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Tag: fps

Bulldozing the Backlog

Titanfall 2's protagonist looks ahead to where his mech partner, BT, awaits.Yes, it has been too long since I last posted, but I have a perfectly valid reason for that: much of my free time has been spent playing, and finishing, games. At the beginning of the year, I committed myself to playing through a short game every weekend and, for the most part, I’ve stuck to this plan. There was one rather bad game I couldn’t bring myself to power through (the brutal puzzle adventure htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary), but the rest of these short games have been decent to great.

2020 Gaming Selections

Well, that was a year. On-topic, I wish it had been a better one gaming-wise. There were the usual standouts, sure, but I feel that overall, the quality of the games I played was merely okay. Two games I want to highlight which didn’t qualify for this year’s list are Surviving Mars and Yakuza 0. If you like challenging city builders at all, Surviving Mars is a treat, and features a good variety of DLC; if I had to recommend just one, it would be Space Race, which fleshes out the core game with rivals, mini story events, and other features. As for Yakuza 0, it might end up being the best game I’ve ever played that’s not for me. I’m enjoying my time with it, but it’s also overwhelming in that way that the most celebrated open-world games are. I’m close to the end of both games; don’t be surprised if they surface in the 2021 Selections.

As usual, every game here is one I’ve beaten (or played extensively, in the case of “endless” titles) during the past year, regardless of release date. For each game in the top ten, the title, developer/author, platform(s) I played it on, and the release date for said platform in my region has been included, along with a little bit about why I found this game so memorable.

Doom 2016 ][

On the PC at least, I almost never buy triple A games at launch, the collector’s editions of the three StarCraft II installments being a notable exception. These games ran fine once I fired them up, a testament to Blizzard’s obsessive attention to technical polish. At the time the second part of the series, Heart of the Swarm, launched, the hardware I used to play it was seven years old, the same age as the machine I first installed Doom Eternal on.

Earth has seen better days.As with my previous Boot Camped Mac Pro, I had future-proofed my desktop computer enough so that it would meet the minimum requirements for the likes of Doom Eternal here in the year 2020. However, due to a combination of Apple more or less abandoning Boot Camp support for the 2013 Mac Pro, and AMD being AMD, I suffered through several rounds of driver update attempts only to wind up with a machine that wouldn’t be able to run Doom Eternal after all. It ended up that the only way I could do so was with a gaming PC borrowed from bitprophet, featuring some newer hardware.

Horrible Wonders, and a Naughty Goose

“It’s a lovely day in the village, and you are a horrible goose.” This delightful bit of ad copy aptly describes Untitled Goose Game, which came out this past Friday on the Switch and at the Epic Games Store. I picked up the Switch version, having been charmed by it the past couple of PAXes, and was not disappointed. It’s a wholesome and funny nugget of gaming goodness suitable for just about anyone.

HONK HONK HONK (Source: official screenshot)As the horrible goose mentioned in the game’s description, I annoyed an assortment of humans in a small town, crossing off to-do list entries along the way. Tasks include stealing items and bringing them to various places; inconveniencing people by trapping them, making them fall, getting them wet, and so on; and just generally being a nuisance. Figuring out how to do some of these things can take a bit of thinking and experimenting, but there are no time limits or other significant obstacles, so progressing through the game is a reasonably leisurely affair. The graphics are simple, flat designs, albeit very well animated ones, and the piano soundtrack, which alters depending on the action on-screen, fits this look perfectly. It’s a short game, but one that’s very well paced and realized, and it can be as much fun to watch as it is to play.

Untitled Goose Game has some bonus objectives after the credits roll, and its these goals which I’m currently working through at the moment. I’m also continuing on with Pandora’s Tower on the Wii and Shadow Warrior on PC, both of which I started over a week ago.

Special Project #3: DaisyDOOM

If you thought I was done with this year’s special side projects after P.S. Triple Classic and the FFVII theatrical commercial uploads, you would be wrong! Today, I’ve completed and uploaded something I’ve been wanting to make for a little while now: DaisyDOOM, a mod for The Ultimate Doom.

DaisyDOOM is set in an alternate universe where Doom‘s protagonist is not Doomguy, but his pet rabbit Daisy. Somehow she is on Mars while Doomguy is on Earth, and the UAC’s scientists have given her a cyborg marine body just in time for the invaders from Hell to show up. In addition to new status portraits and story content, DaisyDOOM features rabbit-friendly health pickups, some new sound effects, and more!

Like my other projects, DaisyDOOM is available both here and via itch.io; one additional download location may be forthcoming. A source port such as GZDoom, along with a valid copy of Doom itself (preferably The Ultimate Doom), is required.

Please let me know what you think, and enjoy!

2018 Gaming Selections

Another year has ended, and with it, another pile of games beaten. My Backloggery breakdown for the previous year once again wound up in the negative, but what else is new? I can’t speak for whether this has been a great year for gaming, as the vast majority of what I played were pre-2018 releases, though I did enjoy myself.

If you’ve read one of my past year in review posts, you know the drill: every game here is one that I’ve beaten or completed in 2018, regardless of release date. This time, in addition to my top ten and five honorable mentions, I’d like to give special shoutouts to two games.