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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.
I realized a friend didn't know what the size of the sun was so I downloaded Universe Sandbox to show her.
She thought the sun was slightly larger than the moon.
It was painful.
Did you explain that the Sun was a star and the Moon is... a moon? I'm not trying to be a dick, it's just that she sounds pre Copernican!
Honestly she said she'd never really thought about it.
Which is insane to me. Like to not have an inherent curiosity about literally everything.
That's really funny! Yeah, I find space inherently so fundamentally interesting, so someone being that disconnected from that is incomprehensible to me 🤣
This is going to be my new insult.
“Frankly, that’s just pre-Copernican!”
Did she think this before or after trying out Universe Sandbox? It seems weird to keep the misconception given you can line the two of them up side by side.
I suppose in fairness, from our relative perspective looking at the sky, they are the same size
I’ve been playing Enter the Gungeon for the last few weeks. I finally reached the boss on the 5th floor, and that boss feels easier than some of the previous ones. Now I can get there fairly consistently. I know there is more to the game. You have to build the bullet that can turn back time, you can do some things to unlock more playable characters, etc. But, to be honest, I don’t know if I have it in me. Might move to another rogue-like instead. Hades 2 is waiting for me, for example. Also, I might shift some of the free time to books. I started a new book recently and I want to focus on it a bit more.
You can say that again. Not to discourage you, but I've got just over 600 hours in Enter the Gungeon and I still have one or two things left on the to-do list. I haven't played it in a few years at this point, so I doubt I'll ever properly finish the Ammonomicon, but it was still great fun for me. I think the mix of charm and humor in the game kept pulling me back in to play, even beyond the actual gameplay mechanics being super solid. It's a shame that it doesn't seem to sing to you in the same way. I've experienced a similar situation of my own recently after playing Revita for a few weeks though, and as much as I find it interesting, I'm not having enough fun to see how far the rabbit hole goes.
I appreciate the humour and all the references to different other games and movies via guns and items. It feels welcoming to anyone who’s been enjoying action games and movies since at least the 90s if not further. I’m coming to this game after a lot of hours in Dead Cells. That one took me forever to get to 4 boss cells but I don’t have it in me to take on yet another major difficulty bump. Knowing you’re at 600 hours and there is still more to it makes me hopeful that it will be a reason for me to circle back to it in the future.
I put many hours into that game and loved the movement, guns, and multiplayer mode. If I had to pick one complaint it would be the long starts to runs before the challenge begins combined with how punishing it is to drop any HP to careless errors. It makes for a rather meticulous beginning to every run.
I agree. It already feels like a very repetitive process for me for the first 2 floors.
I'm playing Okami HD for the PS3, using the RPCS3 emulator on mac, it works flawlessly and I find it way more comfortable to use than having to turn a Play Station to play it.
I'm in awe of how beautiful the art of this game is, the many mechanics and interactions with the NPCs completely worth the game of the year award even if it was the least commercially successful winner of a game of the year award.
I'm still playing Outer Worlds. For me it is almost like Fallout 3 in space and much nicer graphics. I like the setting, I like how different the game is - it is all about kinda slavery, owning of people and treting them like resources - I hate that and it's great to play and stand against this system. But you can also choose to go with it, not just against it.
The game can be played in variohs ways, it seems I went speech/lockpick/hack way, as even when I have to fight here and there, I can exploit dialogues, consoles and take things from containers, often times from those someone else owns wink. But it seems it can be played weapons first as well.
The downsides of the game are the weapons, probably. Or lack-there-of, I might say. There are a few weapons to choose from and they just get dropped as "next gen" when you level up with the same models and the same behaviour. There are quite a lot unique ones though - unique effects that you can't get normally. The good thing is you can upgrade your favorite weapon as you level up (for hefty price), so it stays relevant throughout the game. There are also really hnique weapons that look unique and have really weird effects - devs went out of town with those.
The same applies for armor.
What is unique about this game is the world and characters amd setting. Apart from that it is RPG as Fallout 3 is, but I'd say this one is a but deeper and has more conversations and deeper quests, even though not that many probably.
I got to point of no return, then finished first DLC, going through second one and then I will go for the finish. I reckon I'm 60 hours in with another 10 before me.
If you liked the first one I think you'll like the sequel too. I think that game got treated pretty unfairly when it came out.
Honestly, I don't understand why the game has such (bad) reputation. I like it. Not that much to replay it every so often, but it's just not a bad game. I'm not going for sequel right away, I will have to take a breal after those 80+ hours (I'm at 72 when I actually checked).
I'm an Outer Worlds apologist as well. I think it's WAY better than everyone else says it is!
I'm honestly kind of glad that everybody kept repeating the talking point that it was mid ad nauseam. That meant I went in with low expectations and was thrilled when the game far exceeded them. It has its flaws, but, like you, I think there's a really solid game there with lots to offer.
Finally finished Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure (Steam). This is a JRPG, the fifth entry in the long-running, all-connected, like 13-games series. Took me almost 100hrs over the last six months (took lots of long breaks). I didn't go full completionist, but I had a guide and was playing in the direction. Which definitely took up a lot of time. The last dungeon alone took me several hours.
Which means I've started a replay of the next entry, Trails of Cold Steel. Played it on my Vita back in the day, but I want to play them in proper story-order. Technically, "Azure" and the game before it take place roughly at the same time as "Cold Steel" 1 and 2, just different locations in the world, but the events that happen in either arc are often related and even sometimes outright references. Sometimes characters from one game and location show up in other games. So here's looking at another probably 100hr playthrough. Maybe I'll finish it early next year.
