macblur2's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Whole bunch of stuff since my last post, lesse: World of Warships had/has 2 campaigns both with their own mini event, April's event was an Operation (PvE) where you technically could get the...

    Whole bunch of stuff since my last post, lesse:

    World of Warships had/has 2 campaigns both with their own mini event, April's event was an Operation (PvE) where you technically could get the ultimate reward (a premium ship) for free (just need to complete harder and harder missions, by level 5 it gets unfair), it overall was fun (again, endgame got unfair); meanwhile May's campaign came with a Roman event, which is a series of generic mission (like, at least force Italian ships), and you're only getting a guise (basically a new VA) for free, needing to pay about 40 bucks for the main prize (basically the cost of a tier's premiums).
    Like I said, gameplay is good, monetization is... not the absolute worst, but still bad.

    I remembered that I picked up Maneater on psplus when it was the free ps5 title for a month, so I played it.
    You're a newborn shark (as in, right as the tutorial ends newborn) who has to kill and eat her way to adult/elder/mega-hood and evolve in... very odd ways to get revenge o the human who killed your mother.
    The game itself is good but rough: the narrator is good but some lines repeat way too often; the difficulty starts off pretty hard since you're a pup while there are 'gators around, only to basically disappear after becoming an adult; the controls can be kinda broken into underwater and above water which the game doesn't handle too well; evolutions looks good, have their own identity (shadow is poison and speed, bone is durability², bio-electric is stun with a touch of damage) but quickly boils down to one explore loadout and one combat loadout (why stun when you can face tank everything?); it does have way too many collectibles, but the upgraded sonar highlights everything from so far away it doesn't become a needle in a haystack.
    Thruth Quest is more of the same, doesn't really fix anything but the adds are fun (just grab a map for the Questers), but I don't think it on it's own is worth quite the base price (15$), but is good if you got the base game for free.
    While I did critizise it a lot, I still did 100% both it and TQ in the end.
    Yeah, the game's a lot of "good, but...", if you can get it for 15-20 bucks, go for it.

    I also started Murdle, a daily deduction browser game.
    Each day comes with a murder, here are your suspects, weapons, and locations (and motive on some days), you have exactly one murderer and everyone was isolated and can't share a weapon or motive.
    Like wordle, you get one shot at solving the murder.
    It's fun and quick, and trying to get a streak going is way harder than it looks...

    Last game I just started is Dr.Robotnik's Ring Racer, a Sonic fangame, it looks to have a lot of stuff to unlock going off the challenge screen, but already I can tell it's both pretty complex and that it has Alien Resurrection'd (- Player Expendable) itself.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    I recently found Century: Age of Ashes, a dragon dogfighting game (as in, you could make a fantasy spinoff of Ace Combat from this). Controls are very close to AC's arcade style (Joystick handles...

    I recently found Century: Age of Ashes, a dragon dogfighting game (as in, you could make a fantasy spinoff of Ace Combat from this).

    Controls are very close to AC's arcade style (Joystick handles pitch and turns, triggers speed up and slows down, face buttons are attacks, no target lock as far as I know, flares are spread among abilities).
    In action, well, it is very close to AC, again:

    • Your basic attack are Standard Missiles Fireballs, max of 2 charges, homes into your opponents (does reload faster, but then you don't have any other ranged options), small change is they'll speed up as you do.
    • You of course have a Minigun Flamebreath, dragons can't hold it for long but will aim for you, also reloads (in general there isn't limited ammo unlike AC).
    • You don't have a Special Weapon (which themselves often were bombs/unguided rockets/missile but _/a railgun), instead you have a class-specific Power and a less class-specific Ability, for the most part even the damaging abilities/power either rely on Fireballs or do something else which is why you use them mainly.
    • And now diverging from AC, you have a stamina gauge, used for boosting and dodging; shields (just more HP); and no way to switch target lock manually.

    Handling-wise, again AC but you are slower but overall more maneuverable to suit the game itself taking place in smaller and more crowded spaces (there are a lot of caverns, ruins and other tight spaces under the open air to go back and forth between complete stop and divebombing someone).
    They also use energy and pickups to try and keep you from just staying in the open (the main source of energy is energy rifts in the ground or flowing by terrain, pickups themselves are placed close to bits of terrain like spires or on top of gates).

