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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.
Guild Wars 2
One thing I have not seen in any other multiplayer game: In GW2, specifically the World vs World mode (abbreviated "WvW"), you can get upwards of 80 to 100 players active in the same game region at once. That's not special, of course, but what is unique is that, recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a well-coordinated but large group of players.
In other games I've played, like your typical shooters, you might have 32v32 or even 64v64, but, at best, you'll see only one or two squads coordinating and talking by voice. That might be as many as 10 or 12 players coordinating, but, usually, it's only to 2 to 5 people voice chatting. Otherwise, you can only expect all the other players to just be doing random whatever, every individual doing whatever they like, and usually not contributing to victory, or even small-scale battles.
In contrast, the GW2 group I was in had some 30ish people in voice chat, all listening to one or two commanding players. These commanders would not just issue slow, long-term orders like "okay, let's all go to [region]". They were rapid, real-time orders of a micro scale, like "push right", "fall back", "attack now, bomb bomb bomb", "push on 3...2...1!". Amazingly, the majority of the group (the zerg) would follow orders within like 1 or 2 seconds. The leader would (could!) treat the zerg as an extension of their character, or, perhaps, a giant weapon or vehicle. As such, they could engage in such tactics as baiting, counterattacking, divide-and-conquer(-ing?), and spreading the enemy thin.
It was fascinating to behold, and fun to be a part of. Best of all, I saw it actually work. We would defeat other less-coordinated zergs, or successfully capture fortresses, sometimes very handily.
Third party. In my case, Discord.
I feel like I should like MK a lot more than I do but I can't understand how people are okay with the sheer amount of RNG bullshit that it involves, and the totally imbalanced items. It's pretty much the only video game that regularly makes me ragequit.
People tell me that skill matters a lot in MK but I have no idea where. I've gotten into all kinds of games that reward skill in various ways, from Counter-Strike to StarCraft to fighting games to other racers, and I have no idea where skill would make a lick of difference in a game where you can be chain-hit into last place at any moment. And it often feels like a designed punishment for doing well with how often it happens. This is the same company that introduced tripping into their previous fighting game just to keep RNG up and mitigate skilled play, so I would not be surprised if this is on purpose.
It's just... not fun once you get past the bright colours, music, art, and characters. That lightning item is especially bullshit in MK8D since it removes all your items on top of killing all your momentum and crippling your speed.
The "RNG bullshit" is precisely what makes it fun - not just for you, but for anyone that plays in any given race.
The thing is that those powerups are not entirely random; they are given algorythmically depending on a player's position in the race. The timing may be different, but you're pretty much guaranteed to get a certain number of any given 'equalizer' powerup per race.
Nintendo 'nerfing' the skill balance in the Smash games is exactly the same thing. It's a matter of making sure that the skill levels aren't so bracketed; the game is fun because you can play someone who is technically better than you but you still have a chance of winning. The game isn't fun if you keep winning or keep losing. The reason why I gave up on both MK8 and the last Smash game was largely because my husband absolutely sucks at it and so multiplayer was no fun.
The thing that makes Mario Kart a better game than Smash to me is that it's much better at nurturing talent; it's a simpler game and it has an impressively well balanced difficulty curve in singleplayer Gran Prix mode. Winning all the cups in all the categories is a very rewarding experience.
So how does one win a 150 or 200cc Grand Prix consistently and often with proper driving? What's the meta to prevent getting curb-stomped from near first to near last place frequently? Is it better to be in the middle of the pack and then roll for an opportune item like a bullet or a gold mushroom, and launch them near the end? Is there actually some kind of mechanism to prevent chain-hits from happening?
How do I guarantee getting items like the bullet or the gold mushroom instead of the less useful ones when you're near the back of the race in the third lap? I don't get any of the good items after getting knocked back five to eight places unless I stay there for a while, at which point the race is already over.
If MK has a great gradual learning curve as it goes up the difficulties, then what exactly am I doing wrong when 100cc races are easily won but I can't figure out how to do the same with 150cc? It doesn't seem like there were any new mechanics to learn that I missed, it's the same start timing, powerslides, items, and all. But the AI is so much more aggressive about items and they seem to deploy them in a much more coordinated fashion at higher cc speeds. I've put dozens of hours into 100c races at this point, and yet 150cc is as impenetrable as ever, so there must be some step in learning that I've completely skipped by here.
