2019-12-16 05:50:31 (edited by bookrage 2019-12-16 05:51:09)

I'm surprised you haven't gotten the "Dragonslayer" achievement in 'Choice of the Dragon" There is one happy ending you are likely to get, but two hard-to-get unhappy endings. Not going to try and tell you how to get "dragonslayer" but if you are interested, PM me and I'll share in private.

I'll just say that "dragonslayer" is the very first achievement I got.

2019-12-16 08:06:10

I'm really surprised Choice of Rebels hasn't been mentioned yet. It's objectively one of their best games, (biggest opening day sales, very highly rated, one of the longest in the main line), and deserves every ounce of praise it's ever gotten. Joel Havenstone is just on a different level writing wise compared to your average COG writer. It's one of the only games where I've gone back multiple times and just made the same choices to relive the story for it's own merits, it's just that good. Seriously, could go on for hours about how much I love this one, would kill to get my hands on the next four games in the series sooner rather than later. If you took out the choices and made it into a novel series I'd still read it, not to imply that it's the type of game to railroad you a lot.
Another great writer as Dark mentioned is Paul Wang, who did Mecha Ace, which is a great standalone, Choice of Broadsides HMS Foraker, which is a short free game, and the Kendrickstone series, which honestly not so much a fan of. He's also done the Infinity series for the hosted games line, and those are his best work, they're just in the hosted games line because they're genderlocked male and COG isn't down for that.
Another one I really enjoyed is Slammed, which somehow manages to be awesome even though I'm not really a wrestling fan (more into MMA). It's just a compelling story, that explains everything it needs to explain so that it's accessible to your average reader. it's the character dynamics that make this one great.
Choice of robots is also really solid, and has ridiculous amounts of variability in how the story can play out.
All of Mike Walter's stuff (Life of a wizard/mobster, lost air) is very vanilla and sticks to genre tropes, but really fun if you're into minmaxy RPG stuff. Clear, concise writing, isn't trying to do more than entertain you for a couple hours. Definitely something I'd classify as a  game, not a gamebook.
Zombie exodus, both of them, are also really good, and are worth your time if you're into zombies, but they do have their weaknesses so it really depends.
There's a bunch that aren't that great as games, but got me to chuckle, like choice of the star captain, For rent haunted house, and neighborhood necromancer, but I definitely wouldn't start with those.
I'll come back if I can think of any more.

2019-12-16 14:44:28 (edited by Dark 2019-12-16 14:46:19)

One advantage to choice of the dragon, is that it's so short it's easy to try a lot of different paths, so I might have another run and see what I can do.
I actually prefer the achievements view in the Omnibus ap as opposed to  the game centre, since it tells you which achievements you have/haven't got in a much more readable way.

One thing I find odd about gender fluidity, is that there are some games which are plainly written with a certain gender in mind. For example, in creatures such as we, even if you are playing a straight male protagonist, your still asked what level of makeup to put on and have stats related to that, whereas in pendragon rising, your  pretty much always playing a male, IE warrior prince, it's just your choice whether your in the standard medeival world of male warriors and female sorceresses, or in a sort of amazonian, alternative world where all the fighting is done by the women and men stay at home.
I also got the impression that in choice of romance, since your basically playing a scheming courtier who is arranging their marriage, being female is strongly implied, though I did sort of like the idea that this was a world where men could occasionally become pregnant as well.

IN those sorts of instances Choiceofgames probably would've been better doing as the delight games do and actually just have you playing  specific character, though of course in other instances where your in a less gender polarised society, EG choice of the star captain or Yetti's parole officer, it doesn't matter as much.

I particularly liked zombie exodus for this. I admit it did take a bit of getting used to given that your romance options are the same with either character, meaning that your sexuality is based more on which character you start a relationship with than any  specific choice of sexuality options which change the gender of npcs, but in a way I was actually more comfortable playing a lady who just happened to develop a close relationship with another lady in the situation they were in, than I would've been if I'd been specifying being gay from the start and was a woman presented with lots of attractive ladies to romance.