    It is a F2P game, but the monetization is... maybe fair? I mean, 20 bucks for a dragon skin isn't nothing (and that's the most expensive ones), but you only have to pay for skins, the classes and abilities are overpriced but available for free currency, and none of them are overpowered it feels like.
    Meanwhile World of Warships Legends asks 40 bucks for one ship (a bit more actually), and while they try to balance premiums the best they can, there's a reason why there's a bunch of premium CE ships (and one who got uptiered, hi Weimar).

    Really, the game's big problems are the lack of content (7 regular maps, 1 racing map, 1 training/small map; 6 classes) so expect to do the same thing over and over, and against the same people often since it has less players than Ace Combat 7 has (AC7 has around 800 players on a 24-hour peak, Century only 170, hell, it loses to payday 3 on all fronts and that's considered a failure), while it does have crossplay that doesn't make up even just the 700 missing players AC7 has on average on steam alone.
    Hell, World of Warships Legends only has PS/XBOX, spreads players across tiers and classes (and modes too often enough), is a 9v9 game instead of 4v4, and I don't think it has taken me more than 30 seconds to find a match there, meanwhile here it's 1 minute minimum and half the time 2 (not desperate lack of players but still a good amount of time).
    Also, Season 3 started late July, was supposed to go for 12 weeks, and is still ongoing.

    It is a fun game, but it feels like its on life support...

    2 votes

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    I've gone back to Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel after... more than a year I believe? I dunno, been a long time (around tax dragon time, far as big things go). It reminded me in record time why I love and...

    I've gone back to Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel after... more than a year I believe? I dunno, been a long time (around tax dragon time, far as big things go). It reminded me in record time why I love and hate YGO: there's a lot of ways to play, many decks you can make... and the power differential is at least on par with Warframe. Think the only seriously close fight I had was the first Plunder Patroll duel in solo mode with my sub-optimal even back then, fairly sure they had support added but I didn't bother with anything, P.U.N.K. deck. Everything else was pretty one sided.
    Glad to see my main had some support added (just 2 cards, but still useful ones), and that they finally added some quality of life to the effect texts (Effects are highlighted in relevant context, single-use effects shows if they have been activated this turn).

    Meanwhile, Arknights' main story (+ CV-8, why does he gets teleportation in the second phase?) is reminding me that I am an idiot and that Eckogen and Kyo are mandatory watching.

    And World of Warships: Legends, just two things:

    1. My team did a lemming rush, technically I was part of it but when you're in a cruiser with no recon and at least one enemy battleship, "holding a flank solo" really is just a complicated way to say "suicide".
      In the end, our destroyers had no help when detected, leading to them dying real fast, after which the battleships kept cowering behind what little cover we had (and us cruisers would have a lifespan when detected measured in seconds), and pretty much everyone was caught in a crossfire as the match ended 2-9.
    2. I got a Kraken unleashed (kill 5 enemies, PC has 12 players a team, Legends only 9) by secondary battery on a battleship in a cruiser.
      Secondary battery does chip damage at best, with the only ones dedicated to it being the German battleships (and a singular USN battleship, nothing in the ussr lineup iirc). It was about as expected as that implies so my own main battery did shoot at it too, either way I had that last kill.
      I nearly got a 6th kill too! Too bad we hit the point limit before we could kill the Izmail...

    Also, both were done in the same ship, either back-to-back or with just one game in between them. You lose some, you win some.

  4. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Another week of Challenges in World of Warships, the secondary battery one was very fun. I want to hit them with my sword! ...Which is longer than their primary battery. Big problem was that I'm...

    Another week of Challenges in World of Warships, the secondary battery one was very fun.
    I want to hit them with my sword! ...Which is longer than their primary battery.
    Big problem was that I'm sure they didn't touch secondaries (so they still don't hit the 32mm threshold) so hybrid is still better.