I think this might be my new favorite series, displacing Final Fantasy. The story, the world, the lore are just expansive in a way that Final Fantasy isn't. All the mainline FFs are separate games from each, after all (Maybe FFXI and XIV as long-running MMOs are as big). But in the Legend of Heroes "Trails" series? It's all one gigantic, continent spanning, multi-year, story of political intrigue, war, and unlikely heroes. And it's not afraid to get into some darker topics (aside from war) that one would find in a "real" world." Classism, Drugs, human trafficking, human experimentation, child abuse and prostitution, etc. The game is full of bright colors and anime characters, but it's a gritty, messy, fucked-up world, just like ours. And I appreciate when games acknowledge that.
I've also started Cold Steel 3 on PC. The combination of the shift to PS4 gen fidelity, being able to run at 120fps with no loading times and the general quality of life changes (speed up option in particular) is pretty sweet!
One or two of these massive games per year definitely sounds like the sane way to go though.
One of the weird things I noticed going (back) to Cold Steel, that was present in at least Zero and Azure, is the sudden lack of a dialog log. There's the active voice log in the notebook, which records when a character goes, "Ooh, a treasure chest!" or makes some other inane comment while out in the field. But those aren't anywhere as important as the actual dialog in cutscenes and such. Weird thing to exclude, given how dialog heavy these games are. Hopefully that makes a comeback in the latter titles!
Yeah, it's definitely in CS3. In fact they changed the controls, so I'm constantly accidentally triggering it 😂
I wanted so much to play Destiny 2 on my Steam Deck that I made a headless desktop with spare parts, just to stream it to the Deck.
So it runs flawlessly, all's good, except that the steam input mapping is completely broken. Actually I'm not sure if it's buggy or if it's a side-effect of some over-zealous anti-cheat feature, but the fact is that I cannot enable the gyro and rebind back buttons. Actually it looks like only the first customization is applied, and all subsequent changes are rolled back to their default values. And it's pissing me off so much that I'll probably uninstall it.
It also doesn't help that I'm playing through the Lightfall campaign, with its giant, ugly, and desperately empty retro-futuristic city that absolutely makes no sense. What a disappointment after The Witch Queen.
In other, better, news I've been giving a more solid try to Eternal Strands.
It's a mix of Breath of the Wild, Monster Hunter, and Shadow of the Colossus, with the expedition loop of a diluted extraction-shooter. Each expedition can be focused on gathering materials, finishing a quest, or just chilling while trying to find lore elements or crafting recipes. I like this loop, I can just play for 20 minutes and definitely make some progress. The combat is a bit hard to manage, as you need to juggle between several spells, your bow, your shield+sword, and a two-hands weapon. Playing with KBM make that easier. Back at your camp you can chat with your super-friendly-and/or-overly-anxious teammates and spend resources to improve the various crafting stations. So far so good, it's the kind of game I expected and I'm enjoying it. Thank you @xavdid for the recommendation :)
Steam Deck note: don't. The game is demanding, and while it's not graphically impressive, it's pretty enough and deserves to be played with a decent framerate.
Would you recommend Destiny 2 to a newcomer?
Well, the base game is free, as are the oldest expansions (Shadowkeep, Beyond Light) that haven't been vaulted. That will give you a few hours of playtime. After that, the other DLCs are now regularly discounted up to -90%.
I find it an excellent casual FPS, the gun feel and movement are really great and it's easy to load and do anything for 20 minutes or 3 hours. Beyond that... it's the archetypical over-bloated game-as-a-service. Nothing is properly explained, the UI is confusing, and I regularly have to look up how to do the most basic things. Personally I don't bother with anything outside of the campaign missions.
Man, I might wait a little bit to start after the news, huh?? Sounds like it'll be a great place to start!
Ah yes, it will probably be a better experience!
I've been playing The Blood of Dawnwalker.
If I start playing it, I have notorious trouble trying to stop playing it (good sign).
I'll keep this as spoiler-free as possible relating to story, locations, and gameplay - for everything just after the Prologue.
System:
Xbox Series X
Time played:
~9-ish hours
Overall Personal Rating:
8/10 (so far - still not even halfway through)
Pros:
Cons:
No real stealth feels like a miss in a vampire game about a rebel/outcast. Something I hope is added - if they have future installments.
They put out a day 1 patch which fixed it for most people, but holy cow is the the run/walk mechanic still borked on Xbox.
If you let off the left thumb stick even a BIT it'll stop you from running and put you in this jarring walk stagger.
If you have this issue, I've heard setting different outer deadzones helps, and for me the solution was just hold left thumb stick fully up and use the right thumb stick to turn.
The climbing is pretty janky. I'd mostly recommend just using your right trigger movement ability. Also something I hope gets fine-tuned/expanded on.
Some combat elements:
Disengage effectively doesn't exist.
You can't jump in combat, so if an enemy gets behind a small slightly elevated bit of ground or a log - you have to walk all around it. This killed me once early on.
Switching the enemies you have locked on is difficult.
Counter + Lock-on Advice:
If you play counters and get one on an enemy you're not locked onto, try to slow down and get the reposte immediately with the right direction or it'll just shift back to whoever you were locked onto and you miss it (however blocking/parrying is always best if you're being attacked by others at that time).
Personal Take-away:
It's Witcher-based in a lot of ways but also adds it's own elements that feel uniquely them.
The world building and characters are fantastic and I'm eager to see where this game goes. I'm hopeful for more games which iterate off it, add some elements which I feel are missing, and polish it a bit - but I'm very much enjoying it.
It has a bit of jank, but I'm confident they'll fix it and as annoying as it sometimes was, it was/is never enough to stop me from sinking hours into it.
How's your take on the time as a resource mechanic? Have you ever spent time on something and been disappointed at the result?
Sorry for the delay, it's been a really busy week.
While I'm normally not keen on time-based gaming mechanics generally speaking, I was pleasantly surprised that I actually enjoyed how they implemented it in Dawnwalker.
