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Seeing as Steam Next Fest ends about 12 hours from now, I’d like to describe / review some demos I’ve played over the week. Hopefully, at least some of these games haven’t been mentioned before, apologies for bumping the thread:
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No, I’m not a Human: Easily my favorite demo of Steam Next Fest. The game presents a kafkaesque scenario in which you must let in humans, but keep out “Visitors” from your own home. The game is intentionally (and consistently) ugly, in a way where even the humans are ugly. The game has a collage like aesthetic, much like the creepy Nickelodeon show Angela Anaconda. This is my favorite type of horror (eerie and weird!), all without resorting to cheap methods like jumpscares. Aspects of the demo are randomized, so there’s lots of replayability.
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Bloodthief: Oh man. As a fan of games like Dusk, Ultrakill, Celeste, and Super Meat Boy, this is a game that was made for me. It’s like a precision platformer in first person with hack and slash elements… I am going to spend a lot of time on this when it comes out lol
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Ball x Pit: basically Atari breakout combat (against tetris shaped enemies) with roguelike elements. Also, you craft and build outside of combat. I’m interested to see how these different genre elements will play out in the final release.
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Bits & Bops: Beautiful rhythm based game, thats fun, charming, and family friendly. Apparently a spiritual successor to Rhythm Heaven, which I have not played. Has a native Linux build. I encountered some bugs (the game would sometimes freeze when transitioning from tutorial to game, or restarting a stage)
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Project Arrow: Puzzle platformer with some precision platforming elements and combat (involving a bow and arrow). Adorable cat protagonist. Synthwave soundtrack, plays great with mouse and keyboard.
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The Adventures of Sir Kicks A Lot: Surprisingly deep immersive sim with hack and slash elements. Despite the Minecraft aesthetic, the animations are surprisingly fluid and funny at times. There’s some DNA of Dishonored and Thief in here, where you are rewarded for creativity.
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Kity Builder: Simply adorable. It’s a calm game in which you are free to build on a remote island. In fact, there are no limits: you do not have to gather resources, farm materials, or grind to build. You can also place as many buildings as you like (and you have to, to get around the island)
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Dispatch: Surprising depth to the hero dispatch mechanics. Funny cutscenes (although the humor might not be for everyone). Cutscene interactions remind me of the Telltale games (to be expected, since some of the employees worked on this). Has a star studded cast that makes it feel like you’re playing a high budget TV show
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Platypus Reclayed: Remake of older 2004 game. Side scrolling ship shoot-em up with hi-res clay models, and has 2 player local coop. Pretty fun.
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Evolve Lab: Async multiplayer rougelite in which you (auto-) battle sea creatures that you can upgrade between rounds. Pretty fun for the small amount of time I played
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Forestrike: Roguelite martial arts game in which each battle can be rehearsed infinitely in your character’s mind (before actually trying it in the real world). You are encouraged to rehearse extensively, since what happens in a real world fight (like getting hit, or having a hostage die) is permanent in your run. An interesting, political story is teased in the demo.
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Pigface: Very dark, gritty immersive sim in which you play as an assassin, taking contract jobs. Atmosphere almost feels like Manhunt, although not quite as dark. Feels more like a PS2 game than PS1. AI could use some work but the potential is definitely there.
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Wander Stars: Animation and character designs are an obvious love letter to DBZ. Gameplay is turn based combat, where you arrange words to create your attack. You know how in anime they shout words before their attacks? The combat is literally that lol. Note that it’s a roguelite so dieing puts you at the beginning of a map (or forces you to load). I’m somewhat mixed on this structure (for this type of game), but we’ll see how it goes when the game releases.
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Öoo: Cute puzzle platformer and metroidvania where the title looks like the main character lol. You use bombs to break obstacles and reach certain areas.
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Ratatan: Rhythm based roguelite where you command a small group of creatures to fight bosses and other enemies. It definitely has a “kawaii” aesthetic, so not for everyone. Overall really fun
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The Drifter: Point and click game with an interesting story and great voice acting. I won’t mention more, to avoid spoiling the story
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Demonfo: The only VN on my list. It is also a point and click game. Interesting story that kind of reminds me of Urban Myth Dissolution Center. Surprisingly funny, at times.
Special mentions:
- Undermine 2 and Neon Abyss 2: I’ll be honest, I thought these were only ok as singleplayer experiences. However, they look like they might be fun games to play in online coop.