    I also had a game in which about half of my team had noting close to a good showing:

    1. A couple of IJN destroyers (aka big torpedo damage, poor results with the guns) bum-rushed the enemy team... to shoot them. As you'd expect they sunk quickly with basically nothing to show for it.
    2. I was in a control point, hidden away from enemies who were around 5km or less away ,so I'd be detected if they made line of sight to me, but with an island in the way they can't blindfire at me, so I can safely cap the point so long as nobo- why did a battleship just show up right next to me?
    3. As the battleship was finding the enemy team does not do fair fights, I was reminded that I was detected a few times through all of this as I saw an enemy destroyer. I also saw a torpedo aimed right at my middle too late to get out of the way. I went down without doing much of note due to this.

    Can you believe we lost? If you can't take a joke...

    Otherwise, Arknights just released their latest permanent event: Expeditioner's Joklumarkar.
    It's the rogue-like mode, so I think I've already spoken about the basic loop: Go through fights and encounters to get and upgrade Operators and Relics to get a team with broken synergies before reaching the boss on floor 5.

    'Course, with new theme comes new stuff, including aesthetic (snow, inhospitable level of cold, and demons), new systems both to help you (you can now target nodes with modifiers or outright change them, potentially getting you out of a tight spot, or outright trivializing whatever you're facing, even the bosses!) and hinder you (run-wide debuffs that makes fights but also interactions in the rest of the mode harder), and even some refinements (the shop upgrade system now appears at all shops instead of randomly appearing in some runs; keys are replaced by an index that actually starts above 0 and can be obtained more easily, but is also needed to see what's ahead or even getting into if you let it drop to 0).

    All in all a good followup on the last theme once you're used to having everything locked again. Except for one thing: you start on the lowest difficulty, with a -40% score modifier, which means your progress through the battlepass is nearly halved (in my experience, more quartered). Oh, and the score-neutral difficulty is Braving Nature 2, so you'll have to win twice.
    There's also the fact that 3 skills are locked to higher difficulty levels, but since it's just 3 skills and the rest is usable everywhere I don't have any issue with that.

    Bunch of tips if you wanna try and quickly get to BN2 First up, starting squad is "Overcoming Your Weakness" with Popukar, Orchid, and Reed the Flame Shadow (use support recruiting if you don't have her, do note she's a 6 star medic, so don't expect to have any hope left normally).

    Reed's S2 is usually the best at killing the hordes of enemies most Ops have, S3 is best for the 1st boss.
    Since you have lots of enemies coming in at all times, CC is a must: Splash Casters, Artilleryman Snipers, multi-hit skills, high block counts.

    In the skill tree, unlock Scout (upgrades Operator for free, +1 Index) and Bosky Passage (Secret Floor) as fast as possible, in this one Secret Floor don't end in bosses, and can not involve fight at all!
    Also, this skill tree lets you unlock nodes so long as any previous node is unlocked, so you can rush to a specific higher tier perk if you must.

    The first boss is a raid boss, 10 minutes to kill, each wave has it's own set of enemies.
    It can drop spikes on an entire column, or more rarely stun an operator while dealing lots of damage, and targets the last operator deployed.
    In the second phase, it gets a damage reduction to both Physical and Arts damage by 60%, and targets 2 operators at once.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Got 2 games for this week, first up is Pacific Drive, which is basically part extraction game (like escape from tarkov), driving game, and car mechanic simulator. I often see it called a roguelike...

    Got 2 games for this week, first up is Pacific Drive, which is basically part extraction game (like escape from tarkov), driving game, and car mechanic simulator.
    I often see it called a roguelike and... I don't it's quite one? That or extraction games have grown enough to be considered their own genre. Granted, RL is a messy genre to define...

    So the loop is going out from junction to junction, stopping wherever you see something you could scavenge, deal with anomalies as needed (in most case, dodge, but some can be useful at times, and others are outright helpful), can fix up your car as needed (at minimum, that means keeping an eye on the fuel gauge and maybe the battery, but depending on the situation you might have to heal, repair a malfunction, or outright swap parts as needed).
    Once you're done scavenging, pick a Gateway far enough away from you to trigger and DRIVE as a radiation storm comes in to try and cook you.
    That's the basic version, but put them together with some of the other stuff both in that list and out (like quirks, or that you're on a timer most of the time) can quickly make things become chaotic just often enough to warrant your full attention at all times on runs.
    I'll note that I only got most of the Outer Zone unlocked (haven't gone into the Mid Zone at all yet) and haven't done a high instability junction either, but judging from it's most common modifier's name, just add a rapidly closing in storm of doom.