I think this works for me for a few reasons:
Overall I surprisingly enjoyed it due to how it invested me in the story, varied my gameplay in a fun way, but didn't feel like it was constricting my choices too much or putting too much pressure on me. It just felt like something to keep in mind and made the world feel more immersive to me.
This description changed my mind about trying it out. That seems like a very reasonable system.
Awesome - hope you enjoy it :)
I'm still having a great time with the game.
Over the past month or so, I played and finished the infamous, and infamously dense, Japanese visual novel Umineko: When Seagulls Cry. It's too early to call, but this might be one of my favourite stories I've ever experienced; it is also very very difficult to recommend.
Part of that is the Outer Wilds effect. I read Umineko with no spoilers, knowing nothing about its premise except that it was a very long, very interesting mystery story, and that its themes were somewhat similar to Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out movie (this is the recommendation that finally got me to pick it up). This description occludes enough of the game's premise to be essentially wrong, but I wouldn't have had it any other way: a huge part of the joy of the game is not only the twists and turns of its central mystery, but the way its premise explodes and unravels over its monstrous runtime, until by the end, the story is barely recognizable. Thus to talk about Umineko's themes, its story, and its ideas is, to some extent, to deprive a future reader of the joy of experiencing all the wild twists and turns for themselves. I will talk a little bit about those things below, but before then, allow me to give the best, most spoiler-free recommendation of this story that I can.
Umineko is a visual novel that is absolutely full of tropey otaku bullshit. Our main perspective character, multiple times in the very first chapter, attempts to grope his teenage cousin and their family maid; this is played for a joke both times; that's some of the least of the gross stuff that happens in this novel. It's also terribly paced, and the prose and dialogue are often embarrassingly clunky. However it also features some of the best character writing I've ever seen: depictions of trauma, abuse, neurodivergence, and gendered violence that were so realistic, so grounded, and so well handled, that I spent cumulatively several hours of this story crying so hard it made my chest hurt. If the pacing is awful, every scene is nonetheless absolutely essential; more than any story I've read, author Ryukushi07 seemed to read my mind as I theorized about the game's many puzzles and questions, so that the protagonists and I were incredibly in sync, and he often came to realizations, or came up with theories, at nearly the exact moment I did. Finally the game's exploration of its fascinating themes — themes which it would be a spoiler to even list out — is so comprehensive and complete that I doubt I will be able to get anything new out of the many, many works of art that attempt to tread similar ground going forward. If you can stomach the weebery (which does, ultimately, all have a point), and if you're used to reading stories with very little player interaction (like, you know, books) and if you're a fan of the mystery genre, Umineko is, in my opinion, an absolute must-read. Even if it takes you 100+ hours. I would just recommend looking up mods for the game, so that you can use better sprites and get the QoL features that aren't available in the Steam version.
Umineko Spoilers
In all honesty, this thing is still sinking in, and I don't really have a good handle on my thoughts on it yet. Might not, until I do a second read-through, or maybe watch someone else play it. Some scattered thoughts, though:
I was absolutely shocked that the writer had the balls to, in a visual novel released in the 2000s, make the main female character, who has multiple romantic relationships with other cast members, a trans woman, and to only reveal this fact 7/8ths of the way into the novel, and to make her experience with her gender, her identity, and even her reproductive trauma, so essential the story. But Sayo isn't alone among the female cast in being an extraordinarily well-written character with tons of hidden depth: in fact all the women are portrayed with similar care, are all both terribly broken and totally sympathetic. While it does have some problems on that front (some of which probably stem from the game's refusal to moralize at any point) Umineko might be the most feminist story I've ever read; certainly it's the most feminist story I've read to be written by a man. The relationships between Ange and Eva, and between Rosa and Maria, reminded me of my own childhood, and my own relationships with my family, in the best and worst ways. This level of depth is achieved by replaying the murder mystery over and over, of course, and focusing on different characters each time; it wouldn't be possible in a traditional mystery film or novel — still, that every character (except a couple of the men: Krauss, Ghoda, George) is so well developed, and so essential both narratively and thematically, is an astonishing feat.
I really loved all the metaficitional elements of the story, and the way that, much like the base fiction layer, these elements challenged the player to decide whether they were really magical or were simply metaphors for some more grounded, authorial truth. The seemingly half-dozen layers of narrative frames reminded me of House of Leaves — in terms of how difficult it was at certain points to keep track of everything — but really their function is more Brechtian; almost explicitly so, as there are multiple scenes in a theatre, and a witch of theatregoing, who invite other characters to observe the events of the story and consider not just what's happening but what it represents.
I didn't really like any of the magical battles until chs. 6 and 7; those later chapters I felt were paced much better, and the magical battles were easier to interpret as extensions of the world's rules, whereas the fights in the first half of the story tended to really drag and often were much harder to parse. Now that I know the logic of how the battles work, I wonder whether my opinion on this would change on reread.
I also didn't like the bits in chapter 5 where the game's writer Ryukushi essentially turned to camera and said, "hey! here are the rules of this world! here's how to interpret certain scenes! trust me, I do have a plan, this isn't random bullshit, it's all solvable." I was already operating under the assumption that it was, Ryukushi, and I trusted you and your storytelling, so when you told me "you have to love and trust the author and not stop thinking or else the story won't mean anything," it just felt condescending and desperate, especially since chapter 5 was in my experience, the worst chapter in the game, and it used the rules in an inconsistent and confusing way (to be fair there was a justification for it, but the novel almost filtered me here. No amount of "well but it was supposed to be a confusing and jarring experience" will suddenly make me switch over to enjoying it, especially when the pacing is how it is).
