Every Friday, several A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
I have a confession, friends: I have clicked the cookie.
Does that sentence carry any meaning for you? Does it evoke memories, possibly long-buried, of spending long hours watching an arbitrary number steadily go up? Clicking frenetically to make it rise faster? Buying upgrades, spending currencies, translating time into a vague sense of having both accomplished something, but also, somehow, less than nothing?
Then you may be an idle gamer, friend. Just like me.
My relationship with what’s sometimes known as incremental gaming—presumably because it highlights that some of these games require a ton of busywork that’s not exactly “idle,” and also to make the whole thing sound a little less pathetic—stretches behind me like an addict’s litany of vices. For years, I’ve fallen into emotional pits where these games—distinguished mostly by the cycle between watching a resource increase, then spending it to make it increase even faster, repeated in an endless, dopamine-pinging loop—can come to dominate my waking and sleeping thoughts.
I have ground the realms, I have gleamed the cube of adventurous capitalism. I opened the candy box, I unleashed the hypnodrones, I idled my way through factories, painting galleries, and dungeons galore. Like some sort of bleary-eyed, carpal-tunneled foster father, I have raised trimps, kittens, penguins, alien bugs, and dozens of other adorable stand-ins for the hard reality of filling bars and steadily rising sums. In my darkest moments, I’ve even spent hours of my ostensibly precious life on games that don’t even bother to cloak their mechanisms behind some kind of cutesy conceit, serving as little more than a series of bars that steadily, inexorably go up. Very little of it has been fun in any traditional sense, and much of it has arrived with a grim sense of confinement and compulsion. But I’ve done it.
There’s something extra humiliating about being addicted to a genre of games that literally started as a joke about the depths to which players might sink; the earliest examples of the genre were stuff like Progress Quest and Cow Clicker, which were meant to satirize “progress” in video games by breaking it down to its simplest mechanism: Number goes up, brain feels good. But Cow Clicker inevitably begat Cookie Clicker, which—while still a comedy game, what with its Lovecraftian horde of baking-obsessed grandmas—steered further into the compulsive cycle. And from there, a million repetitive, sleep-destroying ships were launched.
Looking at it now—and yes, obviously, I have an instance of Cookie Clicker running in the background as I write this because my brain is sick—that ur-game feels strangely generous: The loop of upgrades is too forgiving, the ability to progress too fast—especially in comparison to the mercilessly tuned creations it spawned. (No other genre roots its design in manipulating the psychology of its players, because honestly, that’s all it’s got.) It also has almost no “game” elements to it, beyond the click-upgrade-idle loop. Compare that with, say, the officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons game, Idle Champions Of The Forgotten Realms, which adds in inventory systems, formation bonuses, and all sorts of other extra mechanics to distract you from the pointlessness of what you’re doing. That one almost feels like a “real” game at this point, though my fixation on these idle pursuits has blurred the line of what that particular term might mean. (See also entries with set endpoints and varying mechanics, like Candy Box, A Dark Room, and Universal Paperclips, which are really just simulation games with intentionally long, boring middle parts.)
Maybe that’s why I return to Cookie Clicker every few years. It’s pure, in a way that its descendants rarely are. Numbers go up, brain feels good. I’ve got just enough self-awareness to know that my dalliances with this genre operates on the same cycle as my various struggles with depression and anxiety. Sometimes, when you’re down in the depths, you just need a win, even if that win is the feeling of satisfaction that comes when you have enough cookies to buy the next big upgrade, setting yourself on the “easy” side of the game’s “difficulty” curve for a bit. Or of managing to get to bed when your brain has been screaming at you to just leave it alone for the last two hours, too scared of the silence and the darkness to tear yourself away from the simple, mechanical satisfaction. Or maybe it’s the moment when you can finally bring yourself to wipe your save file, freeing yourself from a series of self-imposed fantastical chores that are still chores all the same, and can start to feel like a prison as the hours tick away.
I know I’ll be back. I’m a cookie clicker, deep at heart. But it’s good to pretend for a minute that I’m free.
104 Comments
Fire Promoter is out! The long awaited Management mode for Fire Pro Wrestling World is here, and I’ve only managed to delve a little into it. It seems limited but a solid framework- you start out with a few wrestlers and you put on a card each month, you can scout for guys and invite guests, you can put out merch, keep track of what other companies are doing, it’s a fun little sim. Also finally arriving, I got my hands on Godzilla for the PS4, and well, I see why this has the reputation it has. It is not a good game, but I’ve gotten some fun just out of being Godzilla, slowly walking around the city, and destroying buildings. A key problem is the control scheme- moving the control stick left or right basically strafes, while you have to use L1 and R1 to get Godzilla to actually turn. I have no idea why you would do this. There are fights against other monsters, which are odd and confusingly signposted and you can’t really block so you just flail at each other, and there’s a weird “leadership” system where the difficulty of a stage is represented by whoever the Prime Minister is. As Godzilla games go I would rank it above the NES games and Super Godzilla, but below the trilogy which started with Destroy All Monsters Melee because those were legit good.In between waiting for things to install I’ve been playing spurts of Hollow Knight, I’m to Greenpath now and trying to figure out how to fight Hornet. So far the game has a pretty good difficulty curve.
I beat Sigrun, Queen of Valkyries in God Of War and, seamlessly connecting to William’s addiction-bit, got a shiny Platinum to show for it! Soon as I finished it, it showed me the 100% completion message too, thus having finished my journey through the nine realms (for now). Not that I mean to reduce this amazing game to some collectible check-list. I only try and see everything in a game as long as I enjoy it and want to see all of it. Even RDR2, after finishing the main story, had me burned out on it so I haven’t even gotten over 50% total completion there I think. In the past it used to be different, I’d sometimes grind a couple of hours too many for that one trophy or platinum, something I’ve thankfully weened myself off of (the only thing that got close in GoW was Niflheim). I still have the compulsion at times when I feel depressed or aimless. Hitting 100% or getting that rush from a trophy-notification, can make me feel like I’m exerting some control while everything else around me turns to shit and I feel like I’m drowning.
