What are you playing?

[MMaRsu]

Im thinking about buying Witcher 3 goty on Steam..its only 20 bucks..so that's like 10 for the main game and 10 for the expacks

[HardcoreRetro]

Tasty Meat selling me on this barebones looking platformer. Is it harder than 1001 Spikes?

[Tasty]

Tasty Meat selling me on this barebones looking platformer. Is it harder than 1001 Spikes?

Both probably top out at a similar difficulty but Super Challenge literally doesn't have a difficulty curve - it's a straight line. Right off the bat. 1001 Spikes looks like it starts off quite a bit easier before ramping up.

Up to 32/45 water sprites. The end is in sight.

[agrajag]

Started up Hollow Knight. Game is pretty, but at what point does it get interesting?

[Tasty]

I... I think I'm done with Mutant Mudds forever. Few other games have caused me to question my will to live like this one has. And I think I'm done with Atooie for a while too. There's a thick line between challenging and spirit-shattering and Super Challenge is so far on the latter side it's laughable (in a maudlin sort of way.)

I beat it because I dared myself to but I'd really only recommend this game to masochists. If you think platformers today are too easy, by all means check out Super Challenge. Guaranteed Nintendo thumb in the first level.

Let me know when you're on my level demi, lol.

[Bebpo]

Booted up Just Cause 3 because the JC4 trailer got me in the mood. I had cleared like half of the first island the couple days I played and did the other half tonight. Just have the story command base mission to clear part 1.

Not sure why I kept playing this. There’s like a billion settlements/bases to liberate and it’s all the same goddamn thing over and over again. Go in with a plane and take out as much as you can, mop up the rest with RPGs and grenades, keep moving so you don’t die and replenish ammo at weapon spots. Hit the button so your allies can come in, repeat x 300. Like the game kinda sucks and I swear I did this all in JC2. I don’t know why I kept playing. I think to give it a fair shake I’m gonna play the story missions and beat the first general to finish this section and then I’ll call it a day and delete it.

The sad thing is that instead of making hundreds of repeat settlements (and forcing it to advance the story missions), it’d be better if they tried to make more unique missions for each base/city. Like playing AC Syndicate at the same time, AC is repetitive as hell but JC is a whole different level. At least with AC there’s like 6 activities to take over a “base” area and that gives it a little variety. If JC could do the same for the settlements it’d be so much better.

[CatsCatsCats]

I’m playing the shit out of Tower of Guns it’s a silly little rogue like fps strafe fest with a large interesting variety of power ups, perks, items, weapons, weapon mods, etc etc. It’s got a bunch of stupid randomized stories (that can be turned off) as well. I would never have even tried it without game pass, I’m really enjoying trying some of the deeper cuts on there. Kinda wish I could just get high all day and play it instead of go to work rn.

[chronovore]

I’m playing the shit out of Tower of Guns it’s a silly little rogue like fps strafe fest with a large interesting variety of power ups, perks, items, weapons, weapon mods, etc etc. It’s got a bunch of stupid randomized stories (that can be turned off) as well. I would never have even tried it without game pass, I’m really enjoying trying some of the deeper cuts on there. Kinda wish I could just get high all day and play it instead of go to work rn.

I grabbed that back when it was PC only. It was one of few games my beat-ass PC would play. It's pretty cool.

[Bebpo]

Man, it's amazing how glitchy these Assassin's Creed games are these days. Played like 90 mins in AC Syndicate and had 2 points where I had to hard reset to get out:

-One time where suddenly when driving a horse cart all controls stopped and it just kept going and going forever and couldn't get out
-One time where mid-story mission I was supposed to jump from one train to another and somehow I jumped through the train and got stuck inside it's wall and none of the controls would respond

This is besides the smaller glitches where the game teleported me around on a fast travel and I ended up nowhere near where I was supposed to be, and one time where a horse carriage I was after suddenly took off at Nitro speed flying through everyone before stopping like 100 feet away.

And that's just in like 90 mins of playing. I can't remember any AC game being anywhere near this constantly running into major glitches. Maybe they need more time in the oven...

[tiesto]

Started playing Doki Doki Literature Club after recommendations from a few of my friends. Just got to the day of the school festival...  no spoilers pls.