    The other game is World of Warships: Legends, which is... well, an arcade naval battle game, and isn't new to me, since I played it a lot a few years back.
    The game itself is fun (when sky cancer isn't around, and we only have to deal with one, PC isn't that lucky), if you can take a joke (as an example, a staple of Wargaming titles is the Lemming Rush: a bunch of players follow another player until they find even just one enemy and just... stop, completely unwilling to fight an enemy they usually outnumber. They usually also lose to said enemy. The most notable part of this is, it can still happen here, even though the spawns are very clearly cut into center and 2 flanks).
    Just... man is it monetized hard (premiums often go for 40-60 bucks when converted from monopoly money, premium time gives added credits and XP letting you progress faster, and might be needed to draw a profit from higher tier battles, dear god the lootboxes, and of course there's a battlepass and time limited events and you can't progress both at the same time). But then it's just how Wargaming does it. Works well enough for them I suppose.
    I would be willing to pay for a game like it, just full premium (and ideally with a good AI).

    Update: This week's pass had 20 Detected in the challenges... *Picks sole valid Aircraft Carrier in the lineup* I'm doing this unwillingly.
    And sure enough, 6/7 detects per game, among the last one to die, with 2 drops per squadrons. Least that was T5 ACs, the T7/Legends are worse to fight off.

    On better news, Trackmania recently (re)added the Rally car from TMO, the new "environment" is a castle (no new surface, it's just a new look for the existing ones), and the car is exactly what you'd expect from a rally car: high acceleration, grippy and twitchy (I think it has the lowest grip roll speed atm), which makes playing it on keyboard Fun. In the dwarven way.
    At the same time, Action Keys (meant to limit turning input so kb can have some the the granularity to gamepads) were updated... for gamepads, turning from a steering lock (full range as usual, anything above X% is ignored) to a re-range (range goes from neutral to X% at max). This came after they reduced AK cause it was too much too keyboard. It very much is controversial (and don't like it even though it actually helps me since I'm on Steam Deck).

    2 votes

  6. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Closest we currently got is an autosave when entering a new area, found that out by crashing when going from a highway stop to the actual junction, it put me directly at the highway's junction....

    Closest we currently got is an autosave when entering a new area, found that out by crashing when going from a highway stop to the actual junction, it put me directly at the highway's junction.

    Still shit we can't save and stop mid-run, but that'll have to do for now.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Steam Next Fest: what have you been playing? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Balatro was more of the same - new Jokers, Bosses, a new booster deck - which isn't an issue since the base it's on is just that good. #DRIVE Rally... is a arcade rally game which completely...

    Balatro was more of the same - new Jokers, Bosses, a new booster deck - which isn't an issue since the base it's on is just that good.

    #DRIVE Rally... is a arcade rally game which completely failed to grab me both due to the lack of a damage model (or system) and the do-driver just... not really doing his job? I swear he spent more time whining about me hitting stuff than calling corners.

    Extreme Formula is a cool game, seems pretty difficult, UI is kind of dispersed and small so I can't tell if my boost stopped for no reason or because I'd run out and when I look I had some back, but I'm fairly sure from this point on everything I'm playing is gonna feel worse just because it's too much for the Deck. Low preset does give a fairly stable 60 FPS. I'll have to try more later.
    Edit: yeah, seems like it's one tap = one part of the boost, also while lowest usually gives a stable 40 FPS, one of the tracks has a off-road segment with dust kicking all over the place, drops FPS down to 12, so it bought back that playing BL2 at near single-digit framerate playstyle. Actually unrelated to the framerate issue is that difficulty seems... random? Now, I did like 4/5 races so sample size of lol, but Normal had me at abouth 20th, while Extreme had a 1st, and a 12th. that doesn't seems like how it should be.