Great talk, C, real uplifting stuff. What a tough fight that was though. My rune-cooldown loadout did the trick in the end combined with a more cautious approach. I knew I had to at least evade a certain number of her attacks to keep the runic attack cycle going and that’s what happened. Depending on who you asked, when I beat her, I roared like Kratos or I shrieked like a Nightmare eater. Very satisfying, made me want to go back to Bloodborne again. (reading Jason Schreier’s praise on Kotaku helped too)
But before that, I will most likely start Nier Automata as I bought the Game of the Yorha-edition this week. That game doesn’t seem to go on sale a lot so I figured I might as well. That or Prey which has been sitting there for ages too.
Have a great weekend everybody! Go out, sniff the sky and look at the grass too besides all the wonderful gaming!
I came into Nier cold, having never played any of the previous games and no other Platinum games outside of Bayonetta 1/2. Nier Automata is excellent and despite the insane backlog I have (in Chapter 3 of RDR2 over 50+ hours…damn legendary fish), I always want to replay Nier at all times.
You actually went through with all the Valkyries?!? You’re a beast man. I gave up after 2 Valkyrie wins and felt like I was beating my head against a wall on the rest. I did watch a YouTube video of the Queen though and holy hell that looks like a controller snapper.
I wish I could claim beast-mode but honestly, I played the game on Give Me A Balanced Experience-level, not Challenge or God Of War. And that’s really what it delivers. It was challenging, I still died occasionally in normal fights if I wasn’t paying attention and those Valkyries were tricky at first. The first one at Thamur’s Corpse was brutal. I was level 4 but was too stubborn to quit. After that, I tried another one and died 10 times in a row or so. So I saved them all for the end game. Even at level 6, the one in Muspelheim gave me a hard time. But after I got the Ivaldi-armor, I beat all 6 remaining Valkyries on my first try. Good loadout helps a lot. Sigrun though, yeesh, still took me 30-40 tries.
As an occasional but largely lapsed plat-hunter this really makes me want to go back to try GoW again. I kind of washed out of it maybe 5 hours in or so; it’s a good game, I was enjoying it, but I also happened to circle back to Nioh around the same time and fell thoroughly into that rabbit hole on the second go-round, with its spectacular combat system and controls (honestly, the combat is even better than the Soulsborne games, it’s that good), and just haven’t been motivated to return to GoW, until now. I think I’ll try to fire it back up tonight and see if it catches me this time, thank you.Also, Automata is wonderful, yes (and of course I platted it as a result, lol); I liked it so much I actually went and bought the original Nier for my PS3 off a kid on CL, but of course haven’t dipped into that yet either, my backlog is basically Grendel on steroids at this point. Still, the best Platinum game is Vanquish. 😛
You really should, just for the story, atmosphere, visuals, music,… it’s well worth playing. It really is one of my favourite games ever. I’ll take this kind of semi-open, beautifully curated game over any open world game any day.
Oh man, I beat her on “Give Me God of War”, New Game Plus, and got the 100% pop-up with her defeat too. It was seriously one of the most satisfying moments of my 20+ years of gaming (sharing solely for bragging rights)
That’s amazing. That first chunk of health (realizing half-way through you hadn’t taken damage yet? wow) she took, was massive. Your spatial awareness and timing are awesome, I really enjoyed watching that.
Those blinding attacks were the worst. Whenever I would turn around, I’d still be damaged. Was I just too late? Does Atreus need to shoot her? That one and the air-stomp always got me.
That Blessing + Time Stop combo was smart, good use of the damage boost. Cool to see we both used the same runic attacks for the blades. For the axe, I used Wrath of the Frost Ancient because 1) laser beams are cool 2) it does quite a lot of damage too even if it does leave you vulnerable. The second runic was the home-seeking axe throw. And for my talisman, I had the Infinity Gauntlet on, like the effects and it stuns pretty good.
Hey, thanks! I bet I fought her at least 100 times before getting to this point. It’s PUNISHING, so getting through most of it without taking any damage is almost a necessity. I had the squirrel summon equipped to get health items when I got hit, but actually picking them up while trying to fend off her onslaught of attacks was one of the most dangerous and stressful things about my strategy. Sometimes I’d resort to Rage mode to get back a tiny bit of health, too, but that was even more risky if it wore off right as she was about to attack. This was sort of a perfect scenario, where I didn’t have to use Rage and could just pop it to finish off the fight after my resurrection (in the most serendipitously dramatic way possible).
The blinding attack is, indeed, a pain. On the balanced difficulty, you actually can stop it by throwing your axe or (I think?) having Atreus shoot her. On GMGoW mode, though, the only way to avoid it is to look away. Once you get in the groove with it, it’s pretty easy to repeat, but it’s 100% about being able to feel the timing and do without thinking. Learning it is sort of just trial and error, because you can’t see where she’s at with her animation, and you have to turn back around quickly enough to see what her next action is and react. Insane.
The Blessing/time stop was definitely my main method for doing serious damage, which made the fight a little uneven (since the re-charge for the time-stop ability takes a while), but I think it played out well because I could focus primarily on dodging/parrying attacks throughout most of the fight. On normal I used the maxed out Infinity Gauntlet like you, though. New Game Plus makes some big changes to equipment by having higher-tier “Perfect” versions of most of the epic gear, each with a full 3 slots for enchantments, meaning you have more legitimate options for your end-game loadout. NG+ also lets you trade in certain equipment and gear sets for top-level enchantments with the same passive abilities, which can have a major effect on strategy. In general, I highly recommend NG+; they put a lot of thought into it, and if you’re bringing over a maxed-out normal character into GMGoW mode it feels like a fairly natural progression.
Anyway, nice selections with the runics. I tried LOTS of combinations for this fight, but ultimately settled on the moves that were the quickest, since even the tiniest mistake could lead to ruin (see: the incredibly stupid, tiny mistakes I made here). My choices for the majority of the game (and the Sigrun fight on normal) were a lot different.
I’ve been running around completing errands in GoW and only returning to the story to unlock powerups. It’s so pretty I just wanted to explore and trigger more dialogue (I am surprisingly invested the central relationship). Despite discovering the Valkyries, I’m saving them for the end because even the higher level Travelers were kicking my ass. It’s surprising how much the load-out can make a difference, which oddly reminds me of Stick of Truth.