[HardcoreRetro]

Playing Uncharted Lost Legacy. They actually put gameplay in their game this time around.

Edit: Bebpo don't complain about the glitches, they're my favourite part. Try holding an enemy and try to take it down a ledge. The game doesn't understand how to do it and launches you like 20 meters in the air.

[Bebpo]

Playing Uncharted Lost Legacy. They actually put gameplay in their game this time around.

Edit: Bebpo don't complain about the glitches, they're my favourite part. Try holding an enemy and try to take it down a ledge. The game doesn't understand how to do it and launches you like 20 meters in the air.

Well it's fun until like tonight my game just randomly crashed at one point and when I reloaded it all the sound was gone :\ This is definitely the glitchist AC in 1-Syndicate. Complain about performances issues all you want on Unity, at least it wasn't crashing all the time on PC.

[Tasty]

Bloodstained, brehs

[Kara]

For some reason Borys and I are playing the same old game at the same time, independent of one another.

When you come back to Prague (and until you go to Switzerland) Deus Ex 4 reminds me a lot of Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines.

[Nintex]

Oh man, the bank is one of the if not the best Deus Ex environments ever.
Prague is extremely dense behind the surface. Kinda weird though that if you just play through the main story you'll see about 20% of it, at best.

[toku]

I couldn't get into MD. Put about 12? hrs in and it just never grabbed me like HR did.

[Nintex]

I couldn't get into MD. Put about 12? hrs in and it just never grabbed me like HR did.

The game starts right after HR which did more world building.
So the idea is basically that you play the first game (for the world building/introductions) and then move on to the second game to dive deeper into the conspiracy.
These days sequels are usually just 'stand alone' new entries, while in MD there is a lot of continuation.

Also fuck the gaming press forever for pooping on this game because it was too 'similar'. Fuck em. 

[MMaRsu]

Mankind Divided was pretty boring imo. Really not as good as the one that came before it.

I started replaying TW3

[chronovore]

I’ve gone back to Just Cause 2.

There are too many settlements. The game is a collectathon, and now that I’ve seen beyond the veil, I may not finish it. 

[Great Rumbler]

One of the main story missions eventually takes you to the Palisade Bank, so you don't need to go there yet.

[Kara]

Palisade Bank looks to be a new-age Thief 2 bank which was the best level in that game.

Nah, but it's still pretty cool.

It's a nice thematic foil to the streets and the zone you go to after Prague too because it's policed and secured in a way that those zones aren't. A blunt (but effective) way of establishing the real world / cyberpunk world divide.

[HardcoreRetro]

I can't believe Detroit Become Human has like an 8 on metacritic. Game is godawful garbage.

I thought the stuff like putting the androids in the back of the bus was bad enough.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then he has one of the final chapters be a literal Holocaust chapter, with the androids being forced to undress themself and get rid of their holographic skin and hair. The chapter then ends with your robot being put in the "shower".

[close]

And some people still claim this is pushing the format forward... A game with about the same level of nuance as a movie called Extreme Ass-fisting 5.

[MMaRsu]

You're not done with Prague until Prague is done with you Borys

[Kara]

You're not done with Prague until Prague is done with you Borys

The second return.

[toku]

[tiesto]

Beat Pokemon Yellow and got Mewtoo.. my first time playing a traditional Pokemon game... Also did a bit of Outrun 2 playing to test out my OSSC/Xbox SCART cables.

[Kara]

Finished Deus Ex 4. Fired up my Deus Ex 2 save and remembered that I was stuck. OH WELL.

[Rufus]

That game blows, anyway.

[Corporal]

Dipping my toes into Paladins. Overwatch left me completely cold, but now this one is on Nintendo^TM Switch^TM, so it must be the most goodest on this planet. If not even better.

I'm actually having fun though.

Small niggle: I'm getting owned quite terribly in the vanilla loadout, and the leaderboard loadout import mechanism doesn't work so I have to rely on my three-and-a-half Switch friends or whoever I battle against to check out some combinations, which is kinda annoying. I'm not far along to actually make an informed decision, and I'm not gonna sit my ass down and learn shit before playing, because that's work.

