On 06/08/2024 20:51, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Last month I said that the first-Tuesday-of-the-month was rapidly
becoming my favorite day of the month, and the HumbleChoice's July
selection made me all the more certain of that statement. But will
August live up to that assumption? Let's see what they have for us
this time!
* SIFU
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2138710/Sifu/
The one with the Kung-Fu fighting. Unleash your inner
Bruce Lee in this stylish brawler. It's an extremely
well-made, if somewhat limited in scope, and the only
downside is that I'm not that much of a fan of
brawling games. But I'm willing to give this one a
chance; it just looks too cool to miss out on.
Fighting games are a genre I just don't get on with since Way of the
Exploding Fist on the Specky 48k. I have tried some in the arcades but I
didn't get into the whole learning combo's thing. They also seem more
suited to a two player experience.
* High On Life
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1583230/High_On_Life/
The one with the talking gun. Coarse and sophomoric,
its style belies its solid gameplay, but damn you'd
better be able to stomach the stupid jokes and visuals.
It's not half as funny as it thinks it is (well, unless
you play it while high, in which case you'll probably
have a blast). But the shootie-shoot-shoot bits are
well done.
Actual humour in games is pretty rare in my opinion. What is far more
common is attempted humour that only appeals to the type of person that
thinks knob gags are the way to go. Some games that I found at least
amusing though are Tales From The Borderlands and Portal I/II. Not laugh
out loud funny but more raise a smile funny and possibly a titter.
Overall there's just something about computer games that doesn't lend
them to the type of emotional responses that other media does, at least
for me. The nearest I've had is the ending of Telltales The Walking
Dead, I wasn't expecting a good ending but still.
As an aside I did see an interesting video of why games generally don't
do an 'evil' approach well. The short version is that most people are
naturally good and therefore see the consequences of their actions even
if these don't lead in in-game consequences.
The example that they used of where it can was GTA where they really
aren't any consequences at all. So you dragged a driver out of their car
and stole it, they'll get over it before just disappearing from the game
world to be replaced by another one.
I kinda agree but one of the issues I have is that a lot of the time the
evil approach has the consequence that you miss out of things so it's
either do the good thing and get this quest/trinket or do the evil thing
and don't. One that handled it better than most was Disco Elysium where
the different paths (ever fancied playing as fascist or how about a
communist?) you could take still lead to interesting outcomes.
I'll admit it; these choices are challenging my 'favorite-day-
of-the-month' theory. It hasn't overturned it entirely, though;
although not generally my style, "Sifu" is too good to not grab, and
"High on Life" and "Blacktail" are worth grabbing even if they aren't
/great/ games. As I've said, one of the things I /like/ about
HumbleChoice is how it exposes me to games I normally wouldn't
purchase because I'd rather put my money to games more suited to my
tastes. These curated selections make me expand my horizons, and
that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's definitely worth the pittance
I spend each month.
It the same type of reason I like Amazon Prime. The games I'm mainly
interested in are ones that I just haven't heard of but look like my
type of game and ones they I wasn't sure if they'd be my type of game.
The ones that generally hold no interest are the bigger hitters where
it's a case of if I wanted to play it I would own it already.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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