Yeah, single purple enemies I could take on but two or one with minions, forget it. Especially travelers always gave me a hard time. I did like how the exploration would lead me to areas where I’d just take a mental note to return to. I only used videos for tracking down the ravens and a few artifacts and lore stones. Great game to explore and just take in the sights. Collecting stuff was the perfect reason to make another full tour of the lake of nine for example.
I am so excited for you to go in Nier for the first time. Ignore any comments about having to play the game 3 times. You play the game once. The game is over at Ending E. That is one playthrough of the game.
Enjoy the music, pathos, bathos, and butts!
I did read stuff about different endings and C and all that. I’ll see for myself. At this point, I’m looking forward to the music most actually, it gets universal praise.
I also played through the whole thing on balanced experience, which I found generally a good challenge for me without being too easy (until the last few hours, where I was pretty overpowered for non-Valkyrie enemies). I confess that I did do something I rarely do, which is turn down the difficulty even further for Sigrun (only her though!) – mainly because my playing time is really limited these days, and I very much wanted to just get to New Game+ so I could play with all my fancy armors.My one complaint about GoW is the item progression kind of stinks on non-NG+ – I felt like I used more or less the same armors for much of the game, then got a ton of really cool stuff at the end that was ultimately useless since I was simultaneously getting Niflheim and Valkyrie armor. Maybe I just didn’t time it right but I felt like I finally got all decked out and then had very little to do with it.Nier is great – I got it on sale a while ago and just dove in while knowing virtually nothing about it. I ended up not finishing (again back to the limited time), but spent a solid 15-20 hours that I really enjoyed with the game. I’d like to ultimately go back and play some more but I don’t know that I ever will – I have Bloodborne waiting for me from PS+, which I suspect will take up a year or more of actual time for me.
I looked at my friend playing Anthem and I cannot believe that a game like Anthem exists.I manage to survive up till the top 3 of Apex Legends while Anthem’s loading screens were still on the TV. The cut scenes were a bigger downgrade than Mass Effect Andromeda, and not once were we able to look at our own character outside of the javelin suits, which was what Bioware is good at.You can actually go outside, pay your taxes and order takeaway at McDonalds, and the Anthem loading screens will still be there once you come home. Not even a fast SSD for your Xbox/PC/PS4 can help fix the loading screens. It is so bad.The combat was bland in comparison to Apex Legends. Frostbite is pretty much the wrong engine for Bioware. Anthem just couldn’t replicate neither Warframe nor Destiny with a game engine that was built for an FPS like Battlefield. Frostbite did not work for Andromeda, and it certainly doesn’t work for Anthem.I feel so sorry for Bioware. It feels like a game that was only made to chase The “Looter Shooter” trend which was arguably the worst shooter genre in modern history. I really hope that Dragon Age revives Bioware to the passionate state they’re in.
Has any Game-As-A-Service, whether Battle Royale, Looter Shooter, MMORPG or other ever launched in a state that could be described as “polished?” I feel like nothing of it happens well.
Apex Legends and Overwatch were polished from day 1, which explains their enduring fame.
Oh, derp. I completely forgot about Apex. I don’t have enough familiarity with Overwatch to know enough about it other than GOATS is apparently bad. I have no idea what GOATS is.
Didn’t Apex come out like three weeks ago? “Enduring fame” might be a little strong.
I’m still on Metal Gear Solid, and honestly I’m finding it quite frustrating. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m playing a PS game on a PS3 and the controller just doesn’t quite translate correctly, but the controls are really janky. Aiming is nigh impossible, especially with the assault rifle, and even crawling around IR beams is unreasonably difficult; it took about twenty attempts to get the sniper rifle without setting off alarms and immediately getting shot up by heavily armoured guards. Some of the game design is pretty irritating as well – I appreciate that I’ve gotten used to games handholding me, and that I’m now a very impatient person, but without reference to a guide I’d probably never have found my way out of the cave with all the wolves in it, let alone retraced my steps back to nearly the start of the game to find a fucking sniper rifle. (I won’t blame the game for not knowing that I’d be playing a download version twenty years later, so I can’t refer to the game’s CD-ROM case to find the correct code to contact Meryl).The Psycho Mantis bit was pretty cool though, I’ll give it that.
That is my favorite series of games, but yeah, MGS1 had some pretty wonky controls. MGS2 has better controls, and MGS 3 is the pinnacle of the series, so it’s definitely worth working your way through the first.
Another Incremental Addict (which I’m kind of surprised is not the title of an incremental at this point, really). Currently have Idle Wizard, NGU, and Cosmosquest on the go but I’ve dabbled (and often more than dabbled) in most of them. I know they’re just skinner boxes but when I don’t have time to sit down and really get lost in a game they at least scratch that gaming itch a little while I focus on other things.
NGU is the one that’s eating up brain cycles right now; I didn’t mention it in the piece essentially because I didn’t want to give the manipulative bastards the win.
It’s worth mentioning that NGU is developed by just 1 person who is enough of a fan of the genre that they ended up wanting to make their own. Through their success with NGU, they were able to quit their day job and develop it full time. It’s a fantastic success story that kinda makes me appreciate NGU all that much more.That being said, you also forgot SPACEPLAN in the list of “really good ones that also have an end point” which could’ve fit into the group of rare “idle games that actually cost money” that added Time Warpers to its ranks recently.
I really, really like it, and it shows its love of the genre and the desire to give players more to do at every turn. I’m just a resentful jerk who hates that it’s eaten so much of his last week.
I haven’t been able to get into those pure skinner box incrementals. The clsoest I can get is the grind of Warframe or World of Tanks. I guess I need a little more feedback than those. I think the most casual I get is good old Candy Crush saga.
“No other genre roots its design in manipulating the psychology of its players, because honestly, that’s all it’s got”idk why the fuck so many people give gasha games a pass. They never seem to be mentioned in conversations about lootboxes either.My weekend will be either Darksiders 3 or Horizon Zero Dawn. Dark Souls 3, still in progress, calls to me; but I don’t want to be feeling burnt out towards the end like I did with DS1 and Bloodborne.Sidenote, can these articles be reposted after 6h or so? atm it feels like only the first few comments get replies (same with the “Pop Culture Weekend” threads).
