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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.
Stardew Valley. Recent updates have greatly expanded the game world. It's grown to become more than just a simple farming game. It has taken on adventure RPG aspects.
If you haven't played recently, there's a new tropical island you can visit that's filled with new mysteries.
Quite some time. I enjoyed the ride. I’ll put down the game for long lengths of time.
But it’s understandable if you don’t want the slow ride.
If you have good self-restraint, you should get mods/cheats and use the wiki to speed things along. There’s satisfaction in discovering things organically—the game has so much whimsy!—and meeting challenges, but we all have limited time.
Damn it. I didn't need to know this. I'm now dreading the amount of hours that disappeared from the coming month just by reading this post…
Muahaha. I’m paid on commission by Time Satan.
Cruelty Squad.
Saw Dunkey's and Civvie 11's videos on the game. I didn't think much of Dunkey's video, but I watched Civvie's one when I was heavily drunk, which made the game's acid trip aesthetic seem even more weird.
Civvie nailed his explanation of the game. It is a great game cleverly disguised as a shitpost. Also agree with his description of pre-mission dialogue being like listening to a Banjo-Kazooie character whilst going under anaesthesia.
I'd call it a cross between Hitman, Goldeneye 007 and Deus Ex, combined with a blotter of LSD.
So far I'm at Mission 4 (Androgen Assault) and I've found this game a real ball-buster. But at the same time, I'm pretty impressed with how open-ended the levels are.
Cruelty Squad is so compelling. Earlier this evening I completed my 4th run through the game (all levels, all implants, all weapons, Hope Eradicated difficulty). I recommend looking at guides in order to learn about the less obvious mechanics (like the difficulties, for example. Or the stock market (all 3 work the same way, except you can get fish and organs in missions. Do yourself a favor and hold on to some)).
I don't typically do speedrun things but I've enjoyed running levels for better ranks, which are based purely on time to complete. Getting an S rank on the missions requires a lot of skill and knowledge, plus a smart loadout to even get you into a chance at doing well. I've only hit S on a few so far and those were not on Hope Eradicated difficulty.
I almost gave up on the third mission, just because it took me so long to figure the level out, assassinate my target and leave without dying, which you have to do if you want to actually unlock the fishing rod in your loadout. Later levels seem borderline cruel in their difficulty curve.
Mall Madness is the first big difficulty wall, which iirc is right after Androgen Assault. My advice, on your first few attempts at the levels, is to ignore the targets and figure out the layouts, doors, enemy positions, pickups, etc. You can always retry / switch levels without the money penalty as long as you hit Escape before you die. And always harvest the organs, they give you enough income to offset your death penalty and afford some implants.
If you need an easier experience, save up for the stealth suit ($12,000), the difference is huge.
I've been playing Sproggiwood, and have put that same dev's "Caves of Qud" back on my list of games to play. Jupiter Hell sent me down the hole of roguelikes again. I realized I simply prefer coffee break roguelikes (smaller dungeon-based ones, like Desktop Dungeons, Sproggiwood, Jupiter Hell, etc).
I'm still playing Jupiter Hell, it's fun, and I'm progressing consistently. I like that there's no long-term progress, and it's very much a traditional roguelike, with the only "unlocks" being alternate modes. It honestly feels as good as Doom does once you get a flow going.
I got all of the achievements in The Ramp which is a really cool skateboarding toy (specifically called such by the dev). You can only spin, do grabs, and grind, but it's fun.
I'm chipping away at Portal Reloaded. Its puzzles are the sort I find irritating where I'll grind at them for an hour, walk away, pick it up the next day and solve it immediately. It does a good job of keeping me guessing, and is a satisfying sort of difficult.
I'm slowly working through Portal again, after previously intending to run straight through it, but the radios are playing with my need to be a completionist, as well as being fucking annoying. I'd rather have the option to disable them somehow.
More Skyrim. I managed to do the Telekinesis alteration glitch (get 100% magic reduction on Alteration, cast the spell, fast travel), which was fun, and let me get Ebonyflesh really quick. I also have armor that boosts my Enchanting 10%, so that should be fun to play with. I finally had the game make me feel uncomfortable in one of the Black Books quests, from the Dragonborn DLC. I apparently can't do large tentacled things in dark rooms so well, but I managed to clear the area and get away. I also used some boots of water walking to creatively sneak around for a Thieves Guild quest.
