The Stanley Parable - Review

I've been playing The Stanley Parable over my birthday. I have played it over, and over, and over again... you may ask, why would I play the same game over and over? Well in The Stanley Parable, it's kind of the point.

You play as a everyday worker called Stanley. Stanley works in an office building at a computer terminal in room 427. He is given commands on his monitor. These commands tell him which buttons to press and for how long. One day he finds all his coworkers gone. Where did they go? Maybe Stanley missed a memo. From here, Stanley's fate is in your hands. Will you follow The Narrators instructions or will you destroy the game he spent so long making? Maybe you will help him test out a new game he is making.

When I first started playing The Stanley Parable, I thought it would be a puzzle game. From the trailer I knew it would restart again and again with slight changes so I assumed I would be finding the things that made those small changes in order to reach a final ending. I spent time and time again doing slightly different things, taking notes of numbers to access codes and paying close attention to the small things.

It took me some time but I soon realised this was not a puzzle game. This was an adventure game. Maybe an art game. I'm still unsure. The Stanley Parable has multiple endings. In fact the point of the game is to find all the endings. There is no right or wrong way to go. Follow the narrator's... well narrations... or don't. Its really up to you.

The Stanley Parable is full of comedy. The humor reminded me of Portal's humor. The narrator basically tells the story but as time goes on he can get a little annoyed or frustrated at you not doing as he says. I had a real laugh when I went into the broom closet in two games and on the second time he said "Oh not this again.". The 3rd time around the broom closet was boarded up to prevent me from going in there.

I do like this game a lot, however, I like games with a little more... I don't know... direction I guess. I wanted to actually have a true ending I was aiming for. I loved the idea of starting again and again with slight changes. I suppose I expected The Stanley Parable to be a puzzle game so I went into it, trying to "complete" the game. But there is no true ending. Its just lots of different endings.

So how do I rate this game.

Graphics: 6 / 10: I don't really know what to write about them. they were okay.

Music: N/A - There wasn't really any music. Except in the... other game part (without giving too much away)

Story: 8/10 - This was an interesting story because is was every changing. Is the narrator bad or good? The comedy in the story is what really made it.

Gameplay: 8/10 -The gameplay was fun. It is fun trying to find different ways to change the story.

Overall: 7.3 / 10

An interesting and funny game. Gets you addicted for a few hours but you don't know why?

Ori and the Blind Forest - Review

Well I finally did it, I finished Ori and the Blind Forest. There were happy times, there were sad times and there were times I wanted to throw my keyboard across the room. But it is done.

Now normally I don't have much expectations for arty games. I have played my fair share of them and have found that a majority of them are just that... arty. The developers want to make something very artful and they do. Looking upon them in that perspective, they succeed. Limbo is one of those games. Yes it has some challenges and the gameplay is so so. I enjoyed it. I really did. But a game needs more than a few minutes of play. I found Limbo lacked bulk. It was over before it really began.

Now I was worried about this when starting to play Ori. Bel got this game because she likes pretty games and, well look at it, Ori is beautiful.

But unlike a lot of pretty games that is not all. You play as a little creature who is trying to bring balance back into the world. He is the last of his kind as all others have died off. You must go to all corners of the world and restore the elements.

The game itself has really good gameplay. The controls are smooth, and there are so many different kinds of movements. Some are locked at the beginning. As you kill enemies you get experience which fills up a bar. When the bar is filled you get an upgrade point. These upgrade points can be used to give Ori a new ability for a full ability tree.

The abilities in the ability tree are not required but really do help out. You also get skills through the world. These are all required to progress in the game.

Now the game isn't small either. The world map is a lot bigger than some pretty games I have played. Okay lets be honest, its bigger than ALL pretty games I've played.

The red arrow I have drawn is where this next image is...

 

When you get to restoring the elements in each area it is not an easy task. They took me a lot of turns before getting them right. I won't go into what is required because that may be a spoiler.