Actually, the difference in style between delight games and the usual Cog stuff is an interesting topic in itself since the delight games are far more like old school fighting fantasy gamebooks with definite challenges and progressive rpg type stats to manage, plus where you're definitely playing a single character of a given age and gender, EG the young over waight male wizard in choice of the wizard, or the tough as nales lady pirate captain in choice of the pirate, though I confess I haven't played as many of the delight games as the Cog ones, since being more traditional gamebook style and therefore far more possible to take wounds and lose, they tend to be harder to complete.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-16 15:47:08

I love how there are now so many titles that you can find something good in whatever category you wish.  I've been playing through the lost air books on the hosted games line and enjoy how they fit together.  In fact, the hybrid rpg stories really appeal to me.  Slammed is also an excellent experience.  I was curious how they'd cover pro-wrestling, but I think they did a brilliant job of giving you diverse options.  I also found out that there is a second part to Zombie exidus safe haven, so will go through that again when I have the time.  smile

2019-12-17 13:42:58

Well I've continued restoring all the games I bought, which is taking quite some time (I never realised I bought so many), and I've not even started on the hosted games yet.

Still as  my lady and I have a hospital visit tomorrow which might well come with a long wait,  it'll be good to have these.

One function I do like in the omnibus ap, is that you can sort results by word count, since sometimes you want something longer than others, I also as I said like the ability to look up games by author and be able to see when someone's written more stuff.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-17 14:54:36

I also like choosing stuff by most popular, helps sort out the good from the bad, as it's plainly obvious that the ones which aren't well written are right at the bottom

2019-12-17 16:30:09

Not popular in many instances does not mean, "not good," but I have found that it often is true in Choiceofgames. The lowest-rated game I've played has also been at the bottom of my list. "For Rent: Haunted House," is my least favorite title and it only got a 4.0. That's still pretty good but most other games I've played rank higher than that and I like all of them better.

2019-12-17 19:05:09

I should have been more specific in that.  Normally popular doesn't mean good, or something you'll like, but I've found in this app it's actually something worth considering.  Land of three classes for instance is right near the bottom.

2019-12-18 03:18:11 (edited by Dark 2019-12-18 03:45:32)

the only thing which concerns me as far as ratings go with the Cog ap,  is that it seems those games towards the  bottom of the list have often simply received fewer ratings, rather than less good ones.

For example, choice of the petal throne had only 25 ratings I think, so was far down the list, where as many at the top had over 500.

I also remember seeing last monster master way down too for the same reason, and as I said in that case, that’s a rating I definitely don’t agree with.

Well speaking of ratings, I have now played choice of the vampire (well the first part anyway), and so here are some thoughts.

I confess to being put off this one slightly by the obvious Anne  rice influence in having a vampire game set in 19th century  New Orleans, which is almost as standard as Transylvania these days, but I decided I shouldn’t let that put me off and so gave the game a try.

I played a socialite vampire called Barbara (extra points for anyone who gets the amusement of Barbara the vampire).
I also thought  this time it might be fun to try and play something outside my own comfort zone and paly a social charming vampire, rather than my usual straight forward brute force or academic types, albeit still a comparatively nice natured one.

My first problem however came with the stats.
Whilst some stats, EG compassion vs hubris, or base stats like strength, agility and stealth were easy to get, others such as coloniability vs independence or adaptability vs anachronism I didn’t understand at all, There was no explanation on the stats page or in game.

Similarly, some powers and decisions were just unclear, for example, I had no idea  if your ability to talk to animals went with lore, stealth or mental powers.
So, to begin with, I was playing a game where decisions were murky.

Fortunately, there was comparatively little to decide, which brings me on to my next point.
Yee gods this game was run on rails!
So many of my decisions, I’d decide one way, and then the game would suddenly  redact my choice entirely, or have something happen as if I’d chosen something else.
I won’t detail all of these for fear of  spoilers, but I will give one example.