Haha every so often I fall into a longer roguelike and just get trapped. It eats up months of me experimenting and perfecting run after run. I'm hoping Jupiter Hell gets me into them, because it looks awesome! (I never played DoomRL.)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Hit an ending, but not the ending I want. I'm about 15 hours in and keep coming back, as there's more to see. A lot more, apparently -- my completion percentages are still suspiciously low across the board. I've also started searching up some stuff online and run into minor spoilers about some secrets, which is actually kinda great because I like that the game has so much in it, and hearing about those things inspires me to keep going. I also had a "fun" secret-ish moment that I accidentally stumbled into:
Spoilers
I make it a point to sit down in every available seat in the game whenever I can for a brief break. Don't know why, it just feels right. I did it at the piano with the faerie familiar and she sang a song, which was cool. Then, I revisited the train section and sat down in one of the train seats. This initiated a cutscene, followed by the biggest damn jumpscare I've seen in a good long while, followed by a fight with the source of the jumpscare who effectively one-shot me. I had no idea this was coming, and, despite being completely unable to handle jumpscares, I love that this sort of thing is in the game.
I also forgot to mention in my last post that if anyone is considering running this in Linux, it doesn't work perfectly for me in regular Proton, but I've been running it using GloriousEggroll and it's near perfect. The only issue is that sometimes when I load the game it doesn't recognize my controller, but this is fixed by restarting the game.
Lightmatter
This is a first-person puzzler reminiscent of Portal or The Talos Principle, though thus far it doesn't rise to the same heights as either of those. The game is essentially "the floor is lava" where "floor" is "darkness". You place lamps to light areas that you can then traverse safely, trying to get to the exit of each area. The game has a great aesthetic to it and looks gorgeous, and its puzzles have been good so far. Don't know if it's going to overstay its welcome or not, but we'll see.
Also, this one runs perfectly through regular Proton.
Oh man, it's a bummer LightMatter isn't available to the Mac. I'd love to play it. It looks really interesting.
I found that Lightmatter was short enough to not outstay its welcome, but it was close.
I've been playing Star Citizen again with some old online buddies. Despite the crashes, bugs, and seemingly random server performance that is always common after a big patch drop, we've been having a pretty good time.
I just noticed that the 3rd and final installment of Meridian 157 is out, so I downloaded it and am playing through it. It's a point and click adventure similar in gameplay to something like Myst or other adventure games from that era. The premise is that your character, a meteorological researcher, spots an odd anomaly off the coast of Alaska and goes to investigate. He arrives on an island and finds a deserted research facility from the 1990s where he discovers various experiments had taken place. Overall a fun story and decent game if you like the genre.
I've been surprisingly hooked on Pokémon Unite. I enjoy a good MOBA anyway, but didn't expect to appreciate this one as much as others. There are some blatant cash-generation features in the game (there are like 5 different currencies), and from what I can tell spending money can actually give you advantages over players that don't, which is a disappointment.
That said, the gameplay is fun, and I like the loop of grinding wild Pokémon to get points which you then score, it's just different enough from others to be a refreshing change to the formula. I have now hit the problem which I do with all MOBAs though: I've gotten really good with one Pokémon and am truly screwed if someone picks it before me
Just dropped Drakengard, one of the worst games I've ever played. Yikes.
A week ago or so I also dropped Bravely Default after being rather bored by it.
Yeah, those were some missers. I'll be looking for something new now, but I'll be more thorough instead of just playing whatever.
Drakengard is a game you play for story, because that gameplay is just absolutely horrible. You can see that they had some high hopes about their gameplay design, but the actual result was terrible. Way too many generic enemies, and you defeat them all with the same generic combo move.
Drakengard 2 is supposed to have much better gameplay, but I didn't play it because my experience with the first game was so bad. Then they made Drackengard 3 right after making Nier, and I was so excited but the gameplay there was, once again, terrible. And it's a shame because, once again, the story and presentation is so nice!
Yeah, the thing is just that whatever Drakengard stands for rubs me all the wrong ways, so not much remains.