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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
Recently bought a new gaming PC with a RTX 3080 and Core i7 so my ability to play games has become much better. A few I've played this week.
Elden Ring - From what I've played so far, pretty mid. For a predominantly single player game it's very grindy even by MMO standards (not even an optional grind either, unless you're one of those world record pace speedrunner gigachads who can beatdown bosses without taking a single hit) and and I get serious Morrowind vibes from how the game just throws you into the world without any clue of what to do. It took me about an hour of exploring and later resorting to a walkthrough to find out which specific Lost Grace would have you encounter Melina and unlock the ability to level up.
Only beaten one boss so far, and the only thing that was particualrly difficult about the Beastman of Farum Azula was that his attacks involve him flailing around 5 to 6 slash combos like a cleaver-wielding drunkard.
This one may be a slow-burn for me.
Far Cry 3 - I don't know if it's a problem with my settings (graphics defaulted to Ultra in DirectX 11) or from Ubisoft doing a shoddy PC port job but damn this game looks like shit for something that came out just eleven years ago. The user interface especially looks like the kind of clunky low-res garbage you'd expect from the console generation prior (this came out over a year before the PS4 and Xbox One came out, and there are older games which look like they've aged much better.)
Pizza Tower - Coming from somebody who utterly detests Wario Land 4, this game shits all over the game that inspired it. Pizza Tower has far more personality, better level design and more creativity than the fourth Wario Land instalment did. The pricing also feels a lot fairer for the length of the game.
On a different note, I have contemplated creating a gaming YouTube channel or streaming on Twitch out of wanting to take up a side-hobby and make some beer money, not necessarily aim for big bucks.
I don't know what angle I'd want to approach it with. My three favourite YT content creators are Civvie 11, FitMC and Big Yellow, and I'd want to do something similar to what they do. Either entertaining scripted Let's Play style videos or analyses where (either way) I don't reveal my face. I'd alternatively try a zero commentary channel where I do full game playthroughs or level-by-level playthroughs, but these channels are a-dime-a-dozen.
The main thing that's been holding me back is wanting to keep my anonymity. Part of me has this (probably completely rational) fear of becoming famous, especially a fear that I'd piss off the wrong people and end up doxxed or swatted.
I haven't played it in a few years but I remember Far Cry 3 actually looking pretty fantastic outside of dark areas and during the night where there was some pretty gnarly color banding and strange shininess to the ground textures, although I may be biased because I ended up pumping about 200 hours into the game. I totally agree that the UI is a nightmare. Aside from the visual and UI issues, how are you enjoying it?
The gameplay loop feels quite repetitive. Hunting isn't very fun either because half the time you can't even see enemies through the thick foliage until they've attacked you.
Have you played the other Soulsborne games? IMHO all of them are like that. They're like playing rhythm games in endless mode but slightly more punishing. The more I play them the less I understand the appeal because most of the fans have the tendency to just brush away the things that bother me about how the game is designed.
Only briefly played Bloodborne... on PSNow, so it was a laggy fucking mess that I didn't play much of.
Board games: Lost Cities and Patchwork
Both are two player board games, which can be hard to find. They're great. They're easy and quick to learn. Game play is less than 30 minutes.
Sometimes games are complicated and take a few runs before you get the moves down and can start thinking of strategies. But they're both easy enough that you'll start seeing nuances the second time you play.
I like patchwork. It's very pleasantly simple. Unfortunately my husband can't play it or most other board games because he can't stand losing to me. :P
I've been on-and-off trying to get all the achievements for Slay the Spire done, and was stuck on two of them. One of them was "get all other achievements" so there wasn't much to do in and of itself, but the one that I was stuck on was finishing ascension level 20 - each ascension level adds more difficulty to the run. I finally completed ascension 20 using the Watcher. At ascension 20, the added difficulty is that instead of after the first Act III, you have to immediately fight a second boss, and I got a bit lucky with the bosses that I encountered - Time Eater and Awakened One. The deck I built was a hybrid of stance dance and mantra / divinity and I luckily got a Singing Bowl (can select +2hp instead of taking a card) so I started the fight at 112hp full health. I've never had an easier run.
Hey, congrats! Had a mantra deck going once on Watcher; was lots of fun. But once I found out about how easy it is to go infinite on Watcher, I lost some interest in them; a case of one dominant strategy kind of edging out the others, and whenever I play them the cards always seem to line up for that approach. Silent's the character that really clicked for me, so they were the one I used for my own recent A20 win (poison deck, I think).
Thanks! I had a couple of attempts where I attempted to go infinite and had issues with the Time Eater still munching my face. I found that boss quite annoying! So I constructed something that went wide with damage, but still had loads of defence, and it worked.
