Month: April 2020

Hob on PC (8/10)

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Hob is from the same studio that created Torchlight and much of the same beautiful artistic style is on display here. This is pretty much a Zelda clone in which you keep clearing out dungeons in order to gain abilities that let you clear out harder dungeons. It even has nearly identical swordplay mechanics.

Like just about every “arty” indy game, Hob tries to tell its story in an obtuse way without dialogue. It works okay but the ending presents you with a hard choice. A choice which you can’t freakin’ understand because the entire game is spoken in Simlish. That means your final decision will be based on a random stick push rather than thought. Whatever. It was mostly fun and moved quickly, so I basically liked the game.

The Witch - Wood Engraving

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This is another wood engraving based on an ink drawing I created for the Nox Archaist manual. This was engraved in Resingrave plastic engraving medium which offers smooth lines and pretty good control. The main problem with it is that it does not hold the ink of a layout sketch. I started this print by trying to do an acetone transfer (which worked very well on my Ettin print). The resingrave was having none of it.

So, I reverted to the old standard, transfer paper and lots and lots of tracing. Then reimbursing the lines in ink (which, as mentioned earlier, will just smudge on the resingrave block).

It took about a month of hacking away with plenty of COVID-19 booze fuel to keep me going:

Here’s what the (almost) final block looked like:

I always relish that first ink roll. The block will never look this velvety good after this first proof:

After this first proof I added more hairs to Black Phillip. With this print I have finally succumbed to the wood engraving cliche of depicting a hairy mammal (the goat is pretty hairy too). Contact me if you want to buy a print (or use Etsy, I get paid more if you buy direct).

Bayonetta on Nintendo Wii U (6/10)

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The WiiU is not known for much other than being a failure. The whole two screen thing doesn’t make any sense. Bayonetta is the first game I have played through on the system and is one of the few WiiU titles that was held in high regard. This game is part of a two pack that includes the sequel as well. I have only played part one.

Bayonetta is a spazzy game for spazzy people. After playing Devil May Cry 4 I was pretty sure I disliked this style of fighting game. There’s just way too much going on and it feels like button mashing after a while. I was ready to give up and then things sort of clicked with me about five chapters in to the game. I came to accept that exploration is meaningless, the story in nonsense, and you only move around the world as a means of getting to the next fight. Your goal is to keep replaying old levels in an attempt to perfect your scores and gain more money. By approaching it like a casual arcade game, there is some fun to be had.

But eventually, tedium begins to take hold again in the last third of the game. It becomes an endless repetition of the same types of fights, and just when you think you’ve beaten the final boss, there’s another larger creature waiting. Worst of all, the game will not save your progress mid-level so, after that intense battle, you can’t stop and take a break lest you have to do it again. No wonder to demographic for this style of games is Mountain Dew chugging tweakers.

And a final note about the story: It’s a confusing mess probably written by a mentally-challenged manga fan.