In general there's a lot, including the solutions to many of the game's locked room mysteries, that's left ambiguous. I like this from a thematic perspective, but not from a plot perspective; I'd have liked to have the solutions for at least eps. 1-4 laid out in a more clear way, though I understand why Ryukushi chose not to (for what its worth, I respect this decision a lot less considering he flip-flopped and explained everything in the manga adaptation). Still, it's weird how a lot of the really fantastic character and thematic work here is subtextual, but then dialogues scenes will have their subtext aggressively over-explained, as with the comical scene in chapter 1 where it's repeated several times in narration that "THEREFORE, MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, [X CHARACTER] NEEDED A LOT OF MONEY, RIGHT NOW" after that information had already been conveyed through some very elegant and engaging dialogue. In some respects this story definitely needs to trust the reader more; I understand that it was originally released serially, and so a lot of the scenes of being obvious were probably built as explicit responses to the Japanese 2channers trying to "solve" the game as it came out.
Overall, Umineko is one of those experiences that has instantly rendered all of my WIP drafts worthless, because of the huge impact it's had on the way I think about writing in genereal and some of the themes I aim to explore in specific. Plus, the music, is, like, some of the best I've ever heard in a game. God. I'm still kind of in a recovery period, writing this now having finished the VN over a day ago, just not really capable of thinking about much of anything, reading or playing much of anything. What an experience. I suspect that this past month of my life will, from here on out, be "the Umineko month."
As a palette cleanser, I chased with the indie game Unpacking, which is a classic cozy game about emptying boxes and organizing your room as you move from your childhood home, to your college dorm, to your first apartment and so on. It's a pleasant, short experience, without any real challenge, which is just what I need right about now. I think what I'd heard about the game in the past is that it's about breaking up with your shitty boyfriend, which frankly kinda scared me off of it, but actually it's more about growing up, and it turns out to be more of a queer game in the end, which was a pleasant surprise. And, to be honest, this kind of cleaning and organizing stuff is very relaxing to me in real life. I kind of like these games that invent fictional chores for you to do because I don't always have enough chores in my real life — especially since for the past couple weeks most of the ladies I live with have been away on various trips.
Couple for me recently
Maquette, perspective puzzle game which is used as a narrative device to tell the story of the relationship of a couple. Puzzles were interesting, not too hard but at points still enough to make me pause for thought or have to try a couple of things before solving them. The story side is told via voice over and little animations at points as you progress.
Thank Goodness You're Here - Fresh off of Untitled Goose Game, another very silly one but this time you're helping (mostly) the locals of Barnsworth with a variety of strange mini games.
Assassin's Creed: Shadows - Further to a little while ago I finished up the post launch patch content now. Some of the boss encounters that they introduced as part of it, have to be the most annoying I think that they've ever added in an Assassin's Creed game.
Spoilery things
Prior to these you could pretty reliably use the abilities you've unlocked during combat encounters, but for the final few fights here the main enemies just so happen to always be able to dodge them causing wasted resources.
Having said that the story moments with the leads of these new villains Hathaway were engaging, and it felt like they had actual presence / menace.
Just a shame that they weren't introduced earlier.
I bought AC Shadows to play eventually, because I knew it would be awhile for a follow up to Ghost of Yōtei and will want a substitute at some point. But now that's getting a DLC in October, so I'm resetting the timer on that. I still have yet to play any of the post-redesign AC games (I played through the Ezio trilogy and half of AC4), so that'll be interesting.
I also picked up 007 First Light and Spider-Man in recent sales, but am still working on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, so those are awhile off.
I was planning on buying Yotei recently, but decided to hold off until the "Complete edition" is available after that was announced.No rush though, have plenty to keep me occupied in the mean time.
It's well worth it. It retains the things that made the prior game as great as it was, but does just enough different that it feels like its own thing.
Combat and movement is fundamentally similar and equally smooth, but the details of it are tuned to the character being a ronin who doesn't come from a noble background instead of someone who was raised to be a samurai. It's as effective, but a different flavor.
And I really like the difference in story. It's straight up Kill Bill, rather than the war story of the original. It makes for a nice change of pace, with quite a lot of depth as it progresses.
This is a hilariously restrained summary of whatever the Britain that game is!
I finally beat the main story of AC Oddysey - I think it's the second game that uses its redesigned fort infiltrator mechanic.
I found it declined in quality from AC Origins, which felt like a fort infiltrator simulator with a good story, AC Oddysey tried to make its story into a telltale games design with the same fort simulator style and the story suffered for it.
I'm playing AC Valhalla right now, only about 6 hours in but I think I do love it more than Oddysey already, perhaps simply because there are actual Assasins in it, or perhaps it doesn't run like an old jalopy because it's not supporting the weight of a vast Greek world with nothing but forts on it.
I'm looking forward to AC Shadows though, especially after Valhalla
I originally put a lot of hours into Origins/Oddysey and Valhalla to the point I got a bit burnt out with Valhalla at the time. I did eventually go back to finish it though.
Slightly annoyingly since Origin's the core story doesn't actually completely conclude until you also finish the DLC for each game. If you enjoy classic AC, Mirage is worth a look, and ties in nicely with Valhalla.
I did not even try to start the Atlantis DLC. I felt I had seen all I needed to and the Greek myths in the original release were enough for me.
I think I'm okay with certain holes in the story so if I need more backstory I'll look it up. Valhalla might get to more modern day stuff, but for now I'm content in the past.
That's good to know though - I looked up the release dates of the latest games and was pleased that I had played them in the right order on accident - Origins, Oddysey, now Valhalla - then Mirage, then Shadows
I have just stopped playing Palworld. I think I'd give it a 6/10; it was a lot of fun in the early hours (9-10/10), but the further I progressed the worse it got. Towards the late game it was just not fun at all (2/10) and the charm of it had worn off, leaving me with no interest in continuing the game.
