Start Your Resolutions (Horizons Broadening Project Jan. 2010)

To save myself a bit of typing, I'll copy myself from last month's thread:

adam.greenbrier wrote:

As it was originally imagined, the Horizons Broadening Project was an Oprah's Book Club of sorts where Elysium would pick a game, and we'd all play it. I propose that we discard that model in part because I don't have the GWJ cachet of Elysium but mostly because what's outside of one person's comfort zone (or budget) is comfortably within another's. I intend instead to treat this like Hemidal's pile threads. Sign up here for a game you want to play, and I'll add your name and selection to the original post. As you finish your game, or at least become finished with it, post your impressions here, and I'll cross your name and game off the list.

Here are a few tips for getting started:

  • When you sign up for a game, post a little bit about why you've picked it. That could offer inspiration for others as they make their selections, or it might help people who have played your chosen game in giving you advise about what to look out for.
  • Don't pick a game from a genre you know you hate. Chances are, if you don't like a genre, you don't like it for a reason, and even if you play the greatest example of that genre ever made, it won't necessarily be a pleasant experience for you. The goal of this project is to expand the possibilities for what you enjoy in gaming, not necessarily to force yourself into like something you don't like.
  • Do pick a game from a genre you've been interested in but don't have much experience with or haven't found a way into yet, or pick a game from a genre you've never delved into. Ideally, you'll be able to look back on your HBP picks and see a variety of games that you enjoyed playing that you wouldn't have given a chance otherwise. You're more likely to do that if you have some interest in your selection or total ignorance.
  • This isn't the pile thread; you don't have to finish your game. Play your pick until you're satisfied that you've seen what it has to offer. If you get bogged down in a certain segment and genuinely don't have the desire to press on: don't. You've just found a game or genre that doesn't work for you.
  • If you can't think of a good pick, this thread will likely be a good place to get recommendations. I'm always startled by the breadth of knowledge and interests represented by the members of this community. Likewise, if you're interested in a multiplayer game, this thread would be a good place to look for people to play it with.

I don't know about you all, but I have a hefty pile of games from the Steam Holiday Sale that will work nicely as HBP picks. If you participated last month and want to carry over your selection to this month, let me know in this thread.

Participants:

  • adam.greenbrier — LOOM, Penumbra: Overture, King's Quest VI, Tex Murphy I, Machinarium (PC)
  • Apollo0507 — The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, Beyond Good and Evil (PC)
  • casktapper — Bayonetta (360)
  • Certis — Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS)
  • Clemenstation — GalCiv II, Sins of a Solar Empire (PC)
  • cyrax — Heroes of Might and Magic III (PC)
  • Dysplastic — Bayonetta (PS3)
  • garion333 — Mother 3 (DS) (Again. Sigh.)
  • imbiginjapan — IL-2 Sturmovik (PC)
  • Jonman — Misc. iPhone games
  • mrwynd — Civilization IV (PC)
  • Raxneron — Europa Universalis III (PC)
  • RSPaulette — Fight Night Round 4
  • Running Man — Empire: Total War (PC)
  • stevenmack — Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion (PC)
  • Thin_J — Mass Effect
  • Tkyl — Empire: Total War (PC)

I picked up EU III Complete last month and went through some of the tutorials, so I think I'm ready to get knee deep in grand strategy this month. I also have Hearts of Iron III, but I think I'll stick with EU III for now, don't want to overwhelm myself just yet.

I've been listening to Three Moves Ahead and reading Flash of Steel for quite some time now and have always been fascinated by the genre. I love reading the After Action Reports posted in the Wargamer thread, but I've always been a bit intimidated by the UI and dense mechanisms of the genre.

Lately I've had an itch for a game I could really sink my teeth into, hence resubbing to EVE and now looking to get into EU III. I've also been on a European history kick so this would satiate both cravings.

My pick for the Horizon's Broadening Project is Empire: Total War. A fairly "mainstream" game, but in a genre I've only really ever touched with a 10 foot pole. Now I've played Rome: Total War, to an extent. I loved the pitched battles in that game, but I never really attempted the campaign side of the game. And seeing as that is a complete game in itself, that is why I decided to try out Empire: Total War. The campaign maps have always seemed extremely daunting to me. I never knew what to do and so always focused on the pitched battles. Even starting a campaign in Empire had be scared and confused and I decided to spend a little more time with the tutorial. But no more! I will understand how to play this game!

Greenbrier, you cant start this off without your own picks!