Also, getting matchmade against someone at twice my level is kinda painful. Not like the level is relevant though, I just suck. All these curbstompings after getting out of the bots-only tutorial area. Ow. Right in the kisser. Fuck you, game. Treat your nubs more carefully.

Getting better tho. Slooooooooowly. Can't rush an old man.

[Bebpo]

At the final boss assassination mission in Assassin's Creed Syndicate at around 33 hours in having done all the sidequests and cleared all the map sections. At the end of the day there's definitely a lot to like about the game, not much to love about the game, and most of the stuff to hate about the game is lack of polish (glitches, crashes, glitches, crashes) and a few crappy mission designs. It's popcorn AC, and if I didn't have so many crashes to desktop and game breaking glitches to damage my playthrough experience (aka if the game just had some more time in the oven to polish), it'd be a good game even if it's not doing anything amazing. I also appreciate that it's not super long at <35 hours for basically everything outside collectibles which is closer to the older games that were 20-30 hours and not ACIV's 50 hour+ and Unity's 100 hour+. I think I'd rank the AC games AC2 > AC:B > AC4: Black Flag > AC Syndicate >>>>>>>>>> everything else is mediocre to bad and not worth playing*

*having not played Rogue or Origins so those are excluded.

I feel like I'm coming out of Syndicate knowing a hell of a lot more about the city of London, a place I didn't know much about since I've never been. Was like taking a 30 hour London City class. It's nice driving around and seeing the sights and definitely makes me want to visit. The MC characters are pretty lively and carriage vehicles for getting around is actually pretty nice especially since there's no penalty for running people down on the street, even right in front of cops, whoops. Grappling hook has its uses, but it's not all that fast for moving around, so prefer the carriages for improvements. Carriage fights were kinda fun too and they controlled pretty well. The gang stuff worked alright and it was nice to be able to call a carriage of your own thugs at any time to get a ride and have a team to back you up.

The story was ok considering the entire story is just "hey there's this templar grand master and his henchmen running the town, go kill each them the henchmen and then the grand master. the end". I kinda think the single sprawling city 1:1 authentic ratio experiment of Unity (Paris) and Syndicate (London) was an interesting idea, but it just doesn't lead to allowing a particularly interesting storyline so the whole thing has to take place in one city. At least it was better than Unity which had a pretty awful story and main characters. The gameplay is also a lot more fun here with all the quality of life improvements. Paris just wins for being a more interesting city and having a more graphically impressive tech engine that they scaled back for Syndicate to make it run better.

Oh and speaking of graphics, the day and night, weather effects were pretty nice in London. Driving a carriage around foggy London is quite atmospheric. Definitely planning on picking up the Jack the Ripper DLC expansion during the summer steam sale for cheap and playing that after I finish the main game.

[Nintex]

I've been playing Age of Empires II maybe I already posted about it but I can't remember.

Anyways I suck at RTS but I keep playing because it's compelling enough.

But also, I can select Japanese as a civilization.

And units talk Japanese. So I'm like oh cool. The weeb in me can't resist playing that.

But also, you can create samurai units. And their voices are badass as fuck.

Eventually I can create an entire fucking ARMY of SAMURAI WARRIORS. IT'S JUST LIKE IN ONE OF MY ANIMES. (Image removed from quote.)

I've wrote an extensive guide for you on one of the previous pages to teach you about formations and pincer movements so you can wreck your enemies and build a 1000 year lasting empire.

[MMaRsu]

Is that one of those child detention camps in the US I've been reading about?

[Nintex]

Is that one of those child detention camps in the US I've been reading about?

No that's a playground.

[Svejk]

Wow @ Golem City.

Making me want to play through it again.  I started a 2nd playthrough earlier this year, but stopped after finding out the DLC was stand alone, so I played the DLC instead.  (Which I'd highly recommend) 

Plus, the OST has grown on me a lot over the past 2 years.  So fucking good. 
The drone, pulsi-ness of this track...  chillbumps


So ready for another installment!

[Bebpo]

Oh, so I finished AC Syndicate. Nothing new to say besides the last mission was pretty neat in that you switched back and forth between the two MCs as the mission story played out in a mission impossible kinda thing.

