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Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (Mac): COMPLETED!

Posted on 12/12/2015 Written by deKay

You know,”Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist” takes almost as long to say as the game does to play. On my first playthrough, I clocking in at just 23 minutes, and it would seem that’s pretty slow.

The title is also somewhat trolling. “Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist” contains exactly none of these things, except perhaps a tiger (although you never see it), since it’s actually set in a sort of behind the scenes area, backstage as if the game in the title is actually being played out for real by someone else (and you can’t play because they’re busy playing themselves).

Which sets you up for one of those mostly puzzle free “walking simulators” which are a thing now and have a terrible genre title. Simon Amstell talks you through the events as they unfold in his usual sarcastic and seemingly inept style, while you assist in the runthrough of the game itself – pressing buttons and so on.

Not a lot happens, although replaying it is on the cards to nab some achievements (which are, after two updates, still bugged and I can’t get most of them) and listen to some actually properly funny cassette tapes purporting to be a developer’s commentary (but… aren’t). The current most recent update added a load of pretzels to find, for no discernible reason, too.

Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist is free, humourous, and definitely worth a play. I do get the impression, however, that it’s a setup for the actual game in the title though, which may or may not appear at some point.

And here’s a video of me completing it, so, you know, spoilers and that.

The post Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (Mac): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

The Stanley Parable: completed!

Posted on 11/12/2015 Written by Xexyz

The Stanley Parable is an odd narrative game, where you are effectively given instructions by the narrator. As an office worker, you suddenly realise that everyone else has disappeared, and it feels that the point of the game is to understand why. If it were a traditional game, that would be the case.

The game is most fun, or rather funny, when not following instructions. I didn't know that, of course, and my first play through I did what the narrator told me was going to happen, with one exception - I went down a corridor marked as certain death, and only turned around at the end when I realised they weren't joking.

I found the boss's office, I found the secret passageway, I went through and completed the game. That wasn't the end, though.

On my second game, I turned left when I was told right, and ended up backstage. I found myself eventually in some sort of museum with maps of the game and concept sketches. I tried again and the game was reset by the narrator. I found an odd subgame where I was pretending to be at home with a mannequin.

I saw a lot of office buildings and the central control room, many times.

I escaped a few times.

I got trapped in a room once, when the narrator decided that he was fed up with my excursions and told me that I had won the game.

I was given a helpful hint on where to go.

And I don't think I've seen it all yet, but it'll have to wait for another day. I suspect that I shall put this on the TV and show Justine at some point, and maybe she'll want to experiment as well.

I wonder which ending she'll get.

The Stanley Parable: completed!

Posted on 11/12/2015 Written by Xexyz

I saw a lot of office buildings and the central control room, many times.

I escaped a few times.

I got trapped in a room once, when the narrator decided that he was fed up with my excursions and told me that I had won the game.

I was given a helpful hint on where to go.

And I don't think I've seen it all yet, but it'll have to wait for another day. I suspect that I shall put this on the TV and show Justine at some point, and maybe she'll want to experiment as well.

I wonder which ending she'll get.

Halo Anniversary: completed!

Posted on 16/11/2015 Written by Xexyz

Amusingly, as I travelled to work this morning I was reminded that I completed Halo 2 eight years ago today. And today I have completed the updated original game.

I have a soft spot for the original Halo. When I first played through it, the story wasn't massively inspiring, but the gameplay was and as I progressed through the game I got interested with the overall objectives. Until, that is, I got to the Library, and the flood, which seemed to go on forever and really was pretty dull. But after escaping from the library and backtracking through previous levels, watching the covenant fight the flood, I felt a sense of urgency and importance which was compounded by the final escape run. I said I might play it again some time.

And, you know what, I did. I played through the whole game again a year or so later, and of course played multiplayer a few times when people visited. Each of the levels, while part of the narrative, stands up well as a separate game. And then when Halo Anniversary was released, it seemed an ideal time to go back to it. Unfortunately it came at a time when I'd just finished ODST and started Reach, and it appears that I stopped playing after the Pillar of Autumn. With a renewed freshness for the game, I decided to play it again.

The thing about Halo Anniversary is that it looks how you remember the original game to look. For example, I remember this:

I don't remember this:

But the second picture is what the original game actually looks like. Plain, muddy, dark.

The needler has always been pink, hasn't it?

Lot of dead spartans in a co-op mode, looking either rugged or metallic depending on when you play the game.

Lush scenery, or foggy closeness.

At least the light bridge is the same.

One of the very cool things about remasters such as this is the ability to switch between original and new graphics at will. This isn't quite as slick as the Monkey Island remake, with a fade to black between the styles, but it still works well.

So, anyway, I played through the game to the end. Blah blah, Library dull, Keyes face, nuclear reactors exploding, drive warthog, escape. Still a fantastic game.

There are some additions to the game as well. Borrowed from Halo 3, there are a number of skulls located in hidden areas. I actually looked up where they were, since there is no way I would ever explore enough to find them, and then went through the game collecting them - sometimes in a co-op game with both controllers in order to get to obscure areas. It was well worth it, because some of the skulls make the game more fun to play again. Particularly infinite ammo. That even makes the Library fun, throwing limitless grenades, especially with the double explosion size also turned on.

I think I may have had my fill now, though. Time to leave the comforting familiar environments behind, and go back to see where I reached in, er, Halo Reach.

Broken Age (PS4): COMPLETED!

Posted on 08/11/2015 Written by deKay

I like point and click adventure games, and it was only a matter of time before I went and bought Broken Age anyway. Then, of course, it appeared on PS+ so I didn’t need to. I sort of feel like I should do anyway, because I enjoyed it a lot and PS+ always feels like renting and renting is Bad. Probably.

Without giving too much away, Broken Age is a game of two halves played out as two seemingly separate stories. On one side, there’s Vella – a young girl chosen to be sacrificed to the monster Mog Chothra in order to protect her village in a ceremony that happens in every village every 14 years. On the other side, there’s Shay – a young boy who lives apparently alone on a spaceship and does nothing but terrible and childish “simulations” where he rescues woollen creatures from fake harm every day.

Naturally, their two stories are not only linked, but become one later on. That’s not really a spoiler as it’s pretty obvious; otherwise why not just have two separate games, eh?

I assumed that you had to play one story then the other, but it became apparent that you can actually flit between both at will. In fact, in Act 2, you have to do this in order to solve some puzzles (and it’s at this point I realised you could). Near the start of the game I guessed what the end of Act 2 twist (and the reveal about Shay’s spaceship) would be, although maybe I got lucky.

As far as the gameplay goes, it’s a streamlined point and click game. Streamlined in that gone are the days of choosing “give”, “go”, “use” etc., instead everything is context sensitive and this reduces annoyance greatly. I know Broken Age isn’t the first to do this, but it’s appreciated anyway. The puzzles are mostly straightforward, with actual simple logic to them, meaning they’re generally not frustrating as they can often be in these games. However, in the final half an hour or so of the game (or almost two hours as I played it…) there are some real head scratchers: It was too easy to seemingly get things right but them not actually work. Also, the less said about the hexapal wiring puzzles the better. Oh god did they annoy me.

Click to view slideshow.

Broken Age was funny just as you’d expect from Tim Schafer, had a wonderful story and a cast of great characters (almost all with some excellent voice acting too). It was pretty long for a game of this type too, not accounting for my lack of skill in the latter part, it was well over 8 hours. I can definitely recommend it to fans of the genre too.

Here’s my entire playthrough. If you’ve the stamina!

The post Broken Age (PS4): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.