That’s a totally fair point, especially in so far as they’re pushing different but related levers, at least to my mind. I don’t have the gambling “thing” for whatever reason, so it’s much easier for my brain to be seduced by the inevitable progress of a clicker game, rather than the “small chance to win big!” appeal of a gashapon. (But I don’t have the “collector” tic, either, while we’re listing gameifiable compulsions.)
I want to do another play through of Horizon: Zero Dawn. I 100% it when it came out but ever gave the DLC a fair shake. It was such a fun game
Funny that we mention HZD and its DLC, but I just picked it up and played through it last week, and it’s great! Granted, it’s just more of a very good game, but that’s not really a problem at all. New powerful gear, new strong beasties, constant snow all around you, it’s a good time.
Man, I made the mistake of playing Breath of the Wild first. Horizon just isn’t gripping me the same way >_>
I see them as different games. BOTW is the better game though. I just rafted out to island in BOTW that then took away all my gear and told me to survive. Nothing in Horizon hit me with that level of fun surprise
Real heads come in at 8 am CST and post on every comment because they don’t want to start working yet.
Ah see I’m in GMT
*looks at the number of comments he’s starred since 9am Eastern*You lie!/Sob
Horizon Zero Dawn is so good. Is it your first play through?I’ve been struggling with RDR 2 and all I keep thinking is “Man, my biggest complaint about HZD was that it’s too simple and here I am playing the most complex open world game ever wishing I was playing that again instead”
Yeah, it is.idk, it just feels like a generic map-marker game to me.
It’s the story and the combat that will make or break that game for you; the mission structures, RPG mechanics, and exploration were designed by a FPS studio making their first 3rd person open world game and are passable yet underwhelming (especially considering some of the stuff that’s come out since)I don’t know where you are in the game, but it really opens up after act one and you get to start taking on some more impressive machines and learning more about the various mysteries. But if you feel like you’ve turned that corner and the narrative twists and machine hunting (and very pretty scenery) aren’t doing it for you, those are going to be the main attractions for the rest of the game
i’m burnt out on ds2. i got over the initial hump, caught the bug, blew through 90% of the content, and then decided that i was going to handle the DLC and go for the 3 crown ending rather than bother with the vanilla. instead i got annoyed with the run to sir alonne and haven’t picked it back up in a month or two.
Alonne’s a tough nut to crack. It took me a bunch of attempts even with all the NPC summons. The only harder bosses I’d say are the palette-swap bonus bosses.Maybe a break’s what you needed though 🙂
yeah probably. i really do want to finish it and never return. i think if i had despawned the run before him that i would have grinded out however many tries it took to beat him, but the thought of running through there 13x and hacking down the lizards and knights bored me to tears after the 90-100 hours i had put in by that point.
Do you have other stuff to do, or just him and the endgame?
after alonne i have the crown of the frozen king, and then i’m all set.
That boss run sucks, but Alonne is my favorite “duel” boss in the entire series. He has such a cool rhythm to him, and that arena is so beautiful.
And you’re in for a treat with Frozen, which is my favorite of the three despite having maybe the worst “optional” area—also of the entire series. Fucking lightning horses.
Eh, the blizzard area was pretty neat. Better than that horrible tunnel in Crown of the Old Iron King.
i just sprinted through the tunnel. no interest in trying to clear it out, definitely couldn’t trust to fight through it and then take down blue smelter right after either.i’ve heard that you can walk, slowly, through the frozen kingdom, and so avoid the horses, but idk for sure
I couldn’t sprint through the tunnel, got stunlocked to death if I tried.The snowfield, the trick is to move when the air’s clear, and stop when the blizzard’s up. You can still get attacked, but you’re not gonna run straight into a crowd of angry deer 😛
If you need a break from the Alonne run, then do Frozen King. It’s not like he’s going anywhere, after all 😛
Stop clicking cookies and start cooking, er, clicking some meth:http://clickingbad.nullism.com
This weekend is more BOTW when I can snag the Switch from my son. Probably some Fortnite with him(since season 8 just started). And a one off chance I may try again to see if Anthems end game grabs me at all(doubt it)
I would never knowingly contribute to anyone’s addiction. Having said that, I’m getting a kick out of Idle Dice.
What Have You Finished This Week?I finished Rusty Lake: Roots, which was by far the best game in the Rusty Lake series, telling a complex and creepy story of one seriously messed-up family (that guy Albert is the worst). Unfortunately it was marred by an unnecessary bit of obstruction on the last step of the last puzzle— like, I worked out a perfectly good solution to it, but there was an extra “twist” I was somehow supposed to guess in order to turn the numbers I thought should open the box into the numbers that actually opened the box. Having looked up the solution online, I am pretty sure it would be literally impossible for any normal human to guess it. (And to make things even more infuriatingly weird, part of the contents of that final box was a card which gave you the information you would have needed to solve the puzzle you just solved.) Still recommending this one, but also recommending that you cheat on that last puzzle if you play the game and get stuck there. Grr.I also finished Heat Signature, which instantly jumped to the number 1 slot in my list of favorite games played in 2019 (I’ve actually already finished 11 so far). There have been a number of updates since it first came out, and I think it has now really hit a perfect balance of “tough but fair”— you just have to understand what gear you need for each type of mission (and this is now very clearly indicated in the mission selection screen), and if you don’t have it, then just take other missions and save your money until you can buy the gear you need (or until you find it when looting cargo boxes on the ships you infiltrate). I also love how you can play this game in short sessions or stick with it for hours, and how it consistently makes you feel like an amazing assassin-slash-genius when you pull off the heist at the last second. At the same time, it discourages you from using overpowered characters (by reducing some of the mission rewards for more experienced characters), and offers missions with difficulty levels going up well past “impossible”— I shudder at the thought of trying to take on one of those Glory missions. So I think it succeeds in its goal of offering whatever difficulty level you feel like playing at from one mission or play session to the next. Just a really well-designed game that offers lots of challenge but doesn’t confuse “difficulty” with “annoying obstruction” like some games do.What has everyone else finished this week?
I finished Kingdom Hearts 3, got the Secret Ending, found out that the Secret Reports were all in the post-game, went back in and did the stuff to get those, and declared it finished again, since I don’t plan on fighting the superboss or grinding for the Ultima Keyblade, since I don’t do those things in any Kingdom Hearts game. It all took me 56 hours in all, and I’m pretty much satisfied with the whole thing, as it pretty much wrapped up everything I had hoped it would wrap up and let me beat the crap out of Xehanort. I’ll be interested to see where the sequel hooks go, because of course there were sequel hooks.
