In this post: after trying Horizon Chase Turbo, Danielle and I adopt Stray as our new 'daddy game', the squad tries Payday 3, and I play a little more BG3 and FO76.


Danielle's activity requests are swing (30%), park (20%), tablet game (20%), draw/glue (10%), PJ Masks (10%), and daddy game (10%). Having beaten Astro's Playroom and a few 'Slay the Fire' (Slay the Spire) daily climbs, we tried Sonic, Wipeout, and Horizon Chase Turbo.

I recall Stray made a lot of GOTY shortlists a few years back. It looked like a puzzle game with a feline protagonist; exactly what a two year old would enjoy watching.


So far so good; we chased a butterfly and frolicked with our cat buddies.


Then our feline hero(ine) abruptly falls into the bowels of a cyberpunk ghost city inspired by the one in Kowloon. So, good lesson for the little one about playing on steel girders and irrigation pipes.

		Can we go see the other kitty cats?		Dani
Me	That's what we're trying to do, I think it's the central conflict of the game.

Since we're not yet at the age of being afraid of the dark or alleyways or dilapidated arcologies, Dani was pretty unconcerned by the damp corridors and neon lights.


Similarly, having not played Metroid or Half-Life, the headcrab-like 'zurks' were just little bugs. The Stray game mechanics are these:

• Social sections where you investigate the city and talk to robots.
• Puzzle sections not unlike Zelda temples or The Last of Us.
• Explore/fetch sections where you collect items from a small section of the city.

The cat gets a robot friend and interacts with the androids that inhabit the city - it's not the lonely gameplay experience you'd expect. My little copilot was interested in the dialogue, the jumping puzzles, and knocking over paint cans.


The lolbaters squad got a few Payday 3 runs in on launch day and, well, it's a lot like Payday 2. That's not the most flattering review considering it's been ten years but the same could be said for a lot of games. I can summarize Payday 2 in two bullets:

• Despite good gun handling mechanics, gun battles are fairly ho-hum due to endless stream of law enforcement that's more annoying for the stagger effect than anything else. (At high difficulty they're probably annoying for being very difficult).
• Stealth co-op. Stealth games are not for everyone. So when you consider the prospect of a stealth game where you have to rely/restart based on your comrades' performance, things get perilous. Payday 2 absolutely pulled this off and we had some legendary heist experiences.

In addition to the usual graphical upgrades and new/different content, Payday 3 improves upon its predecessor's police response mechanic. Instead of a steady stream of bad guys (good guys), they come in waves that have their own difficulty/characteristics.

So ultimately the game's funness comes down to how well-designed the heists are. I'll know more soon.



Slowly working my way through BG3. I think I might try to take this guy's lamp.



Due to timezones, me and J haven't played much Fallout.



Horizon Chase Turbo is basically Cruisin' USA.

Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.

?

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