On one occasion I was given a girl by some local villagers as a kind of sacrifice. My options were feed on her, take her for sexual amusement, remain  indifferent, or take her as my maid.
I took her on as a maid, on the basis that  she might be a companion and ally.
My vampire was a straight lady, and though I did kill, I didn’t kill indiscriminately, plus of course I thought at the time, a well todo socially mobile lady would be likely to have a loyal maid.

However, soon she kills herself. Why I don’t know, I didn’t mistreat her, and as per my over 75 compassion I wasn't a cruel vampire, . This then caused the people to suddenly start howling for my blood, even  though the text told me I’d been ruling them fairly up to then, and with my  charm and intelligence things had been going well.

This is what I mean, all the way through these sorts of things happened, where the author plainly had one path to go, and I was seemingly forced along that path, no matter what I decided.

Even romantically, I was playing a straight lady vampire who was interested in men, and though I did  have one romantic option with a man, all the way through I was continually told how I was fascinated with a woman’s beauty, or was infatuated with a given lady.
Oddly enough, this is one game where specifying sexual preference might have helped, or at least a little flexibility on the author’s part to let the player pursue their given interests, rather than just assume attractions at different points (I'm fairly sure the romance with a man was intended to  be for a female character and would read as clunky if the character was a gay man).

Another major problem I had, connected to  my characters’ lack of ability to alter her own destiny, was that so much of the writing was dry and factual.
If I play a game set in a historical period, I expect my character to interact with that period the way that a person from that time would, I want the sounds, sites, smells, the people that character meets within their own circle. I want my roman character  tell me what larks tongues taste like, and my character in Victorian London to smell smog and hear the clatter of handsome cabs.

Most of the writing here though honestly read like wikipedia Articles on American history, which army in the civil war advanced and did what, what general took what city etc. Often, I honestly thought “look I don’t care! About what bills congress has passed, can we just get back to the blood drinking?”

This dry style also made it hard to care about what was actually going on, even  when circumstances seemed bad, for example, I would’ve thought that anyone in a city about to be besieged would be more concerned about the army approaching, whichever political side they were for, than what the so and so bill or the such and such case had said or  had won which battles miles away.

This also meant that in situations where my character was asked to take a stance on things like whether they supported one side in the civil war or the other, I honestly didn’t know, since I frankly didn’t have enough of my character’s actual experience to base things on.

On the one hand, maybe this would mean more to people who know more American history than I do, on the other, as a doctor who fan, I’m no stranger to historical fiction, and historical fiction set in periods I know nothing about, and generally like all fiction  they succeed or fail on the strength of their characters and the immertion of their writing, not how well the author has memorised a set of names and dates and battles.

Here however, characters lacked extremely, even the romance was cliche ridden and uninteresting, particularly since it came with a tragedy (once again  one I suspect was unavoidable), which was possible to see coming a mile away and so had absolutely no emotional weight at all.

Oh, and it also didn’t’ help that the ending was an anticlimax of the worst kind, with no resolution and not even a cliffhanger, it just felt as if the story broke off in mid flow.

All in all, one of the worst Cog games I’ve played, right down there with city of the clouds.
I scored it a 3-10 on the rating scale, and would definitely not recommend it, indeed while I own the second part and have imported my save from part one, I don’t know if I’ll ever be moving forward, not with how disappointing this one was.

Btw, if for rent, haunted house is worse than this, it must be pretty terrible.

I have some long car journeys tomorrow, and likely some waiting around  hospitals too, so probably time for choice of broadsides next.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-18 14:47:04

I agree with you wholeheartedly on "Choice of the Vampire" but more on that when I get to it in a few weeks.

What I will tell you is despite being railroaded a lot, there are switchbacks in the writing. For example, that example of the sacrifice you did never happened in my playthroughs and I realize I did branch in a lot of different ways based on my choices. Only problem was that the branches were pretty wooden and resembeled hardwood tree branches more than they should.

2019-12-18 20:43:58

Hi.

I'm really njoying my read and playing off choice of the cat. It's something different for a change and the game always keeps me chuckling and trying out new stuff, because everytime I played this I found something new, and even if it just was some little choice.