Judero lookin’ asses
(Judero is actually an amazing game and a work of art. Go play it, if you like the idea of a game made fully in clay + spare pieces laying around the creator’s house)
Linda Cubed Again, for the Playstation 1. It’s a Japanese RPG released in 1997, with an English fan translation released last year (after 10 years of work!)
I was surprised by some of the systems implemented in the game: a working bank system, some locations change over time, dynamic weather with effects on the environment (i.e. rainfall can flood lower levels of caves), and more.
There’s a youtube video that goes over the story, but overall I’d say it’s a pretty solid pokemon-like that deserves more attention. I should mention that the game is pretty dark and features a lot of taboos. The github link describes them in a content warning section, in case you want to try it for yourself
A couple times in Linda Cubed Again. The game’s next objectives are told to you by characters, or through the in-game voicemail system.
However, there is no “current quest” screen so if you take a break from the game, you can easily forget where you left off.
Also, it doesn’t help that the game was only released in Japan (and fan translated only recently) so there’s not a lot of walkthroughs you can follow.
Are the two DLCs not included and integrated into Mankind Divided?
First one is: after spending a few months as a pre-order exclusive it was added in a free update.
Human Revolution’s DLC was also my favorite part of the game, although I felt that it hurt the pacing of the original game’s story. That said, it did set up plot points for Mankind Divided (and its missing second half / last third). Still hurting over the incomplete story…
Bioshock: Agreed. I think you’ll like it, then
Yakuza: I heard the same about Kiwami 1 and 2 having some extra content… although I really don’t remember what it is so that probably says how tiny/unimportant that extra content is lol.
As for the frankly mediocre Yakuza 3 and ok 4-5:
While Yakuza 3 is rough, it becomes a cakewalk once you learn how the AI works. It also has a nice change of scenery. 4 and 5’s stories are bloated, but you could always rush through them. Those last two games have combat almost as good as 0 and have some fun minigames.
It seems like you’ve heard everything about Mankind Divided. The other thing is that the first two DLC should have been included in the game. The first one is forgettable, the second one is decent.
In hindsight, I think imsim is the wrong genre name for Bioshock 1 or 2. I wasn’t sure how to word it, but I guess I mean that you’ll definitely see a difference in pacing and overall gameplay compared to Infinite.
Yakuza: So while this is my favorite series, I don’t want to ignore its flaws. I tried replaying the PS2 games recently and they were way too clunky and miss a lot of quality of life features that the sequels / remakes have. Honestly, I would just skip the PS2 games and substitute them with Kiwami.
The original saga is every numbered game from 0 - > 6. The consensus (which I agree with) is that 0 is the strongest one in this saga. Also, ending the saga with 6 sets up 7 (Like a Dragon) pretty well. Also, Judgement takes place between 6 and 7, although this series doesn’t reference Yakuza that much (and vice versa)
There are a couple of orders that make sense
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Kiwami -> Kiwami 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> 0 (end of original saga, wrapping back around to prequel game. Ends the saga with a bang)
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0-> Kiwami -> Kiwami 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 (Chronological order, which is what I did. Starts with a bang but tapers off, and nose dives on 3. Gets better as it gets closer to 6, though)
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Kiwami -> Kiwami 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 ->0 -> 6 (what I wish I did, probably would have given 6 a lot more emotional weight)
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and then there’s release order (ew): 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 0 -> Kiwami -> 6-> Kiwami 2
We live in the future so maybe don’t pick that one lol
Cyberpunk: I see. I played the Witcher 3 (and all of its DLC) so my expectations seem to be inline with what you said. I’ll check it out when it’s on sale. I tend to take breaks from games that are thematically similar, so I’ll check it out after I’ve “recovered” from Mankind Divided (more on that later)
Ghost of Tsushima: Yeah I played parts of it during a Playstation Premium sale and felt no regrets dropping it. I had the impression that it would be ok, but definitely not worth 60 hours of my time.
Metro: Similar viewpoints on the Metro series. I’d say get to Exodus when you are ready. It was on my waitlist for about 2 years.
