Tag Archives: Celeste

The Spotlight – 03

Games

Stardew Valley

An agricultural pox has taken control of my household, which has led to an inordinate amount of time being spent playing Stardew Valley between my partner and I. For two years, I have tried to get my partner to play Stardew Valley because I knew it would be extremely their shit, but they were resistant for one reason or another. It wasn’t until I saw how much time they’d been putting into the Nintendo Switch’s online service version of Harvest Moon that I knew this was the time to push the issue once more — and this time it worked.

To be completely clear, I’ve never been a fan of Stardew Valley, but I had seen rumblings from people lauding the recent 1.6 update and figured I’d give it another shot. I thought it could also be a fun cooperative game for us to play, but the split-screen experience is really rough for people who enjoy being able to see and read the many necessary tool-tips in the game.

Our split-screen experience ended quickly, but since then we’ve both poured in dozens of hours into our respective farms. With this being the first time I’d really gotten into the game, I’ve been kind of shocked to see how different the PC version (that I’m playing) is different from the Xbox version, solely because that coveted 1.6 update is only on PC for the time being. But not having all of the extra bits of content I have hasn’t stopped my partner from engrossing themselves into Stardew Valley. And while we aren’t playing cooperatively, I am able to sit on the couch beside them and boot up the PC version on the ROG Ally and still play together in a manner of speaking.

Stardew Valley is very good, and I’m really happy it’s moved into our home.

Overwatch 2

I don’t know, man. This just kinda happened. My friend was streaming Overwatch 2 in our Discord, and it looked so colorful and vibrant that I just decided to install it. Having dumped a lot of time into Overwatch and ultimately falling off of it in a major way, it’s been kind of nice to occasionally return to this familiar world I had spent so much time in at one point.

Not having played for six years I was struck with the sensation of, “everything feels different,” and, “nothing has changed.” I still remember the broad strokes of playing certain characters, while others I used to play have been completely retooled. The player select screen is comprised of about 40% unknown characters, while most of the maps I played were old standards but at a different time of day.

I don’t know if I would say that Overwatch 2 is a good game, but I will say it’s built on the bones of a good game, and that still shines through. The shooting feels good, the levels are well designed, and the characters are fun and endearing. But none of that is exclusive to Overwatch 2, and it was all true of regular ole Overwatch. I think it’s best that Overwatch 2 remains a “sometimes food” for me and not something I play regularly, because I’ve burnt myself out on Overwatch before and I’d prefer not to do it again.

Open Roads

It is really difficult to talk about Open Roads because of how weird of an experience it was. For the uninitiated, Open Roads is an adventure game that follows the journey of a mother and daughter who take a road trip to unravel the mystery of a potential secret affair the daughter’s grandmother may have had.

On paper it’s a really interesting premise, and after completing the game I can confirm that the story is well executed and compelling. The main issues I had with Open Roads however, revolved mostly around the fact that you’re not really doing anything throughout the game, and the voice acting actively got in the way of “playing” the game.

You don’t really do anything in Open Roads aside from slowly walk around an environment, picking up notes and objects that may or may not be plot relevant, and waiting for your character to comment on them. Collect all of the plot relevant objects and you can move to the next scene where you do the same thing, and that’s it.

But you can’t do that too quickly because you have to endure the characters commenting and bickering over every little item you find, even if it’s not relevant to anything. Kaitlyn Dever and Keri Russell play the daughter and mother respectively, and they do a really good job with it even if the writing isn’t always top-notch. I understand that this is an adventure game, but at some point it felt like since the studio paid these actors to record lines, they overwrote the script.

Ultimately Open Roads is fine. I still think the story itself is neat, but it could have been told in half the time it takes to actually play the game. Regardless, for fans of games like Gone Home and the like, I’m fairly certain you’ll find something worthwhile here.