I've only made it to A5 with the Silent; I might try a few runs with them and reacquaint myself.
Oh, Time Eater might be the most annoying boss. Playing tons of cards is fun, but they completely hard counter it, and A20 you're more likely to hit them than not.
For the Silent, I recommend giving a Grand Finale deck a try if it comes up; I was skeptical until I gave it a try, but it's so satisfying to pull it off. It can fall off a bit late game, but on lower ascensions that's not so much of a problem.
Grand Finale is the sort of card that I love in card games. It's such obvious jank, but you can build a deck around it that is tons of fun to pilot, and when it wins it's so satisfying. I think every magic deck I've loved has been crazy jank.
Haven't really played magic, but I do love a card with a gimmick you can build a whole deck around; it really helps the deck stand out from others and is so much fun when it all comes together.
Just beat the final boss on Hi Fi Rush. Still loving it. Great game. I don't know if there has been a fix or if things are different in the later game but I found the checkpointing much better in the final portion of the game.
Sons of the Forest! Going in blind with four other friends and so far we're liking it as it's more of the same from the previous game; open world crafting with a story element to drive your exploring further and further. It is a bit buggy, but nothing game-breaking and feels forgivable since it's early access.
I think what killed that game for me was the fourth island, where you are mistaken for a princess, locked in a castle and have to sneak your way out. Anything with forced stealth is a no-go for me.
It's a shame too because it's probably the best of the five Shantae games.
I’ve been getting into X4 with a goal of eventually playing the Star Wars Interworlds mod.
I played a lot of X3 back in the day, so the overall concept is familiar to me, but there’s lots to catch up on. I understand it had a rocky release, but so far I’ve really been enjoying it.
I haven't really had time to play games this week but just for fun I downloaded Final Fantasy XV onto my Steam Deck just to see how well it would work. And it worked well! I know it's an old game and I shouldn't have expected any performance problems given that the game was designed to run on the base model PS4, but at the same time the studio made a complete remake of the game for it to play on mobile devices, so I'm still a bit impressed to get the full version working. Plus the SSD makes loading a whole lot more bearable than the mechanical HDD on a PS4.
The thing that really surprised me, though, is that the dumb mods I installed when I was playing it on my PC came alongside it. Mods are a major benefit the Steam Deck has over console competitors, though somehow I never realized it. Noctis was still fighting with the Monado from Xenoblade, and car service stations still had the Gundam standing proudly outside of them, glitchy shadows and all.
Lil Gator Game
This was so close in tone and concept to A Short Hike that I legitimately assumed it was made by the same person/team until well after I finished it.
Turns out it’s not the same team at all. Instead, that team adores a direct homage: the game also pulls its climbing stamina system, shield surfing, and gliding straight from Breath of the Wild.
It doesn’t feel like a ripoff at all. Instead, it’s a short, lovely, resonant little game. It’s cute; it’s wholesome; it’s fun. I was thoroughly charmed. If I had kids, I’d want them to play this game. Also, as an adult, its story hit me surprisingly hard. I actually choked up a bit at the end, which I genuinely wasn’t expecting.
If you liked A Short Hike but wish it was more of a 3D platformer collectathon, then this is a solid buy.
Ragnarock
I’m always down for a VR rhythm game, and this is the latest one I’ve tried.
The conceit of the game is that you’re the drummer for a boat full of Vikings, keeping time for their rowing. The better you do in the game, the farther the boat goes.
In practice, the game is a rhythm game where you have to hit notes as they come down four different tracks.
It’s similar to Beat Saber but it works different muscles, so it pairs well. Its soundtrack is also much less electronica focused and instead leans heavily into rock and orchestral pieces, if those are more your jam.
The game is good and well-made. My only complaint is that the drumming in VR doesn’t feel as good as something like Rock Band. Because you’re not actually hitting a real drum, you don’t get the satisfying feeling of connecting with it. Also, it means you have to “stop” your own hits instead of letting the drum do it for you, which feels a little odd.
After playing it for a bit you get used to it, but I can’t get over how much more fun it would be to play real drums instead of air drums. I’ll definitely come back to it here and there, but I don’t think it’ll have the staying power that Beat Saber does for me.
Been playing a lot of Skate 3 lately. Fairly dated game nowadays but iconic games always manage to hold up. The joystick controls, goofy ragdoll physics, and game modes just make the game hilarious and so much fun to play. EA, their recent shortcomings aside, implemented parts of skateboarding culture into the game through the setting, characters you can interact with, and challenges really well. I've been playing it with a friend also recently, and we've had a blast just playing random competitions against each other. It also just gives me a nostalgic feeling since I have some memories of playing it on a friend's PS3 several years ago. There has been a really good skate game that has recently appeared, Session Skate Sim, but I'll always be playing this game.