So my score for this game...

Graphics: 10/10 - These are some of the most beautiful graphics I have ever seen.

Music: 10/10 - The Music paints the mood for the game so well.

Story: 8/10 - I have had better stories but this is a good one. It pulls the emotion strings and has twists and turns.

Gameplay: 9/10 - I would have given this game 10/10 but when I completed the game I couldn't continue to play. It should have offered me to start again with a harder setting or something.

Overall: 9.25/10

 Well Done Microsoft. This game was worth every penny spent.

Cities: Skylines

SighFye surprised me with Cities: Skylines, a game I'd been eying off since its release. I love simulation games such as Roller Coaster Tycoon (Did you know there's a new one on the way? Check it out here), Sim Tower and the Sims.

Cities: Skylines is a fun, addictive and complicated city building simulation game. You must not only build your city to your citizens heart's content but you must also plan ahead. Every decision you make affects your city and it's dwellers. These decisions range from your road layout and where you put houses, shops, offices and industry etc. etc. Also where you place water intake and sewage outtake, landfill, and power sources. To what policies you, as Mayor, will decide to put in. Will you place a smoking ban to better the health of your citizens while slightly decreasing their happiness or will you create a no smoking zone? Will you make green decisions such as wind power or will you pollute with coal? 

All of your decisions affect multiple factors and have ripple effects. For example if you don't provide adequate power to your city, people become unhappy and as people become unhappy you begin losing income.

As I unlocked levels, some of the decisions I'd made had to be changed. Since I'm a perfectionist I kept restarting with the knowledge of the future unlocks and problems I'd accidentally created and would plan ahead accordingly.

Sometimes you will come across problems which counteract each other or you have no idea why they're happening. For example, yesterday I created a forestry industry and there were not enough workers. This was apparently because I had adequate education so the educated citizens didn't want to work there. I researched the problem and people had tried creating areas of people who were well away from schools, however, those people would make the trip to receive an education. I found two things which helped, the first was to put more people to create a higher population with less jobs available and the second was to wait it out because the industry levels up and eventually requires educated workers. At the same time, I had a problem in my low density commercial zones, they were complaining that there were not enough educated workers. What!? How was this so if the apparent first problem was over-educated people?

When you're building away, you put residential zones, commercial zones, industrial zones etc. Build build build, up up up, your city goes.. hurrah! Then you realise by the time you've unlocked and put in adequate education, the people you first put in are too old for school and missed the boat and some of them aren't having children either, they're seniors! So the timing of your zones counts.

As I unlocked and put in offices, high density commercial zones and high density residential zones, I noticed the low density commercial shops were going down. As I'd click them to find the problem, they were complaining that they didn't have enough educated workers. I added in Universities and made sure there was adequate education as in elementary schools and high schools but this didn't help. I ended up demolishing them and changing the zone area to high density commercial which seemed to fix the problem, goodbye local deli, hello large corporate takeovers.

I now have a problem with my roads jamming, another learning curve about planning ahead. The game becomes more and more complicated and in-depth and I just can't get enough. Everything is well thought through and as you zoom in you can see people going about their daily business, kid's playing in the park and the fire brigade putting out house fires. The wind turbines turn and face the wind, the power cables sway in the wind and the trees die if too close to pollution. There's enough different types of houses to satisfy without it looking like houses are just cloned down the street and the small details are great such as backyard swings and garden chairs.

The game is confusing at first, but you easily catch on and as you watch your decision's ripple effects, you soon learn your best plan of attack plus it's a lot of fun being Mayor to your own city.

Oddworld: New & Tasty - First Impressions

Hey Guys

One of my favourite games on PlayStation was Abe's Oddysee from the Oddworld series. It's a platform puzzle game where you're a Mudokon, called Abe, working at a meat processing plant. Meat supplies are running low and the CEO is forced to find a new product to increase revenue. Abe discovers the new meat is MUDOKON!! It's your task to escape Rupture Farms while saving as many of your kind as possible.