    William and Sly is fairly close to what I'd expect of bringing the flash game into 3D, big issue being the controls basically being Racing Tank Controls if it makes sense?
    Like, left stick is forward/backwards, going slightly to the sides act as you expect- FW/BW a little to the left/right- but going I'd say about 45° away from up/down stops you and turn in that direction. But then right stick is free camera control.
    It works here if you're in the zone, using Sly's sheer speed and jump (you straight up can scale mountains by jumping up them like 5 times in the demo area, I think the full game area has a BIG mountain in it if it's not actually out of bounds) you can rush through the world incredibly quickly and if you need a sharper turn you can always turn the camera and it does work I swear it does, it's just hard to explain well.
    Also like I said above, it does poorly on Deck, only two performance levels, on Low at 30 FPS it holds a fairly stable framerate, more than good enough for what it is.
    With all this said I'm still getting on Deck, but if it comes to PS5 I might buy it there too...

    Synthalgia seems to be a Outrun clone with boost and slowmo, and a one hit wonder, looks nice, doesn't run that well on Deck it seems, but not my style so take all of that with a grain of salt.

    Last game in this initial lineup is Pacific Drive. The game is fun (having to care for a car instead of a bunch of gauges is definitively a great twist on survival crafting on its own, nevermind adding extraction mechanic) and even the horribly mangled Steam Deck experience was fun.
    And I mean mangled, this is an atmospheric game, so things like rain not actually getting on the windshield and tree spawning in right in front of you are an issue.
    With everything on low (including some options which didn't move with the gamepad, had to use touchscreen), it goes back and forth between 20 and 30 while driving, and 30 in the auto shop (from what I've seen in the trailers- and my first gateway escape- it can get hectic, and it's been a while since I played BL2 at a strictly sub 30 framerate). Do note that since some of the important things to read and understand are affected by Texture Quality, it's hard to read both the roadmap and the minimap, car status, the research station screen, etc.
    On top of all this, it went through 70% of the battery in nearly the whole drive.
    I do like what I've seen, so I'm getting it on PS5.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    I bought myself a PS5 a few months back because I was getting tired of how slow my PS4 was (and loud, even if I mostly avoided that issue via headphones), to the point I'm fairly sure part of the...

    I bought myself a PS5 a few months back because I was getting tired of how slow my PS4 was (and loud, even if I mostly avoided that issue via headphones), to the point I'm fairly sure part of the reason I kept losing connection in Warframe was because my game just didn't load in time.
    Speaking of which, pre-Whispers in the Wall the PS5 version would hard crash the slim (I don't think any og console reported having the issue), it's been fixed since then (my 100+ hours in the PS5 version is testament to that) but still, I wonder what caused it to outright shut down only on the slim...

    I also got some new game from Xmas, starting with Like A Dragon: Ishin!, a historical drama à la Yakuza (so not the most historically accurate thing, even putting aside the troopers).
    If you like the franchise (or would like to test the waters) it is a good standalone entry, even if you can tell the original was made in between Yakuza 5 and 0 and lacks a number of QoL improvements (most notably for me is the lack of pause when switching styles and difficulties backing out of the ability menu, that and battles aren't part of the open world unlike the Dragon Engine games).
    I kinda wish the Wild Dance style was available in the newer games, it's very fun to use.

    Not quite a new game, but one I actually started playing with the PS5, Cyberpunk 2077, I'm grateful most/all PS4 discs let you get the PS5 version for free since I'm doing this for all 3 games. Gameplay-wise, it does a good job showing how powerful augments are (with how I use cyberware and quickhacks one pushes things heavily in my advantage while the other keeps pushing it hard enough it arguably stops counting as a fight very quickly, didn't experiment with Berzerk or Sandy), but is not really anything special otherwise. Except driving, but not in a good way (feels like it wants you to do big drifts at all time and all, but the streets are often narrow and filled with cars and pedestrians, and hitting anything/one will make you wanted pretty much on the spot).
    Story-wise well, it's far less hopeful than most other stories (least the one I follow), while those other stories absolutely have hardships in them, they often end on a hopeful note which basically never happens here. I suppose there is a reason most people in NC aspire to be remembered as a drink.

    The last game is Sniper Elite 5. Take a look at the other games I've written about here, in all cases a straight up fight is basically where you want to be (or at least how I play 'em), being in the middle of everyone is NOT an issue.
    For Karl it is, stealth and distance are your biggest advantage, with direct confrontation being very deadly both ways, with is a problem when the enemy will swarm you when given the chance. It only has 8 levels but they're long and look to be a game you replay (especially with Axis Invasion, I don't think there's any other other game that's basically PvP+E).