I think I might try to a bit more horizons broadening and a bit less pile of shame this year - or maybe both. Last year was a HUGE pile of shame year, but this year I think I could do a bit more horizons broadening, partly due to my enchantment with my new PS3.

Anyways, I'll start off the year with Bayonetta - PS3.
I chose it because I'm traditionally disenchanted with brawlers. I always find myself button mashing and ultimately not seeing the point. But I really, really like the Aesthetic of Bayonetta, and will actually enjoy kicking ass as a sexy librarian rather than a standard japanese anime emo (or japanimemo) character, anonymous ninja, or ancient greek space marine equivalent. Probably because I'm a huge mysogenist, but don't tell my girlfriend.

My goal goes beyond actually beating it, though - I really do want to learn and get the button combos and tactics instead of button mashing - everyone says Bayonetta is actually quite mechanically sound for the genre, and I want to be able to appreciate it on that level.

Put me back on with Mother 3. I will force myself to use a handheld again. A couple years ago my DS was my most used gaming hardware. What's wrong with me now?

Dysplastic wrote:

Greenbrier, you cant start this off without your own picks!

I'll be picking multiple, shorter titles on my PC, and I need access to my Steam games list to make my selection. I'll have it up soon.

I think my Horizons project is going to be iPod games - I'll drop some cash on iTunes and load some games onto the wife's Touch. I've barely touched it as a gaming platform.

Jonman wrote:

I think my Horizons project is going to be iPod games - I'll drop some cash on iTunes and load some games onto the wife's Touch. I've barely touched it as a gaming platform.

I found a few of those to hook me over the holidays, as well. Bookworm is highly recommended; my wife is totally hooked on that one.

Post the titles you pick up, and I'll add them to the list.

I'll jump in with IL-2 Sturmovik. I picked it up for 5 dollars during the Steam sale.
I like the idea of a flight sim but have not really played much at all. Since I only have a gamepad I suspect I will need to modify the realism options. Initially I will need to get ove r the hurdle of finding settings I am comfortable with. I also want to learn what that level of realism is - I am attracted to realism but find I rarely have the patience to actually play realistic simulations. Hopefully I can figure out where my "happy medium" is and enjoy the game at that level.

Hopefully I have enough time this month to follow through. It looks like things are going to be awful busy around the house for a little while.

Carrying forward "Nancy Drew : Message in a Haunted Mansion". Still got a bit more to play of it I think.

I'm going to go with Bayonetta (on the 360). I've always meant to dig into one of the DMC or Ninja Gaiden games but never made it past the first level.

I'd like to finish the manual of HoMM3 and at least play the vanilla campaign.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

I never play my DS and I usually don't like puzzles a ton since my mind never seems to work at those angles. Puzzles are what prevent me from enjoying adventure games, so a puzzle-focused title is a bit of a stretch for me. Now I just need to wrestle the game away from my wife ...

This month, I'll be playing a bouquet of adventure games: LOOM, Penumbra: Overture, King's Quest VI, Tex Murphy I, and Machinarium.

The first PC games I played were adventure games, but I moved away from them along with most everyone else when action games took over the PC platform. I've tried to pick adventure games from both the past and the present, and across a variety of subject-matter genres, in order to really experience the game genre. I want to see if adventure games are more engaging or less engaging for me as an adult—which is why I've included one title, King's Quest VI, that I did play as a child—and to flesh out some of my recent thinking about video game stories.

(And yes, I've neglected to include any interactive fiction here. I'm saving that for another time.)

You should change my entry to read:

garion333 — Mother 3 (DS) (Again. Sigh)

I'll see that extra motivation every time I read the op.

Btw, that's a lot of gaming you've chosen there Adam.

I'm good to keep going with Fight Night Round 4. I literally played twenty minutes or so -- enough to discover that the mechanics of throwing a punch are going to require far more noodling and concentration than I was willing to give it that one day -- and that's as much as I hit it during the month.

I also have some oddball sale purchases, particularly for the PC, that may be good candidates, but I want to give Fight Night more of a shot...

My resolution for 2010 will be 1920 x 1080. What, it took somebody this long to say it?

I resolve to give Empire: Total War a fair shake.

I'm gonna keep trucking with the 4X. Why? Because I rarely, if ever, finish a game that I start. I just start a new one the next time I want to play. My mission is to bring at least one straight-up 'sandbox' game of medium size/length to completion.

Galactic Civ II and/or Sins of a Solar Empire.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

This month, I'll be playing a bouquet of adventure games: LOOM, Penumbra: Overture, King's Quest VI, Tex Murphy I, and Machinarium.