But the early game is really fun so I made a few different worlds, each with their own settings, to try to extend the fun through to the whole game. Even going so far as essentially cheating through the bad mechanics (crafting + resource farming) with both world settings and mods. In each of those playthroughs I dropped out at about the same point: the need for chromium and coralite.
This is the point where the game is just a grind. Up to this point you can make work stations to passively produce resources. chromium and coralite need to be manually farmed, by you, with no direction provided as to where to find it. Reddit + wikis tell you this, but the manual nature of acquisition turns the game into nothing but resource grind. All of the fun parts go away and you are left with rote monotony. Maybe this is fine in multiplayer, where you can shoot the shit while doing crap labor, but in single player it is a run killer.
I have some other issues with the game, but next to the game-stopper grind those issues don't really matter.
(Except performance: I have a strong machine and had shit-tier performance, and crashes, all throughout my playthroughs. Based on conversations I found while looking for solutions, it appears to be essentially random as to whether a given machine will have good or bad performance.)
Verdict: Worth the twenty-some dollars I spent on it, but I'm done with it for a long, long time.
Have y'all played POINPY? Because damn, I am obsessed with POINPY, and it's literally, actually free. The guy who made Downwell really decided to make "Upwell" and the design changes are pure upgrades. What a world we live in.
I've finished High on Life. Having gone through the whole game, I'd say I enjoyed the stupid humor and relentless fourth wall breaking more often than not ("I see you have over 90 hours in Rocket League, you must really love autosports," a boss said at some point, paraphrasing. "Spooky right? I'm doing a Psycho Mantis. I love Metal Gear. Speaking of which, a shame what Konami did to Kojima.") I even watched the entire crappy 90s horror movie they bundled with the game. The platforming was fine, but way too easy for me! I was a little disappointed that essentially no new levels were introduced after I wrote my first impressions; instead, you revisit the same levels multiple times for multiple bounties, with extra areas getting added but not great variety. The combat could also have used more variety, or maybe that's just my dislike of FPS finally surfacing.
We also reached the end of Big Walk (we did not 100% the game yet; we need 12 more noses, which thanks to some careful planning are all in a contiguous region in the east and southeast, so we're hoping to get through it quickly). In general it has been a lot of fun. I'd say peak chaos was doing the extremely distant four telescope puzzle with only two walkie talkies, but we're good enough at the game that even the purple noses haven't been too time consuming. The final section of the game, which I will not spoil, was fantastic! Everyone should go through it, what a genius game design idea.
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Still on that Xenosaga Episode I train. Just reached the... Encelephalon stage, is that what it's called? Boy howdy, I don't know how you guys played this game without speedup, those animations are loooooong. Also without save states. Haven't had to save scum yet, but you can spend quite a lot kf time between save spots.
I'm not sure if I'm building my guys right. A lot of them have unlocked AOE skills, and I'm saving up to make those fast and lower their wait. But maybe they get even better skills later? I don't know, I'm having a hoarding problem with tech and ether points.
Story's real fun though! Except for Allen. He was actually alright in the beginning of the game, but my God, he hasn't stopped whining.
Glad to hear it! I wouldn't worry too much about the character building - the mechs are much stronger than the regular characters and those are customisable throughout the game.
I'm going to be straight with you, I've barely been using the mechs (AWGS?). I don't know how to heal them aside from mech repair items, which I didn't have a lot of, so I stopped using them. And given that I put a bunch of points into stats, the mechs honestly don't seem to deal that much more damage that characters. At the very least Shion and KOSMOS, who seem to got like trucks.
Have I screwed myself over by not paying attention to that part of the game?
You can repair / customise them in garages (might be later in the game depending on where you are). They're quite good once blinged out with decent weapons and parts and I remember using them a fair bit in the endgame (as well as on one annoying mid-game boss), but no need to use them while your regular characters are doing the job. I definitely wouldn't bother using them on regular fights - only on a boss that's otherwise proving a pain to fight.
You're gonna think I'm dumb, but I know what you're talking about. But because I wasn't using the mechs, I didn't realise they would also fix them! Well, that's good to know for later.
My logic was, aside from not being able to heal easily, that I want to save my money for equipment, and wasn't sure if buying equipment both for mechs and characters was going to drain me dry. So far money doesn't seem to be an issue, though.
I played Xenosaga Ep 1 when it came out. IIRC, that was one of the hardest JRPGs I've played. Constantly felt like I was underleveled. And the story and concepts were confusing. That said, the story and worldbuilding of the series is fascinating to me. Like I've spent hours on the Xenosaga wikis reading about all the various concepts and such. I would like to eventually replay Ep 1 and actually play Eps 2 and 3. I'm pretty sure I still have physical copies of 1 and 2 (bought the latter, but never played it) somewhere.
Allen is definitely whiny. But I remember feeling like he was just swept along for the ride. Though it's been so long since I've played it, maybe I'm misremembering.
I think I helped myself a little in that there was a practice fight in the first stage, in the ship, before the attack. And I kinda... grinded the shit out of that fight for like five levels. I honestly think it's helped a ton. My guys are now at level 20, and so far, I haven't had to consult a guide very much. Of course that could change immediately.
So far, I really really like it. But I'm also from that era, so I dunno how someone not almost 40 like I am would receive the game.
I think the problem I'm having with Allen is that, at the very beginning, he's not actually that bad. He's terrified, but he even picks up a gun and starts shooting Gnosis alongside Sergeant Deadguy to try to hold them back before Kosmos arrives. He's extremely brave. My problem is that the safer we seem to be, the more whiny he's getting. Which, honestly, probably tracks. If I was placed into a situation where I needed to shoot some invulnerable monsters and suck it up, I'd absolutely be a whiny baby the second I'm somewhere else.
