ConstableJelly
@ConstableJelly@midwest.social
- Comment on I need to talk about Mouthwashing 3 days ago:
Sorry, I meant that, having not played the game, I’m not sure how much observations like Curly’s inability to see the details are something the game tells you directly and how much is your interpretation. I guess I mostly meant that your framing of the story is really cool whether you’re just repeating the story beats as they’re given or mixing in a lot of your own analysis.
- Comment on I need to talk about Mouthwashing 3 days ago:
Thanks for writing this up, never heard of the game and this was really interesting. I’m not sure how much of your write-up is explicitly textual, but the analysis is really cool.
- Submitted 1 week ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 1 comment
- Pocketpair reveals specific patents featured in Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworldwww.gamedeveloper.com ↗Submitted 1 week ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 22 comments
- Comment on Dogma at 25: How a controversial Catholic comedy became practically impossible to see 1 week ago:
A while ago, like mid-to-late aughts maybe, it was in vogue to joke about Ben Affleck being a shitty actor. I haven’t seen all his roles and granted I’m sure he’s had his duds, but the existence of the Dogma parking garage scene was always evidence enough to me that he had the chops.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of October 20th 4 weeks ago:
So close to great. I wish more developers were making environmentally detailed, high production value, single player linear games like Callisto Protocol. Just that little bit better executed to round out the total package.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of October 13th 5 weeks ago:
I played the demo up to the first couple battles just to get a taste of how that works. No question, I am very excited to get my hands on it. I’m generally a sub-$20 patient gamer, but this is one I’ll be getting sooner. I’ll still probably wait for the holiday season to see if it drops down at all because I’ve got plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of October 6th 1 month ago:
I gotta vent a little about Jedi Survivor - I really did not enjoy it much at all and am surprised it was so critically lauded. The combat aims for souls-like but is way too twitchy and glitchy to make it feel fun and rewarding. I came out of 60% of combat encounters feeling bored, 20% feeling relieved that some erratic imbalance or technical tomfoolery didn’t make me repeat it, and 10% feeling frustrated for the same reason but on the other side.
The same core issues affected the bosses too. I didn’t feel like the game earned my dedication to “solving the puzzle” the way games like Elden Ring and Returnal do.
Exploration was mostly fine in a zone-out kind of way but grew quite stale by the end, being the same vertical platforms and grapple spots on every section of every world. And the story too was just too out of focus. The whole Tanalorr thing was a late first-act development completely divorced from the course of the opening, and there was never a clear or necessary enough idea of why they wanted to get there to justify it becoming a priority to drive the story.
spoiler
By the time they were trying to chase down the last compass, they’d garnered enough attention from the raiders and the empire that it no longer felt like a hidden secret. And the fact that all Cal had to do to get there was press a button to align the arrays…how long would they have been safe on Tanalorr before the empire figured that out? It simply never felt like it was worth the trouble everyone was going to for it.
I still like the characters, but I was desperate to be done by the time I was fighting a notable turn-of-the-second-act boss, whose appearance elicited an eyeroll rather than excitement. I set the game to story mode at that point and just rushed the ending.
While that was going on though, I did play Animal Well all the way through (“layer 1” anyway), and that was extraordinary fun.
- Comment on What are the scariest games you've played? 2 months ago:
Fatal Frame has gotten lost to history a bit, but I remember those games having the reputation as being the scariest that games have ever gotten when they were new.
- Submitted 2 months ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 7 comments
- Comment on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - The First Preview [IGN] 2 months ago:
The turn-based with real-time elements reminds me of Sea of Stars and Shadow Hearts, which are both excellent titles in my mind for this game to associate itself with. Looks really flashy too with the menu, camera movement, and slowdown effects (hopefully that wouldn’t get old with too much repetition).
- Comment on GreedFall Developer Spiders Respond To Allegations 2 months ago:
Same here. Loved the setting and style, and the story and characters were admirably close to (the good) 3rd-person bioware stuff.
I don’t usually pay full price for games, but I was thinking of buying Greedfall 2 near release to support what they do. This puts a real taint on things.
- Submitted 2 months ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 3 comments
- Comment on Arkane founder says Prey and Dishonored fans ‘will be happy’ with his new game [VGC] 3 months ago:
Same, though interested is an understatement. Prey is one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. I enjoyed Weird West, but it left me feeling more like a POC of what the studio wants to do than anything up to the actual standards of Arkane’s best.
If WolfEye fills the void of Arkane’s deplorable closure, they’ll get all the support I can give.
- Comment on ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ To Tear Up The World With $360M Global Opening, Restoring Marvel Cinematic Universe Glory – Box Office Preview 3 months ago:
Deadline is a film industry trade paper, so success metrics like Box Office are of interest to it, especially insofar as those metrics guide the trajectory of industry trends.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 21st 3 months ago:
Tried The Ascent because of just how slick it looked in the previews I saw. And you’re right, the atmosphere is great. But I have a low tolerance for the looter shooter format and I don’t play much online coop, so I got real bored of it real fast.
- Comment on ‘Ballerina': Disastrous Screening for ‘John Wick' Spinoff 3 months ago:
I view the first in a vacuum because the others actually harm it
Lol I do the same thing! If I watch any of the sequels I view them essentially as fanfic. Your point about emotional payoff in the first is really good too. It’s easy to forget watching the sequels that the dramatic core of the first movie was John’s grief for his wife. The dramatic core of the sequels is little more, as I remember, than the convoluted bureaucracy and politics of John trying and failing to be left alone.