I finished the main story for Monster Hunter World…I think (I cleared the Hunter Rank 49 mission, not sure if there’s further “story” left at this point.) This was my first real experience with a MH game. I picked it up on Black Friday for ridiculously cheap (PS4), and given that I’m over 90 hours in to the game, I can safely feel like I got my money’s worth out of it.I probably missed out on some of the “fun” of learning attack patterns by immediately picking one of the non-melee weapons, and seeing it through to the end. Fighting giant monsters with the “light bowgun” reminded me of all the hours I toiled away at playing Phantasy Star Online on my GameCube…except with this game, I was actually able to connect to the Internet, and allow better players to carry me through the content until I could gradually learn how to not die.I do feel lucky in that, by starting to play when I did, I leveled up during the game’s one-year anniversary. By playing the game and completing daily quests (bounties), I was able to access equipment that was much better than I would have been able to access during a normal progression of the game. Plus, having all of the special event quests open during the Anniversary gave me much greater access to not only to finding groups to deal with the various monsters I needed to eviscerate for spare parts, but the special event rewards that came with it. I can now make a whole armor set to make my character look like Dante from Devil May Cry, or I can dress up my cat companion to look like Mega Man. (Did I mention it’s a Capcom game? Admittedly, they did also partner with Sony to have some Horizon Zero Dawn content in the game as well.) Nearly all of the quests that gave me access to the fun stuff are locked away now…but there’s no shortage of stuff to do.I’m going to keep playing a little every week, just to see what new content comes around. Similar to how I try to get a win every day in Overwatch. This weekend might be the time I move on to a new main game. I’d like to fire up Valkyria Chronicles 4, but I also have South Park: The Fractured but Whole and the aforementioned Horizon Zero Dawn staring back at me from the pile of shame. (I also never finished Octopath Traveler on Switch, though I got deep enough into Chapter 4 for each character that I feel okay with playing something new and hoping to get back to it later.) There’s also the Spider-Man DLC that I’d like to try out, though I’ve heard less-than-great things about it.
The guy who made Heat Signature also made Gunpoint which is just a tightly made little gem of a game. I’ll have to check out Heat if it comes out on console.
Yeah, I picked up Heat Signature after playing and loving Gunpoint. Aside from the general game-design brilliance, there is the writing as well. Tom Francis’s sense of humo(u)r is not quite as central of an element in Heat Signature as in Gunpoint, but it’s definitely still an element. Just that super-dry humor, like in the inventory description to tell you that a weapon is lethal (which is significant to gameplay) where we read that the item “Causes people to die, usually forever” or “Guns are generally used to kill people”. Somehow those little touches always make me chuckle.
Tom is my favorite games writer, ever, and the only thing bad about his excellent games is that I get to read fewer long-form pieces about him breaking the crap out of other people’s games.
Yes! Rusty Lake: Roots is probably the best point and click game I’ve ever played. It’s so dark and twisted, it blows my mind that it’s been made. And yes, the last puzzle was bullshit. I’d say definitely the meanest puzzle in the whole series. I had to look up the solution because it made no sense, and it honestly didn’t make sense once I read about it.I found out about the Cube Escape series several months ago, and I just binged through it. It’s one of my favorite series ever. I can’t wait for the new game to come out this year!
SPOILER ALERT for anyone who cares (but really, this puzzle deserves to be spoiled):My understanding of the walkthrough I saw (and that damn card that explains how to solve the puzzle after you’ve freaking solved it) is that the little platforms that you are placing things on have an intrinsic weight of their own which is indicated by the number on each platform (anyone could totally guess that, right?). And then the different objects you are placing also have different weights of their own. (I spent so much time with this puzzle that I actually worked out a partial ordering of the weights of each object: eye > foot, blood > hair, teeth, brain > tears > tongue). So when you get everything balanced out, what it really means is that the weight of each object plus the weight of the platform it is on adds up to a particular shared constant (which happens to be 6, for reasons that make some level of sense in retrospect but only in retrospect). So, you aren’t supposed to say, OK, the eye is a platform labeled 1 and the foot is on a platform labeled 2, so let’s enter a 1 for the “eye” part of the combination on that locked box and a 2 for the “foot” part. Rather, we are supposed to see that eye + 1 = foot + 2 = 6, so in other words the weight of the eye is actually 5 and THAT is the number you are supposed to put in for that part of the combo. I can think of ways that they could have maybe illustrated this idea to give players a fighting chance (simplest one: show us that card which is at best a hint, not a clear giveaway, before we solve the puzzle), but no. We were just supposed to “intuit” this answer. And there are people in the comments on the walkthrough video acting like anyone should have figured this out with a bit of patience. Sorry, no.Still a great game.
I beat the first Kingdom Hearts. It’s not great!
Cookie Clickers are really only a step removed from your Anthems and your Destinies and your WoWs. Games designed to release some kind of skinner-box mentality in us, by giving you that tiny hit of dopamine when you unlock a new piece of gear or cosmetics or cookie.
I’m not trying to sound like I’m above it either. I unlocked a new Pose for Lifeline last night in Apex Legends and it 100% triggered the dog treat part of my brain. Still just playing that game by the way. I’m ashamed to admit I never even finished Last Guardian after Apex came out as it’s all I can play and/or think about. I have other worthy games on my HDD to play like Night in the Woods or Nex Machina but it’s all Apex all the time.
This weekend I will be finishing Red Dead 2. I’ve gotten to 95% with only 16 challenges and 9 missions in the Epilogue left. I tell you it has been one heck of a trip. I’m still not sure if it’s better than the Witcher 3 (my opinion the best game ever) but I can clearly say it has the best open world I’ve ever seen. Sad thing is once I finish it I won’t know what to do with myself. Maybe I will start Witcher Tales: Thronebreaker. Who knows?