That is an awesome group of games. If you remember, post your thoughts over in the Adventure Gaming thread as you finish; it'd be great to have your opinions. Maybe we can suck you back in.

I think I'm in the same vein as Minarchist, I'm gonna play through either Beyond Good and Evil and/or The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. Adventure games are something I've hardly ever gotten into, but based on the Steam Sale and the fact the tons of praise for both, I believe it is worth it for me to see what I've been missing. I also enjoy a good story and I am sure both of these games will deliver it. My defense in terms of not playing Secret of Monkey Island is that I was 4 years old when it came out!

I finished King's Quest VI last night. As I mentioned previously, I played the game through when it was released but haven't played it since. My dad played through the first half with me, back then, and I played the rest on my own.

I thought I'd forgotten enough about the game to have a fresh experience with it, but what I had really forgotten, apparently, was playing the game until I had nearly every puzzle memorized. I had hoped to be able to comment on Roberta Williams' famously non-intuitive puzzle designs, but I remembered the solution to each puzzle as I encountered it. I was able to complete the game with the best possible ending without running up against any frustrating roadblocks.

However, I had forgotten how brutal this game could be in terms of allowing the player to become irrecoverably stuck. I knew what I was doing in most situations, but I still found myself having to replay sections of the game because I had missed something on my way through them the first time or didn't have all of the items I needed going in. I'm happy that I was careful when managing my save files, because the only alternative would have been to start the game over from the beginning.

Unfortunately, this need to replay sections really cheapened two of the game's strongest set pieces: the Catacombs, and the Land of the Dead. I found myself stuck in the former, having jumped into them too soon, and I forgot to pick up a crucial item in the latter, so I had to replay both of them at least once. The Lord of the Dead, in particular, is a great character, but I skipped through his dialogue because I wanted to just get on with it.

The real benefit, I've found, in having played King's Quest VI, for me, is that I hadn't realized it's safely ensconced in my mind as my Prototype Adventure Game. Whenever I think of adventure games, and the sort of experience I'll have when playing them, I think of King's Quest VI (and, to a lesser extent, King's Quest V, but I mostly watched that being played). It's nice to have that point of comparison freshly in my mind as I approach my other picks for this month.

My first time ever playing that game I got stuck in the catacombs because I didn't have the brick (I'm not spoilering that, the game's 15 years old), because I missed the clue from the flying race of "take some time to gather what you need and return later" to say, "you can't make it yet". On a subsequent playthrough, having grabbed everything needed up to that point, same conversation played out as "you ready?" Alexander: "let's go", and you're immediately thrown in. Very unintuitive setup, in my opinion. Add into that some of the brutally brief timed puzzles (like the genie and the bottle, for instance), and they were just plain hard. I love the old adventure games for their stories and some of the puzzles, but thankfully the modern conventions have moved well beyond such ploys. You'll still feel some of that with Loom and Tex Murphy, but the other two should be a change of pace. Plus, no one is quite as mean as Roberta when it comes to that.

Also, the lord of death is awesome. Best part of that game. Except maybe for "Girl in the Tower".

I'm going to jump in with Civilization 4.

I'd never played a Civ game and I read tons of glowing reviews. After some recommendations by Goodjers I bought it and didn't give it a fair shake. I played for an hour or so, didn't know what I was doing and stopped. I think it's a game I could enjoy if I could figure out the point of it all.

Minarchist wrote:

My first time ever playing that game I got stuck in the catacombs because I didn't have the brick (I'm not spoilering that, the game's 15 years old), because I missed the clue from the flying race of "take some time to gather what you need and return later" to say, "you can't make it yet". On a subsequent playthrough, having grabbed everything needed up to that point, same conversation played out as "you ready?" Alexander: "let's go", and you're immediately thrown in. Very unintuitive setup, in my opinion.

I had to play the catacombs three times. I forgot the brick the first time and the tinderbox the second. I've been trying to come up with a way that that setup could have been more intuitive, but I can't think of anything that wouldn't be at odds with the overall tone of the game. Generally speaking, no one gives you specific hints about anything except for the Narrator when you die. I got the hint that I wasn't ready yet, but I didn't have any clue what all I would need. A tinderbox makes logical sense but a brick and a red scarf don't. It would have been incongruous for someone to give you a heads-up about what you'd face.

Minarchist wrote:

Add into that some of the brutally brief timed puzzles (like the genie and the bottle, for instance), and they were just plain hard.

