The F1 season kicked off, so I played around a bit with F1 Manager 2024 since it was free on Epic a few weeks ago. It’s much like the previous iterations of the series - great presentation but vapid and shallow underneath. It’s a real shame, because there are things about it that are compelling. Having all those real team radios and proper circuits and gorgeous cockpit views during races and all the official branding does make a difference. In-race management is also pretty damn fun.
The problem is that it was designed by a team that don’t understand management games. Everything about it starts falling apart the more seasons you play, which is the complete antithesis of what management players are after. The great things like team radios disappear as you replace your drivers and staff members with youngsters or generated people who don’t have voice clips. Nobody has a personality, there are no off-track events that make you invested. The greatness of the perfectly replicated race calendar fades as tracks aren’t added or removed between seasons. There are no interesting regulation changes over time that change fundamental aspects of the car or the rules. The power ranking and properties of the engines never change.
There is no soul or depth here to hook you for years upon years and make you want to build a dynasty. It basically only works if you pick a top or midfield team and try to manage a championship win during the first or second season, beyond that it loses its shine. Still, it’ll be a decent distraction this week as there is no race to watch.
The answer to that question depends on your tastes, your current situation (amount of free time, mood, etc…) and many more. There’s no such thing as the “best” when it comes to a subjective piece of media.
I can’t even decide on my favourite game, because what I like and what I want to play depends on the aforementioned factors. I may be interested in a strong narrative today, on puzzles tomorrow, and on a crazy platformer game next. Different games resonate with me differently depending on when I play them.
Games that really stayed with me are (in no particular order) Xenogears, Metal Gear Solid, CrossCode, Digimon World, Oddworld Abe’s Odyssey, Ace Combat 4-6, The Talos Principle, Ori and the Blind Forest, Threads of Fate, and I also spent a crazy amount of hours on Stronghold, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Medieval II Total War. There’s, like, at least half a dozen different genres in that list and all those games are very different from one another, but all had different qualities that resonated with me for one reason or the other.
I’m currently playing Final Fantasy 16, about 3 hours in. So far, so good.
Once (finally) my new monitor arrives, I’ll re-start with couple of games that I had to put down due to monitor giving me trouble (white lines, lagging and such);
Somewhat hot take… I’d argue Boneworks (not Bonelab) was “better”, at least if you’re used to VR and if you judge by freedom and replay value. Don’t get me wrong, playing through Half Life Alyx was fun and engaging, but to me it had little to no replay value, since for all it did great in visuals, audio, accessibility, and especially story, it failed dramatically in physics. Since I played Alyx right after Boneworks, I kept trying to pick stuff up which I ended up not being able to for larger objects, and the first time I tried to knock a Combine over the head with a pipe I was so sorely disappointed. Alyx has absolutely everything Boneworks is missing, yet that physics core is what kept me coming back to the latter. It really clicked for me when I noticed how many things in Boneworks one can solve in alternate ways by “abusing” physics. Climbing is a learned skill and combat can be as much shooting as it can be using knives, fists, shoving someone off a ledge, or grabbing an enemy and throwing it at others. It’s what truly made me realize how much potential VR had, being able to interact with a full physics simulation, where even your own body is a physics object, with your physical hands is amazing.
I feel like most people who sing praises for Alyx only do so because it was their first VR game. (a lot of people bought a headset just for it.) It’s decent game, but without VR it’s nothing special.
Sucks that VR is still a niche product, despite it being an obtainable consumer product for almost a decade now (edit: and affordable for over half a decade now). When the OG Rift and Vive first dropped, I imagined it being as popular as traditional gaming within 5 years. Yet here we are 9 years later and we still don’t have epic, 50+ hour AAA experiences in VR because hardly anyone owns a headset. Every VR game feels like an indie title.
My opinion hasn’t really changed on it from last time, it still drags and most of the game feels like padding, the characters are uninteresting and the combat is a downgrade from the older games. The tone of the writing also really doesn’t fit the setting and that bothers me a lot.
As with CS1, the bond system feels unnecessary and it’s not really used for character growth (which would have probably been fine if they were interesting in the main story). I’m still playing only because I really liked the previous games, otherwise I’d have dropped them early into CS1.
Borrowed Nine Sols and tried it for a few hours. It seems quite good, I really enjoy the art and parrying feels really satisfying.
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