- Comment on ‘Ballerina': Disastrous Screening for ‘John Wick' Spinoff 3 months ago:
The best moment in the entire franchise is after the assassination squad is sent to his house in the first movie. I saw it in theaters and fully, unconsciously anticipated that when the police strobe lights started flashing through the windows, that we would get a tense scene of John Wick attempting to distract the cop and send him away without the bodies being discovered.
When instead he opens the door wide, and the cop casually peers past his shoulder, and just asks, “you working again?”, it’s such a delightful, comical, surprising reveal. The concept worked best when we as the audience expected the world to function familiarly, and it could playfully subvert those expectations in small ways. They dove so deep into the capital-L lore beginning in the second movie, that we no longer expected the world to function familiarly, and thereafter stopped being surprised.
The first flick is a bonified good movie. The rest are, varyingly, titillating scenes of artfully choreographed and executed action set pieces loosely strung together by indulgently juvenile nonsense.
- Comment on Box Office Grosses May Surpass Pre-COVID Levels in 2026. That’s the Good News… 4 months ago:
forecasts ad revenue to hit $1 trillion
I didn’t go to the theater for a few years due to both the pandemic and a new baby. When I did return for the first time last year, I was truly shocked at how many ads there are now at the major chains before curtain draw. It used to be ads before showtime, then trailers when the lights dimmed at showtime. Now it seems like there are just as many trailers as there were before, but intercut by an equal number of ads, so the time between showtime and actual movie start is ridiculous.
- Comment on Forget the tired franchises, a new wave of horror movies will make us jump out of our seats 4 months ago:
Best theater experience I’ve had by far was seeing The Descent on release. In that crucial mid-movie moment, the whole theater freaked out, and after things settled down I saw someone climbing back over the seat they’d apparently jumped over when it happened.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 23rd 4 months ago:
I’ve been enjoying Pacific Drive this week. It’s a great survival crafting game in the vein of Subnautica, which is to say there is a linear progression path for upgrades and improvement, and a well-defined objective and end goal.
I just wish it was less stressful. Even just the normal act of activating a gateway to end a run requires a race through your current zone where one misstep can cause you to get stuck long enough to fail. And sometimes conditions just really stack up against you in a way that can be unexpected and frustrating.
Overall though it really hits the spot with its loop. I love returning to the garage and going through the ritual of healing, fueling up, recharging, transferring supplies, and checking on upgrades.
- Comment on BOOKWORM | Official Trailer 5 months ago:
Eh…seems sweet but contrived.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 2nd 5 months ago:
I kind of love Control’s navigation. The map is helpful enough to point you in the right direction, but also shitty enough that you have to also pay attention to the diagetic signage. It’s uniquely immersive.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 2nd 5 months ago:
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I am about 25% through with both Remembrance and the battles… Destruction? I’m in awe of the narrative’s complexity. It’s also a little overwhelming, it feels impossible to get any kind of handle on things. The game adds new layers every time you think you’re getting it.
Im really enjoying it though, the mystery is really fun to dig at.
I also beat Malenia this week, which is pretty much the last major thing I had left in my first Elden Ring save. I got help of course (thanks superelva11), but it’s been really satisfying tying a bow on that. 140 hours, plus another 30-35 on a second save - Elden Ring is officially the most time I’ve ever spent on a single game by quite a large margin.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 2nd 5 months ago:
Good luck my friend. Hollow Knight is a special one, but those bosses can be punishing. A few of them took me separate sessions over a few days, which is a frustrating way to play games for me, but it’s such a rewarding experience otherwise. I recently rewatched my recording of beating one of the bosses and I was fumbling so bad, I could see my own desperation in the way I was playing.
Apparently there’s a secret phase for the final boss that I was more than happy to experience via YouTube. I was perfectly satisfied with just rolling the credits.
- Comment on Microsoft closes Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin and others 6 months ago:
Via Kotaku:
Bloomberg previously reported that the vampire shooter’s [Arkane’s Redfall] troubled development grew out of a push by top Bethesda leadership to make a live-service game, a decision that ultimately led to sky-high attrition and multiple delays.
All reward, no risk for the executives demanding that their best-in-class immersive sim developer create an empty live service shooter. Stupid decision led to predictable outcome and the workers feel the ax for it.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 21st 6 months ago:
Finished the main campaign in Midnight Suns. I maintain what I’ve said previously about the dialogue and characterizations bearing heavy MCU fanfic vibes. None of these versions of the characters qualify among my favorite iterations. But hot damn if it isn’t super well balanced, addicting, and fun to play. The 60 or so hours I spent on it went by like a breeze and I still dip in to raise my remaining friendship levels.
I tried out Sifu from PS Plus and am glad I hadn’t ever bought it. Seems like a super cool idea and good execution, but it felt a little like a fighting game with its button pressing combos (plus I hate combos where you have to flick the movement stick around). I also didn’t fancy the idea of having to worry about how old I was gettiing in the early levels and potentially have to play them over again just to lower my age for later level runs. Broke my threshold for punitive tedium.
Now I’m a few hours into Outward, and it’s promising so far. I’m loving the promise of the new stuff I can find and make, although I’m taking it super slow because the power dynamic is (intentionally) very intimidating.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 21st 6 months ago:
Interesting. Uncharted territory!
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 21st 6 months ago:
May I ask what the appeal is to that over just the base game?
- Comment on Got a Switch today, need some recommendations. 7 months ago:
Thanks, he’s obsessed with Pokemon and has been glued to the game so far. I’m interested in checking them out myself and will try popping in as second player!