and imposing at first while you figure out their weakness and their patterns.  Then you think you've figured it out but can't quite execute the kill correc...

I went back to Fallout 3 for the first time since 2008!  The announcement of Fallout 4 got me really excited for the Fallout universe again, so I decided to revisit this game.  I loved it when it first came out in 2008, but I only played it for a few weeks before beating it and moving on. How does it hold up today? Well, it's pretty good, but not fantastic.  Everyone is so wordy.  The dialogue system breaks me out of the immersion in the world every single time I enter a conversation.  That's easily my biggest gripe.  But the tone and the world building in Fallout 3 are amazing.  They're still spot on.  The graphics are fine, not as sharp as modern day, but totally acceptable.  The combat is still fun and well done.  The VATS system is a joy. Really, the game just holds up well, even after 7 years. This time I played way differently than I normally do. In a normal game I go down every speech path, try to talk my way out of ...

The only game I paid more than a few dollars for on the Steam Sale a few weeks ago was Europa Universalis IV. I started it up and within five minutes I knew it had been a mistake buying it.  The premise and description had gotten me intrigued, but the reality of the game was much too complex to be fun for me.  It was overwhelming and I knew I wouldn't like it. So, I did my first Steam refund.  I just went to the support page, requested a refund, gave my reason as "Game is not fun" and went on my way. Within a few days I had all the money refunded.  It was super easy.  I chose to put all the money into my Steam wallet since I know I'll use it eventually, but there was also an option to refund to credit card. I was super impressed with the new Steam refunds.  I think this will actually end up getting me to buy more games to try since I know I can return them as long as I play them for less than two hours.  It's awesome!

Woah, blast from the past. I had never tried out Fallout 1 and 2 before this, but since they were so cheap on the Steam Sale I grabbed them to take a look. My history with the Fallout franchise is that I played Fallout 3 to completion right when it released (2008 I think?) and that's all I've done with the franchise.  I liked my time with Fallout 3, but it never felt as mindblowing to me as it did to others.  That being said, I'm really excited to get my hands on Fallout 4 later this year. Anyway, Fallout 1 and 2 are kind of interesting.  They nail the tone of the Fallout universe perfectly, even though they're really old games at this point.  The tone is just spot on. But, the gameplay in these two games is essentially unplayable by modern standards.  It's brutal to try to do anything in these games.  They appear to be running on the same engine, and it doesn't hold up to my current standards.  I tried each game for about half an hour befo...

It seems like this week's posts are turning into "What did I buy in the Steam Sale?" posts, but that's ok. I tried out Battleblock Theater, since it's another game I picked up for very little money in the Steam Sale. It's from the same developer that made Castle Crashers, which is a fantastic game.  I think I was expecting something of the same caliber. I didn't find it.  Battleblock Theater is a fairly forgettable platformer.  I've played so many platformers in my lifetime, it's a genre that I absolutely love when it's done well, so a platformer needs to either be Mario or something unique that blows me away to get my attention.  This is not that.  This is generic and has loose controls. I didn't love this game, so away it will go into the "Games I'm Done With" folder in Steam.  At least I barely paid anything for it.

Monaco is another game I picked up for super cheap in the last Steam Sale.  I had played a little bit of it when it originally came out on Xbox 360 and just remembered that I found the premise interesting. I found the same thing again this time.  It's basically a heist game with super simple controls.  You move with one analog stick and use special items with the A button.  That's it. And each character gets a special power.  Maybe you can see further than your other partners.  Or unlock locks faster.  Or knock out guards if you sneak up on them.  It adds variety and pushes you to work as a team. I really think this game was designed to be played with a full team of 4 people.  It's an interesting premise when I'm playing it single player but I feel like the game would truly shine if I had 4 people to play local co-op with. I'm going to put this one away in my backcatalog and keep it in mind for local multiplayer in the future.

I picked up Halo Spartan Assault for a few bucks when it was on the Steam Sale the other week.  I didn't really know anything about it, but I've had fun in the Halo universe many times in the past so I figured it couldn't hurt. Well, I played it and found a fairly mediocre twin-stick shooter.  It plays fine with either mouse+keyboard or gamepad.  It's set in the Halo universe.  You move with one stick and shoot with the other.  All the weapons and enemies are themed on Halo. And that's about all there is to it. I guess I was expecting more.  It truly underwhelmed me.  If you're a die-hard Halo fan who loves twin-stick shooters then this game is perfect for you.  If you're anyone else you shouldn't waste your money here.

Outside of major releases that I really want to grab on day one, I get most of my games during Steam sales these days.  It's amazing how fast game prices fall on PC.  Wait six months, look at the next Steam sale, and that game that was a full-price AAA title is probably half off. Which is starting to skew my perspective.  I'm not even jumping on deals like that anymore.  $30 for a $60 game that released six months ago?  Not good enough.  I can always just wait for the next Steam sale because it will probably be discounted even more. This steam sale I spent under $25.  I didn't pick up any games over $10.  That's kind of the tipping point for me now. It helps that I've purchased all the games I've been interested in during past Steam sales so I don't have a huge backlog of games I'm interested in.  But I do have something like 35 or 40 games on my Steam wishlist that I'll pick up once they fall in price. A lot of games on my wishli...

I picked up The Force Unleashed and The Force Unleashed II last a few weeks ago in the Star Wars Steam sale.  After messing around in the original game for awhile I moved on to the sequel.  It's a better game by far. I had much more fun playing around with it.  There are a ton of extra abilities and powers that are unlocked from the very beginning of the game which make it fun right away.  The controls are also tighter and the level designs are more interesting.  In all respects this seems like the superior game. I don't think there has been a long enough amount of time since I last played it.  I remember the game really well, so it wasn't as exciting as last time I played it.  And unlike when I picked up the original The Force Unleashed last week, this one doesn't have DLC that I had never played. So I'm done with The Force Unleashed II after playing with it for a few hours, but I'm leaving it on a happy note.  There's still a really go...