Also the tripping mechanic was a huge failure. It didn't actually stop skilled players from having their run on less skilled players. It just made it more annoying for equally skilled players. It was just a really bad design choice in the end since it didn't do anything they wanted it to, and they did not bring it back for the following Smash games. But the Smash games at least have a learnable skill path where the mechanics don't work against you arbitrarily. If you can figure out a moveset, positioning, and timing, it seems to be pretty learnable. Success is repeatable with consistent skill and the game doesn't punish you for it. I'm not good at Smash at all (and playing against someone who is much better is definitely not fun but that's normal for anything where you're unskilled and your opponent is skilled) but I can at least see how someone who puts the time in can get to that level. I do not see how that happens with MK, where it seems like the game is designed to punish people that try.
There must be people that have figured it all out but I haven't found any good advice out there about it beyond some supposedly optimal kart builds.
I think your primary problem is that the upper levels of Mario Kart are simply really hard and to accept that you might not ever be good enough to beat the 200cc Gran Prix modes. With MKDS I spent a lot of time with the game and was able to beat most of them, but years later with MK8, the time and effort it would take to get that good just wasn't worth it to me. But it's important to not let that impair the enjoyment you might otherwise have with the game.
But to answer your question, the key to consistantly win in the higher levels is to simply drive as best as you can for the entire run, and to not slow down just because you're in first place. Your ranking isn't really how good you are - that is better measured by how far in front of the crowd you can get.
I think you already know the way to guarantee you get the best powerups. You just have to stay in the back of the pack. But IMHO that's not a very good strategy if you actually want to win. And even so there is still some randomness involved so you're not really guaranteed to get what you want, especially when it will be most useful.
But there's no one game that everyone will enjoy, so if you don't like it, you don't like it. And that's OK too.
I think one of the things at play in whether it's enjoyed or not is the degree of negative feedback that happens with each cc increase. At 50, 100, 150, the negative feedback is pretty manageable but at 200cc, it is really punishing... and some people love that and some people don't. I really like that at 200cc it feels more like you're playing against other people, and you might not win; I felt like at 100cc I should always be in first place on every single race, but above that at 150 I can pretty consistently win the cup, and at 200 I sometimes come in last, and that is a feature and not a bug because it means that no matter what there is a level of challenge available to me at the upper levels. There's never a spot where the game is "solved" and I can just win, and that's what the upper levels are for.
However, when you juxtapose this with previous versions, it's a marked deviation from how earlier Mario Karts worked. You got good enough, you always won, and that's that.
So I understand that some people don't like that there isn't a "solved state", and they feel like items make it janky, but I'm firmly with you on it; it's a big draw to keep playing. It's actually almost a reasonable facsimile of playing with other people who are of a similar skill level.
I mean, yeah, this goes back to my first comment: there's no such thing as "good enough", only "lucky enough". Like, after all this back and forth, we're back to the idea that the real key to enjoying MK if you're not someone who likes getting screwed over by chance with no recourse is to consistently "git
gudlucky".Of course it's okay not to like the game a lot. That's what I was saying up front, and I was commiserating with someone who had a similarly negative experience as I did. If I was complaining about anything, it's that I can't like MK as much as I want to. Obviously neither of us hate the game, there's plenty to enjoy but there are aspects of the game which defy traditional good design choices. I expressed confusion why they get a pass but based on the responses here, it's like the answer is to do everything I can to ignore that those things exist.
Like okay, playing some MK with friends for an evening is one thing. But trying to play the game even semi-seriously by yourself and getting all the content including getting all the GP trophies at all cc levels is another, and that's where it's not at its best. In fact, it exposes a lot of the problems (as higher difficulties in many games do).
Quite frankly, I'm tired of pretending like the Mario Kart games are impeccably designed and perfect kart racers, especially MK8 or MK8D. I get that they're super popular and tons of people like playing them, but that's the same case with Call of Duty and yet nobody bats an eyelid at the idea that the COD games are full of issues and are not the best examples of their genres despite all the things they do really well that ensures its juggernaut status. I just want some acknowledgement that the RNG-centric approach to the higher difficulty levels could be a lot better than it has been or, if that actually is wrong, for someone to finally let me know if I've missed something key that mitigates or minimizes how central the RNG is to the resultant gameplay.
As it stands, it should be a given that RNG-centric gameplay is not appreciated by some people, especially after enough time. As another comparison, I don't enjoy Darkest Dungeons at all for the same reason of RNG heavy design. At least that game doesn't feel like it's meant to punish, it's just a lot of luck of the draw. MK's saving grace for its reputation is that its random bullshit is fun for a while as a party game (which I'd bet is how the vast majority of people exclusively play MK) so the game is pretty enjoyable in the right context—something which Darkest Dungeons doesn't have at all.
