Breathedge - Survive in Outer Space

I like Breathedge a lot - it has a 4th wall breaking GlaDOS style developer goofball humor, it's a crafting/survival game, it seems to be everything I might want in a survival game in fact ... unlike Raft, the crafting makes sense as a futuristic space game where you're actually replicating stuff and not using a gigantic wooden mallet to build it.

Like only reading the first 5 pages of what might be a great book -- I feel like this game didn't make it to the "gotta finish it" part of catching my interest.  

I gave up for a couple reasons ... Fussily I gave up because moving around in space without resistance was really frustrating.  Like I would have a vehicle parked outside an airlock, and if I didn't catch sight of it or missed it as I floated out, I might gas myself around for a bit just trying to reorient and find it.  Interest-wise I gave up because there wasn't a really good questing system, I saw I had quests - if you caught the voice over when you scanned whatever it was that spawned the quest, you might know a bit about it, but I couldn't figure out a way to track quests and fairly soon my screen became a mess of waypoints in space -- "Lower Radiation 0/6" okay --- but ... give me the waypoint or at least a vector and show me the damn quest log!   

Raft

Raft is a survival game where you are, as the title might suggest, on a raft.

In ocean world, you are harangued by a great white shark and have a hook with which to gather resources.   The shark, while not as deadly as I thought a big fucking shark that is relentlessly chasing you would be, makes up for it with being an always a present danger.   Entering the water means you have to deal with it in some fashion.

The game has you follow a series of map coordinates discovering more of the stories of some of the survivors and collecting bigger/better upgrades for your floating fortress.  The land missions are weak Zelda-esque "gather the parts" or "get the key", and seem like they were thrown in rather than being intentional.  Tacked on parkour and fighting gamification that took away rather than added to the game.  I didn't finish thinking that I wanted to keep playing and build the most epic raft - I ended thinking "I hope this is the last round in this stupid dog fight".

It is a great survival concept and I don't think they should have added buildable tech resources  I would get it if tech were limited in some fashion, like a found ancient artifact, limited charge perhaps late game you could create a bicycle to generate electricity, a solar charger -- it just seems weird to be able to hammer a blender out of barely refined ore and seaweed goo.

Desperados III

Desperados III is a real time strategy game set in the old west.

Controlling one character in the tutorial levels was enjoyable, controlling multiple characters while avoiding patrols and trying to do the missions without just hunkering down and being a murder hobo I found a bit on the stressful side of fun.

I quit before I got all the Steam card drops even and am left reminded once again that despite how nice/funny/cool/fun something looks in a demo, I really don't like real time strategy ... it would have to be themed AF, catered specifically to me. 

Let it be said that I hope they never make a RTS about Dune, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or anything with Natalie Dormer smirking as box art.

 

Trimps

Oh good freaking lord I hate that I played this game so much.

Trimps is the gaming equivalent of managing a spreadsheet, but every cycle through unlocks one new skill or one new challenge or one new bit of automation that kept me playing through one more cycle.

... and because automation is my jam, I have way too many hours setting up and managing this bit of it while my population slowly grew in power.  I think I'm mainly writing this so that I can delete this damn game.

Toilet Chronicles

Toilet Chronicles is a short "Groundhog's Day" experience where you are tasked with ... surviving? escaping? .. .dealing with? being trapped in a bathroom.

In true Groundhog's Day form, your progress moves forward by trial and error and repeated deaths, with the environment updating based on some major events.  In the beginning this felt very repetitive as I didn't do one of these major events a few times because ... IT WAS SPARKING AND I WAS TOLD NOT TO TOUCH IT.  

Fun little quick escape-room type adventure.  Would poop part 2.

Silt

I certainly am enjoying playing these brand new games and having no idea what to expect.  Silt is a game that came out only a few days ago and had an interesting artsy style that intrigued me in the same way Limbo did.

You are a side scrolling diver/explorer with the ability to use your brain to control most other animals.  For example, you might need to possess a piranha type fish to bite through some vines.  You progress through a series of obstacles using the resources provided in order to fight four different leviathans.

I say "fight" but really they are just another puzzle that has to do with a big scary monster. 

It was fun for a while, the soundtrack is okay and it delivers on all of it's promises, but with no real reason to play again and I felt like I was done with the experience about halfway through.  I have no idea what I was doing or why doing it made a ton of divers surface, but then some kind of object opened and maybe .. shot lasers or something?   If you know you know.

NFS Heat

NFS Heat is the most recent Need For Speed game, and has you joining a race crew attempting to get recognized.  Racing in the day earn you money without the fear of police chase, racing at night earns you reputation and increases the available upgrade parts you can purchase.

I haven't played a racing game, let alone one to completion, in a long while it seems.  I had forgotten the joy and adrenaline rush of a perfect maneuver, or drifting around a long corner narrowly avoiding cars.  Need For Speed has always had that enjoyable "running from the police" excitement, but I found myself missing the obstacles that would impede the cops (running under the scaffolding of a billboard to make it fall, jumping over some obstacle, etc.) -- it seemed these kept pretty tight to me unless I destroyed them in some way or went in a non-conventional area where they couldn't keep up, like down railroad train tracks or taking the quick way down a twisty road.

I do think I'm done with racing games for another long while though unless there is something special to it.