  9. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Looking at the order of things, we'd first need the Sunrise cars in, probably also in the order you played them in (and it'd be over 3 seasons like we're doing). It would be incredibly cool,...

    Looking at the order of things, we'd first need the Sunrise cars in, probably also in the order you played them in (and it'd be over 3 seasons like we're doing).
    It would be incredibly cool, especially once people import all the old blocks (if they haven't already!), but imo even Sunrise is a longshot.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Trackmania's given us the first of 3 mini-remakes (their words), bringing the Snow car in and revamping Wood's handling to be Funny on the Stadium car. Overall I really like the adds, the Snow...

    Trackmania's given us the first of 3 mini-remakes (their words), bringing the Alpine Snow car in and revamping Wood's handling to be Funny on the Stadium car.
    Overall I really like the adds, the Snow car's very different, being slower but with a tight turning radius, and with a very binary-feeling grip (basically no sliding to constant sliding to Ice's "we're going that way and no other way), and Wood playing very differently at different speed on top of being the surface with the most grip.
    Update does have some noticeable bugs (or "bug" for the last, more a Nadeo moment™): Track of the Day doesn't seem to handle changing cars too well (it breaks CP tracking), exiting (TotD's) knockout servers bring your to an old select local server menu (it may be usable too, and you can go back without issue), and Wood being an already existing surface broke any tracks already using it (it can be funny to watch the results).

    Strike Force Heroes was released a while back and I've been playing since it launched. It's been rough, the game itself is fun but things have been pushing pretty hard against it (mostly design wise for me), I actually have some trouble putting those issues into words but the big ones are (or were) the frankly shit XP gains solo (fixed in the latest update), melee being way stronger for the bots (maybe fixed?), plus some maps and missions being unfair (for example last mission was a battle of attrition between your and the boss until last patch). Since all of those (bar maybe one) have been fixed it's a lot better.

    Last game's Backpack Hero which is a roguelike akin to Slay the Spire in combat except the deck's a backpack so you're trying to fit your entire build in a (usually weirdly shaped) inventory while taking into account any of their oddities (some needs to be at certain edges, other buffs and debuffs nearby gear, a good chunk of them are just weirdly shaped in ways that would be fine if you shaped your inventory differently, etc), personally I like that more than deckbuilding (and maybe it doesn't build up as hard, at least not yet).
    I'm still early in the game feels like, so we'll see how things are later on.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    I've been playing the Steam Next demo of Strike Force Heroes, which is very limited (capped levels at 5, 6 missions and last one has no sub-mission, etc), but feels like the SFH of old. On...

    I've been playing the Steam Next demo of Strike Force Heroes, which is very limited (capped levels at 5, 6 missions and last one has no sub-mission, etc), but feels like the SFH of old.
    On steamdeck, it practically works out of the box (just set a trackpad as mouse and clicks as A presses, the game treats kb+mouse and gamepad as different controllers), someone's game lacked the codecs for cutscenes (but not me?) meanwhile I can count my HUD's pixels. Hope it's demo-only, even if it's not game-breaking.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Recently Trackmania (and Openplanet) updated, and Nadeo re-added the endpoints for Better Chat and... you can feel the changes, it is that bad. I can move it around, make the whole thing show up...

    Recently Trackmania (and Openplanet) updated, and Nadeo re-added the endpoints for Better Chat and... you can feel the changes, it is that bad.
    I can move it around, make the whole thing show up for a few seconds only so I can focus on the race (instead of every message individually lasting like 30 seconds), can actually use the gamepad to race while keeping the message window open (base chat the only thing you can do is start to close, still locks the whole pad).
    Oh, and it's actually at a easily readable font by default unlike base chat's too small or too big issue on Steam Deck.
    Only issue I have is that I can't close with the start button, but seeing how I can still race and the text box isn't distracting by itself I'd consider that a nitpick.
    That's all on the TM front for now since the autumn update isn't live, but yeah if you install 2020 you should also install Openplanet. If only for better chat.

