It's late, I'm tired, and my writing skills have clearly diminished, but I just finished with Reigns. I finished with it, but I didn't finish it. It's a game about swiping left or right, similarly to that one date finding app, or so I've heard. Except instead of judging people you... judge people's decisions? Basically you're given two options, each has some effect on your kingdom, and you got to keep your religion, people, military, and money bars balanced or you lose.
I've heard it's a great game, the reviews are pretty positive, but I didn't like it at all. And aside from the elegant simplicity, I don't see what there is to like. The gameplay is clearly nonexistant, art and music are very basic, there's not much thinking involved behind your decisions, and the story - which seems like it should be the main selling point of the game - doesn't connect at all. It feels like there's some slight arcing of various events, but overall I couldn't really piece anything together that wasn't mostly an isolated random event.
So, I wouldn't recommend it, plain and simple.
Free games have a tendency to cut in line, and so I tried Relik for a couple of hours. It's a sort-of-multiplayer game where you have to solve 4 very simple puzzles. Maze traversal, Memory, Simon, and some sort of pattern repeating. Basically all memory-based "puzzles". All the puzzles you solve are actually created by other people, and you can make your own. Solving them nets you currency which is used to upgrade your puzzles, and there's some odd ranking system.
The multiplayer wrapping around the game is nice, but since the game itself is so trivial, repetitive, and boring, it's really not worth playing.
And the highly anticipated Helldivers' free weekend rolled along. Sadly, I have some harsh words to say about this game. It's a top-down shooter played on relatively small maps that each house a few missions that generally boil down to killing a lot of enemies. And as shooting stuff isn't exactly a lot of variety, it gets rather repetitive.
This game isn't really meant to be played alone. A lot of missions are just too difficult to be completed alone, so you're going to have to find some friends or party up with strangers. Now, the problem with this is that this game has a lot of opportunities for friendly fire of various sorts. And I'm not just talking about the actual act of shooting others, which can mostly be avoided, and is really counterproductive. But a very serious problem is that there are conflicting interests in a co-op game. Mainly, the camera. All players share a camera, so if you're far from each other, neither of you can see much of what is happening, and will want the other to move, so that you could see. With enemies appearing from all sides and many being able to hit you from off-screen, this becomes detrimental.
Another case of conflicting interests that also ties back to the grind is the question of "What is the goal?" Playing with my friends, we would even argue on what we were playing for in the first place, as one of us prioritized killing as many things as possible, one wanted to complete the missions to the highest rewards possible, and one wanted to unlock everything they could as fast as possible. And these goals are conflicting, encourage different playstyles, and make people want to run in different directions, which the game will not let you do because of the constrained camera.
To repeat, this is a co-op game that suffers from a lack of direction and the inability to at least give everyone the option to pursue their own desire in said directionlessness, which leads to a bad experience for everyone involved.
While the game is well made and even kind of funny, it doesn't really excel in anything, and the aforementioned problem really was a major turn-off for me. Their previous Magicka was a much better accomplishment, doing most everything better.
Free games have a tendency to cut in line, and so I tried Relik for a couple of hours. It's a sort-of-multiplayer game where you have to solve 4 very simple puzzles. Maze traversal, Memory, Simon, and some sort of pattern repeating. Basically all memory-based "puzzles". All the puzzles you solve are actually created by other people, and you can make your own. Solving them nets you currency which is used to upgrade your puzzles, and there's some odd ranking system.
The multiplayer wrapping around the game is nice, but since the game itself is so trivial, repetitive, and boring, it's really not worth playing.
And the highly anticipated Helldivers' free weekend rolled along. Sadly, I have some harsh words to say about this game. It's a top-down shooter played on relatively small maps that each house a few missions that generally boil down to killing a lot of enemies. And as shooting stuff isn't exactly a lot of variety, it gets rather repetitive.
This game isn't really meant to be played alone. A lot of missions are just too difficult to be completed alone, so you're going to have to find some friends or party up with strangers. Now, the problem with this is that this game has a lot of opportunities for friendly fire of various sorts. And I'm not just talking about the actual act of shooting others, which can mostly be avoided, and is really counterproductive. But a very serious problem is that there are conflicting interests in a co-op game. Mainly, the camera. All players share a camera, so if you're far from each other, neither of you can see much of what is happening, and will want the other to move, so that you could see. With enemies appearing from all sides and many being able to hit you from off-screen, this becomes detrimental.
Another case of conflicting interests that also ties back to the grind is the question of "What is the goal?" Playing with my friends, we would even argue on what we were playing for in the first place, as one of us prioritized killing as many things as possible, one wanted to complete the missions to the highest rewards possible, and one wanted to unlock everything they could as fast as possible. And these goals are conflicting, encourage different playstyles, and make people want to run in different directions, which the game will not let you do because of the constrained camera.
To repeat, this is a co-op game that suffers from a lack of direction and the inability to at least give everyone the option to pursue their own desire in said directionlessness, which leads to a bad experience for everyone involved.
While the game is well made and even kind of funny, it doesn't really excel in anything, and the aforementioned problem really was a major turn-off for me. Their previous Magicka was a much better accomplishment, doing most everything better.
PS. It just hit me that with the inconsistent frequency of the content I output, there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to keep any regular posting schedule. If I fail to deliver one week, then the week's post is empty, but if I go on a miraculous spree and play 5 games in a single week, then the post will get very, very long. On the other hand, this wouldn't leave much room for the occasional ramble I like to do, such as this one. Maybe each game should get its own post, and then a weekly post of... other things I want to mention? I'll think about it and decide later, as it would be a shame to change this weekly release schedule after having it for less than a month anyways.
