The [NEW] GRcade Gaming Alphabet 2024 - NEW ALPHABET NOW LAUNCHED PG. 21

jiggles wrote:

Cuttooth wrote:It wasn’t even at 5%!

Anything outside of the 20-80% zone is ruining your battery

20-80% of the actual battery capacity.

But to mitigate this the OS is probably deliberately misreporting the battery percentage. 20% actual charge is probably at 5% reported.

I've given quite a few "new" games a go recently, specifically in order to target letters for this game (and it's helped clear my unplayed backlog!) but all it's really done so far is teach me not to buy stuff just because it's on sale. I don't think I've played most of the below for long enough to count them on my Alphabet... but nor am I compelled to continue, due to the completely "meh" nature of most of the games!

SuperMash

I'm not even certain this was that heavily discounted when I actually bought it, ages (probably years!) ago. There's literally nothing super about it. Each 'Mash' I've attempted so far has contained several game ending bugs. I think some of the glitches are intentional (I get the impression that continued play would enable power-ups that allow the removal of these) but it's the others that aren't, that really frustrate. Most of the time it's dead ends within games where you can't go back, so have to reset the entire game. Wish I'd read reviews before buying.

Realpolitiks

By contrast, this is very certainly "real"... so much so I fail to see the appeal? Whereas with Civilization (which I expected this to be similar to) there is something compelling about playing a map that mimics the real world, here it's just like looking at a current map and accessing lots of text based options. The whole thing is very... dry. It might become compelling and addictive if I soldiered on, but... it seems a very boring idea to do so. Nah.

Saints Row IV

This one's my fault, as I expected a GTA clone, and bought it in the recent sale. Nope. There's nothing here that appeals to me at all. Awkward "gangster" humour, embarrassing machismo, lots of guns but absolutely no variety in what is ultimately a sequence of checkpoints, traversed in order. I have no connection with any of the characters, except for the protagonist, who I only really like because I used the character creator to turn him into a hideous monster with ludicrous features and outstanding hair. Feels like someone's trying to make a funny Gears of War on the 360. Not my jam I'm afraid.

Tetris 99

Yes I'm complaining about Tetris! The legendary Tetris! Ban me now. I always fancied myself a bit decent at this. Anyway, I'm clearly not at the same insane level as everyone else online, and given the paltry amount of EXP I got for the games I've played so far (SMB 35 was far more generous!) I lack the motivation to "git gud". Dammit, I was certain this would be one to add to my Alphabet! (*checks notes*) Though I've already got a 'T'. Moving on...

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

I feel like I'm just antagonizing you all now... I downloaded the demo. Played the demo. It's. So. Boring! I'm really sorry. It looks delightful, but Kirby just feels so sluggish to play as compared (probably unfairly) to the natural and intuitive movement of a certain somebody else in a certain other Switch-exclusive Nintendo-developed well-received 3D platformer. The environments are pretty linear. Do things open up as you progress further? I'm guessing collectable elements are introduced? The NPCs are absolutelu forgettable too. Yes I'm sure lots of people love those waddle dees (that's what they're called IIRC) but to me it's just bland. Bland bland bland. (*leaves forum forever*)

Horace

Bucking the trend: I really like this! It's a little bit too difficult for me to be hooked, though. The story and visuals are better than the level design, which thinks it's clever but mostly substitutes invention for arbitrary difficulty. Oh well. I'll persevere with this (eventually... although I've recently started playing the Phoenix Wright Trilogy again and that's taking up most of my gaming time. I never finished all the cases y'see. Sorry, Horace!

Rekt

I've already played this as much as I think I'm going to. It was decent! Err...

Abzu / Pan-Pan / Phantom Doctrine / The Rainsdowne Players

Will I ever actually play any of these games? Only time will tell. Probably not, though. Maybe one of the P ones to tick the letter off, but I've already gotten the others ticked. Oops.

Among Us

The final (IIRC) unplayed game I have in my backlog. Think I missed the boat on this. Would be good to play some games sometime, but I think the MK8 DLC has most people's online gaming sewn up for the foreseeable. Hey, does that count against "M"? Asking for a friend

Mockmaster wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:Does MHTL's playlist game count towards this?

I'm going to say no.

What if you take it really, really seriously?

Reads Dan's list.
"Yeah, I can see why those wouldn't hold attention."
Gets to Kirby.
"Okay, now. That one's going too far. You know what I did to Jezo on the final lap of his final race last Mario Kart Monday? Next time I meet you on the track, that'll be you. For the entire race."

...

Nah, I'm cool with it. Opinions gonna opinion, and there's nothing wrong with that.

