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Super Mario Odyssey: a variety of treats

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The game is so expansive in its scope that it’s hard to know what to write. With Breath of the Wild, and then also Tears of the Kingdom, the game felt huge because of the size of the world, the enormity of the task, and the freedom you had to approach it how you wanted. Breath of the Wild actually prevented me from posting on here for a bit. Odyssey is different – the worlds are smaller and disconnected, the tasks are short and targeted. It feels ideal for a handheld game in many respects, where you can turn it on, explore for a bit and find a couple of moons, and then put your Switch back in the bag as your train arrives at Charing Cross. Yet it also works as a large open world, where everywhere in sight has something that makes you think there’s something new to do, and very often there is.

I’ve been to the city, and formed a band – the 2D sections here were fantastic. I’ve been to a pink kingdom where they make stew. I’ve been back to revisit worlds I passed by quickly before, looking for new moons. There are a few staples in each world – the note paths, the tower of goombas – but even these have idiosyncrasies to vary the game. There are so many ideas packed into every area that I cannot even choose what to highlight.

I have around 350 moons now, and have opened Bowser’s Kingdom. I can’t quite bring myself to go there, though, because it feels too final – I don’t want the game to end, and even though I know I’ll be able to carry on moon hunting afterwards, the fact that some of my lists are barely half full makes me want to skulk around the existing levels just a bit more.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City: packages, police, and pootling

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Back in April, when I completed Vice City, I posited that I might try playing San Andreas in “a few months”. It has now been a few months, and I’m not playing it. I have a bit of a mental blocker on that game, partially around the setting, but also because I remember when it was released that there were countless reviews evangelising the detail they’d gone into, with you needing to regularly work out to keep fit, and eat healthily, and so on. It sounded too involved, and even if that’s not the case, it’s prevented me from playing it.

And so I went back to Vice City, to finish off side missions and collect stuff.

My first objective was to collect the hidden packages. Throughout playing the game, I’d found just over fifty of them, but the other forty were evidently too well hidden. I used a map guide to travel around the city and find them, and eventually I came to the end of the list … and still only had 95. I had to retrace my steps, eventually realising that I mist have failed to save at some point after collecting packages in the airport, because there were five of them still sitting there.

Collecting all the packages unlocked a military helicopter at the South end of the first island, so I spent some time flying around and blowing stuff up, including the annoying planes carrying banners over the city. I got a nice big wanted level, which I then got rid of by landing on the roof of my mansion and running in to change my clothes.

I then bought the car showroom, and found all the cars required by its clients, including the ice cream truck and pizza delivery bike. The biggest issue I had on this was with the games in Little Haiti, who all hate me for some reason and blew up two of their gang cars when I tried to steal them.

Sometimes it’s fun to just watch other people’s chaos. Security guards and gang members like to shoot at each other, and then when the ambulance turns up the paramedics can get caught in the crossfire.

And then I went to the Malibu Club and tried to complete the missions there. I got stuck here before – there’s a mission where you have to break someone out of the police station, and I was being shot to pieces as soon as I entered. It’s a lot easier if you go in without a gun in your hand, and then run straight into the locket room to get a police uniform on. Once you open the cells, they still try to kill you – but I had a fast car parked outside, and a route to a pay and spray planned, so I managed to finish that … only to get stuck on another mission where you have to race someone through the city, with the police trying to ram you (and not him) off the road.

I’m nearly done with this now.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami (Switch): COMPLETED!

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A silly point and click game where you’re a gritty noir-ish hard-boiled detective? And you’re a duck? Sold.

Aside from being a duck, you’re every cliche known to the character. Your apartment is your office, you have no money, you’re going through a divorce, you seem to have a drinking problem – a full house.

Desperate for work, you take on a job for an anonymous person who wants you to investigate a lunch theft from the staff kitchen in the offices of a bus company. By making deducktions (no, really) where you link characters and evidence to fill in gaps in sentences, based on the information you’ve found or gotten out of the workers. It soon becomes clear that there’s a bit more going on than someone nicking food from the fridge, when there’s evidence of smuggling and even a kidnapping.

Good things about the game include the comedy style (and duck puns) and how the character you think might be the suspect keeps changing, as everyone seems to have some sort of grudge or problem with at least one other person involved. On the down side, it’s an incredibly short game. I was expecting several cases to solve, whereas there’s really only one (well, three crimes, but they’re all the same case and you solve them together). There’s also a puzzle I just didn’t get, involving a safe combination, which I brute forced in the end but even after looking up a solution later it still doesn’t make sense.

Still, if I see the sequel (beakquel?) cheap, I’ll probably buy it.

Viewfinder (PS5): COMPLETED!

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This is one of those puzzle games that makes you feel very clever. Not quite as clever as The Witness, perhaps, or Superliminal, which this feels a bit like.

The premise is that in a future where climate change has broken everything, you’ve been put in a VR machine within which some clever people in the past supposedly found a fix for the planet but it was never put in place. You have to find out what it is. It’s sort of like wandering round a shared Mind Palace or something.

What it actually is, because that’s just the framing gimmick, is a series of first person levels where the aim is to reach a device that lets you move on to the next bit. Only it’s always out of reach or needs power or is behind a wall or has a missing cable or is sound activated but the sound-making-device is too far away.

You solve these puzzles initially by making use of photographs you find. These 2D pictures create a 3D object of the photo when used, so for example, you have to get from one platform to another but there’s a big gap. If you stand in the right place, and hold up the photo of a bridge you found nearby in just the right way that it looks like the bridge fills the gap, then magically it does fill the gap.

Later on, you get a camera with which to make your own photos, and various other things – like batteries, a photocopier, pieces of pictures you have to line up, and walls of a certain colour that can’t be photographed (or “printed over” with a photograph) complicate things.

It’s not especially long, but it has plenty of clever ideas along the way. I also appreciated some of the trophies. They reward for trying to do stupid things. For example, there’s a bit where you need three batteries to power an exit, but you only have one battery. Naturally, you take a photo of the battery and then that photo gives you a second battery. My mind then thought… wait. I’ve more shots left on this camera. Took a photo of both batteries, then all four batteries and so on. Got to 32 or 64 batteries and a trophy popped. Amazing.

Roguecraft DX (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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This is an isometric Amiga-based little roguelike on the Evercade, which is an update to the Commodore 64-based Rogue64, which was a free hidden game on the Evercade. There’s nothing especially new or special about it, but it’s polished and looks really nice. It’s simple enough – randomised dungeons with baddies that generally get harder as you do deeper in, potions (most of them with random-for-that-run effects), health to maintain, and so on.

You can start with one of three classes – Warrior, Rogue and Wizard, which also act as the difficulty levels. I’ve completed it as a Warrior, but not managed it with the other two yet. And I very much enjoyed it.

Oh, and the “craft” in Roguecraft is referencing Lovecraft, not crafting. Of which there is none.