I don't think you understand what I meant. Luck doesn't have anything to do with consistently winning the upper difficulty levels of any given Mario Kart game. If you're in front you will always get hit by the biggest equalizer powerups. You aren't losing because you're unlucky, you're losing because you're just not good enough. That's why I said that you should measure your success by how far ahead you can get of the other racers.
I certainly don't think that Mario Kart games are the best racing out there (personally speaking nothing will ever be better than Daytona USA and I will die on that hill). I just think you're being a bit too harsh in your criticisms. The whole point of having every cup at different levels is to give difficulty options, so you really aren't missing anything by not being able to complete the higher difficulty levels. I'm not trying to change your opinion, though; just to offer my own.
On the other hand @aphoenix says that the RNG has gone up significantly in 8. Personally speaking I haven't noticed this, but I'm really not a hardcore fan of the series to begin with. Like I mentioned, I haven't beat the 200cc mode either. But that wasn't from frustration; I just wasn't interested enough to work on getting that good.
Was there some moment when I accidentally gave off the impression that I don't have the first clue about how Mario Kart works? I thought I made it clear that I find the approach to items imbalanced, not that I don't know why I don't get the bullet when in first place. I'm aware of who is supposed to get the equalizing items and why, and I am aware why slowing down when in first place is a bad idea. I know that a big lead is highly desirable because that's true of the concept of racing overall and that it's especially good in kart racers as it gives you a huge buffer for mistakes or hits. But with all the RNG action of items in higher difficulties, it becomes an element of luck to even create a lead since it involves the rest of the race crab-bucketing themselves fighting for second place while first place goes off untouched at the start of the race.
Luck has too much to do with winning the upper levels of the game and what it will take to convince me otherwise are answers to my questions earlier, as those are my targetted areas of improvement which would directly help me get the results I want. If there is a skill issue, then coming back from chain-hits should be something that anyone should be able to do consistently but, thus far, there has been zero advice about. So far, my experience has been a coin-toss about whether it happens or it doesn't and you just hope it doesn't.
I know how the items are distributed and work. It's not in question why I get hit when I'm in front. If I was actually puzzled about that, the blue shell would have been the top of my complaint list but I haven't mentioned it at all since that actually makes sense to me. The one item I specifically complained about isn't an "equalizer" item since it hits all players at once. If it only affected the frontrunners, it would actually make a lot more sense. What I did more specifically complain about was the item distribution, especially when dropped from the front to the back and how long it takes for the powerful equalizing items to drop when you're in that position, and the balancing (and that was really just the lightning).
Just to add to how I am not some newbie playing a racing game for the first time: this is the kart racer that I find this issue to be the most prominent. I've been playing kart racers for decades now. RNG always exists but other racers don't leave me feeling like the game is as RNG-centric as Mario Kart. And it might not even be a real RNG issue, it could just be an imbalance in probabilities in the game code combined with the balance of the actual items themselves. I don't really know but what matters is how to make it possible to regularly surmount it. I've never had any issues performing to a satisfactory level in any other racers, and other games where skill-based play takes a lot more time, effort, and talent to learn and develop. It's not like Mario Kart is the worst entry in the genre, or even that other companies don't have their own big downsides (e.g. every EA racing game has overly aggressive rubberbanding), this is just my specific complaint about Mario Kart.
And what's so harsh about my criticism? It was entirely sentimental and personal, and laser-focused on the RNG-centric nature. In my last comment, I clarified all the obvious marks of quality the game has and said it's not a hateable game. Why does Mario Kart need such ardent defending from such a specific complaint, to a point that the specifics of that complaint are ignored in favour of "just accept that you suck, it can't be the game's fault"? I left often the possibility that I missed something big and it would just need to be communicated to me but nothing has come out of that appeal. If it was possible to employ certain strategies or gameplay in a way to ensure consistent high performance in those difficulties, then that's what I'd actually like to know.
Maybe I'm just reading too much into your comments. To me it sounds like you're upset. I figure you must feel strongly because you're writing so much about it. I never meant to upset you, though.
Oh, no, that's probably poor word choices on some level. I was just trying to comment on 150cc chasing people off. I'm just really wordy I think. A lot of my comments go on for a few paragraphs. If anything, Mario Kart something that's been on my mind for years because it feels like Mario Kart is like the one game that's escaping me so I figure I must be missing something. It's not like kart racers are a particularly dynamic or varied genre, which makes it all the more confounding.