Botany Manor

Botany Manor is a pretty straightforward first-person puzzle game that, at its core, is about organizing and deciphering clues in order to correctly grow fantastical flowers. You’ll spend most of your time plodding through the grounds of the titular manor, interacting with every scrap of paper, book, and painting you can find in order to obtain the clues you need and add them to your ever-expanding book of horticultural facts.

It was satisfying to pore over newspaper clippings about weird natural phenomena that took place in a specific region of a country, and then apply that to what temperature some seed would best grow at. It gets a little more confusing when the game has you juggling several plants at once, meaning you have to figure out which clue is relevant to which plant, but I think that’s a good part of the challenge and not necessarily a knock against it.

What is frustrating about Botany Manor is how much backtracking you’ll inevitably end up doing because your clue book isn’t as helpful as you need it to be. For instance, I’d find a document about how different plants require different temperatures to grow, and one of the listed flowers happens to be the one I’m working on. When it’s added to my clue book however, it just adds the name of the clue itself rather than the information I need. Having “book of temperatures,” in my clue book isn’t helpful because the information I need is actually on the document, and to see that information again, I have to hike back to the location of the document.

There are a lot of little frustrations in Botany Manor that all boil down to either tedium, or arcane nonsense, which I suppose is par-for-the-course with a lot of adventure games. Ultimately, I did enjoy a lot more of Botany Manor than I disliked, but I cannot emphasize enough how much help it will be if you just keep a notepad by your side when you play.

Fallout 4

I’ll be talking about Fallout more in a later segment of this article, but like everyone else, watching the Fallout series on Amazon Prime emboldened me to once again attempt to play Fallout 4. On this (seemingly final) attempt at playing it, I’ve realized that I prefer watching a story told in the Fallout universe way more than I enjoy playing around in it. I’ve also realized that it is still a painful process to attempt and play Fallout 4 in a modern computer setting.

I don’t like the Fallout games very much for a lot of reasons that range from genuine issue with how janky they (and most Bethesda games) feel to play, especially when they first launch, to thinking it absolutely ridiculous that bottle caps are the fucking currency in this world. As if everyone turned into children when the bombs dropped, somehow bottle caps were the thing they valued the most. And I’m sure there’s some great lore reason for it, but you can save it for someone else.

As of writing this, the modernization patch for Fallout 4 hasn’t released yet, so understand where this next criticism comes from. I tried two approaches to playing Fallout 4, the first of which involved using the PC Gamepass version, and the second of which was on Steam. Both versions could not cope with the fact that I had more than one monitor, and refused to let me play at modern resolutions until I tricked them into thinking one monitor was my primary one, while disabling another. That alone was a enough of hurdle for me to not want to play the damn game, but there was more. For some unknown reason, the Gamepass version of Fallout 4 ran at about 15 frames a second regardless of what monitor or graphics settings I had selected. Pivoting to Steam helped, but the game still didn’t run great on a modern PC.

But even if I could play Fallout 4 properly, I know the first few hours of that game pretty well, and it’s fairly dull. My understanding is that the “good stuff” doesn’t really show up until after you get your feet under you, which in my opinion, takes a longer amount of time to happen than I’m willing to spend on stuff that I’m not enjoying. I’ll probably pop back in once the patch is released, but technical issues are only half of why Fallout games and I don’t get along.

Update: The patch didn’t really do anything. It still runs like garbage.

Celeste

Celeste is a very difficult platformer with a killer aesthetic that was more than able to power me through the more frustrating bits of this phenomenal game. I feel like lauding the accomplishments of Celeste is well-worn territory at this point, so I’ll just say that I also think it’s a fantastic game that’s more than earned every piece of praise its received. If you’re a fan of screaming at your television in anger, then you’ll love Celeste.

Role for Initiative

Updates from the Campaign

I’ve been running a modified Keys from the Golden Vault themed campaign for a few months now that’s been going splendidly. My players are engaged in my story, combat is challenging but not unfairly so, and my players are slowly but surely leaning into the role-play elements of D&D, even if most of them don’t do character voices. It’s remains one of the most rewarding creative endeavors I’ve ever participated in, even when you factor in some of the speed bumps and such that we, as a group, have had to navigate.

