Invalid characterset or character set not supported Gary's Graveyard - Vol I





Gary's Graveyard - Vol I
June 12, 2020

Some time ago now, I abandoned traditional writing apps like Word and now do most of my work directly into Google Drive, which has most of the same tools, lets me access it from anywhere and hard saves my work because I have an annoying habit of losing it to rebellious PCs and my inability to save stuff correctly. It's worked out pretty well for me, but it does have a darkside; every now and then, I'll find something that I started working on many moons ago that I had abandoned or forgotten. Sometimes, I have zero reason for this. The best example I have is for a review I wrote for a game called Residue. It was made by a little indie dev who made an interesting little horror game previously, so I picked this up more or less on day 1, promptly wrote a review and then forgot it existed for four years.

I have a lot of stuff like, some I have reasons for abandoning, some I can only guess at. In an effort to make some use of it, I'm going to start throwing them up here on the blog. Some of it is worthless now, but maybe picking through all this will help me find some stuff worth finishing. Time will tell.

So, to start up with is a very old progress report. Back at the start of 2019, I decided I would do a run down of the stuff I've been playing at the end of every month. This lasted until March where I got fluid on my lungs, didn't quite die, and scaled back on everything until I got on top of that. Or, at least, until I could breathe worth a damn. At some point, I tried to pick it up again, but never got around to fully committing. So, here's half a list I wrote up, and an update on how far I got with the game in current time:

Planet Alpha

THEN: Imagine something like Limbo but without the all monotone and misery, and that's Planet Alpha. I was given a review code some time ago now, but it wouldn't run on my system due to some obscure bug, and I left it in deep freeze. It's since been updated a few times, so the time is coming where I'll have to give this another spin. It looks decent; you explore a very colourful planet being attacked by evil robots so should avoid that nonsense. But the planet's full of stuff that could kill you, too. You have to change cycles from night and day to take advantage of angry things falling asleep and such.

NOW: This game bugs me. I have picked it back up a few times, but always time it poorly. I often get the itch for cinematic platformers, but I play them often enough that Alpha has been unlucky and hasn;t got much of a look in. For example, around the time I wrote this originally, I had Eternal Castle recently played through and Blackthorne being worked on and Alpha simply isn't as good as either of them, which isn't a knock on Alpha; those two games are just great. I am reminded that I need to go back to this now it runs okay. The to do list never gets smaller.

Sunless Skies

THEN: This game has become my unicorn. I've put all the hours into it and every time I feel I'm ready to write a review, a massive update happens and the game significantly changes. I need to go back and put even more time into this now one of the major hubs has updated (again!!), but I know I need to be careful. This game devours all of my hours.

NOW: This game remains my bloody unicorn. Props to the developers, but it gets massive updates on the regular and it's not a game you can skim through to check them out. The game draws you in and demands you devote all the hours to its broken little world of unending horrors. I will go back -- I want to go back -- but when I do, I know I'll become less productive than Marc Golding until I'm done with it.

Lorelai

THEN: This is a horror point and click I was really looking forward to. It's a sequel for The Cat Lady, which I had a lot of time for. Annoyingly, the game keeps crashing after a stretch of unskipable gameplay meaning I've had to play the same half hour half a dozen times before what's left of my patience gave in. Shuffled this one back to take part in a possible Project Horror month.

NOW: I actually did the thing I said I was going to do! This would have been a timely review had it not been for that annoying crash, but it got sorted and I found a place for it in the one horror game a day thing Joe graciously sometimes allows the rest of us to partake in. Lorelai was unfortunate as it was a decent game unluckily connected to one of the best Indie horror games I have yet to play and it was unable to truly compare.

Metal Wolf Chaos

THEN: This one was a case of Jason showing up unsolicited in my inbox. "Look at this kooky game", he'll say. "You love stuff like this!" It's a Mech shooter of some infamy, released back when in Japan only by From Software. You've heard of them. It's a goofy, over-the-top affair where you play as the President of the United States. It's been kicking around people's wishlists for over a decade before Devolver finally pulled the trigger on it, the rascals. This is on the shortlist.

NOW: This is still on the shortlist. The name is misleading. It's far from short. Thanks, Jason. As it happens, it should feature in my immediate rotation once I get through a few other little titbits Venter's thrown my way.

Tiny Metal

THEN: The next review, if all goes to plan. This one was a case of Jason showing up in my IMs. It's little more than a 3D version of Advanced Wars with a few more units and everything slowed right the hell down. The reduced speed means it doesn't have the pick up and play of the game it openly apes (apes so closely I'm surprised lawsuit-happy Nintendo haven't rained cease and desists upon it). Even the stages designed to be little more than tutorials are multi-hour affairs.

NOW: It probably was the next thing I reviewed, so I'm sometimes right about these things after all. I got through this one pretty quick with no interesting things to reminisce about.

Interstellar Space: Genesis

THEN: A 4X less about killing all the things and more about developing your worlds. This is good news to the 4X warlord who lives in my mind and tricks me into multiple genocides every single time. Beaten a couple of maps via diplomacy; only killed a few races a little.

NOW: I still found ways to kill things. It is my way. I really liked writing this review, gimmicky ending and all, but I remember that it didn't seem to go over very well.

Re Legion

THEN: Indie syndicate. Little hamfisted with some loose controls, but centered around a finite soldier pool which stops you from endless wave spamming everything to death. Much like Sunless, a victim of the update cycle.

NOW: Unlike Sunless, I did get this done after waiting on the big update to patch. You know it's a big update because they add a new tagline to the game's title. For example, this became Re Legion: Holy War.

Also, that tagline is golden, even by my lofty standards.

Shortlisted stuff I never even got around to blogging about

A Golden Wake

A reasonable point and click game that I beat, but isn't really interesting enough to want to talk about. A lot of it is about property development! Review unlikely

Corpse Party

A well regarded horror title that gained most of its fame from a PSP port. This is not that port: the original RPGMaker title got a Steam port that I make attempts to play through periodically. This must have been near one of those attempts. Corpse Party isn't a bad game by any means, but it does struggle to hold my interest to a complete playthrough.

Mysterious Realms RPG

A very Indie dungeon crawler that I wound up beating and enjoying. I'd probably have to go back and replay it to get a review out for it now, but I'm not against the idea. On the assumption I discover a way to dilute time.

Borderlands Pre-prequel

Originally, I picked this up because I was looking for something new to couch co-op with friends. I played a fair way into the game on solo and then discovered that, unlike all the other Borderland games, there's no local co-op options, something the series is more or less based around. I kind of lost interest in the entire thing after that discovery and haven't gone back since. Maybe I'll return and see it through someday.

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Feedback
overdrive overdrive - June 12, 2020 (02:45 PM)
What system were you playing Borderlands Pre Sequel on? I have it on the 360 and was able to local co-op with a friend, getting up through Felicity Rampant. Assuming that by "local co-op", you mean "put another controller in the system and both of you play split-screen", that is.
EmP EmP - June 12, 2020 (03:08 PM)
PC. I can network play with others, but no local co-op which is as ridiculous as it seems.

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