Recently completed video games

[youmeyou]

It's one of my favorite game endings, so I'd recommend powering through! With some of the later puzzles it helps to put the controller down and return to it later (The Portal Method).

[Twig]

Man the only thing I LIKED about Limbo was the gameplay. Well, it's pretty, too. I do love the art. But whatever.

[darthbator]

It's one of my favorite game endings, so I'd recommend powering through! With some of the later puzzles it helps to put the controller down and return to it later (The Portal Method).

 

Could you maybe expand on that a bit? 

 

I did notice that the end scene is a serene kind of version of the rather grim looking scene on the "Press Start" screen. Combined with breaking through the the glass I figured it was symbolizing some kind of "breaking through to the other world" passed death or whatever (limbo). 

[Patrick R]

Could you maybe expand on that a bit? 

 

I did notice that the end scene is a serene kind of version of the rather grim looking scene on the "Press Start" screen. Combined with breaking through the the glass I figured it was symbolizing some kind of "breaking through to the other world" passed death or whatever (limbo). 

Apparently all I needed was a little encouragement, as I finished the game shortly after youmeyou suggested I power through it (I was only 10 minutes from the end!). 

 

You end in the exact same place you start the game (hence: Limbo). If you keep mashing buttons you can actually restart the game all over again without going to the main menu. It's pretty sad stuff.

 

I will say that I don't see where people are coming from saying that this game is about a little boy looking for his little sister. There's really not enough in the actual text of the game to add that much to the narrative. Is that something that comes from Playdead's marketing materials or whatever, or am I missing some major moments in the game?

 

EDIT: Also I fear that there is some Dash Rendaring going on and that if I collected all those little glowing orbs the ending would have been different.

[darthbator]

Apparently you're Rendar free. There is only one ending to the game. Here's an old ars article talking about it a little.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/07/limbos-ending-what-does-it-all-mean-we-explore/

Some fun story theory craft stuff for sure! I had more fun reading that article then playing that game so I guess in some ways that makes it worth it.

[Patrick R]

Um, apparently I quit the game before I saw the actual end? I am embarrassed. 

 

EDIT: Yeah, just went back, now the sister stuff actually makes sense. I am a dumb. Ignore my whole post.

[darthbator]

You think he died after he hit the ground after he goes through the glass?

[Patrick R]

You think he died after he hit the ground after he goes through the glass?

I have no real theories about the end of the game, but

 

what I did was assume that where he lands after breaking through the glass is the exact same place as the start of the game, as the whole "open your eyes" sequence is the same as the one in the start of the game. But I didn't feel like playing the game over, so I didn't check, and was confused when that article mentioned seeing his sister on the last screen.

 

Honestly, I kind of like my ending better. Like I said previously, the sister stuff really isn't prominent or explained in a meaningful way. Maybe it's not his sister at all, maybe it's his best friend. The game is all tone and very barely narrative, so the ending we got was one I didn't have a lot of investment in, whereas my initial impression of a circular narrative seems to fit the general themes of the game a little better. 

 

What I'm saying is I'm obviously brilliant and Playdead should hire me.

[Twig]

Limbo has zero explanation of who the girl is or why you're chasing her or why those other kids are trying to kill you or why you're in limbo or whatever. Any interpretation of the game that exists is completely up to the individual EXCEPT that you're in limbo, because that's the title of the game.

 

I loved the game in spite of the "narrative", and not as a result of it. It felt like one of those artsy fartsy things that's just artsy fartsy to be artsy fartsy. I recognize that plenty of people feel differently, but well, I think you're all nuts!*

 

Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't for some random reason assume the girl is supposed to be your sister. I remember researching it a bit after I beat the game a year or so ago, and the developers explicitly avoid explaining anything. Why do people make this assumption?

 

*Still, the fact that it's made me think about it this much despite me purporting to hate it... that's something? Man. Sorry for being such a weirdo downer.

[youmeyou]

I think it's a great example of narrative derived from gameplay. The narrative is that you're stuck in limbo. There's no textual explanation of this, it's just reinforced through the game itself. It's also a play on the linearity of platformers. The goal of any given platformer is to go to the right to get to the end. But the end is an illusion here, you simply end up back where you started. You get a brief glimpse of hope in the form of a little girl enjoying a real child's life which evaporates as quickly as it appears. I think it's a simple yet eloquently told message.

[Twig]

See that's much more in line with what I originally got out of it, and that's when I didn't hate the narrative (although I didn't think it was particularly mind-blowing), and then literally every other interpretation I found on the internet (!) was about chasing the little girl and trying to save her and she's your sister and it's futile you'll never see her again oh no oh how tragic oh noooo.

 

I guess I sorta let that get to me. U:

[Patrick R]

For sure, but I didn't find that ending as evocative as most of the rest of the game. I didn't really get "a little girl enjoying a real child's life" from that ending. I didn't get much of anything from that ending. 

 

It was definitely worth my money, though. And the puzzles I was able to figure out without using a walkthrough (about the first half of the game) were a lot of fun. Also the first moment with the spider's legs unfolding was amazing and then when it jumps at you on that cliff and- yeah, lot of amazing moments.

[mikemariano]

The official Xbox Live Marketplace description of the game is:

 

Uncertain of his Sister’s Fate, a Boy enters LIMBO… Giant Bomb – 5/5. Destructoid – 10/10. Gamespy – 5/5. EDGE – 9/10.

 

None of which comes from the game itself.  Thanks, Xbox!

[syntheticgerbil]

Who wrote that line?! I must know. I always assumed it was just another random little dead girl. Possibly a love interest but that's just a guess.