The description said something to the point off that you can go as far as hide a fish, cause a fire and even let the family you are living break apart, haven't managed the last two though.
Also something I haven't done yet is try getting a music contract for the dude, wondering how that should work.

greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-12-18 21:03:35

@Bookrage, I guessed there would be some choice in Choice of the vampire, EG the first choice when you decide to choose whether to kill your maker or not, however either I didn't come upon them, or they went down the path I didn't choose.
For example, I expect that if I remained indifferent to the sacrificed girl she wouldn't die, but really, there should be more than two outcomes when your given five different choices, especially taking into account your character's stats.

@Simba, choice of the cat always struck me as fun, I'll have to give that one a try.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-18 21:15:40

also, just letting you guys know that with several of the CoG titles I've played, word count does not necessarily translate into length of a playthrough. Some titles deverge wildly at certain parts of the story and change the story dramatically as you go and take you on a different path. Also games, where your choices really matter even on a set course will have a lot of text relating to your decisions, which will be put into the story over other text because of your choices.

For example, suppose you have a game that has 20,000 words of custom content for five different paths you can take at key points in the story, and 30k words of static text. the game will be listed as a 130k word story even though you are only using about 50k per playthrough.

I believe Choice of the cat is very much like this. It is listed as a 600k title, but I don't believe it is a marathon game like that number suggests. However, I haven't played it so perhaps Simba or someone else would be better-informed at this time to say whether I'm right or not. I have noticed it is quite true in several games I've played multiple times though that have more freedom.

2019-12-19 18:32:09

hello all,

It will be a long time before I get there, but decided to let you guys know of the latest COG title that was just released today.

There's a historical renaissance Italy fantasy novel called "The Magician's workshop," and you get to blend magic and art with the intrigues of early 16th-century Florence Italy.

Because I'm going at a pretty slow rate (one chapter per day) and now it seems like games lately have been released weekly, it's going to be a while before I get there, but would love to hear what you guys think of it if it catches your fancy.

It's cheaper until the 26th for anyone who wants to jump on it and grab it up for a steal.

also, I've noticed that COG sales often run until close to the release of their next title, so I wouldn't be surprised if we have something else left in 2019 in the last few days.

2019-12-24 07:40:58 (edited by Dark 2019-12-24 08:08:52)

Okay at risk of preempting Bookrage's next review, I just finished playing through choice of broadsides, so here are some thoughts.
I have played the game before, indeed I think it was the second I played after choice of the dragon, but it was a fair while ago and some bits I remembered better than others. I also got on better this time around which I suspect has influenced my opinion.

Firstly, I loved the clarity of stats here. Though I was occasionally waying up choices based on my character's strengths, EG whether cutting the anchor chain of an enemy vessel during a boarding action or climbing the sail would involve more of my characters' high fighting prowess, I was never under doubt as to what any of the stats actually did, which was a good thing.

My only miner issue with the stats, is that I got the distinct impression the game was tracking several other things behind the scenes which I didn't know such as  the feelings of other characters like Bryson and Jones, or in the mutiny section tracking the happiness and diciplin of the ship's crew.

Unfortunately, this meant that whenever those stats changed the writing had to inform me, often somewhat clunkily of the over all stats.
Whilst on the one hand this made  sections feel almost like minigames in themselves, EG the courting, on the other it might have been better to just track how different people felt about me and indicate the writing a bit more subtly.
For example, at the end of the game I chose one option and was told it was "a poor decision" but there was no clear indication to me as to why, and the ending still seemed happy enough.

The writing in general was reasonably atmospheric for the most part, even if a little too short and cursory in places, though I confess part of my affinity for the story comes from touring Hms Trincomaly, which is a fully restored destroyer from the napoleonic wars and the oldest ship still afloat in Europe, since even where the writing was briefer in describing say the conditions on a gunnery deck, I could imagine them myself having stood on one, ----- though not whilst the guns actually fired of course big_smile.

