Об играх
There was a free multiplayer weekend for Call of Duty: Vanguard. And I was surprised how much I appreciated the craziness of this game.
Customized boring as hell MP40 looks like something from steampunk:
Charlton automatic rifle (NZ-41), a total rarity:
And I have no idea what these supposed to be:
I don’t care. Those are great.
Completed what’s called “Act I”. The game likes to mess with your head. When you start the game, there is no “New Game” button, only “Continue”, which starts Act I. And once you beat the boss, you get “New Game” button in the menu as a reward. But “New Game” starts a completely different game. Arguably, it’s a better game. It’s not rogue-like, nor inspired by “Five Nights at Freddy”. Instead, it feels more like a Pokemon game from the Game Boy Color era. You can repeat the fights as many times as you’d like. And you can also assemble your own deck. Honestly, I wish that this was the real game, and not just a bonus game mode, since I don’t have patience for it anymore, I’m afraid.
As a card game, it’s not very enjoyable. Each player has just 6 HP. Since your opponent doesn’t play by your rules, he can field a 3-blood 3-damage card on the first turn. You need 3 turns to do the same, so unless you are lucky to have removal, you are dead.
For me, part of the fun of boss fights in Hearthstone was building decks to beat them. Here, you need to build a single deck to beat 4 very different bosses, without much control what you put in it. Sometimes, you would just get bad options, and you can’t do anything about it. When I finally beat Trapper&Trader boss, I didn’t feel good about it. I just felt I got lucky.
An interesting mix of different genres. A rogue-like: you get to traverse discrete map with random encounters, and if you die, you need to repeat the process again.
And a card based game: you have classic HP/damage two rows system.
Cards attack at the end of the turn they were placed. Not the turn after, like Hearthstone. I don’t remember Gwent much, and I haven’t played other card games, so I will keep comparing this to Hearthstone, although I haven’t played it for a few years as well.
What’s interesting is that instead of a single resources like mana in Hearthstone, there are two. Some cards need “blood”, which is trading multiple cards for a single card. But some cards need “bones” instead, which you get after your cards either sacrificed or killed.
There is another layer to the game, though, which is an “escape room”. And there are two special cards that talk to you while you play and give you hints on how to escape.
The problem I have with this game is how much it expects you to remember. I feel like I need to keep track of what cards I have in my deck, and what different icons on the map mean, and I need to count the number of bone chips on the table.
Checked the guide, and turns out I either got incredibly lucky, or this game is designed very well. I traded an eye just to win the Prospector boss, and then when I was proposed another eye, I randomly picked the most peculiar one. Turns out that’s exactly what you need to do in order to complete the first chapter.
I think this game is best known for its art: World War I, but with mechs.
https://www.artstation.com/jakubrozalski
The problem is that besides the art, there’s not much game in there. The “Digital Edition” is quite literal. You are playing a tabletop against bots. That’s it.
Your units are just painted figurines, which are not animated.
The “fights” between mechs are just static image of two mechs, and the summary of the “fight”. Your actions are just list of resources you are going to spend and get.
This is all incredibly boring. Even Panzer General from ’94 felt more engaging to me.
Completed Loop Hero.
Didn’t expect that to happen.
Learned that the secret of this game is to build out the Mud Huts. Those look kind of useless. But are incredibly powerful once you build ton of them.
Each mud hut allows you to have more items in your storage. Each item gives you a very small bonus, like +1 to defence. But when you have 10 of them, this is equal to having a good shield from the very start.
After building enough of them, I started to beat The Hunter consistently, with all characters.
The final chapters puts you against all the bosses one after the other, and then the final boss 😨
I got lucky, though. And once I reached Omega, I actual beat him on my first try.
Getting to level 60 allows you to change difficulty level. And finally die from regular monsters, or at lest from elites.
Surprisingly, I got two set items, and both are from the same set. One from leveling to level 60, and another from one of the dungeon bosses.
There seems to be no more storyline after that point, but you get some sidequests related to characters that you’ve met some 20 hours ago.
For example Valla, a demon hunter we meet in the second chapter, is now tormented by a demon that recreates the horrible moments of her past: her family being killed by demons and all that.
At the end of that questline she gets her iconic red scarf:
I don’t play many F2P games at all. So for me the fact that Diablo Immortal has around 16 different types of resources seems kind of crazy.
With a lot of cursing, I also managed to beat the third boss:
The bosses design is great, but they have too much HP, or the character doesn’t deal enough damage. Instead of being a glass cannon, like in many other Souls-like games, you are taking potshots at the bosses most of the time.