You should see how long my posts go when I have a parent comment in one of these game threads. Those get novella-length.
Just completed Red Dead Redemption on Xbox Series X. Forgot how much I loved that game.
Before that (and this was last week, but I haven't done these in a while), I completed my second playthrough of Resident Evil 4. Another great game!
Picked up The Ascent on sale during the last LAN weekend with the guys, just finished it last week with about 35 hours in, all missions and side missions done in main campaign and DLC. Pretty good twin stick from someone that tends to find twin sticks to not be to my tastes (I have a controller, but prefer keyboard+trackball and most twin sticks just do not work well without a controller). The voice acting was well done, lots of side stories/lore, main questline is on rails, but your exploration is rarely limited to what the story will allow and instead just puts enemies of a higher tier in your way to guide you back to where you should be. Still fun to push the boundaries and with kiting you can pick up some good exp taking out higher level enemies, but still easy to get overwhelmed and on shotted if you're not careful. The gear and weaponry provides a nice mix of strategies and approaches with no one way being best, various less useful but very fun weapons/augments also available. The camera view changes are also a fun way to mix up gameplay that I enjoyed.
Overall recommended.
Ooh, this looks good. I'll have to bring it up with my group for our next LAN weekend.
Did you play most of it co-op or solo?
Started with co-op during the weekend, then created a new toon to finish solo as one of the guys has little time for multiplayer games outside of our weekends. Multiple players comes in handy as roles can be assigned to support/tank/heavy.
Forgot to mention that while they aren't the smartest enemies I've ever encountered, the enemies do have their own strategies. Some will rush you, some will take cover, some will hide and take pot shots.
Don't know if there's much replayability though, but I didn't go into games with randos to find out.
Assetto Corsa. I'm not much of a racing/simulator fan but I saw it on sale and decided to get it. Being used to very limited arcade-y driving games such as Forza, it's a massive difference. I have a lot of fun learning how to take turns properly but I'm still not winning much.
I never played much Forza, but I always assumed it was more or less as realistic as the Gran Turismo series. Is that not the case? (Or are you even saying that GT is not that realistic?)
Not who you asked, but I have played all of the above. Forza Motorsport is reasonably realistic, but there hasn't been a new one released in ages (although there is one coming later this year). Forza Horizon is definitely not as realistic as GT or AC though. You can crank the driving realism settings up to max so that the driving difficulty is similar, but even with max realism/difficulty it's still a much more arcadey game than the others. E.g. You can't race against and jump over a train or fighter jet in GT or AC. ;)
Also worth noting that Forza is split between the Horizon and Motorsport series, with Horizon being more arcadey and Motorsport being more simmy (is that a word?).
Basically, y’all are both right. 😁
I was already editing my comment to mention Motorsport when you replied. ;)
Stranded: Alien Dawn
It's finally out of Early Access so a bunch of YouTubers have been doing videos on it, and I decided to give it a try for myself too. It's basically a 3D RimWorld, but not nearly as in-depth. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, and it's still pretty fun. And since it also has proper mod support too, I expect/hope people will start adding more stuff now that it's finally out of Early Access.
The only minor criticisms I have of it after 14 hours of play so far is that you have to redo the "observations" every time you start over in order to unlock certain research, which gets annoying and repetitive, especially since the plants and animals are always the same. The other criticism is that the characters you can select from are always the same, since there is no randomization of their stats or skills, and there are only 20 characters to choose from which also adds to the repetitiveness. That's something that is easily fixed via modding though, and there are already a bunch of character mods you can download.
So yeah, it's decent... but for the $45CAD release price I was expecting a bit more from it. I also don't know how much replayability it will have, since it feels like that will depend on if a solid modding community forms around it. But the devs have been really quick to add more features and new mechanics while it was in EA though, so hopefully they will keep adding more over time.
Redfall
It's getting absolutely torn apart in reviews, and on social media there seems to be nothing but hate for it, but my friend and I have actually been really enjoying it so far. We both downloaded it essentially for free through Xbox Gamepass though, and if we had paid full price for it I could understand being a bit upset, especially if you bought the $130 special edition.
The gameplay is decent, the world is interesting, and the graphics are pretty. We played it on medium difficulty and it was a bit too easy, so there was no point in stealthiness since everything dies so quickly, but we have since cranked the difficulty up to max so hopefully that helps. I will report back on that once we play again tomorrow.