With the story being so brief I didn't particularly get the chance to build up an idea of many of the characters or relationships, indeed to say they mention jane austin, the romance section was basically a stat test and then a note overview.

unfortunately, a lot of the choices also had few options, indeed this one is definitely more like a set of challenges as Choice of the dragon was than an actual branching narrative, however I got the idea that my choices with respect to those challenges made a big difference, and that while I couldn't affect the choice of the narrative in a major way, I could at least have an impact and succeed or fail on my own merretts, though one major issue I did have is that there didn't seem to be any achievements, which was a shame since like choice of the dragon, it would've been nice to try and accomplish things another way and get rewarded for it, for example, that is one game where it might've been interesting to play a gay character.

Speaking of Gender, I gather that this one is similar to pendragon rising in that you can basically gender swap the game and have women doing the fighting and men staying at home.

Whilst I understand the thinking there to provide a gender choice, I will confess to me that always  feels a little jarring in historical terms, or even alt historical terms.

I'm quite happy with a future, modern or fantasy setting with awesome women warriors (I played a lady carpenter in Zombie exodus), but to essentially alter history to make it equalitarian when it clearly wasn't seems a bit weird to me, plus it negates the idea of a female character   being awesome despite gender restrictions.

Still, fair enough if people want the option, but where I tend to like to alternate gender characters in most games, this is one where I think I'd always play a man.

Btw, this time I played a really likable sailor with awesome leadership and combat but who had no idea how to sail a ship called Richard Blunt, again points for anyone who gets the reference big_smile.

So, all in all a game that was a surprising amount of fun. It had flaws, cursory, writing, occasional lack of choices and a major bummer in having no achievements, but stil worth a run through all the same.

I rated it a 7, though I admit had I noticed the lack of achievements I'd probably have rated it a 6.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-24 17:48:19 (edited by bookrage 2019-12-28 16:33:17)

Bookrage's review of "Choice of Broadsides"

Hello all,

as I promised, here is my review of "Choice of Broadsides." though I think Dark did a very good job of reviewing it, though I don't agree with him entirely.

genre: Even though you are dealing with the fictional countries of Albien and Gaul, this is pretty much just a nautical adventure from the Napoleonic wars. Albien and Gaul were alternate historical names for England and France respectively and the game doesn't really attempt to hide it, even referring to "London" in one point. The alternate names is basically to allow for the alternate history of emale sailors or for sanctioning gay mairage in the time period to allow for inclusiveness. If you like 19th-century war stories, this has a lot of the hallmarks. The Jane Austin reference is misleading and you should not consider it when thinking about this game, whether you like her works (like I do) or hate them (like I used to.)

writing: Keep in mind that this game is also an early release title for Choice of games and I believe was a free title. Because of this, it spells things out a little more bluntly than one might expect in other titles. For example, it tells you openly to do things that stress your strengths and avoid things that hit your weaknesses. If this is your first title in Choice of Games, the advice is good to see. In many ways, the writing is better than in "choice of the Dragon," but that might also be because this game seems a little more mature. I don't mean that it has "adult content," but I think it is aimed at a general audience that is a little older. The writing is less blunt and generally actions are more nuanced in this game than in "Choice of the Dragon."

mechanics: As a game I see aimed at beginners, "Choice of broadsides," has simple mechanics that are easy to map and follow. Also, unlike most of the stats in "dragon," these stats do not operate on a balance, and often you can be good in many stats at once or bad at many, improving or weakening various ones independently of others. This actually is good for learning another mode of play that is also very common in "Choice of Games," so even if you've played "Choice of the dragon," what you can learn from the mechanics here is still valuable. Most decisions are pretty easy to map to specific  stats, though some relating to personality are a little harder at times. There is also a set of mechanics that comes into play in the ship management part of the story, where you spend a chapter working with the crew of a ship you command. Dark didn't like the bluntness of the mechanics there, however, as it only comes into play in that chapter, I think putting it that way isn't much of a problem. I also like that while that chapter interacts with your own stats in places, there are choices that are deliberately "right," and "wrong," which I think is nice to  keep the player engaging with the story and having to use their own common sense. That ship management chapter is one of my favorite parts of the game.

story: typical naval faire from this point in history, even with the thin disguise of "Albien and Gaul," and If you want to live some of the naval life of the exciting time period, you'll do well to check this out, though the  plot is relatively predictable and takes you from one event to another. I've played this one close to a half-dozen times now and I can tell you that it branches more than Dark knows. One chapter changes entirely depending on how you treat a certain NPC, another event can change dramatically when you command your own ship depending on how you treated a couple characters, and even on my most recent playthrough I discovered something about the ship management chapter I didn't know and did something I didn't think was even possible as the game was written and avoided something I didn't know could be avoided and got a whole other ending I didn't know about at the end of the game. While it is true the game does follow more of a path, there's actually a lot of wiggle room in there for you to make the game what you want.