I hesitate to say too much, but a prime example is a recent session where my players got a lot of evidence about a broader mystery that’s been unfolding throughout our many sessions, and watching them piece together the different clues into something coherent was an absolute treat for me. It was this justification moment for me, where I had successfully written a compelling story that my players weren’t just letting wash over them, but they were actively perplexed by and trying to solve.

Moments like that, where I can watch my players try and figure out things and have genuine revelatory moments where something clicks, is just pure satisfaction for me. I honestly think it’s why I enjoy being a DM so much more than just being a player. I absolutely relish the moments where I can make them so flummoxed by a mystery, or feel genuine emotion about something good or bad happening. The best explanation I can offer is that it’s the ultimate form of feedback, better than someone just telling me they enjoyed something, when I can produce something people actively want to engage with.

There’s nothing quite like playing TTRPGs, and I cannot believe it took me so long to get onboard with this genre of game.

Watch List

Fallout

I don’t want to set the world on fire with my “hot-takes,” but I thought the Fallout show was really good. That’s right, I said it. But for real, the Fallout series managed to tell several extremely compelling stories in a universe that I historically have not enjoyed.

I really have nothing but good things to say about the series. I did find myself in the weird position of having to explain Fallout lore to my partner, despite being an unreliable narrator at best. It was kind of remarkable to see how much lore I had absorbed through osmosis, and most of it I got right — probably. I just assume the nastiest version of a thing is true in this world, like, “sure, they definitely drink their own piss.”

You can find dissections of the plot and such all over the internet, but I wanted to highlight my favorite one. I’m sure other people have pointed this out, but I had a realization while watching the story line dedicated to the Brotherhood of Steel, wherein there was a Knight who wore the silly looking Power Armor, and a Squire who followed them around with a bag of supplies. The Knight was clearly supposed to represent the player character in any given game, but the story focuses on the Squire, which in-game, is an NPC that’s more than willing to haul your shit around for you. Having the default knight be this murder-hungry try-hard was just icing on the tongue-in-cheek cake.

Once again, not a unique take, but I just thought that was a fun little nod to fans of the games. But the Fallout show is filled with fun little references to the games that all manage to avoid feeling pandering somehow, although I’m sure there’s someone who would vehemently disagree with that. As I’ve stated this earlier, but I’m not a fan of the games, but I really enjoy this show and cannot wait to see a second season.

Listening Party

Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan

Pulling Teeth – Slow Joy

Savior Mode – Balance and Composure

Firewalker – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

News

Target to Stop Selling Physical DVDs

It was only a matter of time before big-box stores started shuffling physical media out the door and barring them from returning. It’s weird to see it actually coming to fruition though, and not just persistently living as this looming threat. While it’s probably a prudent business decision, it still sucks.

Little Big Planet is No More

Admittedly, I never was a big fan of the Little Big Planet games, but even I know how beloved these games and their creation tools were. While sad to see the community have the plug so unceremoniously pulled, it’s not entirely unexpected considering the last mainline Little Big Planet game came out a full decade ago. Hopefully something new is in the pipeline to fill the void, but it doesn’t change the fact that so many creations are now lost to time.

Deck Nine and its Toxic Workplace

It sure feels like a lot of these kinds of stories have been cropping up over the past few years, yeah? This stuff is so over-the-top and would seem comical were it not actually impacting actual people’s lives, but that’s kind of the reality of things these days. Still, we need to constantly call this kind of horrific bullshit out at every opportunity until there is real, systemic change.

Thanks for checking out The Spotlight. We’ll be back at the end of May with another installment. Consider subscribing to The Bonus World so you can get an email updating you whenever we publish something new.

Game of the Year [2018]

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I don’t know how 2018 managed to do it, but it simultaneously felt like the longest and shortest year of my life. It was tumultuous to say the least, but we made it through and there’s no way things could get any worse, right? But throughout it all we were graced with some pretty phenomenal games to play. Here are what I consider to be the best of the year.