Recently I discovered they have remade the game and released it as Oddworld: New & Tasty which is a great play on the poster Abe sees in the beginning scenes of the original.

When I first heard about this game I was excited and really wanted to try it. I looked on Steam and found it was on sale at 40% off. So I jumped at the chance. Then the fear set in. What if it was just a remake in the way of graphics and not really a New & Tasty game. I settled on the thought that I could still replay the game with the new graphics. I would still enjoy it.

This morning it finally finished downloading and I jumped straight in, even before breakfast... shh don't tell Bel I skipped breakfast to play it....

So my first impression on the title screen was good. Really clean graphics and beautiful sounds. Abe even spoke a little more in the menu then before.

I wanted to play the game using a controller like I did on the PSX so I went into settings and tried to set that up. Now this was my first disappointment. My controller, even though the image on the screen was identical to mine, it would not work correctly. Now I didn't look too far into this so it could be another fault but to begin with, I can not use my controller. Keyboard will have to do.

I started the game. The cut scene didn't seem to have much improvement but once the game started I could clearly see the difference.

First scene

A few improvements I noticed is how the game played. For example in the original, the screen did not scroll. When you got to the edge of the screen the next screen would load. In New & Tasty the stages scroll into each other. The game feels a lot more fluid. I also noticed when you give commands to your friends, they respond instantly, unlike the older version. This was beginning to feel as though it was not just a graphic update, but a full recode of the game.

Bird portal in the original

Bird portal in New & Tasty

As I played further into the game I realised the game was not the same at all. There are set areas which are the same as the original, but only enough to link your memory to the original game. I now had in my hands a whole new Oddworld adventure.

Here is a comparison of a part of the game which stayed the same. It also shows the stage flowing into the next part.

I have always said it's the little things in games that make or break the game and this game is packed full of the little things. From the Mudokon workers grumbling about the lack of pay to the giggles they do when something happens.

If you are a fan of the Oddworld series and especially Abes Oddysee then my first impressions say to get this game. Seriously you will not be disappointed.

Thanks for reading guys. Don't forget to share, comment and 1+. You can also find us on facebook and find me on twitter.

SighFye

Way Back When's Day - Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (1989)

Alex Kidd has a few games, but I grew up with the Sega Mega Drive and the Sega Dreamcast, so I'm only familiar with his adventure to an enchanted castle in order to find his lost father Thor.

Alex's punches ARE really strong... so who knows?

Yes Thor.
No relation to this guy though...

Y'know... for a character with such an established first and last name, you think they'd at least use his dad's full name somewhere in this game, but since the entire story is explained with like... one or two pages of text, maybe they didn't have room.




The level design is very simple and reminds me of most early Genesis games of note in that the main character only has one or two actions that make up the entirety of the game-play and the challenge is slowly ramped up by careful level design, rather than introducing new mechanics. In this case, he can punch and jump. When you let go of the jump button, his leg extends in a kick which can be used as an aerial punch or, if done right, can be used to take out enemies from above by dropping your heel into them as well.

Unlike Sonic the Hedgehog, Alex Kidd really has no backup system for health and can be quite unforgiving to a new player. I think the original creators intended this to be played on an arcade system for coins, which explains the need for a quick intro and such unforgiving gameplay. It would lend itself to emptying childrens pockets of pennies rather effectively. Thankfully they went with a home console release instead, which I believe is why there is a continue game choice hidden in the options menu of the start screen. It's not infinite though. I'm guessing it was initially tied to coins.
(Wish I'd found that menu item as a child... xD)

The aesthetics are very colorful and, in traditional Japanese game style, some of the enemies are a little bit... odd. We start in a city so there are cars at ground level and... what look like birds, but with aeroplane propellers instead of a beak, flying around. Then underground there are some strange black robot looking things that hop along as well. The only thing they really share in common is they're all single hit kills for both the player and the particular enemy as well.