Well you really do learn something new every day. I’ve been gaming since childhood, for more than 30 years, and I’ve never heard of “incremental gaming” before. Then again, I’ve never been much of a mobile gamer either, since I usually like to catch up on reading, interwebs, podcasts, and social media when I’m on the go, but I’ve certainly been aware of the popular games in that genre since the start.I’ll be continuing my RDR2 journey this weekend as I’m firmly in the middle of chapter 4. Say what you want about Rockstar but the writing in this game and attention to detail is still mind-blowing even 66 hours in.I’m also picking back up Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, since I haven’t played it in 2 months after finishing the main game. With the final part of the Legacy of the First Blade DLC dropping next Tuesday, I figure it’s a great time to jump back in and get to experience all the new additions like mastery levels, the character level increase, some really cool weapon and armor sets, and the Lost Tales of Greece added quests. Have a good weekend, Malakas!
I’ve been playing Anthem, which is messy for sure but I’m having fun with it. It has a lot more story than base Destiny did so that’s what I’m grading it against (even though that might not be entirely fair as I never played D2). I’m basically playing it as a Bionicle nostalgia trip, making my javelins look like various characters from that.Speaking of loot shooter games (looter shooters?), The Division 2 open beta is this weekend. If my download finishes in time I’ll try it. And Deltarune is out on Switch/PS4 so time to play through it for like the fifth time.I’ve been watching a lot of Metal Gear Solid analysis videos so I might start another playthrough of that. But I also have my Mass Effect replay too (I have too many games and too short an attention span for them…).
You forgot Wall Destroyer: https://games.avclub.com/wall-destroyer-is-a-slightly-less-pointless-way-to-pass-1798245544
I linked your piece in the Recommended Stories, Zack! Nobody looks at the Recommended Stories. We pick those out by hand! (Mostly.)
Idle BouncerWhy have I spent so much time watching the balls bounce? Because the next upgrade is so close!
I’m more than a little disappointed that “Balls in the Air” from Arrested Development isn’t the theme music for this game.
Video GamesThis week has been an interesting one for me. Initially, I thought I hadn’t done much gaming, then I looked at my Steam account to see my most recently played. On Saturday, I had started the single player campaign of 2005’s Star Wars Battlefront 2, (purchased as part of a Humble Bundle a couple of years ago) – I played through the tutorial level, the first couple of ground levels (Mygeeto with Ki-Adi-Mundi, where I stole a superlaser core. Felucia with Aayla Secura, which was mostly about killing Acklays), I also attempted the first Space level (a rescue above Coruscant) but even on my potato of a lap top, it moves slightly too fast for my reflexes to play effectively. I did manage to shoot down the requisite Trade Federation ships and finish it eventually, but I’ll probably be skipping the Space missions in the campaign or look for a mod that fixes the speed a little bit. Next up is apparently battling on Kashyyyk, so I’ll probably be dealing with the Droid attack on the Wookiees.I’m still trying and failing to land at Long Sight Base on Khun 5 in Elite Dangerous, but the game’s still crashing if I drop into glide. (And I was almost within auto-dock range too. Most aggravating.) Looks like I’ll be waiting until I finally upgrade my gaming rig.I went for something much lighter and easier, and spent about half an hour playing Stardew Valley, but it’s been so long that I couldn’t remember who I had welcomed/met. I played briefly and ended up with a dog (cool) and no idea what I was doing (bad) so I’m going to restartAlso, yesterday and through March 4th, Steam has a sale on all the Assassin’s Creed franchise games. lost_wifey and I have only played the original 2007 Assassin’s Creed I (well the Director’s Cut version) and we both enjoyed the hell out of it. Based on the capabilities of my aforementioned potato laptop, we figured that we could probably run up through Assassin’s Creed III, so we dropped $40 bucks on the Deluxe versions of II, Brotherhood, Revelations, and III.lost_wifey promptly “borrowed” my laptop and has played Assassin’s Creed 2 for about 4 hours, I watched mostly, and the plot seems neat so far and the movement/traversal is so much crisper than the first game. Also, every time Ezio started climbing buildings in Firenze, lost_wifey & I keep just yelling “Parkour!” which is fun.Also, because I thought I hadn’t played much, plus I’ve seen all the hype/backlash/despair around Anthem, I was in the mood for a quick bit of loot shooting, so I woke up early this morning specifically to play a single Grineer Elimination mission in Warframe so that’d I have something to post in this thread. I didn’t collect much of anything and still don’t have enough mods or ranks to upgrade my Volt frame, Mk-1 Braton rifle, Mk-1 Kunai, or Skana.Tabletop GamesI didn’t actually play any tabletop games this week, but I did add an article to my occasional “It Builds Character,” RPG character creation blog series for Dungeons & Dragons 5E, here:https://lostlimey.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/it-builds-character-8-dungeons-dragons/As ever, I’m still in the status of Looking For Group, but this Dwarf Cleric is the type of character I bring with me (I’m also currently messing around with building a Human Archery Fighter build, but she’s not ready for posting yet.Mobile GamesThere’s still only Pokémon GO! This past weekend there was a raid event for Clamperls, and I have whole bundle of them (5 of which were shiny. I evolved 2 of the shiny ones so I now have shiny Gorebyss and Huntail as well). Another thing they added was the ability to take snapshots of your captured Pokémon. As part of that you can get photobombed by Smeargle which is the only way to catch it. Smeargle has the moveset of the Pokémon it photobombed, so I have these 2:Tyranitar!andSmeargleception!
Can I just say that I am now in the Top 50 global rankings in Pocket Politics?Literally nobody in the world cares. Even I only barely care.
Gonna finish up Metro Exodus this weekend. I took a break from that to finish the initially more cheerful Wandersong which I took a break from for some reasons. Either way, Wandersong really develops a ton of plot depth in chapter 5 with the whole arc of the “real” hero constantly putting the Bard and Miriam down by being a jerk. Also the friendship that develops between the Bard and Miriam is so sweet. The game takes a pretty interesting turn in the later chapters and I’m really excited to see how this ends. Wandersong a fantastic game that should have gotten a lot more coverage everywhere.
I will be happily killing mobs in old dungeons for their green loot (and maybe some blues too!) in World of Warcraft, putting them up on the auction house, and praying that one or two sells for some a small profit. Because right now, in WoW, the only thing that’s interesting me is grinding old dungeons and playing the auction house. I’m one of the many who found that, after going through each of the BfA zones once, that the World Quest were not engaging enough to do over and over, and that the community has become too toxic for my liking to try to actually run the current dungeons and raids. I’m having more fun gathering old junk and selling it on the auction house. I am a little sad and embarrassed that I still pay $15 a month for this.