Romance: Nothing special here. I've only played straight male romance here. However, you can be gay if you say something akin to "I am not looking for a wife exactly," when you are asked about it. Beyond about four pages of doing stuff and a couple references to whoever you wind up with at the end of things, there really isn't much narrative payoff to it. However, there is some mechanical payoff. For example, there is one woman who is fun and semi-advantageious for your patronage and such, but she eats your wealth stat if you marry her, while another increases your wealth but dumps your patronage stat in the toilet. This means, just as in the historical period, Romance is as much a strategic choice as a romantic one.


achievements: There aren't any in this game which is a real shame and perhaps its weakest point.  as it could've benefited from so many. It is shorter than many choice of games titles but it is longer than "choice of the dragon," and it also has a lot of cool accomplishments you could aim for in the end because of some degrees of difference and special occurances you can cause in the game if you play your cards right.

final remarks: This might be an introductory title just like "Choice of the Dragon," but this one is longer, would appeal more to mature adults, is more complex, and generally does what "Choice of the Dragon," does, only it does so better. This is one of my favorite titles actually at the point of writing this.  It's romance is tacked on, the Jane Autin reference is a lie, and it passed up quite the opportunity with the omition of achievements, but it is solid otherwise and though others might disagree, I thought the ship management chapter was really fun.


Next time, I'm doing "Choice of the vampire," However, I've decided to play it again completely before I put my two cents in. I have decided to give it another playthrough and thus want another one under my belt to see a bit more about branching, which means it might be a bit over a week until I see you again.

Also, feel free to comment on what I've said here or anything else.

2019-12-25 01:01:08 (edited by defender 2020-01-07 04:35:36)

Hey Bookrage.  Just an idea here but since this thread has so many posts in it now, you might consider using a heading to mark the posts of yours which contain actual reviews them selves.
The way you do this is as follows.
Left bracket, the letter h, , and a right bracket.
Next type the text you want to become a heading, for instance the game being reviewed, just a message saying Review, ETC, what ever you want, and feel free to use what ever punctuation or spacing you wish, as long as it has no brackets in it.
then you do a left bracket again, followed by a slash, and another letter h, and again your closing right bracket.
You could also put some unique text before each review and tell people to search for it at the top of the first post.

2019-12-25 01:08:01

Interesting thoughts bookrage.
I actually liked the ship management section from a mechanics perspective, I just did not like the way the writing had to blatantly inform you about your crew's discipline and happiness occasionally, whilst other stats such as what the other officers thought about you were utterly hidden.

I think myself, I'd have rather had percentile distributions for happiness and diciplin shown on the stats page, along with clear indications of what others thought of you, so you could track the effect, EG if Carter or Jones didn't like you, crew diciplin would dip, with the actual writing telling you more of what your crew were doing, perhaps by describing the overall unruliness of the crew vs their speed to obey orders.
It was not just this section though, there seemed to be a lot of "that is a poor decision," type of notes, or or "how do you feel about that" type questions, which were a little too game and not enough book for my liking.

I got the idea that the game was more a set of challenges to succeed at by the fact that my two playthroughs, despite playing the game in very different styles each time, were broadly similar in over all narrative structure, though not in what my character succeeded and failed at.