    Also after seeing Aliensrock videos I've begun playing Balatro's demo (full game TBA), in which you play the biggest poker hands you can to maximize to beat a target score in as few hands as possible.

    It's a fun but difficult game which does suffer slightly from the usual pitfall of this type of roguelike (namely randomness and "buildup syndrome" where a early choice/mistake may screw you over way later) even if they try to mitigate it somewhat (just how reusable some jokers are and multiple upgrade paths like leveling up hands themselves for randomness, and scores constantly building up making mistakes hit you fast for buildup syndrome).
    It definitely felt more "fair" when I lost compared to Dungeon & Degenerate Gamblers (calvinball blackjack).

    Lastly I've been enjoying Arknights's IS3. Integrated Strategies is the roguelike mode of the game and is basically Slay the Spire but combat is TD, recruit operators (that you own, mostly), collect a ridiculous number of relics to buff yourself and debuff the enemies, yadda yadda.
    Most notable is a trio of relics which basically cut in half the enemies' max HP (which alongside another relic that halves my fast-redeploy unit redeploy time gave me my first win) and one relic which deals a good amount of true (unblockable) damage to all enemies when you leak which saved my ass twice.
    But the main reason I've been enjoying it is that it basically needs a fast-redeploy nuker, and Kirin R Yato is always fun to see turn into a buzzsaw and slaughter a bunch of enemies.
    Which can be an issue as Kiriyato is a collab unit so not coming back and either more common replacement aren't as good (Red's filing other niches, and Phantom's skill is more finicky than hers from what I read).

    2 votes

  13. Comment on What game mechanic or boss could you just not overcome? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    Ace Combat 7's elevator climb. It's the last thing you do too. It's just as tight as the tunnel run right before it (maybe a bit tighter, either way there isn't much margin even for the smaller...

    Ace Combat 7's elevator climb. It's the last thing you do too. It's just as tight as the tunnel run right before it (maybe a bit tighter, either way there isn't much margin even for the smaller aircrafts) but vertical this time, and there's, well, elevators also ready to collect you, at least they're immobile.
    I did it once. And completely by chance and can't do it again.

    There's also any light gun segment in any Yakuza to a lesser degree, I'm on PS4 so I can't point'n'click.

    3 votes

  14. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    Fair, that's a big weakness of that fighting style (and weakest point of the games tbh), if I remember my playthrough of Arkham City right it basically was the backup option and you were heavily...

    Fair, that's a big weakness of that fighting style (and weakest point of the games tbh), if I remember my playthrough of Arkham City right it basically was the backup option and you were heavily pushed into stealth barring a few encounters... which still had the option to quickly move around and use gadgets, plural, neither of which really is an option here.

    I wonder if there's any game with HoF's overworld and progression scheme with a different battle style (kinda like Slay the Spire with Fights in Tight Spaces and Across the Obelisk)...

  15. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    I've started playing a few games again. Hand Of Fate 2 is a roguelike deckbuilding Arkham-style battler with a emphasis on story. In other words, you try to complete challenges by building a deck...

    I've started playing a few games again.

    Hand Of Fate 2 is a roguelike deckbuilding Arkham-style battler with a emphasis on story.

    In other words, you try to complete challenges by building a deck of encounters and equipment specialized for whatever the challenge pits you against and demands (like lots of gold), cards that helps you live (doesn't matter you're richer than the Thieves Guild if you starved to death), while also fitting in any cards with Tokens you can find (Token unlock new cards).

    The overworld is a card-based series of "floors" where you go from encounter to encounter, which are small stories with a few paths, while the Dealer comment on the encounter, or your condition.
    For example in one you help pick up bodies in a town ravaged by a plague (which means doing 2 Dice Gambits back to back), and then you go back to the captain you volunteered from who'll give a gold coin per body. Good way to get some gold, if unreliable.

    This card also has a Token. The first time you get a lot of corpses, someone will pick them up for you to send them to the captain, of course that's a lie: he's a necromancer who just got away with a small army of corpses, so you go after him... and obtain the card's token, which will pull itself off the card and fly to the other side to fall in a small plate made for them, guided the whole time by the Dealer.

    Battle is basically Batman: Arkham Kingdom (back then it was starting to wear out, but nowadays I think it's basically non-existant?), enemy factions generally have a gimmick to them that favors a specific weapon type (Thieves dodges heavy weapons while Empire have armor making light weapons weak for example).

