Tragedy has struck America. Leonard Cohen is dead. What do you mean with “He was Canadian?” Was he? Well, guess everything is fine then in the US.
Anyway, we at Twinstiq talk about videogames and I can’t think of any connection between him and those right now, so how about a very short review of Motorsport Manager?
After years of waiting, we’ve finally gotten a new racing manager that isn’t completely shit. Yay! Gearheads shouldn’t be too excited though, because while Motorsport Manager isn’t shit, it still has a ton of issues. The primary gameplay loop involves a lot of waiting and progress is slow, but without much of a challenge: Save up some money, do a race, upgrade your stuff, do a race. The AI tends to fuck up every now and then, handing you the win. Other times you miss that there is a safety car coming out (especially in longer races, you will inevitably zone out at some point and the game doesn’t do the greatest of jobs telling you what’s going on), therefore screwing up your pit-stop strategy and throwing the race. Oh, and developing next years car and signing manufacturers is an absolutely boring checklist. No negotiations, engine stats to compare, different types of contracts,.. You just chose how much you are willing to spend and in return you get better fuel economy. Yay.
It’s not all bad though. Especially when it comes to smaller details the game really shines. Driver stats are deep enough to be interesting, but without being overwhelming and the impact drivers have on the result feels just fine. Every now and then you get to vote on next years regulations, like refueling being allowed during a race, or every team having to use the same rear wing. Also, you’re not stuck to one team for your whole career and you can start in a slightly lower racing league (think GP2) and work way to the top.
So yeah, if you love your management games and are extremely hungry for one set in the racing genre, you could do a lot worse. Just keep in mind that most of the managing you do is at the well polished and only slightly bug-infested racetracks.
Anyway, what is everyone playing over the weekend?
Thomas: Depends on my plans for the weekend. But no idea really.
Greywolfe: the longest journey. beneath a steel sky. the longest journey. some other game since i'm done with baldur's gate: dark alliance. the longest journey. maybe i should look through my gog library and play something that appeals to me on the spur of the moment. the longest journey. like, i'm thinking of possibly giving "odaulls, the dark call" a go. the longest journey. are you spotting a trend? the longest journey.
Scroo: Beneath a Steel Sky for Game Club. I also picked up Shadow Warrior 2 and that's been fun. Thinking of replaying Crysis soon-ish as well. And of course whatever we roll next for Game Club.
Cody: Gonna check out some Battlerite of the servers come back up this weekend.
I finally took a break from Titanfall 2/Battlefield 1 long enough to wrap up the Bioshock 1 remaster. Couldn’t figure out what to start up last night, and finally settled on the original Dead Space. I played it way back on the 360, but never finished it. Now I own them all on Origin, so I’d like to go back through the franchise. But there will also be plenty of Titanfall and Battlefield. Additionally, I know own Skate 3 and will be trying out that through backwards compatiblity.
On top of all that, I think I’m going to try to see Dr. Strange this weekend.
I’m considering jumping on the Titnafall 2 train soon-ish. Dead Space is a good way to go, at least for one and two, I can’t speak to the third since I never played it.
I saw Strange and I have to say it rose higher than my expectations. Tilda Swinton is very good in the movie, maybe the best thing about it actually. Just be ready for a lot of kaleidoscopic imagery, that happens a lot.
I do love Titanfall 2. Whereas in Battlefield I feel like if I don’t have at least a somewhat competent team, I’ll get steamrolled on a personal level, in TF2 my individual performance is more a reflection on me. I sincerely hope they add some sort of horde mode like Frontier Defense from the original game.
I played Dead Space 3 on the PC a while back and honestly loved it. I wish I had the chance to play co-op. The way they implemented that seemed like it was unique, splitting you and your partner up to see different areas and have individual battles before rejoining each other.
I still need to finish Re6 (last boss battle) and Dwad Space 3 (last level +). I haven’t played the co-op mode either, let me know if you want to run thru that at some nebulous future point in time.
I only have Dead Space 3 on the PC, but if you do too I’d love to give a co-op run a chance some time.
The arrival is out this weekend too. I want to go see Dr. Strange too.
Gunned through Titanfall 2 campaign (it was good, would be better had I learned to double jump better earlier on). Yah for me, it feels like the first game I’ve completed this year.
Currently going through cod: IW campaign. It’s enjoyable so far, though to me, the first two missions before opening up the galactic map didn’t make sense to me from a plot perspective. Maybe I was up too late and suffering a brain fart. Anyhow, I’m just filing it under “guerilla type ops to keep bad guys preoccupied and away from earth even though there are only two operable ships.” E3N (Ethan) does feel a bit like TARS from Interstellar, but with less charm so far.
This game needed a bit more Macross missile massacre action to the spaceship segments. I’m still enjoying them, but I can see how they might get boring after the nth time.