#10 – House Flipper

This is a weird one to kick off the list with, but hell, I played so much of this damn game that I’d be lying if I didn’t put it somewhere on this list. I wrote about the function of games like House Flipper in my life earlier this year, and this was the one that spurred it on. Oddly enough, the reason why I enjoyed House Flipper so much was because of my ability to disengage with it and just play it in the background. Despite it being janky, and a little crashy at times, I really enjoyed the loop of restoring, decorating and selling homes.

There’s something oddly therapeutic about House Flipper and games of its ilk, and that’s mostly why it now is immortalized in my list.

#9 – God of War

So look, I really enjoyed God of War this year, but definitely not as much as a lot of people out there did. Don’t get me wrong, it was a joy to play given the rewarding combat and engaging story, but that was about it for me. I didn’t get hooked by any of the side missions or additional challenges, and I felt a little underwhelmed by some of the enemy encounters. I really got sick of fighting that ogre with the rock, over and over again. But still, God of War is a tremendous game that I enjoyed from start to finish, even if I did just power through the story to get to the very satisfying ending.

#8 – Celeste

For the first few levels of Celeste, I was pretty lukewarm on it. I didn’t hate it or anything, it was just fine. But a few levels in and Celeste started to show a little more of its hand, and hint at what the game was really about. Celeste isn’t just a game about climbing a mountain, it’s about coping and acceptance. The game, very literally, reveals that it is about the main character accepting herself for who she is and utilizing every aspect of herself to continue pushing forward.

That’s when I was on the hook and and really started to feel compelled to press on. Celeste is one of those games that’s so good that any quibbles you might have with it are overshadowed.

#7 – Hitman 2

Hitman 2 is more Hitman 2016 and there isn’t a damn thing wrong with that. I love the new Hitman games and everything they’re bringing to the table. Blending into crowds and bushes are welcome additions to the formula, but overall this is just more of a good thing. I can’t say for certain, but in terms of objectives, map design and just what options are available to you, it feels like the developers are leaning into Hitman being less of a serious game, and more of a comedy sandbox. For that, I’m eternally grateful.

#6 – The Messenger

Holy moly The Messenger caught me off guard this year. When I heard people raving and ranting about this game, I was fully expecting it to be mostly hyperbole. It looked like a pretty neat homage to Ninja Gaiden and the like, but the more I played of it, the more The Messenger made it clear that first impressions are deceiving and that there was something truly special here. The Messenger was a blast to play and honestly, it’s really well written too. There’s also a pretty insane twist in the middle of the game that fundamentally changes everything, and while the change itself isn’t groundbreaking, it was definitely surprising.

In a year of phenomenal platformers and action games, The Messenger is definitely one of the best.

#5 – Dead Cells

Speaking of killer platformer and action games, how about we talk about Dead Cells? Boy howdy is Dead Cells a good game. If there was an award for “Best Feeling Game to Play,” Dead Cells would win it. It’s one of those games that whenever things go bad for you, you’re immediate thought isn’t to blame the game, but rather yourself. Dead Cells will punish you and try to break your spirit, but will leave you feeling so accomplished when you clear a level or beat a boss. Aside from that it’s also got a real good look to it that I appreciate.

My only real gripe is that I’m not a big fan of rogue-like games, and Dead Cells is most certainly one of those. While it wasn’t ever difficult to make it through the first few stages, I did start to feel burnt out on them and just wished for some sort of level skip feature or something. Despite that though, I love the hell out of Dead Cells.

#4 – Yoku’s Island Express

I’ve had a passing interest in pinball at best throughout most of my life, so the concept of a pinball based platformer wasn’t something that I had pictured I’d enjoy as much as I did. But here we are, talking about a game that in addition to having a really unique take on the Metroidvania style of game, is also immensely charming. Within moments of booting up Yoku’s Island Express it managed to win me over.