For instance there's a part where the female MC is dancing with the antagonist and he points up at the roof to show the snipers he's setup there to shoot her when the song ends
Then you switch to the male MC and run up and kill all the snipers and then
it switches back to female MC's dance and this time she looks up at the roof and sees the male MC wave to her that it's clear

I wish there had been more of that throughout the game because that's fun and creative. Given the brother/sister MC direction of the game, instead of alternating story missions it would've been cool if the main story was team missions with the two of them working together. Kinda like Uncharted I guess with Drake's buddies.

Otherwise, the last boss fight was dumb and the post-game missions with the queen were alright. Not much else to say until I play the expansion DLC.

Oh, actually it's worth noting that the game tries to pull a Hitman with the main assassinations and give similar opportunities that Hitman 2016 did which are optional targets that open up new scripting to allow for unique kills. It's a nice idea but it's soooooooo minimal effort (like 1 unique kill per major assassination, 1 opportunity to sneak in, etc...) and especially coming from Hitman feels like baby's first Hitman. Wouldn't mind them taking that concept further with more depth for the main assassinations.

So I'm guessing in Origins everything interesting about Syndicate is dropped completely instead of expanded and maybe the Rome game will bring some of it back since it's the Syndicate team?

[Borealis]

So I'm guessing in Origins everything interesting about Syndicate is dropped completely instead of expanded and maybe the Rome game will bring some of it back since it's the Syndicate team?

Finished Origins recently, I would argue very much so. Origins' reworks are kinda hit and miss, happy to expand on that but won't mind waiting on your thoughts first. Syndicate team's work on Odyssey is pretty much a continuation of Origins' mechanics with increased RPG features and tweaks.

[Corporal]

Currently playing a Turn Based Strategy game, Into The Breach. It was/is on sale on gog and I've always wanted to try it. It's from the guys that made FTL, a game I cherish dearly.

The tiny map size, strongly constrained team (only three units under your control), limited undo capabilities/early commitment, constantly spawning insectoid enemies and comparatively huge amount of vulnerable tiles you have to defend from attack make for tremendous tactical conundrums. Jeez, no matter what you do, the damn bugs always get a strike in. 

Also already (permanently?) lost the artillery pilot, dammit. Nobody told me even time travel wouldn't bring them back. Now I'm hesitant to even attempt more runs.

And I've unlocked the second mech manufacturer. Man, pooping out DoT dust clouds all over the map is such a weird combat concept for a skyscraper sized mech. Especially given how they seem to be affected by them as well?

But I got until the second phase of the final fight on my third-ever try (made a beeline towards the final fight as soon as I unlocked it by clearing the second island because I was rapidly running out of energy). Proud moment, that. And wouldn't you know it, just as the thingy was set to explode, on the very last turn, I maneuvered myself into a checkmate where I could only lose my last energy pylon. An appropriately sad end to an intense fight.

I am having an appropriate amount of fun, but given my ineptitude at these kinda games the difficulty on normal seems kinda too easy. I mean, I freaking got to the final fight on my third attempt. This me, who for all intents and purposes is a bloody troglodyte whose tactical prowess is at the levels that a toddler would be able to best. That's not how FTL worked, at least from my memory. Been a while though, maybe I'm misremembering. Not that I'm complaining though. It's nice getting tantallizingly close to the end(?) even despite major suckage.

Given my terrible compatibility with the genre, I doubt I'll finish this any time soon - as much as an endlessly repeating randomized game can be beat, at that. However, it sure is pleasing to pop up for a quick battle or two. I'll keep this around and nibble at it from time to time. Gotta train those thinking muscles.


Dufus, as you are shit at RTS just like me, maybe give this or other TBS a try. With more time to consider every move, it's less confusing and punishing.


...I also bought the KKND games. Another TBS (but with an optional RTS compatible mode), this time from the last DOS/early Win95 days. I really enjoyed them back in the day. Is it masochism, or am I striving to better myself? ... I'm probably just insane and have too many fun moneys.

[demi]

I started up Lost Dimension on Vita



It's a strategy-RPG type game where you take turns, with movement not unlike a game like Valkyria Chronicles, where positioning matters

If your allies are within attacking distance, they will follow-up your attack (so you can pull off a nice chain on boss-like enemies).

