Where The Water Tastes Like Wine. Got tired of hearing the game’s mouth before even getting to anything resembling a main gameplay loop, chose to exit, and it started another long winded speech, which I Alt+F4’d out of. I learned of this game via youtube recommendations of its soundtrack, liked some of the songs, game went on my wishlist. Got a Steam notification it was on sale, hit buy. Was busy with other shit for awhile, when I got around to playing and UTTTERLY FUCKING HATING it for thoroughly refusing to respect my time, the Steam refund period had lapsed. Did you know there’s a “remove from library” feature where you can just…unown a game. I’ve used it precisely once.
BATTLETECH. I was thinking “Hmm, I’ve enjoyed this franchise for awhile but never actually played the tabletop game, and I live in an oubliette so I’m the only person within 100 miles that’s even HEARD of the game, so maybe this will let me experience that gameplay. I died of old age three times in a row just waiting for the opening cinematic to finish. It’s in the style of “slide the camera slowly across hand-drawn art while a voice actor monologues” things. It ran like constipation, somehow. Like it felt like the computer was struggling to handle what should have been simple video playback. The story is apparently about YET ANOTHER non-canonical pointless little periphery nation to be served by YET ANOTHER pointless little lance-strength mercenary company. The main menu appears and gave me a choice between 'Story Mission” and “Campaign” which…those are synonyms. Then we FINALLY after four generations have come and gone we get in-engine, and the tutorial mission is the last goddamn straw. They vomit story and gameplay control tutorials at you simultaneously, so you’re hit with a voice saying “The duchess knows she can count on you.”, a prompt at the bottom of the screen that says “Press T to use your weapons” and a text box on the left edge of the screen that says 'The duchess understands that it’s dangerous being in a Battletech game, but she knows you’ll do the best you can."
Where The Water Tastes Like Wine. Got tired of hearing the game’s mouth before even getting to anything resembling a main gameplay loop, chose to exit, and it started another long winded speech, which I Alt+F4’d out of. I learned of this game via youtube recommendations of its soundtrack, liked some of the songs, game went on my wishlist. Got a Steam notification it was on sale, hit buy. Was busy with other shit for awhile, when I got around to playing and UTTTERLY FUCKING HATING it for thoroughly refusing to respect my time, the Steam refund period had lapsed. Did you know there’s a “remove from library” feature where you can just…unown a game. I’ve used it precisely once.
BATTLETECH. I was thinking “Hmm, I’ve enjoyed this franchise for awhile but never actually played the tabletop game, and I live in an oubliette so I’m the only person within 100 miles that’s even HEARD of the game, so maybe this will let me experience that gameplay. I died of old age three times in a row just waiting for the opening cinematic to finish. It’s in the style of “slide the camera slowly across hand-drawn art while a voice actor monologues” things. It ran like constipation, somehow. Like it felt like the computer was struggling to handle what should have been simple video playback. The story is apparently about YET ANOTHER non-canonical pointless little periphery nation to be served by YET ANOTHER pointless little lance-strength mercenary company. The main menu appears and gave me a choice between 'Story Mission” and “Campaign” which…those are synonyms. Then we FINALLY after four generations have come and gone we get in-engine, and the tutorial mission is the last goddamn straw. They vomit story and gameplay control tutorials at you simultaneously, so you’re hit with a voice saying “The duchess knows she can count on you.”, a prompt at the bottom of the screen that says “Press T to use your weapons” and a text box on the left edge of the screen that says 'The duchess understands that it’s dangerous being in a Battletech game, but she knows you’ll do the best you can."