Genie and the bottle? I must have missed that one. I had the clown swap out the bottles for me and never had to do anything else with the genie. That was an example of a one-shot puzzle, though, that got me; I traded for the wrong bottle, initially, and had to replay a portion of the game to get it back. Thankfully, I used a new save after making the swap because I was worried that I'd grabbed the wrong one.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

My first time ever playing that game I got stuck in the catacombs because I didn't have the brick (I'm not spoilering that, the game's 15 years old), because I missed the clue from the flying race of "take some time to gather what you need and return later" to say, "you can't make it yet". On a subsequent playthrough, having grabbed everything needed up to that point, same conversation played out as "you ready?" Alexander: "let's go", and you're immediately thrown in. Very unintuitive setup, in my opinion.

I had to play the catacombs three times. I forgot the brick the first time and the tinderbox the second. I've been trying to come up with a way that that setup could have been more intuitive, but I can't think of anything that wouldn't be at odds with the overall tone of the game. Generally speaking, no one gives you specific hints about anything except for the Narrator when you die. I got the hint that I wasn't ready yet, but I didn't have any clue what all I would need. A tinderbox makes logical sense but a brick and a red scarf don't. It would have been incongruous for someone to give you a heads-up about what you'd face.

Minarchist wrote:

Add into that some of the brutally brief timed puzzles (like the genie and the bottle, for instance), and they were just plain hard.

Genie and the bottle? I must have missed that one. I had the clown swap out the bottles for me and never had to do anything else with the genie. That was an example of a one-shot puzzle, though, that got me; I traded for the wrong bottle, initially, and had to replay a portion of the game to get it back. Thankfully, I used a new save after making the swap because I was worried that I'd grabbed the wrong one.

King's quest likes to throw in a ludicrously short item grab right at the end of the game which is the "great" ending. It's usually a minor change, but not always. In VI, right at the end when the genie's throwing balls of electricity around, if you've fulfilled all the conditions, you'll have a short window where Jollo comes back and hands you the bottle. You can (a) do nothing and die, (b) give the genie the mint leaves (the typical "good" condition, where he gets drunk and fries himself with his bolts), or, if you're really fast, (c) capture him in the bottle, thus making you his master. It doesn't change much except that he's still alive and helps in the celebration/wedding at the end of the game. It's not quite as drastic as the major branch line on how you enter the castle. VII had something similar, where you could use the cat's extra life to revive the king right at the end of the game, and the timer for that one was even shorter (you practically have to have your inventory on a macro), but the same deal applies there.

At least, I think that's how it went. I'm running from memory here, which in my case is notoriously unreliable.

I didn't have any problem getting the genie back in the bottle, but I also kept my cursor near the top of the screen through most of the end since looking at the menu pauses the game. It took me a bunch of tries to get the stupid pearl, though.

Along those lines, though, I really appreciate how many different ways your actions in the game could affect the ending. I assume that if you don't have the signet ring, or if you don't open the royal storage room, that the ending cinematic changes. If I have some extra time at the end of the month, or at some point in the future, I think I'll play through the alternative castle entrance sequence just to see how it goes.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

I didn't have any problem getting the genie back in the bottle, but I also kept my cursor near the top of the screen through most of the end since looking at the menu pauses the game. It took me a bunch of tries to get the stupid pearl, though.

Along those lines, though, I really appreciate how many different ways your actions in the game could affect the ending. I assume that if you don't have the signet ring, or if you don't open the royal storage room, that the ending cinematic changes. If I have some extra time at the end of the month, or at some point in the future, I think I'll play through the alternative castle entrance sequence just to see how it goes.

I agree, it's very nice how many endings there are. I would encourage the second divergent playthrough, because everything is substantially different. It's definitely not the mega-happy ending.

Man, I need to change my avatar.

mrwynd wrote:

I'm going to jump in with Civilization 4.

I'd never played a Civ game and I read tons of glowing reviews. After some recommendations by Goodjers I bought it and didn't give it a fair shake. I played for an hour or so, didn't know what I was doing and stopped. I think it's a game I could enjoy if I could figure out the point of it all.

Save your life, your friendships, your relationships and your job. Quit now.

After breakfast and before football, I will be spending time with Mother 3. I will.

edit: I tried, but my save game was corrupted. Sooooo instead of starting over, again, I popped in SMT: Devil Survivor and am thoroughly enjoying it. I think the universe is trying to tell me that this is just not my time for Mother 3.

I wrapped up Machinarium and am now moving on to LOOM. I'll post some thoughts on Machinarium later, but I will say that I don't at all regret having listed it at number two in my top five games of the year despite having not finished it at the time.

Certainly a contrast to the few areas I've played. I hope it's as great as you, and many, allude.