My only real complaint is that it has some minor performance issues, like a signficant drop in FPS every time we open the inventory, view the map, or enter a new area... but that only lasts a few seconds before returning to normal. Some people are complaining about significant performance issues making the game basically unplayable for them though, so YMMV.
So yeah, I would recommend giving it a try if you like PvE coop shooters, and have XBGP.
Changing the difficulty to hard made a huge difference. Now we're actually struggling to take down vampires and ammo is a major concern too since we can't just kill everything in one shot, so we're having to stealth around and intentionally avoiding a lot of fights. It's gotten much more enjoyable now that it's actually a challenge.
We also found out there is a difficulty level even higher than this one too, but we need to complete the main story at least once in order to unlock it, so that's what we're planning on doing now.
Have been playing Horizon Zero Dawn again haven't jumped into the new DLC on Forbidden West yet.
Just love the series and I hope they keep going. I could totally see a mini series or Horizon film.
Sony does have that movie studio for PlayStation properties now with the Gran Turismo movie coming out soon.
Still on Casette Beasts. I don't know if any ither monster collection games share a similar typing system, but I'm finding the emerging complexity fun. An example is if you use a lighting-type attack on an earth type monster you induce an effect called "Glass Shield" that makes them more susceptible to melee but scatters glass on the battlefield. Any monster doing a melee attack, and so crossing the glass, takes damage. There are kore, like fire attacks turninf plastic monsters into poison, but this system is a great detail
Movement is also great. You catch monsters to get certain abilities like swimming, magnetics, or gliding (you get this ine first) which, combined with the design of the overworld, makes exploration much more interesting than I had anticipated. Just writing this comment I had an epiphany about some puzzles Incan solve with a new technique I unlocked.
I've been playing a ton of Deathloop but I'm kind of stuck/a bit bored. I've gotten to a point where I have all the guns and slabs/slab upgrades but struggling at where to go in the main story. I'm left thinking that it would be nice if there was a way to see you stagnating and prod you in the right direction.
There definitely is a way to get a nudge towards the right next step. It’s in the menus somewhere. If you read through all of the info that you can find it will tell you what step is next. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific than that but I haven’t played the game since the release on PS.
Ya. I think what's happened is that all the arsenal/slab leads where easy and fun and now I'm down to a couple main quest leads that are harder or less obvious in how to complete.
I've sort of set the game down for a while to take a breather after looping a few times and having a bit of a rage quit.
I got it recently and finished it, although I did look up solutions once I got stuck. It is definitely a fun game, but there are some flaws. For me what hooked me was the whole Bioshock-ish vibe.
I just installed Fear and Hunger after watching this very entertaining description of it by Super Eyepatch Wolf on YouTube. The video contains spoilers, but basically it really sells the game as a very punishing survival horror roguelike game that forces you to recontextualise how you approach its game mechanics several times over the course of the story.
I loved the second one, though I couldn't get more than a few hours into it due to the insane difficulty. I still think about it. It's such an experience.
I have zero desire to play such an insanely punishing game, especially after watching the video. But wow, does it ever look interesting, and I can see why you would be intrigued enough to try it yourself. The video was also great, and highly entertaining in its own right though, so thanks for sharing it! :)
Neon White
It's a first-person shooter, puzzle-platformer in which you play as a Neon - a soul pulled back by God from Hell to help fight demons infesting Heaven. Interesting premise, very tight and intense gameplay. I'm only about a third trough the game and while it is difficult, it's still possible to progress trough the game without too much difficulty - that comes with replaying the levels and getting better and better times on each "track". I found it from some youtuber's "games of 2022" list and honestly the 22€ I spent for it is not enough, hehe.
I recently re-played Chrono Trigger since I was a teenager. I really enjoy the game and still is fun. I could find a couple things I didn’t like such as some animations, sprites and that the game doesn’t run as smooth on running scenes. Like it felt it was going 30fps. Crazy because when I was younger those things didn’t bother me at all.
I'm guessing you played it on a crt growing up, and a modern screen this time? Differences in displays might have increased your sensitivity to "smoothness".
Shardpunk Verminfall
Pretty tight game so far, it's turn based tactics and can be unforgiving like x-com. It's tough at the beginning but I think it's worth pushing through. Obviously the game ripped some style from vermintide but it is what it is. If you like that genre of tactics games it's worth the 10 bucks imo