Eight long rolling weeks; SRR: Dragonfall

Welcome to Rolling play game month(s) in which we spend eight weeks playing roles with the grenade that is the computer. Please enjoy your stay as we jack into steam for another exciting romp through fictional worlds with large, elaborate dialogue trees that don't do anything to actually influence conclusions and whatever else we like to pretend makes for roleplaying.

Choices matter. They matter because you make a choice, and then, that's what you did. Deep. Deep like the rolling pin games, on the computer.

Dragonfall is the follow up to Shadowrun Returns, which contained the campaign "Deadman's Switch" or some variation on that string of letters. A lot of people seemed pretty down on DMS, but I thought it was a pretty effective tutorial, which I've said about 75 times or something in the last year. Dragonfall inversely is meant to be more of a standalone adventure more suited to experienced players.

On a basic level this is a RPG with squad based tactical combat set in a cyberpunk world. Dragonfall (as a game) comes off as a fair bit more toward the dystopian than DMS, but not really to the point it feels like the setting isn't being used - more like the setting has more depth to it than the usual RPG nonsense, and different parts of the world feel different. Which is a good thing.

I don't, and I know I've said this, feel much of anything special toward Shadowrun. As earlier RPG systems go, I never really played anything other than D&D. I don't even like D&D though, the only systems I have much of a soft spot for are the White wolf nonsense which is endearing in its completely ridiculous nature and BattleTech which just has the best world-building coupled with a legacy of endless failure. Shadowrun is just "there" for me, it is built out of disparate cyberpunk parts but doesn't really hum with its own energy. So while I think these games are cool, I'm not saying that out of nostalgia.

I kinda like or dislike this game on its own merits, even disregarding it as a sequel, since I barely remember DMS other than how good the story hook was.

You're back I see: 2015 in review

General rules apply for my year in review process. I rate games as A, B, C or D. Note that none of these ratings are recommendations based around whether or not I thought the game was good. Not exactly. Rather, the ratings are recommendations as to whether or not I think you should try the game depending on your personal, subjective take on a given genre.

Also it is really worth noting that like ... Maybe one or four games on this list came out this year. This blog is about playing games that have gotten cheap, or that someone gifted me, or come out of a bundle. So the titles in here could be from as far back as 2008 or who even knows. Don't worry, just game.

A rated games are games I think supersede their genre and everyone should give a try if they think they could possibly like the game. If you totally hate platformers, of course, an A rating doesn't mean I think the game will overcome that. If you dislike them or usually find them samey, though, the A rating means I think you'll like this one or at least should give it a try.

It's a discussion more of what I think - based on you, the reader - might find fun. That's the biggest issue with reviewing in general, I think, since there's a thousand subjective factors in play. A rated games are the ones I think somewhat overcome the subjective, at least to some degree. That doesn't mean if you're hostile to the genre it is going to get past it, though.

B rated games are games I think are just good examples of their genre. If you tend to like such a genre, then you'll probably like a B rated game. So if you like shooters, and it is a B rated shooter, you should go check out the review and see if you're into it.

C rated games are, inversely, games that I think you need to like the genre or really want to play an example of the genre to need to play. C is about the point where I tend to start giving up on games midway through playing them, and generally don't think too highly of them. Sometimes I really like a C rated game, but sometimes they're scrapping right along just being trashed.

D rated games are games I would generally avoid. Very few games are truly so bad that you can't squeeze an hour of fun out of them, but some are, and some do. I'd avoid D rated games.

Over the verge; Axiom Verge

Axiom Verge is the product of a single dude, which has long since lost real meaning to me. Thomas Happ be his name, and he made a game about ... Whatever this game is actually about is somewhat hard to describe. I'm going to try to describe the game without spoiling the game, which is actually much more difficult than you'd think, because certain explicit and implicit elements of the gameworld are tampered with as a matter of due course for the story to unveil and then unfold.

At its core, before anything else is layered on, Axiom Verge is a Metroid leaning Metroidvania. There are a lot of reviews and a lot of commentary built from that central point, and a lot of it goes from there to become very hostile and negative. Oh how dare a single gentlemen lovingly craft a passion project in his side hours that builds from his experiences in retro-gaming of the Nintendo-kind! How dare he infringe on that holy space!

Thing is, as I said back in the Super cyborg review, I honestly don't care anymore. We're not in the early generations of gaming here, and the fact that someone who was raised on video games made a video game that feels like video games is like complaining that a major book series feels like a book within its genre. Yeah, it is a Metroidvania that feels like a Metroidvania.

Get over it. The genre is actually pretty narrow, if you actually want it to feel like Metroid, and not something like Strider where the Metroidvania elements feel like a contagion that infected an action game's genome and dragged the entire production down.

To me the real question is whether or not Axiom Verge, in and of itself, by itself, feels like a quality and polished product that I enjoyed playing, and/or, think others should play.