I'm about 8 hours into Outer Wilds. I kinda like it so far - mostly I like the commitment to creating a whole solar system and a physics system to go along with it - but I don't think I've gotten hooked by the story quite yet. I've explored more by following my own curiosity at stuff I see than by following clues, so I've found a bunch of stuff that is probably too far ahead of the breadcrumbs I've gathered for me to properly appreciate. I'll keep at it but this seems like it might be a slow burn.
Given that there is not a linear story, you are playing correctly. For me Outer Wilds got better and better as I progressed, peaking at the end of the game. If you are at all intrigued by the stuff you have found then you're doing just fine.
The proper appreciation will come with time. Think of it as solving a proper puzzle: All will become clear as you accomplish more.
But yes. It will take some time.
I’ve always been interested it from that gamer YouTube with an owl icon (who has since been outed as very toxic to their friends)—they described it as life changing and to play it before watching the video. I played a good amount but felt like I was heading in no direction. Don’t see anything life changing.
I wouldn't call it life changing, but the ending made me emotional.
That's honestly expected. You progress in a direction, feel stuck, check your board, and go explore in another direction. You should still find new things to read wherever you go, and start to piece what happened to the Nomai. On top of that, there's an obvious destination (two actually) that you may want to reach.
It's deliberately a slow game, but you should regularly hit satisfying milestones that push you further to uncover the story.
If I did my math correctly in Warframe, I should be MR30 once I'm done leveling up everything I'm making (so in a week minimum 'cause of Equinox). A decade after starting the game. Kinda hoping I'll be done before Iceblades (next update) releases.
Heh, you are quick... I am at MR24 after a decade of playing and over 1700h of playtime. :)
Not gonna lie, last few days basically was split between me actually putting some effort into getting some base frames (for Grendel Locators, Gyre with Cathode Current works wonder), or getting into a crafting spree with all the dojo stuff I researched but never got (unless Teshin threw them at me).
With a background of sanctuary onslaught and endless SP fissures.
I might take a break once all's leveled and in Helminth. For not even 2 weeks, I think. Still a break.
And as of a few minutes ago, I am now a True Master.
I like the emote :)
Fucking same, with almost 2k hours and I am still at MR24. Partly because I am lazy when it comes to trying new or different frames and weapons, and the other part is that I tend to spend a lot of credits on different things, like building forma, weapons and trading (the biggest credit sink).
Star Wars: Zero Company
I'm 15 hours in on cycle 15. I'll start the with the bad. The performance on PC sucks. First off, there's no resolution options. Initially the only option was the lowest resolution. Then after manually changing the high DPI settings my screen's native resolution is the only option. I'm on a Ryzen 5800X, 5070TI, and 32gb of DDR4 and a 65" LGC4. So for performance I would lower the resolution, but I can't. I set the DLSS to x4 and high settings. The FPS is all over the place. Usually stays over 100, but will dip to 70-80.
The actual gameplay is really good. There's definitely a change from X-COM. Unless your fighting droids, you're not one shotting people on hard. Developing relationships is crucial to improving character stats. Which invests you more into keeping people alive. Also who you bring on missions. You get a couple falls before the character can't be helped.
It's not raining down money, so you do have to budget. Same with the intelligence used to run OPs. Injuries can be healed. Either over time or immediately in some modes. Both cost money and the latter is more expensive. Characters have a type and a speciality. That adds a good bit of variety when it comes to recruiting choices. This also costs money.
The VA is really good and I like the artistic design. So far the story is pretty good. I was just introduced to the bad guys and what they're doing to people. I'm sure things are going to pick from here.
Overall, I'm disappointed in the peformance problems. But I do enjoy everything else.
I saw a video on Factorio and decided that I'd finally chip away at beating Space Age. My manager actually got me Space Age when it came out after I had mentioned wanting to get it, but I had only played a few hours.
So far I'm still on Nauvis. I could jet off to another planet in short order if I wanted to, but I'm wanting to do some retooling of my base out of it's initial spaghetti starter base into a still somewhat spaghetti base that is more defendable and can provide me with regular shipments of items once I go to another planet.
This game is just as much like crack as I remember it being. I have to set a timer whenever I play because if I don't, I'll lose track of time. Thankfully my work is flexible, but I definitely had a lunch break where I forgot to set a timer and played for a solid 45 minutes in to my work day without noticing it. I had some time to play last night and would tell myself "oh I'll get off after I set up this new mine", but then I had a hole in my wall that I had forgotten earlier when expanding; and my starter Steam power was running out; and I needed to add some logistic provider chests to my early game mall so my construction bots would set up my new furnance stack; etc.
Started House of Fata Morgana on my Switch. Another light novel, this time a "gothic suspense story" that spans multiple eras. I went in mostly blind, wishlisting it after seeing some article mention it got a perfect score on Metacritic or something a few years ago.
This one is interesting for the music and art. It has more realistic art than other light novels I played. Seemed like it has photo-bashed backgrounds, and the characters aren't really anime style. The music meanwhile is just... Unique. It has vocals, speaking in apparently a lot of broken Portuguese with some Latin and French mixed in. Here's one that's fairly happy as an example. also that one is just stuck in my head because it played so much in the first arc
Honestly, one of the most memorable OST's I've encountered in a long time. This is one where the separate OST on Steam actually feels genuinely worth it.
I'll note it started slow. The first arc plays out like a typical gothic historical romance/horror: main characters are noble siblings in the early 1600's, and a new maid at their house. Everything about it felt like true gothic fiction, the tension gradually escalating and hinting at dark secrets. Dragged on a bit slowly for my tastes, but it had its sweet moments and the climax was fairly unsettling.