Devil Summoners: Soul Hackers – The gameplay of the Shin Megami Tensei games kinda took a while to catch up with the story of them. Like everything that happens is compelling and interesting but actually exploring is pretty tedious. This was also how I felt about Persona 2: Innocent Sin.Suikoden 2: Seems to be Suikoden, only moreso, though since the first Suikoden ended with a bit of a shrug that’s welcome. Still, after years of people hyping it as the king of JRPGs I can’t help but be a little disappointed, especially as Luca Blight just seems to be a riff on Kefka rather than this great villain I heard about. Dead Rising: Cool, but since the save points are so erratic I kinda need to be in the right mood to play it so progress is slow.
More Divinity Original Sin 2 for me. Stuck at one fight in Chapter 2, and starting to get irritated. May start Bloodborne since it’s on everyone’s lips and it’s been sitting in my library for 4 or 5 months. But possibly not so great to go from frustrating game to frustrating game.
I AM PLAYING PILLARS OF ETERNITY 2: DEADFIRE. I AM ENJOYING THE GAME BUT…IT JUST SEEMS TO MOVE SO S L O W L Y. LAST NIGHT I ARRIVE AT AN ISLAND, GET A QUEST TO CHECK ON SOME TROUBLEMAKING DRUIDS, DO SO, COME BACK, AND DISCOVER THAT THIS SIMPLE SET OF ACTIONS TOOK NEARLY AN HOUR.
Another week and still egregiously little talk about Rain World. Sure it’s been it out since 2017, but we’re still talking about Hollow Knight. And honestly, at this point RW wins out for me. That isn’t too say that they are really all that similar aside from both being 2D games focused on the exploration of a massive ruined world, with cryptic -mostly environmental- narratives that end up being more involved than they initially seem, huge casts of inventive enemies that stand in your way, and tough as nails gameplay. But where HK exists in our world where Metroid became the template for this kind of thing, Rain World comes from an alternate dimension where Out of This World was much more influential. It’s got this wired alien quality to it that makes its mysteries that much more mysterious, and its gameplay frustrations that much less frustrating…for me at least. I’ve tapped out on Hollow Knight without beating the Radiance, finishing any of the DLC, it finding most of the secrets due to difficulty frustrations and the fact that so much is hidden behind fake walls, the most obnoxiously videogamey way to have secrets. I’ll probably never see all Rain World has to offer, but that feels more fitting.
Uh, where’s Shinigami Apple Merchant?
I guess I’ll pretend I still play video games and thus try to get a perfect Elk hide so I can craft a better tonics satchel in RDR2 or whatever. I managed to get a perfect doe hide and it actually felt kind of good but I am definitely suffering from an excess of things to do in that game. Hunting was already overwhelming; then they gave me the fishing rod. When I loaded my game last weekend I was on the edge of a large lake, and so I took half an hour to fish. I am now fishing in a video game. I am using up my rapidly elapsing life pretending to do a thing I don’t enjoy doing for real, so that I can get fake money or help fake people. It’s like a switch flipped in my head and the Skinner box doesn’t work on me any more.
Sorry! Had a busy week and then I totally forgot to check for this feature earlier this morning. Was focusing on the Avocado Game tournament (Persona 4 is up against FFX!). I didn’t play much this week beyond Final Fantasy Record Keeper anyhow (though I did enjoy it quite a bit all the same, god help me). So I wouldn’t have had much upon which to comment.Best of fortune to you on RDR2!
I’m glad you’re well!
Same! Your weekly write-ups are one of my favorite parts of checking in on this column as the weekend progresses.
Thank you so much! That really means a lot. By the way, someone recommended Watch Out for Fireballs! to me about a month ago and I just got around last week to their immense Witcher 3 coverage which included your great discussion on Gwent. Made me decide to add Thronebreaker to my queue for when it next goes on sale. I miss that world.
Oh, thanks! It was nice of Gary and Kole to have me on. I’ve been a long-time listener of the show, and those Witcher 3 episodes are some of their best work (even if I will never agree with the ending that Gary picked for Hearts Of Stone in a million years.)
[Disclosure: I should probably mention that I have a show on the same network with Gary, so I financially profit in a very small way from its success. I was a fan long before, though.]
“So, wait… you sided with the literal devil?”“Well, Olgierd lied to me, and after everything he already did, I did not want him to get away with all of that.”“Yeah, but some would argue he’s suffered enough. And the devil doesn’t care about any of us in the first place…”“But he and I wanted to punish the same person, and the devil never lied to me about using me, so it’s OK here. Besides, he’s gonna be back someday anyhow. Can’t fully kill the devil.”I concur. I’d never go with the Man in Glass’s ending either, but gotta respect Gary sticking to his convictions.
My phone was being stupid, so I wasn’t able to comment on AV Club for a month. But I’m back!I ended up buying Metro Exodus because I liked First Light so much when I was a teenager. It’s hard to play because I haven’t felt like playing single player games lately, and because it doesn’t play the best. The gunplay is pretty damn weak, the dialogue is fine, and the voice acting is kind of bad. I hear some people are loving it though which is encouraging.But I’m just too sucked into a few other games. I started playing Smite with my girlfriend (Switch/PC crossplay), which is a lot of fun. She’s pretty bad at it. I’m pretty decent at it. The arena stuff is a lot of fun as the traditional 3 lane stuff can be pretty tragic at times.I started playing Apex Legends the day it came out after seeing streamers play it and really like it. At first, I really disliked it. The places you would drop at would have barely any weapons. You would barely have any ammo when fighting. But I kept on trying and eventually started really liking it.You really gotta play with two other friends, or the game sucks. It’s the most team work driven battle royale yet. The way your characters mesh together is just so crucial to get the win.I ended up changing my control scheme to evolved on PS4. It’s a crazy ass control scheme. L1 to jump, R3 to crouch, X to tactical, and Circle to melee. This way you can jump and shoot with no taking your finger off of the right analog. Same with sliding too. It’s paid off after a day of hardships. We have about 20 wins so far. It’s a pretty easy battle royale honestly.I just started playing Tetris 99 a few days ago, and I’m fucking hooked. It’s easily the most crushing and hardest battle royale yet. I find that I’m actually pretty good at Tetris, but this game makes me feel the opposite. I actually thought I would never win one because it’s just so demoralizing and crushing. But I managed to pull off an 18 kill win. I’m be trying to get another win, but while I can get the occasional, second place, it’s so hard to get first place.
