New Year, still playing games
Actually, over the winter break I played more than normally. Although, majority went into Heroes of Hammerwatch. And still shouting a lot at my pc during gaming -_- I have to get calmer. Sounds like a good resolution for 2029.
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Alan Wake
30 hours playtime
67 of 67 achievements
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The Long Reach
6 hours playtime
15 of 15 achievements
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Super Life of Pixel
46 hours playtime
72 of 72 achievements
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The Disney Afternoon Collection
14 hours playtime
20 of 20 achievements
Alan Wake: A.Wake is the story about a coffee addicted, traumatized author scared by darkness. Which would be one of the possibilities to interpret the story. Actually, the story is pretty straightforward. You have a writer’s blockade and decide to make a vacation with your wife on some island. Just for said wife to disappear and the house you visited shortly before together with her. And so you have to fight the darkness in order to get her back. I initially somehow though gameplay would be more like Dead Premonition like …. a bit more open world and navigating. But you get different chapters and levels which are all pretty much streamlined, fighting the same enemies over and over again. The game is good and somehow interesting but it drags down on your nerves. Game gimmick of the day is light. Enemies can only be hurt after you have broken their darkness shield with a flashlight, or you just bomb them with a bang or a flare. Also enemies can reappear continuously and can throw their weapons at you …. just to have them back a second later. And you can only outrun them while sprinting for like …. 10 meters before Mister Wake needs an oxygen chamber. The straight forward and yet still confusing story is told further with two DLC’s which happen again to avoid giving clear answers.
For achievement hunting there is some stuff to do and most is reasonably and fair. But the developers have again integrated some collectibles achievements. And yes, you need to find them all. While the game is split in chapters, the game has avoided to list what you are missing in which chapter. So you either use a guide for the first playthrough which is super stupid and nobody should do this or you make notes yourself and then compare with a list for the second playthrough (which you have to do anyway for the Nightmare difficulty). Especially the thermos’ are super painful. While they are most often close to landmarks you can still overlook them and if you haven’t made notes you would have to check 5 chapters in order to find maybe one missing thermos. This could have been solved better.
The Long Reach: Talked about this last time already. Just want to add that I exchanged two e-mails with the developers and after loading my last save the missing achievements popped up. I’m pretty sure I have done this before and nothing happened. So maybe the developers did change something on the game. However, there have been no updates and now I am confused.
Super Life of Pixel: Game has been updated and received new achievements. So now there exists a classic version which can be accessed over the beta functionality (and has own achievements) and the new super version. A lot of stuff remained the same but some levels got a makeover, positions of collectibles have been changed inside levels and between levels and also new levels have been added. And maybe I have some trauma because i didnt remember the game being as hard the first time i played it, especially the beginning. While you go through the history of computers and the graphics change most of the games feels to similar for my taste. I think I need to play Evoland for comparison where with the era the gameplay changes as well. And also ….. platformers ….. this one is a terrible offender:
I swear, one day aliens or gods or whatever will descend on our planet and they will say: “We are here to judge your species.” “How will you do this?” mankind asks. And they answer: “Bring us 100 randomly chosen computer games and we will see if you developed far enough to no longer use kill upon touch devices in your games. Let’s start with …. Super Life of Pixel.” And this is how earth will end. I can’t even imagine the thought process:
A: Finished. I’ve created a masterpiece.
B: I played it and maybe ….
A: Don’t worry. It is not boring it has direct kill spikes, everywhere.
B: I’m not sure ….
A: And we have different types as well with different hitboxes and timing.
B: I don’t think spikes ….
A: …. alone are enough? Got this covered. I have fire …. which works more or less like spikes just harder to time. Oh and lasers and electricity ….. which works again like Lasers.
B: I think you should talk with actual people ….
Community: Too many spikes!!!!!
A: Shut up. You just can’t understand my masterpiece.
Yea, to many spikes -_- Well, got it done and have the achievements with again to many collectibles and no clear information where I should look for them. And misisng on Special console and to search in 100 levels for them is not a good design idea. For new players it will be even more annoying as the achievements for classic version still exist.
The Disney Afternoon Collection: Is a compilation of NES games of which I played at least four in my childhood. Although, I seem to have forgotten some details about some, especially Ducktales. If you get over the initial difficulty spike in about every game, they are actually on the easier side. And you even have a rewind function although I never used it. Chip’n Dale can be played in local co-op. Other than that you just have to get familiar with the game design and levels and you can complete the games more or less easily.
Achievement side is …. okay I guess. But there are some design issues and lot of wasted potential. Because you have mainly three achievements for every game. Complete, Complete on Time Trial (you can’t do Time Trial and get both at the same time, you HAVE TO play twice) and complete boss rush in certain time. Difficulty wise they are a joke because the times are so abhorrent high that you actually can’t miss them. Boss rush is always an hour and takes 2 minutes for some games. Time Trials are two hours and take between 10-30 minutes dependent on skill. And actually achievements in the game are actually ignored. Especially the Ducktales games have so much potential for better achievements like: Certain money amount at the end of the game, finding the hidden treasures, playing the secret level. Ducktales 2 has a lot of fun to find secrets and you need even to input minimal brain functionality. But yea, sometimes easy can be okay too.
