On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 9:10:16 AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 06:26:29 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<just...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, October 1, 2022 at 8:21:38 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Well, free for everyone (like me!) stupid enough to pay into the fund
that ensures Bezos will never run out of money for super-yachts.
People with "morals" or "fiduciary responsibility" don't get the
games, but that's the price of wisdom I suppose.
Anyway, starting from 3rd October they are offering:
- Fallout 76 - Total War: Warhammer II - Middle-earth: Shadow of War -
Loom - Horace - Glass Masquerade: Origin - Hero's Hour
So, seeing FALLOUT 76 there is a bit of a bummer, since I foolishly
picked it up on a Steam sale just over a month ago. Foolishly, because
it's not really the sort of a game - an MMORPG - that I go for... but
the price was too good, I thought. Well, it's available for less now.
Grrr. Well, maybe I'll be able to sucker a friend into playing it
online with me; I'll have a spare key, after all.
TOTAL WAR WARRHAMMER II is a welcome sight, though. I'd sort of burned
out on the Total War series - pretty as they were, the tactical
battles were always too choresome for me to actually enjoy playing -
but TW:W2 apparently streamlined them a lot. I'm not crazy about the
fantasy Warhammer setting, but I don't outright hate it either. So
this might be the game for me to re-enter the franchise.
MIDDLE EARTH SHADOW OF MORDOR is the third-person open-world brawler
set in Tolkien's universe. It was given away on GOG last month so you
may have picked it up there. It's a good game, but not one I really
could engage with; despite its literary origins, the gameworld felt
shallow and uninteresting.
I'm always happy to see LOOM, though; it's a great game. Well, it's a
great experience, anyway; it's gamey-bits are pretty short, simple and
linear. But it has an excellent Tchaikovsky-inspired soundtrack,
clever writing, excellent voice-work and beautiful artwork. Even
though they're probably just doing it because the games are cheap to
license - Loom is 32 years old at this point - it's great that Amazon
is reintroducing gamers to the old LucasArt library.
HORACE is an indie platformer (crossed with a few adventure game and
arcade elements). It's a fine game and has some pretty visuals but I'm
generally turned off by its purposeful use of retro-graphics. When its
done because the developers can't afford to do better, I accept the
need but its fairly obvious the devs had the skill and resources to
create high-res visuals and purposely downgraded in hopes of utilizing
nostalgia for the 8-bit days to their advantage, and that strategy
immediately turns me off.
I don't have any familiarity with the other two games. GLASS
MASQUERADE: ORIGINS is a digital jigsaw puzzle game where you build
timepieces out of glass. Okay, I suppose; it's pretty and not
immediately offensive but I can't imagine spending a lot of time with
a jigsaw. HERO'S HOUR is a retro-graphic strategy game. It's
turn-based on the overworld but has real-time combat. Visuals aside,
it looks like it could be entertaining, but reviews are mixed at best.
Anyway, it's not a terrible mix of games; one I'm quite excited to
see, three that I think are good additions, three that evoke a "meh"
and no outright stinkers. They're available to all Amazon Prime
subscribers from October 3 to Oct 31. Get 'em from
https://gaming.amazon.com/
I'll add Metro: Exodus is free on Luna, Prime's game streaming through
the 31st. Just scroll to the bottom and all the way to the right. There's a >few others of course:
Earthworm Jim 2 -70%
Skatebird - 85%
Monster Truck Championship: Rebel Hunter Edition - 73%
Star Wars Pinball - ?
Blair Witch - 77%
Monster Truck and Skatebird both look possibly interesting. too.
Once you've got Luna installed, it's easy to try them as there's no >additional download, just jump right in.
I didn't know Luna was a streaming service; I thought it was
just-another gaming account. I may reconsider it now.
Are the games "free on Luna until the 31st" in the sense, get 'em now,
keep 'em forever (or however long you maintain your subscription), or
is it "These games are on Luna until the 31st after which they get
replaced with something new"? If the latter, it'd hardly be worth the
bother.
I'm ambivalent about streaming services. I absolutely detest how they
further strip away consumer rights; you know longer have control of
the games you pay for. Data-harvesting and advertising are also
potential concerns. And the technology - while adequate - still isn't equivalent to gaming on local hardware (even my degraded eyes can
notice a degradation of the visuals and the input lag). But, on the
other hand, there is a significant convenience factor; no install
time, low hardware requirements, and reduced compatibility issues are
all points in its favor. For quickly checking out "hey, is this game something I might be interested in", streaming works well.
Which leaves me in a quandry: will I or won't I? I mean, I'm getting
Luna for free*, and you know how I am with free games (and
convenience. Almost my entire GOG library is built up on the
convenience of digital versions versus floppy/CD-based media). But
that lack of control is worrisome, and I don't want to encourage
publishers any more than I have to.
What to do, what to do? It's a battle between ethics and laziness.
I'm assuming they're only available through the 31st. However,
for the ease, it looks like they've now got quite a few if not all of
the other games they've given away, making it really easy to try
any of those without having to go through the trouble of installing
them. It appears to actually run through the browser, I'm not sure
that's a good thing or bad thing.
I did just try a number of the games there.
The Monster Truck one wasn't bad per-se, but it seems really
hard to steer, lots of slipping off my race line at high speed,
and around corners, the AI seems to do significantly better
than me, and I've only got 6th place once out of about 6
races, the rest of the time in last place. The tricks I'm not sure
how to consistently get points, I won one trick competition, but
the other 6 I came in last place. Drag race I won a couple
of the lower level 1v1s but never won the ladder. I'm not really
into monster trucks, so it's probably not the best game for me.
If anyone is, and they have prime, might as well try it.
Skatebird is cool, I made a fez capped starling and did
some tricks, but never been into skateboarding or games
based on such and don't really know what I'm doing there.
It's got a positive from me, but more of a if 'I'm in a goofing
around mood' which I rarely am with games. I will mention
it's got a time control feature where you can slow the game
down so it's easier to do things... that didn't really help me
much figure out how to do anything though.
Earthworm Jim 2. Well, I'm not fond of platformers especially
where pixel perfection is needed. It's pretty badly aged too,
I probably would've liked it back in the day, but right now,
hell no. It did seem kind of funny, I was carrying pigs around
for some reason and one ended up floating on a pond
with its head in a fishbowl.
Star Wars Pinball. There was something about the graphics,
or angle or something that make my eyes have trouble focusing.
There is a couple interesting things going on with it, the first
thing I noticed is you can apparently unlock force powers to
use in the pinball game?!?! The second was that they give you
a time challenge to begin with at least for the campaign mode,
5 minutes to earn so many points, and it auto launches the
ball when one goes down the drain, that was nice vs. just
getting 3 balls. I went through a lot of balls, I also go through
two achievements for score in the single game I played. It
has a lot of stuff going on, at one point there was something like
7 balls flying around and there was a death star charging up,
and laser shooting all over the place. It's pretty exciting for
a pinball game, and I recommend it for any other pinball
aficionados or Star Wars fans, but hopefully it won't bother
your eyes like it did mine.
- Justisaur
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