Mankind divided: It seems the consensus online is that Human Revolution is overall better than Mankind Divided, but Mankind Divided is better gameplay wise. Personally, I liked Mankind Divided more than Human Revolution, although the former has its fair share of flaws. I can go into them if you want, although personally I think its better to just play it and form your own thoughts on it. Personally, I made peace with the flaws and accept the game for what it is. (Also, its “A Criminal Past” DLC is amazing and highly replayable)
Bioshock infiinite: It’s been a few years since I played this, but from what I remember its a solid action shooter. It’s not so much an immersive sim like the previous entries. Go into it with the right expectations and it’s a fun time.
Yakuza: My special interest series, lmao. I have played most games. However, I have not played Infinite Wealth, nor the spinoff games (Man Who Erased His Name, Pirate Yakuza in hawaii, Samurai games, or zombie spinoff). I’ve also played the Judgement series, which feels like Yakuza meets Ace Attorney. As for which to start with… that’s tricky. I played the original Yakuza back in 2004 (with Mark Hamil’s joker voice acting for Majima), took a 15+ year hiatus from the series, returned to the series with 0, and then binged most of the mainline games during covid lmao.
I still need to check out Cyberpunk 2077. I held off due to its launch but apparently the game is in a much stronger state now. Glad to hear that the level design is solid.
This is a great example of the game design sickness Ubisoft inflicted upon the world with the success of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. It’s released right in the window where that was all the rage, and this is absolutely peak Ubisoft Open World^TM. But that trend held for far too long - I’ve leveled that criticism against even titles as recent as Ghost of Tsushima.
YES. I also dropped Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Far Cry 4 for the same reason. Like the formula “works” for a mass audience, but man does it just not work for me anymore.
At this point, give me well thought-out level designs. If I want emergent gameplay and natural discovery, I will play any of the well-received immersive sims like Dishonored or Deus Ex.
Also, unrelated, but have you played Metro Exodus? The game is roughly 50% open world, 50% linear. The open world levels feel natural, and the linear levels are well thought out. I feel like the game was smart about rewarding players who chose a non-lethal playstyle as well. The consequences of being a murder machine are baked into the story and gameplay outcomes, in a way that makes sense.
Back in 2012, I only heard about Sleeping Dogs through word of mouth. Perhaps the marketing was really poor?
Gameplay-wise, I agree. It starts off pretty solid but once you get further, much of the open world feels samey and the missions start to include too much shooting, imo. That, and I didn’t really gel much with the melee combat after a couple of hours, but it seems like I’m in the minority on that. Finally, I feel like a lot of open world games at the time had a similar “formula”; they had many icon activities on the map, which were more-or-less duplicates of themselves.
I’ll focus on the positives, because there definitely were some: Absolutely agree on the graphics. There’s parts of the map that are pretty scenic (beach areas, city areas with more trees and vegetation), and night time looks amazing. Graphics wise it’s hard to believe it came out 13 years ago. I liked the music selection and I also thought the driving physics were pretty neat. Also, I liked that there were many things to buy, so cash isn’t just some point system.
Somewhat unrelated, but in your original post you mentioned losing immersion by the amount of killing you do in Sleeping Dogs. Have you played Metro Exodus? I feel like that game was smart about rewarding players who chose a non-lethal playstyle.
I played the game a few months ago and agree with everything you said, including the final rating of the game.
I’m wondering if you have the same takeaway as me or if you have a different view: perhaps it would have been better to play this game when it came out? At the time, the only recent GTA-likes were GTA IV (overall serious, almost a simulator), and Saints Row 4 (over the top, very arcadey). Sleeping dogs was somewhere in the middle of those two.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04
Unfortunately this is the best you can do with Ubuntu based systems
I tried playing these games for the first time a few weeks ago and I gotta say: 1-3 aged like milk. Most praise for those games is just nostalgia / there wasn’t anything else like it at the time
I recommend skipping straight to 4. If you’re strapped for time, skip to Lost Legacy which takes place right before 4’s epilogue.
Those games are fairly self contained except for a few references here and there. Hope this helps
haha look, I love reading and writing (and wished the whole world did, too), but either way if you need to deliver a message to as many people as possible, then you need to meet them where they’re at. In the case of advocacy work, it’s irresponsible to try to do everything on your own terms without considering your audience’s needs and preferences.
As for why people prefer videos and audio? Some guesses: its less effort, people have been conditioned through tiktok / short form content to keep consuming from the content machine, the growth of the attention economy, etc. Honestly I feel more pity than I do contempt.