There are tons of sidemissions, which occur on the same levels as the main ones, but at different times of the day, and with different starting locations and blocked paths.
Must say that I don’t particularly enjoy that game, though. Apart from how fragile the hero is, you also need to manage all those weapons that are dropped randomly, which is simply not fun. A shame, I liked the character design a lot. But life is too short.
Talismans are just dumb. 2% to a random skill. What?
Of course there’s a fight with the Butcher…
By 56th level we are reaching Scarn, the demon lord that was introduced as the main villain. Turns out he kidnaps angels and tortures them in order to create a demon army. Don’t ask me how that works. Along the way we beat huge worm and a dark angel. Those fights are pretty good!
For some reason we need to bomb some furnaces, and we use the angelic dagger as a kind of HIMARS to do that.
But that was all Scarn’s plan, you see, as he wanted to taint the dagger by soaking too much of the demon’s essence. So, he now can steal the dirty dagger. We pursue him and beat him to death. He isn’t very tough, unless you’re playing on your phone, I guess. Attack patterns are very similar to Diablo from Diablo 2 (I don’t really remember Diablo from Diablo 3). Especially the laser beam attack.
The dagger is still tainted, though. So it shatters alongside the last Worldstone fragment we also took away from Scarn. But now new weird stuff is happening: Diablo’s spirit returns.
I’m not entirely sure how a demon has a spirit, but whatever.
Finally managed to beat the first boss, Lich. With a Warrior, no less. Guess “slow and steady wins the race”, as they say.
Got the necromancer class. On one hand, it is a fun class, because unlike the other two it relies on summoning skeletons. On the other hand, it is much slower to play. Summoning skeletons takes a lot of time.
Beaten the second boss, the angel, on my first try. But that’s due to the fact I got a bit lucky and picked the reincarnation trait that run, whatever it is called (it’s called Omicron’s Technique).
Funny how unepic this game is. In other games your last buildings would be something like Grand Library or Royal Armory. Here your final buildings are: woodman hut and a bridge. A fucking bridge.
Feels like on of those “idle” games popular on mobile phones. But without the donation part. There’s a character with indirect control.
The only things you can control is the character equipment, and even that works in a weird way. Once you replace piece of equipment, it doesn’t return to your inventory, but simply disappears.
Also, if your inventory overflows, items will start disappearing as well.
There is no experience until later in the game, once you build a specific building. And once you get the experience bar, it doesn’t affect your character stats, but only allows to pick a perk once the character gets a level-up.
So what you do most of the time, when you don’t pick the next piece of equipment, is building the world around the character. You do that from cards that you pick off the fallen enemies. Of course the cards are random. Everything in this game is random. So, you get to pick which enemies you’ll encounter, for example.
By 49th level finally managed to join a raid for Lassal, and we even beat him. At least now I can stop thinking about it.
Had two legendary items drop from updating a monster entry in the in-game encyclopedia. I’ve beaten bosses for far less.
By 53th level I think there’s another such a slump. Takes a day or two of grind to get to level 56. Encyclopedia gives huge boosts, though.
Got a second legendary helmet, and it’s the same as my first one. That’s just my luck 🤷♂️
What I didn’t expect is that England would be involved in this. Turns out England learned how to collect amrita, philosopher stone. And now the plan to incite a war in Japan to collect more of these, and maybe even conquer Spain.
So glad there’s a simple pause option in this game. I hate games without pause.
There is a ton of game mechanics, and they are introduced all at once. There are stances, that change how fast and how powerful your attacks are. There’s also a “berserk” mode, and a super-move that you can execute once you enter the berserk mode.
How hard is this game? Pretty brutal. It’s not Dark Souls, it’s Bloodborne. It’s much more fast-paced than any of the Dark Souls games. Armor doesn’t do shit, even minibosses finish you in two swings. But there is some kind of parry system against the bosses, and a stamina recovery system. You get most of your stamina back if you press a button at a right time. Also, there is apparenty a combo system that requires you to switch stances in between. A real finger-twister.
Almost dropped the game on the second boss. But turns out the game just doesn’t explain a lot of mechanics. There are healing items. You can run out of them, like Bloodborne and unlike Dark Souls. But at least they are automatically stocked to the max capacity.
Also, you can imbue your weapon, which is also very useful against the boss.
Completed Modern Warfare (2019).
We manage to kill the Old Terrorist, but the brother-terrorist escapes to St. Petersburg. That’s unexpected.
There is a bunch of “minigames” along the way. One is to cut the wires of the suicide jacket.