Also, before I started this playthru, I utterly failed at one task barely ten minutes in. this lead to what I assumed would be either a gameover or a drastic change in direction, but just resulted in me continuing with slightly reduced accomplishments and stats, hence my thoughts on challenges.

this however is also where the lack of achievements hurts the game, since if there is an achievement that tells me I can turn into a purple marshmallow, and the path I took took me no where near marshmallow hood, I get an idea of just how broad the game's scope is, where as in this one I only have experience to go on.

still, I'll bow to your superior experience here, and might well try the game again and see if I can get anything really new.

I haven't decided what Cog title to try next. I'm tempted to try going in order as you are, though I'm also tempted to simply go for one of their later lineup such as T Rex time machine or perhaps choice of the cat.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-25 13:57:19

first, going on farther, I think the idea for a heading to set apart my actual reviews is a good idea and I'll do that going forward. I appreciate the tip.

Dark, after I exhaust reviewing stuff I've already played, I'll often only have a single playthrough to reference a game from, which is not always the best. It would actually be more helpful I think if you did things that were newer.

2019-12-25 17:16:05 (edited by Dark 2019-12-25 17:16:29)

Well the problem is I'm a little torn, since on the one hand I want to complete a few of the games I started like choice of the star captain and the hero's rise series, on the other hand some of the newer ones sound really interesting, and I did enjoy Mrs. Clause.

Actually having just finished a book by Robert Westall all about cats, I like the iea of choice of the cat.

Oh and yes, headings for your reviews would be good, especially if I want to look them over later.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-26 23:24:01

as I predicted, there was actually another release for 2019 that just came out, and I'm eager to try it though it will probably be a long time before I get there.

They just released "An Odyssey: Echoes of War," In which you play an interactive retelling of HOmer's classic work, though there are a lot of other options besides the main story such as becoming a God, stopping at several of the islands on the way home, or a number of other things.

I'm a bit of a classic lit snob, so this one sounds probably more fun to me than it has a warrant to be, but it will be itching at my brain until I get to it.

Just thought I would let you guys know of this one.

2019-12-27 04:12:04

I really enjoy Choice of the Cat myself. It was the first COG title I ever played. I never did figure out how to help the guy get his band contract signed, either, so I think I'll give it another play and see if I can make some headway on that.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-12-27 17:17:57

An interactive odyssey sounds really cool, though I hope the writing is better than in their last mythological offering i played, champion of the gods.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-27 18:23:00

Dark, have you played the sequel? There is a sequel to "Champion of the gods." now. I haven't even played the first, nor, although I want to, have I played the new "Choice of Broadsides," spin-off story, but that last one intrigues me.

2019-12-27 20:28:23

I haven't played exile of the gods yet.
to be honest, whilst the first game ended on something of a cliffhanger indicating there would be a sequel, since that cliffhanger involved the character's relationship to their father and the dialogue was so dreadful I never cared about this relationship, I didn't feel the urge to go on to the sequel when it turned up.

It's a shame, the world and mythos are rather interesting, and I liked the mechanics, but really the dialogue was so stilted.

Also, it suffered from the problem of some choices being made obscure by the way the game was written.
For example, in the game your playing a divinely powered hero.
As part of this power set you can choose your fighting style and your particular specialisation in typical Cog fashion, speed, strength or I believe endurance.

I went with speed.

During a couple of choices I was directly  told things like "this enemy is too quick even for your divine speed"

so naturally I went with a different option, only to find I failed since the others were strength or other tests.
when I went for speed even being told not to, I succeeded, because it turned out the narrative when it referred to "my divine speed" didn't actually mean my particular special godly talent, but my hero's overall divine heroness.

This sort of thing is just plane clunky and happened several times, and would've been easier to solve with a bit of better writing, unfortunately though i got the idea the writer  so keen on superlative adjectivees that they didn't take time to mention which were important.

I'm not saying it was truly terrible like some games, there was plenty of choice, and the odd awesome monster plus as I said a rather unique world of gods and fate and such, it just wouldn't wouldn't necessarily be on my top priority list to play the sequel when there are so many other games available (especially since I'd need to replay the first one as I've combined into the omnibus ap and lost my savegame).

Now the second choice of broadsides on the other hand, when I consider it's the same author as Mecha ace sounds like a fantastic proposition.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)