Between battles, you get to play a little guessing game on figuring out who the traitor is between floors. On each floor, there are 3 suspects, with one of them being the actual traitor. After each battle, your character can hear your teammate's thoughts. From here, you have to replay missions, and swap out characters until you can decide who the 3 suspects are (kind of like the game "Mastermind"). You then deep dive using limited points and it will straight up tell you if that person is the traitor or not.

When you figure out who the traitor is, you have to sway the vote by making the other characters suspect them. Between fights, random people (sometimes the traitor themself) will ask "hey dude, i think this guy is the traitor." or "who do you think the traitor is?" and you can sway their vote. If you tell the person asking you think its them, they will straight up say "fuck you dude, im voting your ass off" and you can sway their votes off someone else onto you. You can also decrease their trust by leaving the traitor out of missions (the best approach usually).

After a few story missions, you do the voting bit. You can cheese this by using PS+ to back up your save prior in case you fuck up since the game saves automatically to prevent loading the game back.

The big deal with all this is, at the end of the game, any traitors you didnt kill successfully will betray you right before the final battle and you will have to fight them.

There is a True Ending with this game, where you have to raise trust with all characters, but the thing is, the next playthrough on your game, the traitors will be randomized, so that one person who you need to build trust with might just turn out to be a traitor.

The game is not exactly difficult, you can grind and replay missions, and some moves are stupid broken.

This game is available on PC and PS3 as well.

[Bebpo]

Fired up AC Unity: Dead Kings to see how it holds up after Syndicate. Never played the Dead Kings expansion. Played a couple hours and it feels generations apart from Syndicate. Unity is just...not very fun to play. I mean the animations are gorgeousssssss, and the lighting is great and the cutscene models are insane, and I do like that it had riddle missions which Syndicate lacked. But like why is there a cover button wtfffff, why do guards see you from a mile away and instantly engage you with everyone on the block? Why is eagle vision on a timed cooldown wtfff? The game just feels like a pain in the ass to play, like you're super nerfed and guards are supermen. Also coming from Syndicate's carriages and grappling hook, running/climbing the long distances from point to point feels pretty tedious in this 1:1 scale.

I might finish Dead Kings since I'm like halfway already, but yeah Syndicate is a way better and more fun game no question going back to Unity.

[agrajag]

Started up Hollow Knight. Game is pretty, but at what point does it get interesting?

HK is the best Metroidvania in existence, yes better than Super Metroid and Castlevania: SOTN. Also better than Guacamelee etc. etc.

If you do not find it interesting in the first 5 hours (or at least until you beat the Hornet boss) then the game is simply not for you?

ALL OF THE GAME is boring-ass Greens/ Shrubs/ Insects <-- this is the only low point of this game. Everything is super-samey and everything is INSECT based, which I loathed. Still, best MV ever. Can't deny this fact. Bloodborne is also ALL GREY CASTLES after all.

Best music piece in the entire game:

Well, the game clicked with me (probably an hour or so into it), it's great! Also, at the time I made the original post, there was no music, only ambient sounds, in my defense.

[Corporal]

Boy, do I ever suck at Mario Tennis. There's this ship pretty early on in the game and you play tennis on it and the friggen mast is smack dab in the middle of the net - and the ball can ricochet off it. Damn it, those ricochets just kill my score.

And that's despite there being two separate mechanics to deal with such irregularities (slow-mo and the trick shot).

I think I need to internalise the controls some more. Wish I could tweak the controls, actually.

Currently I'm still pretty much powerless against those power shot thingamabops that destroy your racket. I just can't get the timing right without wasting huge amounts of energy on the slowmo thing. Plus, I trigger the trick shot by accident far too often. 

Still having fun. Whenever I get fed up with Tennis, it's Into The Breach time. Good change of pace. Obligatory: Wah wah wah, why isn't this on switch.

[Spieler1]

Need for Speed Rivals - Playing cop is cool, fleeing not so much. I like the weighty Criterion gameplay, although I'm not sure what to think of the open world. I guess I can see the appeal of a sandbox in which you just rank up by doing whatever. But I probably prefer real missions, so I should've probably gotten the Hot Pursuit reboot for the cop gameplay.

[Tasty]

So demi, how's Mutant Mudds Super Challenge going?

[demi]

I havent played it yet

[Tasty]

I havent played it yet

[Nintex]

Finished Funky Kong Country Tropical Freeze today including the bonus world.