Second arc meanwhile... Did NOT start slow. I'm only partway through it, but uh... Without spoiling anything, it features one of the most genuinely creepy character designs I've seen. Which is saying a lot as someone who loves binging horror manga. It also has one of the most genuinely beautiful CGs I've seen of a woman. Like... A lot of fictional female characters are meant to be beautiful and described as such, but that CG really felt like it.
So far it's fairly good. There's supposed to be I think four arcs total, and they're already posing plenty of questions and mysteries. Hopefully I'll have more time to play tomorrow.
Need for Speed Heat
Every game from the franchise tends to be re-playable for me. I have a weak spot for 2012 though that unfortunately hasn't received a modern port yet. Hot Pursuit was absolutely amazing on the Switch, but Heat just has a certain excitement that comes with the nighttime future. You can race during the day legally for cash and at night for points to level up. Those points however get lost when you get arrested. During night, the more you race and the more trouble you cause, the more the police want to catch you. So there is this whole idea of going "Shall I risk it for more or go home?" Sometimes you do get caught, and you have these frantic chases, knowing sometimes you just messed up and you're going to loose, but you keep on pushing hoping the AI has some sort of mercy.
They never do however.
Most of the police systems in NFS tend to be rather easy or the risk of loosing it all isn't that much of a focus. In this game however, they will truely be a threat. Unlike GTA or any other of numerous sandbox games that have certain weak spots for police, I haven't found an easy way to lose them. Not a way to try to cheat the system in a way.
And it's one of the rare games my wife likes to view since she likes the music the game has.
I played a fun little trilogy of games by MathanGames, a solo dev: Side Scape, Xanthiom Zero, and Xanthiom 2, (yes, in that order.)
The first is a zelda/metroid mashup, where the trick is that you can transition back and forth between the two contexts/characters on the same screen. It doesn't change perspective, only context. What is the background for the metroid-like is the ground for the zelda-like, so if you swap in some places you'll drop to the bottom of the screen to your new floor. It's a fun mechanic, and a nice little game, taking about 4 hours to 100%. It's all of $8, and very worh it.
The second is a more focused Metroid experience. Tight controls, good world and map design, a fun weapon mix and match mechanic. If you liked swapping between beam types in Super Metroid, this is that, but a more robust system. Another four hours to 100%, but for $5 it's absolutely worth it.
The third is more of the second, but bigger and more willing to step beyond the Super Metroid template. It includes the ability to save snapshots of a given screen to the map, and expects you to use it, as there are sometimes significant distances between clue and puzzle room. There are zones that undergo multiple extensive changes as you complete things, and a broader selection of mechanics to play with. If you get Xanthiom 2, it comes with a remake of Zero, so the higher price of $15 is pretty good. It was notably longer than Zero, at 6 hours.
All in all, they're each a fun time, and short enough that you can enjoy one in a day. I recommend all three.
I thoroughly enjoyed Xanthiom Zero and thought it was a solid hidden gem, so thanks for putting the dev's other games on my radar! I'll definitely be picking these up and playing them at some point.
Bodycam got a major upgrade and it's really fun now! I haven't played anything else since its Sep 02 release.
The game is rather tense. In a good way. The stressed animations convey information so well that I get fully immersed in the moment.
It also feels like you don't need Counter Strike level of skill to contribute. The aiming is forgiving without feeling too easy or cheap and makes a lot of sense even with the free look mouse aim.
Positioning is therefore much more important. With the low but not instant TTK it's all about getting the drop on someone more than it is who can click on a face the quickest. Both listening and looking for clues of enemy presence can get you far and if you do get into a prolonged firefight, those moments where you run out of ammo and switch to your pistol and eke out a win are heart poundingly satisfying.
To the point of weapons, they all feel responsive and useful. The pistols are just as lethal so they don't feel like they're there just for show and there's a good amount of difference in handling between an assault rifle and an SMG or a shotgun.
I said earlier on Tildes that I hoped this update would elevate the game from a tech demo into a game and I think they succeeded. I haven't had a shooter feel this good to play in a hot minute.
Edit to add: After some thinking I do want to mention some downsides. While the game feels and looks realistic and tight, it does suffer from an identity crisis.
With the focus on realistic looking environments and gunplay, you'd expect more tactical gameplay but most game modes are a glut of aggression with messy spawn points and it quickly turns into a shoot, die, respawn, repeat kind of ordeal. At this point only the Versus game mode where you play team versus team until the last man standing feels like it benefits from communication and a tactical approach.
It's still early in the development so I can see it evolve and grow over time, but right now it's still a bit incongruent.
After watching a coworker play Balatro on his phone, I hopped back in.
Was finally able to beat the Jokerless challenge, so now I've finished them all and can resume my quest for Completionist+.
Please send help.
If you want to know my winning strat
In short: Win round 1 on first hand, so you could afford a voucher and/or start earning interest. Attempt to always get at least 4 interest per round.
I finally pulled it off by drawing a dumb-luck Red Chip'd Polychrome 5, which I then promptly made Multi. Then used every possible Death to clone it, as well as Hanged Man to clean out everything that wasn't that card. Converted a few to Bonus around ante 7.
Main hand types were 4-kind with a stone, 5-kind, and flush-five in end. Got two blue chip cards in the deck to help keep the baseline boosted.
Congrats! Jokerless is a really tough one!
Some handy baselines for 1-shotting round 1 (that you may know already):
The easiest hand to dig for (especially on blue stake or higher where you only have 2 discards) is Flush. The chips need to add to 40+...a little annoying to count out...guaranteed to win if 6 is the lowest card among them.
But also keep an eye out (between discards) for Q-8 straight or better, or Full House where the sum of the 2 ranks of cards add to 15ish (2s 3s and 4s are largely useless, 3 5s and 2 10s works). Or of course Straight Flush or 4 of a Kind, but those are really rare.
