🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 01:44:53 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?

1.  Homefront: The Revolution

There is another active thread on this game, and what a winner it is
when purchased at a deep discount, despite the brutal reviews it
received upon release.  I haven't even tried co-op yet.

I've come to realize how important setting is to me in a game.  The
setting here is dystopian Philadelphia and North Korean baddies are
our daddies.  But, the city design, while not perfect, has this feel
that reminds me in some ways of the movie "Escape From New York".  It
also has what I would call a reasonable blend of combat and stealth,
where most of the time you're avoiding and/or hiding from the enemy,
but every now and then you are either forced to fight or you just
don't feel like fleeing, so you open fire.

It definitely still has bugs, but the bugs in this game can be kind of
endearing when viewed from the right perspective.  I gave one example
in the other thread where I was blocked from entering a window (only
way in to an apartment) because some of the boards that were blocking
it were invisible due to a bug.  NPC pathfinding is stupid at times;
you can invite armed resistance fighters to join you, yet whether or
not they can actually figure out how to keep up with you is a
different story.  In one area, I got stuck in a narrow doorway with a
small crowd of NPCs jammed up in front of and behind me.  I felt like
a Walmart shopper trying to wedge myself through doors to try to be
the first in line on Playstation release day or something.  It could
have been frustrating if I let it, but I just kind of laughed through
it, jumped up and down a lot and fortunately the NPCs blocking me in
finally figured out how to unlodge themselves and make it through the
door, and I was able to continue.  I will be more careful approaching
narrow doors if there are NPCs around, because these people are not
geniuses.  Maybe something in the air in Philly. lol

Bottom line, at 75% off, don't think, just get it.  At 50% off? Maybe.
Above that, use your own judgement.   Overall, it's not the horrible
game that the release reviews would make it out to be.


2.  911 Operator

Interesting simulation/RTS game.  Innovation like this is always
welcome IMHO.  

Your job is to answer 911 calls, and you have to figure out the most
efficient way to dispatch police/fire/ambulance (not always as easy as
it sounds, to do it well at least).

What caught my attention and prompted me to get this game was that you
can download a map of your city and play the game on familiar
territory (or any other city for that matter), and it turned out to be
everything I had hoped it would be.  It's nice when you get a call
with an address that you know approximately where it is without
looking at the map (especially once the map contains a lot of plotted
active incidents already).

Either by design or incredible coincidence, I found that, in cities
I'm familiar with, the type and frequency of emergency calls that come
in was completely accurate with crime patterns of that city.  It seems
as though they might be using real crime heat maps as a basis for
procedurally generating incidents.  For example, the places that
robberies or beatings were frequently reported were in the parts of
the city where that is more common, and I never saw something
rediculous like a gang related shootout in a part of town where it
just doesn't happen.  I have not spent dozens of hours playing, but I
have to believe this wasn't occurring by accident, at least in the
maps I played.

You can view Mack's review here for more, if interested:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbGUXB3OUeE