The main game is just so amazingly well paced. Easily one of the best platformers out there but the final boss is rather weak in execution.
It seems they were pressed for time to finish this game back in 2014 as the bonus world feels a bit tacked on and not as well executed as the rest of the levels.
The reward for essentially collecting all Kong letters, hidden stages, beating the K-stages and finishing the secret final world is also lackluster. The only thing you get is 'Hard mode'.

All in all I rate this criminally underrated gem a 9/10.

[agrajag]

Finished Funky Kong Country Tropical Freeze today including the bonus world.

The main game is just so amazingly well paced. Easily one of the best platformers out there but the final boss is rather weak in execution.
It seems they were pressed for time to finish this game back in 2014 as the bonus world feels a bit tacked on and not as well executed as the rest of the levels.
The reward for essentially collecting all Kong letters, hidden stages, beating the K-stages and finishing the secret final world is also lackluster. The only thing you get is 'Hard mode'.

All in all I rate this criminally underrated gem a 9/10.

I finished all the secret rooms/bonus world like a week ago. Not gonna lie, it was pretty challenging, but also very satisfying when you beat the K levels or the bonus world levels with just Donkey.

Hard mode is whatevs, I don't think I'll be replaying it on Hard, even though playing as Dixie or Diddy feels so much better and more fluid. I still have some issues with the controls and physics of the game, but overall it was great. Wish the final boss had a little more oomph an there was more of an ending like the Rare DKC games. In liu of an instruction booklet like in the old games, I wish they had included more of a story and a game mechanics and enemies overview in the game itself. Overall, I also give it a 9.


Hollow Knight is hard as hell. Not sure how long I've been playing/how many times I've died but I just got the dashing cloak. Not sure where to go now, I guess I'll try to see what areas I couldn't reach before.

[Nintex]

Haven't gotten Hollow Knight yet but it seems like something a Metroid/Castlevania fan like me would enjoy.

Finished Funky Kong Country Tropical Freeze today including the bonus world.

The main game is just so amazingly well paced. Easily one of the best platformers out there but the final boss is rather weak in execution.
It seems they were pressed for time to finish this game back in 2014 as the bonus world feels a bit tacked on and not as well executed as the rest of the levels.
The reward for essentially collecting all Kong letters, hidden stages, beating the K-stages and finishing the secret final world is also lackluster. The only thing you get is 'Hard mode'.

All in all I rate this criminally underrated gem a 9/10.

I finished all the secret rooms/bonus world like a week ago. Not gonna lie, it was pretty challenging, but also very satisfying when you beat the K levels or the bonus world levels with just Donkey.

Hard mode is whatevs, I don't think I'll be replaying it on Hard, even though playing as Dixie or Diddy feels so much better and more fluid. I still have some issues with the controls and physics of the game, but overall it was great. Wish the final boss had a little more oomph an there was more of an ending like the Rare DKC games. In liu of an instruction booklet like in the old games, I wish they had included more of a story and a game mechanics and enemies overview in the game itself. Overall, I also give it a 9.


Hollow Knight is hard as hell. Not sure how long I've been playing/how many times I've died but I just got the dashing cloak. Not sure where to go now, I guess I'll try to see what areas I couldn't reach before.

The K-levels are great but one of the Secret Seclusion levels is just broken. There doesn't seem to be much incentive to play hard mode and as you said the story is kinda weak in this game. I like how they sometimes put some story in the background like in the good old DKC SNES and Sonic Genesis games. The world building is and transitions between levels is great. Especially in the Savanah stage. There's a great sense of progression overall.

The final boss really feels tacked on like they didn't really know how to finish the game and the graphics on the map (the ship on top of a mountain and the flying ice dragon) unlike all other levels don't match the boss level itself. Which is just a sort of volcano dome.

[agrajag]

Exactly. I thought that was just a regular boss, and then I slowly came to realize that this is it, it's over. Like, who is that guy, doesn't even have a name.

Bring K. Rool back!

[demi]

I havent played it yet

Finished all of World 1 & 2 so far while taking my morning shit

Does it get difficult later? Or is this it

[Rufus]

I got a feeling I am getting close to the end.