Typical Japanese enemy choices

Jan-Ken-GO! ... Awww, I lost :/

A strange part of the game is that, despite being quite a simple game, it has an inventory for items that you can win by gambling on the outcome of a game of Rock Paper Scissors. Most of these gambling areas can be found in the doorways of buildings, but some are caves and in the underwater level they can be found inside coral. Early in the game, there is very little incentive to actually use these gambling areas as you spend a certain amount of cash to play and you gamble the loss of a life as well if you lose.

The ring is also quite useful :3

There are two items you want to make sure you acquire a few of before you get too far into the game though. There's the necklace, which allows you to see what your enemy is thinking when deciding on which hand signal to use in Rock Paper Scissors. This is essential if you want to avoid losing lives to chance since all of the bosses just play a game of Rock Paper Scissors with you. The first boss will ask to go a second round if she loses, but you can say no, however the final boss not only continues to play three rounds without a choice, he also attacks you after the match as you would expect from a final boss. The second is the helicopter thingy. There is an aerial stage late in the game, but they only give you a single helicopter to start with. Any time you run into something or take damage, you're ejected from the helicopter, so it's a good idea to build up a few backups to pull out in an emergency before you get there, since the amount of money they cost ramps up each time you bet.

Also this guy, who appears outta nowhere :/

With a few rare exceptions, the enemies in the later stages seem to fall into two main templates. Either very simple enemies with very simple back and forth movement that seem to be designed to take advantage of your mistakes or enemies that would normally be very simple if not for a new movement mechanic. There are wind up mice that can walk along ceilings and walls, eagles that bob up and down along their flight path, turtles that stop when you get nearby and shoot up towards the surface of the water, rocks that roll down the vertical levels and a wizard that teleports behind you.

The only unique boss-like battle encounter in the game, besides the final boss

The final boss, however, stumped me for a while. I'd have no problem with the Rock paper scissors rounds as I always saved a necklace to make it easier for myself, but when that is done with, he attacks you with a more traditional boss battle. As far as I'm aware, that is the first time you're presented with a boss battle and there's next to no indication of what you are supposed to do to beat him. He throws fists at you. That's it.

Eventually, I had to look up the solution on YouTube and it turns out you're supposed to jump on the fists to freeze the boss and then go quickly punch him and retreat to safety. Even once I figured out what I had to do, the fists would randomly unfreeze if I jumped at the wrong time and the margin for error in standing too close to the boss is only a few pixels wide... I suppose boss battles are supposed to be difficult, but this just seemed like bad character/level design. I'm not even sure if it was done on purpose, or if they just found that players had difficulty beating the boss and assumed it was due to the battle difficulty instead of confusion/ambiguity.

I set out to start this game on friday last week, but even with the steam version's ability to save anywhere you want and load back up from that point, it still took me over three days to get past the entire game. It was a mixed bag of enjoyment and frustration to finish, but at least I completed it and saved my dad... right?

What? ._. Do you know what I went through to rescue you?

Nope. Turns out he was the king and just having a nice holiday here... I'm out.
All that build up and no payoff :/

Games Library Completion: 3 / 397 games

My games library spreadsheet

Let me know what you'd like me to play next! :D

Way Back When's Day - Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)

Hi everybody! :D

You may not know me yet, but I'm the newest contributor to Gettin' My Geek On.
My name is Lloyd, but everybody calls me @OzRavenheart.

Today I'd like to try and start a series called Way Back When's Day, where I attempt to finish a steam game, in my library, that I first played in my childhood. As Sonic the hedgehog was the very first video-game I was introduced to, and subsequently became the game that I grew up with, I thought I'd finish it after all this time.

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) - Steam Edition

It took me about 2 hours to get through Sonic the Hedgehog but that's not unexpected since this version comes with the ability to save your game anywhere you like. It seems a little bit like cheating though, so I limited myself to one save at the beginning of each level to be fair.