    I also like HoF2's Endless mode the best since it (attempts to) deal with the fact that past a certain point you're a unkillable death machine (Ordeals got really bad there, solo you legit got unkillable).
    Since a single adventure doesn't last that long it's not an issue outside of it unlike other roguelike deckbuilders I played, or the opposite for that matter.

    SUPERHOT: Mind Control Delete is MORE Superhot, with a tinge of roguelike(? Kinda feels wrong? More... arcadey?) and some new stuff to keep things interesting (mines and mined enemies that explode into bullets, armored enemies you must hit in a specific location, a knife launcher that feels more like a laser gun, etc).
    If you liked SH's gameplay you'll like this too.

    I'm also kinda playing Dust: an Elysian Tail, it's an action platformer where you can slingshot yourself around using enemies and where the average battle will have you throw everything (including yourself) all over the place. It's also gorgeous.
    I'm only grinding out the last few levels to max out my first file, since I already 100% the game.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    I've recently began to play Brigadors again, I first started playing it right after getting my Deck which was... an experience. This game is meant for bigger screens than the Deck feels like, and...

    I've recently began to play Brigadors again, I first started playing it right after getting my Deck which was... an experience.
    This game is meant for bigger screens than the Deck feels like, and trying to aim with a joystick, is honestly a pain, I'd say you need a trackpad at a minimum.

    Still early into the Freelance mode, I remember favoring Agrav vehicules, but I think I prefer Mechs nowadays (the Oxybeles in particular, Railgun + Chaingun + EMP is pretty good).

    Gameplay-wise, it's fairly simple: you're thrown into a district, and have to clear at least one objective to proceed (destroy the orbital guns, remove all targets, remove most enemy forces), with some marked building to make your job easier (depots to restock on ammo, comms tower to delay alarms for longer, and substations to cut the power lowering the panic walls if the alarm was raised and revealing enemies more clearly). Rinse and repeat until Solo Nobre falls.

    The game itself is fairly repetitive, but replayability comes from your loadout, obviously the biggest change is the vehicle (trying to use a twitchy agrav like a slow and stompy mech is a bad idea, there's also the golf cart), but weapons also are important, I could replace my EMP with active camo to fully dive into drive-by destruction, at the cost of being significantly at a disadvantage in fights, or replace the railgun for a regular chain/minigun for more offence, at the cost of priority targets being harder to kill.
    There's also how you handle missions, go straight for one of the objectives, try to bring the substations down/comms out as early as possible, or look for the small arms depot since you accidentally the one in the last district?

    Overall, it's very much a game I recommend for quick plays of one mission or two at a time, including the deck if you can handle the small screen.

  17. Comment on France passes bill to allow police to remotely activate phone camera, microphone, and GPS, in order to spy on people in ~tech

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    Don't forget, wiring requires direct access. Anyone who knows how to use that backdoor can hit any vulnerable phone. Sure hope you're not on anyone's radar.

    Don't forget, wiring requires direct access.

    Anyone who knows how to use that backdoor can hit any vulnerable phone.

    Sure hope you're not on anyone's radar.

    10 votes

  18. Comment on Redditors of Tildes, which subreddits are you missing the most during the blackout? in ~tech

    macblur2
    Link
    There's a few, like game specific ones (like MonHun, Warframe, or Trackmania particularly for it's TotD post, seeing thoughts on the map from great players but also other bonk divs like me), HFY,...

    There's a few, like game specific ones (like MonHun, Warframe, or Trackmania particularly for it's TotD post, seeing thoughts on the map from great players but also other bonk divs like me), HFY, space orcs, and writing prompts for fiction, and topic-specific comes to mind (like fightsticks giving me an idea of what available, good budget and solid sticks... and ultimately fightpads that are cheaper and closer to what I wanted than fightsticks, came in handy since I bought SF6 recently and I can't work the controls with a regular gamepad).

    I'm particularly missing the TotD megathreads right now. Map was a pain, and kind of boring iceslide chain, only made exciting by virtue of being unable to even get silver (which is my goal for TotD map, not even gold!).

    1 vote