Welcome to November! I'm starting a comment chain so people can see previous games I've played in one spot.
This was a busy month away from the computer, as Fall is my favorite season and I spent a lot of time hiking, apple picking, etc. But I still played and completed a handful of games.
3D Waifu - A Physical Experience - Free on Indiegala Client - Let's get this one out of the way first
This game is just shoving various phallic objects into your blue-haired waifu as she has a seizure or makes an ahegao face. I couldn't really tell the difference. This game does make you think, though. With each thrust of an eggplant in this poor girl's pussy, I wondered "What am I doing with my life?" The novelty is funny for the first go-around, but I quickly became bored and looked at the surroundings. I noticed beer bottles branded "Porn Pub". Clever. I wondered what they taste like. I certainly could have used 1 or 20 of them to assist me. Her nail color also matches her hair - a cute attention to detail. You know what could have used more attention to detail? Her tits and labia physics. The air distortion from a blink could send them spasming out in a jello-like display of movement. About three pumps into each round, you begin to worry for this girl's hydration levels due to the amount of wetness she splashes (more like explodes) with each insertion. Someone please give her a bottle of water and, please, someone slap me upside the head for giving in to horny me late at night and playing this. But like a true sadist, I played until the last unlock, just so I could use the golden dildo on her and catch the shame on my face in the reflection.
My Paper Boat -
Free on Steam - What looked to be a charming game about a boat floating down a stream turned into a nightmare of bad physics, frustrating controls, and buggy gameplay. A paper boat floating down the river captures the simplicity of childhood, no? NO. Your boat goes careening off the jumps inconsistently, you get damaged by simply
looking at a rock coming your way, and - I swear to God - you can literally press left on your control stick and half the time the boat steers right. I also can't neglect to warn you that the challenges are scored where you need near perfection to score three stars, yet perfection is impossible because even if a level has X targets/coins, many of the levels are actually missing a couple each, so you're left with, say, 47 targets rather than the advertised 50. What I hoped to be a relaxing float down some waterways turned into a test of my will. FINALLY, I earned three stars on the last challenge, immediately shut the game down and uninstalled - and
that was the happiest I felt playing the game. But hey, the water and environments are beautiful, so it has that going for it.
NaissancE - A gift from
@hanzo.1.2 but also
free on Steam- A little bit MC Escher, a little bit Inception. It's a visually striking world which feels funny to say because of how simplistic its components are and how monotone it is. It's simply presentation done effectively. The atmosphere was crafted well - I was awestruck by the scale multiple times, and the cleverness of the flow. I can't tell if this game is an escape from insanity or the descent into it. We all may interpret it and the ending differently. It's certainly an abstract first-person exploration game, and it doesn't hold your hand. You
will get lost, but that's part of the fun, because there are a handful of Easter eggs to find. This game is all about how you adapt to an illogical and ever-changing environment and use patterns, sound, and failure to advance. I recommend it. Just have patience with the jumps, especially when running. They're hit or miss, but thankfully, the save points are forgiving.
Songs From the Iron Sea -
Free on Steam - I wish this game was longer! It's a well-crafted side scrolling underwater platformer where everything hits just right - the lighting is atmospheric, the ravaged yet futuristic underwater world is beautiful, and the graphics give the impression of playing an old seafaring painting. You play as a mermaid-like creature who brings life and hope back to a world taken over by evil machines through verse of poem. It's simple, short, and easy, but the impression it leaves is worth it. The world is teeming with life with urchins, seaweed, barnacles, clams, etc. adding vibrance to the contrast of despair. There are multiple tense cat and mouse battles with the boss, and the attention to detail is commendable. My favorite part was the tiny fish skeletons falling at a specific point. Plus, the controls are actually
good for an underwater game! If only certain AAA games could get it right like this game does, then maybe gamers wouldn't give underwater levels so much flak.
Sorry, James - A gift from
@henry-hunry - You play as an employee that decrypts files sent to you by a colleague. The act of decrypting is presented as a puzzle and the puzzles are a mix between minesweeper and sudoku. The game could have been good had it just been that - puzzles with barely a story. But each file you decrypt unlocks a chat conversation between James and a woman, Elisa, that is supposed to help unravel the overall story of what happened to James. Yet that "story" is so convoluted and messy that it ruins the experience. This game honestly feels like a digital manifestation of every horny dude's fantasy about web chats with women. We've got sex addiction, lesbianism, voyeurism, threesomes, hacking, Artificial Intelligence, and other themes wrapped up in an unpolished mess of broken English that's either a conscious decision to emulate web chats or a striking failure by the translation team. Regardless, it was painful to read. I finished because the puzzles were fun and to finally put the story behind me. I recommend you play through and ignore the chats until you decrypt all files, and then sign in to Mariia's desktop where the chats are IN ORDER thankfully - something that wasn't done during the playthrough and added to the mess. Sorry, James tried to be edgy but came out flat and dull. Sorry, game.
Tacoma - A previous game with Prime - I loved this game. This is sci fi done extremely well. You play as a pilot sent to retrieve essential data from Space Station Tacoma, the location of an apparent disaster. The game captures the loneliness of space present even among a tight knit crew, and the uncomfortable surveillance of the megacorporation who's motives are murky at best. It uses grounded applications of technology such as the Artificial Intelligence, Odin, and the Augmented Reality headset that enables you to access, view, and manipulate the past to piece together just what happened to the crew. The writers did a very good job of keeping an air of mystery and intrigue throughout, and just as you begin to grasp what happened, they shake it up a bit one last time. It's a game worth taking your time on and investigating every little thing, because that will lead you to feel an attachment to the station and its characters, creating a more immersive experience.
www.fanatical.com
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