I thoroughly enjoyed zooming through the first few zones (Greenhill Zone, Marble Zone etc), letting muscle memory and thousands of hours of childhood gaming guide me through the most efficient paths for each level,

Racing through the Greenhill Zone

Swinging over the lava in the Marble Zone

Bouncy Bouncy! (in the Spring Yard Zone)

Rising water is deadly in the Labyrinth Zone!

 However, later levels presented more of a challenge. As a kid I had only ever successfully gotten as far as the Labyrinth Zone - Act 3 and I was able to catch up to that point rather quickly.

Fighting Dr Robotnik during the rising water race at the end of Act 3 was difficult, but not as impossible as it seemed when I was younger. It only took me a couple of goes to get past him this time.

Run Sonic run! (Scrap Brain Zone)

The Scrap Brain Zone was always fun to play (if you could get there), with it's mechanical gears and widgets, flame-throwers, saw blades and other assorted industrial themed challenges.


I am most definitely not a fan of the obstacles that zap you with electricity if you get too close though. I got zapped way too many times!


Strangely, the end of the second act sees Dr Robotnik drop you into a new level (Scrap Brain Zone - Act 3) which looks very similar to the Labyrynth Zone. It is quite challenging compared to the other underwater levels earlier though.

Boing! (Star Light Xone)

By far my favourite Zone would have to be the Star Light Zone with its long loops and strange walking bomb enemies. The background music is very upbeat and melodical and reminds me of the music they play at fairgrounds. :3

Special levels were a challenge as they require you to finish a level with more than 50 rings in order to access them, which is difficult. In the end, I only managed to nab 3 of the 6 chaos emeralds up for grabs before the end of the game.

Some day I may try to get all the chaos emeralds, but for now I think this game is finished enough.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and I finally got to defeat Dr Robotnic in the final boss level, which I had never done before without cheating.

Someday I'll wipe that smile off your face Dr Robotnik

Steam Library Games Completed: 1 / 369

Zombie Zunday - Yet Another Zombie Defense (2014)

In honour of the new Zombie Zunday tradition SighFye has started, I decided to play a game I bought several months ago on steam. Yet another Zombie Defense first grabbed my attention for having a multiplayer top-down shooter defence style of gameplay, but the more I played it, the more I liked the singleplayer survival experience for the challenge it provides.

I've always been a fan of zombie games that pit you against constant waves of enemies and charges you with the task of surviving as long as possible. Dead Rising on the Xbox 360 was the first game I found that did it well, but you had to complete the main story once in order to unlock the survival mode first. This game ups the anty a little bit by emptying the playing field completely. It's just you and a single lamp post, against the zombie horde, in the middle of an empty expanse of darkness.

Anyone got a flashlight? :/

During the night, you are tasked with defending yourself against the undead. Once a wave of zombies is completed, the game transitions to daytime and you have an unlimited amount of time to purchase weapons & ammo and fortify your base by adding barricades or turrets. Once you have purchased everything you require to survive another night defending against the undead, you select next level to continue.

Back off, undead scum!

I thought this was an odd design choice at first because it removes the difficulty of having a limited amount of time for both defending and fortifying. Later in the game, something occurred to me that made some sense of that particular feature.  The fortifications seem to carry over damage from round to round if left in place between rounds. However if you remove all the erected fortifications and rebuild them, from the ground up, they are replaced at full health, allowing you to effectively repair your fortifications and also letting you spend a decent amount of time deciding on the best strategy in laying out your base to provide the best defence.

Put the electric fences on the outside! :D

 Since Yet Another Zombie Defense does not have a definitive end, as such, I decided before I started playing that unlocking the "Endless Night" mode by making it past the seventh night would qualify as "finishing" the game for the purposes of the blog.