DarkRula I'll not be ahead of you for any of the race. You'll have to do significantly worse than usual if you plan to bully me

Oh, I don't mind hanging back. After all, it's all about having fun, not the points. And I'll be having a whole lot of fun that first race.

I imagine the problem with Tetris 99 nowadays is that all of the casual bad-to-middling at Tetris players stopped playing a long while ago so the difficulty has crept up.

No excuse for that Kirby opinion though

I barely touch the battle royale side of Tetris 99 these days, it's all about Marathon mode for me

Jenuall wrote:I barely touch the battle royale side of Tetris 99 these days, it's all about Marathon mode for me

You had to pay separately for that mode right? I forgot it existed!

OrangeRKN wrote:

Jenuall wrote:I barely touch the battle royale side of Tetris 99 these days, it's all about Marathon mode for me

You had to pay separately for that mode right? I forgot it existed!

Yeah I think it was a few quid to get some extra modes - I think I picked it up originally because the kids wanted to play it but couldn't handle the stress of the online experience!

Herdanos wrote:I've given quite a few "new" games a go recently, specifically in order to target letters for this game (and it's helped clear my unplayed backlog!) but all it's really done so far is teach me not to buy stuff just because it's on sale. I don't think I've played most of the below for long enough to count them on my Alphabet... but nor am I compelled to continue, due to the completely "meh" nature of most of the games!

SuperMash

I'm not even certain this was that heavily discounted when I actually bought it, ages (probably years!) ago. There's literally nothing super about it. Each 'Mash' I've attempted so far has contained several game ending bugs. I think some of the glitches are intentional (I get the impression that continued play would enable power-ups that allow the removal of these) but it's the others that aren't, that really frustrate. Most of the time it's dead ends within games where you can't go back, so have to reset the entire game. Wish I'd read reviews before buying.

Realpolitiks

By contrast, this is very certainly "real"... so much so I fail to see the appeal? Whereas with Civilization (which I expected this to be similar to) there is something compelling about playing a map that mimics the real world, here it's just like looking at a current map and accessing lots of text based options. The whole thing is very... dry. It might become compelling and addictive if I soldiered on, but... it seems a very boring idea to do so. Nah.

Saints Row IV

This one's my fault, as I expected a GTA clone, and bought it in the recent sale. Nope. There's nothing here that appeals to me at all. Awkward "gangster" humour, embarrassing machismo, lots of guns but absolutely no variety in what is ultimately a sequence of checkpoints, traversed in order. I have no connection with any of the characters, except for the protagonist, who I only really like because I used the character creator to turn him into a hideous monster with ludicrous features and outstanding hair. Feels like someone's trying to make a funny Gears of War on the 360. Not my jam I'm afraid.

Tetris 99

Yes I'm complaining about Tetris! The legendary Tetris! Ban me now. I always fancied myself a bit decent at this. Anyway, I'm clearly not at the same insane level as everyone else online, and given the paltry amount of EXP I got for the games I've played so far (SMB 35 was far more generous!) I lack the motivation to "git gud". Dammit, I was certain this would be one to add to my Alphabet! (*checks notes*) Though I've already got a 'T'. Moving on...

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

I feel like I'm just antagonizing you all now... I downloaded the demo. Played the demo. It's. So. Boring! I'm really sorry. It looks delightful, but Kirby just feels so sluggish to play as compared (probably unfairly) to the natural and intuitive movement of a certain somebody else in a certain other Switch-exclusive Nintendo-developed well-received 3D platformer. The environments are pretty linear. Do things open up as you progress further? I'm guessing collectable elements are introduced? The NPCs are absolutelu forgettable too. Yes I'm sure lots of people love those waddle dees (that's what they're called IIRC) but to me it's just bland. Bland bland bland. (*leaves forum forever*)

Horace

Bucking the trend: I really like this! It's a little bit too difficult for me to be hooked, though. The story and visuals are better than the level design, which thinks it's clever but mostly substitutes invention for arbitrary difficulty. Oh well. I'll persevere with this (eventually... although I've recently started playing the Phoenix Wright Trilogy again and that's taking up most of my gaming time. I never finished all the cases y'see. Sorry, Horace!

Rekt

I've already played this as much as I think I'm going to. It was decent! Err...

Abzu / Pan-Pan / Phantom Doctrine / The Rainsdowne Players

Will I ever actually play any of these games? Only time will tell. Probably not, though. Maybe one of the P ones to tick the letter off, but I've already gotten the others ticked. Oops.

Among Us

The final (IIRC) unplayed game I have in my backlog. Think I missed the boat on this. Would be good to play some games sometime, but I think the MK8 DLC has most people's online gaming sewn up for the foreseeable. Hey, does that count against "M"? Asking for a friend

Mockmaster wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:Does MHTL's playlist game count towards this?