[Twig]

Well, that would certainly explain the sister-theory brainmass.

[Roderick]

Uncertain of his Sister’s Fate, a Boy enters LIMBO OF THE LOST… Cranny Faggot – 5/5

[tronhound]

I recently finished the first episode of Kentucky Route Zero. I loved the aesthetic and the mood (enough that I strictly only played the game at night) however it felt kind of short considering that it looks like there are so many places I could be exploring. Maybe I was playing it too linearly but I'm going to give it another run through and see if I missed anything. 

 

The dialogue with the dog was great, it reminded me of how I talk to dogs IRL. 

[Tanukitsune]

I finally beat Knytt Undergroun and boy did my opinion of the game 180º!

 

I'm surprised nobody hazed more for saying bad things about a Nifflas game, but I really love the game now. Sure I don't like the black foreground and fourth wall breaking with Nifflas, but I really like exploring in this world.

 

It feels really satisfying when you pull a ridiculous stunt or find a hidden secret, which the game has in truck loads. The side story do add up and the seems to affect the characters in the game in some way or another.

 

I also love the secret ending, it was hilarious and really worth the effort!

[Reyturner]

Journey is possibly the most beautiful game. 

 

It's hard to imagine it being created by people. 

[ThunderPeel2001]

I finished Limbo the other day. I didn't really like that game very much... I'm certainly glad it's as short as it was since I felt oddly obligated to finish it. It's got buckets and buckets of style but the gameplay is just some of the dullest stuff I have ever participated in. I was also not fond of the combination of inerta based physics puzzles combined with character motion and physics that felt like they where mired in mud.

I really disliked the gameplay, too. It felt very repetitive and trial and errory to me. "If I stand here... I die. If I push this... I die. So I won't stand there or push that. 'Puzzle' solved!"

I thought the "narrative" was weak and uneffective, too.

[Henroid]

I hesitate to say I've completed Etrian Odyssey 4. I completed the story arc of the game, but as with the three titles previous there is a 'post-game' that is pretty difficult, and I think this takes the cake. And it's not necessarily stuff you can just out-level. Basically every random encounter is boss-battle difficult and you can (and will, with great odds) be blind-sided by something that instant-kills people despite coming prepared.

[Sno]

I have been playing Sim City Creator DS. (Which has no relation to Sim City Creator for the Wii, as i understand it.)

Why am i playing an obscure, five year old portable Sim City game?

So i said this a while ago, and in subsequently following the Sim City 2013 controversy, i also ended up reading about some of the more obscure entries into the series.

It turned out that this was totally a game doing a lot the things i thought would be pretty cool for Sim City to tackle, and later when i saw a used copy of the game sitting in a game store for just a few bucks, i decided to give it a shot.

It's a neat thing, i've enjoyed my time with it.

Once you accomplish certain goals in a specific age, you kind of "age up" your city and are gradually introduced to a new set of infrastructure and demands that you have to resolve with your existing city. For example, agriculture is gradually phased out as food stops being an essential resource and industry supplants its alternative roles.

Once you reach the modern age and "win" the game, there's also a hidden last age unlocked by going and fucking everything up. You pollute your city horrendously, cause global warming, get a small lecture from the game, and unlock a final post-apocalyptic age where your city has been flooded by rising ocean levels. You're left to start over and try to build a floating future city that can clean up the environment as damaged by your previous city. (Including persisting air pollution and garbage.)

I don't mean to oversell the game though. While it seems to be derived from Sim City 3k, everything is horrendously compressed, it looks and sounds terrible, the mechanics are somewhat simplified, and the performance is very stuttery. It's about what you'd expect from cramming a complex PC simulation onto a underpowered handheld.

For a random, weird thing i stumbled across though, i've had a lot of fun with it.

[miffy495]

This is a pretty old game, but I just finished it, so I'll post here. Rayman Origins. I bought the Vita version when it was half off a couple of weeks ago and just blasted through it. That game was great. The treasure chest chases were super fun, and pretty much set a high point for roller coaster platforming for me. It was a surprisingly challenging, but also surprisingly forgiving game. The checkpoints were really well done. When they were far apart, it felt like they were far apart for a reason. Playing the bonus "true end" or whatever that you get for finishing all the treasure chest chases was great, if only because it was some of the most demanding platforming I've played from a game that hasn't billed itself as "for the hardcore only" in forever. It was great, and the last boss (the one after you beat that crazy level, not the one that gets you the credits the first time) had me thinking "this is ridiculous, there's no way" right up until the point that I found my groove, had a perfect run, and felt amazing defeating her. So good. Infinite lives was definitely the way to go with this game though. Without that, I probably would have broken my Vita out of frustration. If you still haven't played this game, you should probably do that.

 

PS, for whatever reason, I've had this on Steam for like a year and never bothered to get very far, but the second I have it on a portable I devour it in two weeks. What is it about portables that makes platformers so much more appealing on them?

[Twig]

I beat Pushmo and then it's like "here's 54 more puzzles!"

 

Fuck you, Pushmo.

[JonCole]

I hesitate to say I've completed Etrian Odyssey 4. I completed the story arc of the game, but as with the three titles previous there is a 'post-game' that is pretty difficult, and I think this takes the cake. And it's not necessarily stuff you can just out-level. Basically every random encounter is boss-battle difficult and you can (and will, with great odds) be blind-sided by something that instant-kills people despite coming prepared.

 

Um, aren't we only supposed to post in this thread if we've 100%'d a game?