That’s it I guess. Happy New Year. Have to check what I will play next besides Heroes of Hammerwatch. Currently looking for Trades for Minit and the Darkside Collections. And maybe I should play the Ducktales remake at one point for comparison reasons.
Thanks for the headup on Alan Wake collectibles! Sounds a bit tedious.
I have to get calmer. Sounds like a good resolution for 2029.
If that’s a typo, then it’s a really great one :)
+1 that made me laugh, so perfect.
Tedious is the correct word. Although all of them are findable and I missed like three in my first playthrough. But it makes everything longer than necessary.
No, that is no typo. It is a depiction and my level of resolution. You know …. taking this slow and step by step.
I see. Well, I guess it’s understandable, changing one’s person is hard and takes time. Good luck and make sure to report back in 2029 :)
Haha, I see you also just had to go and finish Life of pixel with the new achievements again, and no, you’re not imagining it, it was a lot harder this time round. I played the original before I’d started playing on a controller and doing harder platformers like jumpjet rex and 10 second ninja, and honestly, super life of pixel had times of being as frustrating. And you’re right about the level design, it was meant to be a homage to old games, but they all play more or less like different graphic versions of the same thing. And they had levels based around so many classic games, that a few variations would have been nice. Before it was forgivable because it was really easy, but with the difficulty spike it becomes harder to recommend.
BTW, thanks for putting the guide up on steam, I got to the end missing one collectible and for the life of me could not find it, and magically there was your guide. So thanks a bunch!
Yea, I think the beginning was harder since they inititally removed the double jump ability for ….. um ….. reasons? Also saw your times on the boards. Thats why the name sounded familiar :P (Also I don’t think that Jumpjet Rex is that hard a platformer because the level design there has been actually tested for speedrunning and normal gameplay).
I recognized some of the names from the levels and all but as the gameplay stays the same it doesnt really give much impact. I was especially irritated as I noticed that there are other possibilities like the key card system in the Special Collection (not that key cards make games better -_-). I mean even with simple terms you can create variable games and settings. Just look at the Two Tribes games what creativity they have in their design.
Well, thanks for the words. But I think the guide is now obsulete so I may hide or remove it in the future.
Yeah I think that was the difference, between this and other ‘good’ platformers. A good platformer has a flow to the level design, they are built for the purpose of satisfying movement from start to finish. The reason for failure is usually because you mistimed a jump or hadn’t learnt the flow correctly. And once you learn that flow it’s impressive to watch but not as difficult as you first though.
These life of pixels levels were built more for the ‘retro’ effect but ignored a lot of the basics tenets of good level design, mistaking ‘challenging’ for ‘lots of spikes and random movement bad guys’. And I know they needed to reuse sprites between levels, but I’m sure they could have programmed in a few more gameplay concepts that would have given more options for a better tribute to classic games. Even just some basic combat outside of the occasional magic potion would have opened up a lot more possibilities.
Well, you get the axe later on. But again just in the Special Collection levels. I think he just discovered new coding skills there -_- And he also released a gamemaker O.o It shudders me, on the potential to see more similar games.
Overall it is not bad but a lot of issues causing frustration.
While the game is split in chapters, the game has avoided to list what you are missing in which chapter.
Why anyone thinks it’s a good idea? D: That’s terrible idea.
I did beat Alan Wake years ago when I did not care about achievements (and found this game to have rather annoying aiming mechanic). But I though RIME was bad with achievements, as there are no mid-chapter checkpoints… and here we have game without info where you missed something. 10/10
I played with a controller and cant remember much problems with the aiming, not sure how it plays with a maous. And yea, missing information is a strange idea. Maybe they just didnt think it through. I mean there could be different ways to tackle this one. Deadly Premonition chose to numerate their stuff so you could check where to look for it. Resident Evil 5 said in the chapter selection screen how many emblems had been in the level.
But no information is kinda harsh although it mostly is a problem on the Thermos. The others are a tad easier. And at least the bookpages are separated by chapters as they tell a story each time.
Oh goodness…Super Life of Pixel sounds like my personal hell.
I bought Alan Wake a long time ago– before I cared about achievements/completion. So now I’d need to play it from another account, because completionist-with-little-time-and-subpar-skill. :D
Well, there are still many sections which are quite easy. But some of the design decisions are infuriating. And there are even parts in the game where you will die because you couldnt know before which is nearly always a bad idea (with few games being an exception like 1001 Spikes of La-Mulana).
As for Alan Wake, the game itself is good enough but yea, the collecting part is tedious and as you never know where something could be you have to scout those areas where enemies keep respawning.