Well, now that you’ve been so cruel to remind me, it’s time to open Clicker Heroes back up. You MONSTER.
I recognized that this was a likely outcome of writing this for at least some people, and decided I was a callous enough bastard to accept the cost.
I’ve kept a tab of cookie clicker open for over 2 years. It’s still open. I am not ashamed.
single player:i’ve been playing re2 (my first ever resident evil game), and enjoying it immensely. im into the nest with leon, and i’ll definitely play claire’s side of things, but probably not right away. i would heavily bet that i never play the extra campaigns, but maybe years down the road.xcom2: really need to finish this. started picking my campaign back up again when i decided to get re2.shadow tactics: blades of the shogun. gotta get back into this one too.civ 5: i still have unfinished business here.dishonored 2: played through the first one on xbox when it was new, and got both titles on steam quite some time ago. figured i would replay 1 before 2, and i’m hungup on 80% of that game.morrowind: felt the urge to dive back in time for the es series, only just started this one.but my big problem is that i’m a huge mp fan. i had 200 hours in pubg, but i’ve let that one go. gave fortnite the old college try, and i still find it entertaining enough to drop in from time to time, but like most everyone else i’m currently sucked into apex legends, which is awesome.christ though, my single player backlog is out of this world. i want to finish splinter cell blacklist, didn’t even start styx. decided to replay kotor 1 before giving kotor 2 a first run, haven’t finished that replay yet. the 1st wolfenstein reboot awaits as well.at least i ran through doom 2k16 in a heartbeat, and i guarantee i’ll do the same for eternal. that shit is my bag.
How sad is it that I clicked on this article solely to try and discover more idle games for myself?
I have a fairly new baby, so my videogame time has dropped very low. What I have been able to do is play on my phone though, so I will finally (25+ years after first playing it) be finishing Final Fantasy IV. I have naught but the final battle left to go, though I was delaying it by getting everyone to level 99.Sidenote question for the audience – what other classic RPG-type games do people recommend for mobile (iPhone specifically)? I’m thinking either Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, or Baldur’s Gate, neither of which I’ve ever played. I’m a little concerned about Baldur’s Gate being too expansive for my purposes though – playing on mobile, I’m often playing in short spurts and wouldn’t be doing something like keeping my own maps, etc. Any other recommendations for good, solid RPGs that lend themselves to that sort of play?
KOTOR is a classic, one of my favorites. I’ve only played it a bit on a Kindle tablet and the mobile version seemed OK.
My CPS is currently in the hundreds of decillions.
I have had a Cookie Clicker tab open for about 5 years now. I interact with it about once a week. I pop the wrinklers, buy some upgrades, and then leave alone until the next Friday. I do the “legacy” reset every few months, which isn’t a real reset, because it gives you “Heavenly Chips” which increase your CPS and can be spent on upgrades.
I’m playing Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, which is an interesting set of ideas in principle, but super-frustrating in practice. Selecting the right card in battle is never easy, using combos has penalties too severe, and there just aren’t enough save points. I don’t want to be obligated to be sucked into two-hour play sessions every time I fire up the game.
I’m about 5 hours into Wolfenstein 2 and 45% through the main story, and I’m enjoying it – though it has a lot of step downs from the NO. The difficulty is ridiculous and I’ve been stuck between finding the easiest-difficulty too easy and the second-easiest-difficulty too f-ing hard. The interface is confusing and the lack of ability to replay levels sucks. And the U-Boat is so annoying to navigate around especially with no clear objective markers. THAT SAID, I love the characters and the story (I really enjoy the lean in sci-fi schlock), everything looks great, and when I find myself hitting a stride it’s super fun.
Tap titans 1 and 2 for android were my idle games (I did some cookie clicking during my last job because I was stuck at a receptionist type job). I was highly addicted to tap titans 2. The only reason I stopped playing is because the game started crashing every time I opened it. Rather than uninstall and reinstall I did some self reflection and noticed how addicted I was and just uninstalled and never returned.
I’m really liking Egg, Inc and AdVenture Communist. Both treat their players with respect (a certain monkey-hosted clicker definitely DOES NOT), and that means a lot to me. 🙂
I have Idle Sushi on my phone right now.
I am also obsessed with these games. It’s even more embarrassing since Ian Bogost, the creator of Cow Clicker, was my adviser in grad school. I never told him I was hooked on these games.
Honestly, Clicker games aren’t bad as long as you have self control; don’t let it control your life, just enjoy watching it basically play itself. However, if you find yourself lacking in other areas because of it, or worse, you spend real money on them, then you need to go cold turkey. Some people’s personalities are not suitable to games like this (Markiplier, a fairly famous youtuber, actually did a video on Hero Clicker and later had to admit he quit because he was too addicted to it. Couldn’t find the video he admitted that, but here’s his video on it and the opening is… kinda scary).
To the cookie!
I finished The Messenger (Steam). The exploration in the back half of the game does drag a bit but there’s always a spectacular moment or set piece just around the corner. The story also goes to interesting places, involving the nature of the quest and the supporting cast. I feel like there’s a subtextual message about heroism and storytelling in the game’s climax which is never fully spelled out but is shown just enough to get me to ruminate and wonder and it worked on that level for me. Overall it’s a lot of fun and, if the teases are true, I’d like to come back to it for the DLC I also played a bit of Alto’s Odyssey on my phone on Saturday while waiting to pick up my brother-in-law at the bus station and yesterday while waiting for a pizza at Little Caesar’s. I’m surprised by how different it actualy feels to play compared to Alto’s Adventure despite being fundamentally the same game. I did not expect that.
I’ve
really enjoyed reading this article, as I’ve played almost all the games described.
Here are a few more ideas to play (for all the fans of idle games): NGU idle,
War Clicks, Idle breakout.