With the recent additions of player upgrades and better turrets, I was able to survive until the 17th night. Unfortunately at the end of the 16th night, the zombies had become strong enough to overwhelm my barricades before my turrets could eradicate them and ultimately I wore down all of my remaining ammo. Going into the 17th night, I was unable to purchase enough ammo for either the SMG turrets or my Shotgun to last long enough to finish off the zombies.

Lasted a lot longer than the last time I tried to play this game.

I briefly tried the multi-player mode, but it was disappointing. Both players share ammo and currency with the turrets, so I frequently had players join and then spend all the money I had saved up for a blaster on fortifications immediately. I feel like either seperating the money and ammo counts for each player or making both players decide on purchases would be a nice addition.

I feel that money is quite sparse throughout the singleplayer survival experience too as it's extremely easy to run out of money and the amount of money gained each round and the amount of damage done by weapons you carry over doesn't balance well with the increase in zombie difficulty per round. This could be a design flaw, or done on purpose to make sure the game can end without the player continuing indefinitely, but either way it seems a little unbalanced at the moment.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Yet Another Zombie Defense as a survival game and, as long as you were playing with friends, I could see the multi-player mode being fun too. Since it's currently on sale for 49 cents each or 79 cents for a two-pack, I would highly recommend to grab it quickly before the sale runs out in about 26 hours.

Steam Library Games Completed: 2/369

Zombie Zunday: SighFyes Top 3 Zombie Games

Hey guys SighFye here.

I have decided to take a page out of Lloyd's book and start a new series. I will be starting a few of them over the following week but today I will begin Zombie Zunday. Every Sunday I will write something about zombies. As a start I thought I would write my top 3 zombie games of all time.

Number 3: Dead Nation

     Dead Nation is a top down shooter developed by Housemarque and Climax Studios on the PS3. It's a fast pace game with hordes after hordes of zombies coming from all directions. You have a wide arsenal of weapons to buy and upgrade from a head popping rifle with unlimited ammo, a shocker which send bolts of electricity through hordes of the undead, to my personal favourite, the blade cannon. This weapon fires a saw blade through the horde killing whole groups in one shot.

     Each kill gives the player cash and multiplier. Each time you get hit your multiplier goes down which directly effects your overall score. The cash collected is spent on much needed upgrades, armour and ammo refills at the end of each stage.

     The graphics are great and at times this game can get rather intense with the amount of zombies racing to get you.

Number 2: 7 Days To Die

 My second top 3 game is a game that's currently in alpha. 7 Days to Die is an open world voxel-base sandbox game. You are dropped into either a randomly generated world or a premade world. You must scavenge for items and food to help you survive in this creepy world. This game is a mash up between DayZ and Minecraft. You can mine, farm, hunt, survive, craft weapons and items, build bases and fortify them against the zombie hordes.

The crafting system is very in depth and has many recipes. A lot of recipes must be found in books found in the game before you can even start building those items. There is a leveling system which increases the chance to craft higher quality weapons and items. You must eat and drink to survive. Zombie can see, hear and even smell you.

The best part of this game for me is that every single room in every single building can be entered. The ambient sounds in this game are creepy and the night time is scary. This is a must try game if you love zombie survivals.

Number 1: The Last Of Us

The last of us is by far my favourite zombie game of all time. This game is made by Naughty Dog for the PS3. The story is an emotion roller coaster ride. The story is about a Joel who must deliver Ellie to a safe place. You must pass through zombie infected areas and groups of rebels who have no regard for people outside their group and will kill you for the can of beans in your bag or just because they don't like you.

This game has you sneaking passed zombies with pressing the controller so slightly that if you press it too hard the zombie will hear you and attack. It is so freaky and gets the heart racing. The story also has twist after twist which just pulls at the heart strings. This game will shock the shit out of you.

Brilliant story, brilliant graphics and, brilliant gameplay. This is not only my number one zombie game but also sits as my number one game of all time. Get it, play it and love it. I so hope they make a number 2 of this.