I'm going to say no.

What if you take it really, really seriously?

Hiya Dan, I'm a bit interested in the Realpolitik game you were playing, as I'm part of a project looking at the gamification of certain global issues. I can't find any decent info on this game, so I thought I'd ask at the source. Is this a simulator, or a different type of game, and what is the end goal? I think I have an idea of what the goals might be from the name, but I'd like to know for sure.

RetroCora wrote:Hiya Dan, I'm a bit interested in the Realpolitik game you were playing, as I'm part of a project looking at the gamification of certain global issues. I can't find any decent info on this game, so I thought I'd ask at the source. Is this a simulator, or a different type of game, and what is the end goal? I think I have an idea of what the goals might be from the name, but I'd like to know for sure.

Hey Cora. Sure, happy to give you some details based on my limited time spent playing. It is a simulator (I guess?) but a very fixed one. You play the game through viewing a global geopolitical map of Earth - so somewhat similar to Civ (without any fog) in terms of the visual and HUD but that's where the similarities end. You choose a nation to 'be' and essentially rule them, adjusting domestic policy, taxation rates, where and how you invest your GDP, etc. You "spend" the points you earn (as metrics relating to your nation / its citizens increase e.g. QOL, GDP) on projects which are essentially one-off actions; IIRC these could be applied internally (research this, invest in that, develop this etc) but the game's tutorial has you apply them on your neighbours as foreign policy actions. Your relationship with other nations is visible at all times and you can work alongside neighbours to create blocs, set common policy, influence political / regime styles; alternatively you can take a more sinister approach and seek to weaken other countries. (The tutorial puts you in charge of Poland, and unfortunately asks you to actively undermine Ukraine through espionage and criticism, in order to deliberately weaken its international standing; it felt uncomfortable to do this, given the current climate.) It's very detailed, but I'm not sure anything really changes, beyond the statistics: whether it's possible to merge with other nations if you become friendly enough, or outright invade them, I do not know. As far as I can tell, the goal is simply to become the "best" country in the world through topping the rankings for the aforementioned national metrics.

10 games added, a truly momentous occasion.

And so a PC game has been added to my list. The first and possibly only one that will appear. BeamNG got me too interested in bus driving that I couldn't avoid it much longer. And I gotta say, I had a lot of fun being a bus driver in Bus Simulator 21. Adding that game also marks my 14th letter crossed off.

I just saw this thread get bumped and remembered to bold Elden Ring. My progress on the spreadsheet has stalled though as unfortunately I have not played a single video game since! I'm sure I will play something soon, but I have no idea what!

Mockmaster wrote:.

I think you put some of your AlphaCheevos in the wrong column. I didn't want to mess with your column (it's not right, Aaron ) so just letting you know.

Elden Ring has killed my chances of making much progress in Q2, doubt I'll be done with it before the summer at this rate!

I just completed Kamiko which is probably the first time I've completed a game in one day and one sitting (albeit with a couple of pauses). It's an enjoyable action adventure game with puzzles that doesn't outstay its welcome even if it can be completed in an hour.

Super Dragon 64 wrote:I just completed Kamiko which is probably the first time I've completed a game in one day and one sitting (albeit with a couple of pauses). It's an enjoyable action adventure game with puzzles that doesn't outstay its welcome even if it can be completed in an hour.

If you enjoyed Kamiko then the dev's next game Transiruby came out very recently on Switch. It's like a 5 hour metroidvania.

I found the first EA Sports UFC on PS4 for £1 this weekend - I don't think I can legitimately put it on my list until I've won at least one fight though - I initially thought it was under U for UFC but I think it might be under E for EA...

I do struggle with MMA simulation games generally because I have done a lot of this stuff quite extensively in the past. I have a lot of the transitions and takedowns and stuff tied to actual proper muscle memory as opposed to button presses, so when I find myself in a half guard or something I find myself having to try and remember which button does this thing that I know how to do and getting really frustrated when my dude gets filled in . Compare that to Tony Hawk - I could never do much more than a tiny ollie IRL so I'm all about button+direction!

OrangeRKN wrote:

Super Dragon 64 wrote:I just completed Kamiko which is probably the first time I've completed a game in one day and one sitting (albeit with a couple of pauses). It's an enjoyable action adventure game with puzzles that doesn't outstay its welcome even if it can be completed in an hour.

If you enjoyed Kamiko then the dev's next game Transiruby came out very recently on Switch. It's like a 5 hour metroidvania.

It looks interesting and the length sounds good. I'll keep an eye on it to pick up at a later date.

It'll also be a good candidate for T

I can't remember whether I heard about Lococycle here or somewhere else but it's a really dumb yet totally fun 5 hours!