It’s also an immensely chill game to play. There aren’t really any enemies or fail states, and there never is any real pressure put on you. But what I really appreciated was that the game is tight experience that didn’t take more than a few hours to complete. It never overstayed its welcome, and left me satisfied at the end.

#3 – Dragon Ball Fighter Z

I did not expect to enjoy a fighting game as much as I did, let alone a Dragon Ball Z themed one, but here we are. Dragon Ball Fighter Z was a constant for me throughout the year, being one of my go-to games whenever I was looking to pass some time. I think what I really appreciate is how accessible the game is, and how whether it’s through some visual cue or mechanical one, it always makes you feel as if you’re playing well. The auto combo system is generous and allows new players to feel competitive early on, while also rewarding players for learning actual combinations and moves.

Dragon Ball Fighter Z can be a little hectic though. Sometimes I’ll lose myself in the action and lose track of what’s happening or where I’ve gone, but I think that’s just me admitting that I’m getting old.

#2 – Marvel’s Spider-Man

I really loved Marvel’s Spider-Man this year. Sure it had some problems, like bad stealth sections and bland side activities, but it was still overwhelmingly fun to play. Like a lot of people out there, it was one of the only games in a while I achieved 100% completion in. Normally I don’t try to achievement hunt in games, but I was looking for any reason to play more of the game that I could find.

I fear I’ll sound like a cliche here, but it felt so damn good to swing around as Spider-Man and just make my way through the city. What helped even more was the music that would swell every time you’d pick up momentum. Even the combat, despite being repetitive, felt so good. Something about just launching dudes off buildings and watching their bodies automatically web to the nearest surface was just so satisfying.

Marvel’s Spider-Man is not a perfect game, but I had a hell of a lot of fun with playing it. Also, turning J. Jonah Jameson into an Alex Jones-esque podcast host may have been the best decision ever.

#1 – Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is easily my favorite game of the year. It’s also ironic that the parts I least enjoyed about it were the parts where you actually played it. It felt like the game had an identity crisis at some point, wavering between being a survival game and an action game, but ultimately being extremely mediocre at both.

But it was everything around the periphery of the core mechanics that really won me over. Aside from a very enjoyable story with some really gut-wrenching moments, the random encounters and side missions were such a pleasure to track down and complete that it was worth fumbling around with the muddy controls to get to.

It’s one of the few game worlds that I enjoy taking my time in and exploring. It’s one of the few games that I just like to boot up and waste time in. Rockstar did something more impressive than make a good game, they made a world worth visiting. A place that is so rich and diverse, that rewards me whenever I decide to spend time in it.

Red Dead Redemption II isn’t a perfect game, in fact, I’d hazard a guess that it’s actually an incredibly polarizing game. But for me, coming into Red Dead Redemption II expecting a rewarding action game isn’t going to get you very far. I found that it was better experienced as a sort of cowboy themed life simulator, where you can just experience life in old west as an incredibly deadly man who also likes to pet dogs and get into bar fights.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Gardens Between

The Garden’s Between is a short puzzle game about two children reliving their memories one last time before one of them moves away. The hook is that you control time, and not the children. You’ll solve puzzles by manipulating the flow of time in ways like changing the order in which they punch in numbers on a giant calculator, or rewinding debris that’s floating in a river to provide a bridge for both of the children who are walking at different paces.

It’s all extremely stylized and has a soothing ambient soundtrack which I was very much a fan of.

Florence

What I liked about Florence the most was how it reveled in the mundanities of daily life, in and out of a relationship. You play as Florence, a girl who is increasingly dissatisfied with her life. She meets a nice young gentlemen and eventually falls in love with him. Through this, you explore their relationship by doing things such as moving some of your stuff off of the shelves to make room for his things. It’s simple yet effective in the message it sends and how it sends it.

The story went some places, and maybe I got a little choked up, but there’s no way of knowing for sure. Regardless, Florence is a delightful little experience that you can play on your phone and finish in about 20 to 30 minutes.