At some point I thought interest was capped at 4, probably conflated it with the $20 cap of the Hermit tarot card. But it's 5, so aim for that if you can!
Plus there are the vouchers that increase interset limit, which also helps.
I played Night Loops a sort of Yume Nikki and Majora's mask inspired adventure game. I love the atmosphere and art direction of the game but its constant timer (which also doubles as your health bar) makes it kind of a struggle to get immersed in its setting because I was increasingly concerned with optimal routing to save time because I was worried that the ending might be tied to how many loops I took to complete things. Having gotten to one of the endings I don't think that's the case but the damage was already done.
Playing Titanfall 2 again on Linux, runs really well and is such a fun game. I really think they were genius with making it a short game and saving the best fun for the end. Also I noticed something goofy in the first mission. When you take over the dead pilot’s Titan and go burry the pilot framing it as an emotional background, the background is littered with your friends. Why burry this dude you don’t know but leave everyone else lol
Vampire Survivors: I wanted to get all the achievements before the next DLC, Legacy of the Bloodmoon dropped. I was a little late, but nailed it. I'm working to unlock all the characters, etc, and clear the adventures, and having a good enough time.
Vampire Crawlers: Picked this back up, just thinking I should again. I love this game so much, it's the best bits of VS (number go up, familiar items) with the old school dungeon crawler interface, and surprisingly deep strategy that's still very fun and accessible (combos are playing by increasing mana, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, for mult). Similarly, just trying to unlock everything, and enjoying it. I don't understand how the combat systems work in relation to damage outputs vs number of enemies in the rows, but that's something I'm trying to sort out.
Graveyard Keeper: The sequel's coming soon, so I need to at least finish the MSQ. I know the end, but that's different than doing it. I like it, it's cheeky, the weekly cycles make it lower stakes than Stardew Valley, but the systems are plenty deep and engaging, sending you all over the map for stuff in a fun way.
Zax the alien hunter - I think I already mentioned it on Tildes somewhere. It is two and half decades old isometric action shooter.
Playing as Zax you crash land on an alien planet containing large amount of valuable crystals, invading robots and helpful locals. It is a linear experience but features several larger open sections.
It holds up suprisingly well today as a fun distraction but I say that as someone that does not overly care about graphics.
Just finished Metal Gear Solid 4 again on Steam Deck, and I gotta say: it's still one of my favourite games of all time. I really enjoyed the combat in it, and if I had a dream game it would be some sort of extended version of Act 2 throughout a massive open world city. You can play it stealthy (and, of course, that's how it was designed), but when you perfect the gunplay you can feel like some sort of super soldier.
The story and setting is still compelling - in particular the future of nano machines and war economy - and of course there are Kojima's signature melodramas. The boss fights are fun and tense, and the camouflage system allows you to disappear or sneak through particuarly challenging areas. I feel the movement and combat systems are what make this game shine.
Being originally made for PS3 and remastered for PC, it runs effortlessly on Steam Deck. It's surprisingly fun to lie on the couch and game for a few hours at a time. If you're into stealth and tight combat, give it a go!
Oh man, I didn't know that they put this out on steam. It's the only MGS game I haven't played and I was dying to give it a shot after playing 5 last year on my steam deck. Thank for the heads up, I'm definitely going to add it to my list!
I recently started with Mortal Shell 2... I am totally not a fan of souls-like games (because of difficulty), but some do intrigue me for some reason... I even created two (ue4ss) mods to help me enjoy the game more... One is damage reduction mod and the other one is resolve consumption reduction mod, I use a couple other existing mods from Nexus for faster dash, faster attacks, ...
Recently finished Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate for 3DS, a game I've had for years but barely played. In essence, it's a God of War knockoff (like the original game), but in a 2.5D perspective, and as a portable game it's pretty good for some dumb fun.
I had bounced off this one as an avid Symphony of the Night fan back in the day, but it fares better when approached simply as a game about the satisfaction of hitting things. When it works, it works, and back-to-back fights can be a good time, but enemy variety is unfortunately limited, and it's rare to fight more than one type at a time. Levels are nice to look at, but all sort of blur together, and the game's attempts to incentivize backtracking didn't land enough for me to go for 100%.
It never reaches the heights of even the PSP God of War games, and it has some pretty glaring issues, but MercurySteam knows how to make a decent game, and it's at least worth it for the air combos. I couldn't shake the feeling that this would have been a great 3DS game to have back in the day, something you could easily pop in and smack some monsters around, and it kind of still works for that. No idea how the HD version differs, but I'd say play this one on the 3DS if you are interested.
I just finished the Resident Evil 4 Remake and man i love that game. Even with the removals and stuff, its still such a fun core loop. I recently played RE Village and its so funny how that game is basically just a rip of re4 but in first person. And its not even a bad thing, just the progression and silliness of the story is so good.
I just bought Mina the Hollower and Crimson Desert as my next two games. One hard as heck but very, very contained and a giant sprawling adventure to keep coming back to after a Mina session and to cap off the night, hopefully more relaxed. I've only just started Mina earlier today for a few minutes and its great fun on a giant screen. Ill report back once both games with more time!
I finished Judgment (2018 PS4/2022 PC) a few days ago and enjoyed the crap out of it, and went straight into the sequel, Lost Judgment (2021 Console, 2022 PC), playing both games on PC. It's more Yakuza, basically. The first game takes place entirely in good old Kamurocho, and the sequel mostly in Yokohama, using the same map from Yakuza: Like A Dragon.
These are just good fun if you like the Yakuza formula, though the crazy is toned down a bit compared to the mainline Yakuza series. Also, you get to beat the shit out of hordes of asshole highschoolers in the sequel, a large amount of which takes place in a private high school setting.