Once you are finished, watch this:

[agrajag]

Hollow Knight is hard as hell. Not sure how long I've been playing/how many times I've died but I just got the dashing cloak. Not sure where to go now, I guess I'll try to see what areas I couldn't reach before.

It's not super hard but it gets hard in some moments. Keep it up! Game is great and at the end you kind of feel like a boss moving around and killing everything in 1 hit.

Yeah, I noticed that. They fine tuned the game for you to constantly get better. A lot of depth to it. And you were right, the music is lovely!

[Spieler1]

Shadow Dancer - I can get behind this, a streamlined and much less frustrating Shinobi 1 with a much better style (and no weird trademark theft). It's no Shinobi 3, but still easily the next best in that series for me - especially since I couldn't ever get into Revenge of Shinobi.

Lara Croft Go - super chill, this is the first mobile game I really like (at least so far - though I'm not playing on a phone).

[Bebpo]

So I beat AC Unity: Dead Kings expansion and I don't know if I was just missing something on how stealth works in Unity since I hadn't played it in years, but I fucking hated this. The stealth just felt completely busted with the cover button because without it you're just standing out and obvious. Dudes see you from miles away and go to instant alert with the entire area in about 1/2 second (compared to taking a couple seconds to alert in Syndicate). The result was that I ran through this expansion almost constantly in the red alert being surrounded by 50 dudes because of the new RAIDER system where there's a dozen guys everywhere but if you kill the leader the rest leave. They also introduce this mortar gun but whenever I'd shoot a mortar at a group to sneak attack them it wouldn't even do enough damage to kill them and so it just alerts them and they all run at me and I have to fight them.

There were so many guys in this expansion.

Coming from Syndicate where I was able to stealth most of it and just occasionally fight, and even in fighting the combat was ok and not an annoyance, here it was like the complete opposite, felt like fuck stealth, this is a combat game and the combat was extremely tedious and shitty in Unity.

Also some real shitty level design like long ass tailing missions with no checkpoints. Plus lots of crashes.

Oh and I hate the whole maze underground shit that is in this and Unity (and AC3). Especially when they make the only entrances to the underground in guarded areas with respawning guards so since half the missions take place underground you have to keep running through the guarded areas alerting everyone just to get underground to start the mission. Just shitty game design all around.

Dead Kings, and the reminder of Unity that it was, makes me a lot less excited to play Origins since I understand it's essentially the Unity team with Syndicate team following up a year later with Odyssey (and then another year gap -> Unity team game -> Syndicate team game that's a copy of it).

Is there a lot of combat in Origins and does the combat suck?

[Corporal]

I'm probably done with Into The Breach now, at least for a good while.

Beat the game with the flamer guys on normal, unlocked all teams except the two most expensive ones, and found a good chunk of the pilots. Even the FTL one.

Fun game and all, but I really can't shake the feeling that its's too easy on "normal".

[Rufus]

Was in a platforming mood last week and the first thing I thought of was Spyro The Dragon. I had only ever played the demo when it was current. Finished it this evening.

Hit the spot just right:


Very even difficulty curve (practically flat), except for one dragon statue in a forest level which eventually sent me to Youtube.
https://youtu.be/tvW7_BUOZX8?t=332
A common stumbling block, as it turns out, which made me feel much better about myself. The low draw distance makes it difficult to conceptualize the space and this is the most elaborate use of the charge mechanic in the entire game, soon after it's first introduced. Good level, in retrospect, but it's too early in the progression.

The Dualshock was only a couple months old when this came out, which is probably why they didn't use the right stick for the camera controls, opting for L2 and R2 instead. They must have thought that players would prefer to rest their thumb on the face buttons at all times.

No HUD whatsoever. Insomniac was way ahead of this trend. Your health indicator is a dragon fly buzzing about your head.
You feed it the souls of lesser creatures so that it can continue to die in your stead.

The soundtrack is too.

[Svejk]

On that damn Warframe train again.  When the mood strikes,  it hits hard and I can't think of any games other than it.

[benjipwns]

The soundtrack is too.

Stewart Copeland did it. He'd play a level, then write the theme for it.

Insomniac apparently didn't know for quite a while what it sounded like. And they thought it was perfect, but Sony was leery about it.

[benjipwns]

[benjipwns]