Another is to survive Russian torture (nobody told them Russians don’t torture with water).
We meet with Nikolai, another character from the original Modern Warfare. Also, turns out Kyle Garrick is now Gaz. Previous Gaz was I white guy.
That’s also the first mission we actually get to pick our weapons. At least we’re given a choice of three pistols.
Origin shotgun is fun, because it has that distinct handle on the side, and also a suppressor. At the last two missions you are given a lot of cool tools: incediary shotgun, and even minigun. Wish they would give them earlier, though.
Don’t remember when was the last time I was so invested in Call of Duty game. Maybe Black Ops?
We capture Hadir, but almost immediately trade him to the Russians. We then go after general Barkov in his gas-producing plant. Alex decides to “become a hero” and blow the plan himself. Farah manages to kill Barkov.
At the end they mention some old “friends”: “Soap” I remember well, as well as General Shepherd. Had to remind myself who Riley was, though. They also mention Zakaev, so I wonder if we’ll get yet another recreation of the most famous “sniper mission”
There’s a mount mechanic, which I remember mostly from the Battlefield series. While in cover, you can stabilize your weapon, especially LMG. And you can also peek around the corners.
It seems they got rid of the endless waves of enemies.
First indication that this is a reboot, and not continuation of another Modern Warfare – Griggs is alive again. Originally, he died in the ending of Call of Duty 4.
We capture leader of the terrorists who hides inside a hospital. Typical. He’s brought to the embassy, but the mob storms it, and manages to free him again.
Sniper mission is super fun. Bullets actually fly in arcs and you also need to take wind into the account. Absolutely solid.
The plot twist is great as well, I haven’t seen that coming. Turns out we were fighting alongside the chemical terrorists all along.
And I was wrong about this being Syria. In the episode in the past the fathers head turban and poppies point to Afghanistan. Even if you ignore the Russian invasion. But then, father gives his children cellphones. So, it’s an interesting amalgam.
Also interesting that as I child, you can’t shoot straight, because the gun is too heavy.
Haven’t played Call of Duty for a few years now, and didn’t feel like I miss much. But decided to give Modern Warfare a try anyway.
For some reason I’m struggling to see enemies in this game. In the first level, there are very bright fires or lights.
Then in the London mission, civilians and terrorists look very much alike. There are no hit indicators, and no crosshair highlighting either. Maybe that’s on purpose, though.
Whole point of London episode, besides re-introducing Price, is to show that Price is willing to sacrifice a single civilian in order to save the others.
There’s no way to compare weapons in-game, it seems, so I tend to stick to the one I am given.
Storywise, US Marines and CIA are trying to capture Russian’s chemical weapon shipment.
But then some version of “ISIS” captures the truck instead, killing most of the marines. Next day, there’s a terror attack in London.
We then join kurds in “Syria”, where Russians are being Russians.
In “Syria” there’s an interesting mechanic to the series where you pick up junk and make silencers out of it. It’s not crafting, but still something I haven’t seen in Call of Duty.
Of course there’s no Modern Warfare without some crawling under a truck or two.
Or lying in the grass without moving.
Bounties are pretty boring, but they do allow to level up pretty quickly, I give them that.
There are no two-handed weapons in this game. But if you play as crusader, one of the rage-modes is a two-handed sword.
Around 35th level you get access to raids of 8 people. Gathering enough players is quite hard. The chat is full of calls for Lassal (which is the name of the raid boss). Reminds me why I hate MMOs.
Of course 3rd episode is Jungle. It’s not bad, though. Fetishes are one of my favorite enemies in terms of the design.
Guess who’ve got two legendary shields of the same type? 🤦♂️
Can’t say I’m too excited about “open world” part, but the fighting part of Street Fighter VI looks absolutely fantastic:
I’m mostly excited about the drunken kung fu fighter, obviously.
Hit my first roadblock at the end of the dessert episode, when the game told me literally that I need to be at level 35 to progress, while my character was only 32.
Also about that time got my first Legendary item. Those are the only items that actually need to be identified in town.
Besides the usual gem system that has been around since Diablo 2, there’s also a new “rank” system, that basically allows you to upgrade different equipment slots. That is, if you level up rank of your shield slot, any shield that you wield will become stronger. Level up everything!
The nice part is that when you equip a new item with sockets, the game will also propose you to transfer your gems to this new item. Very convenient.
“Zero” from Ace Combat Zero is one of my most favorite video game tracks of all time.
And this live performance of it is fantastic. Very interesting to see how the performer actually looks: