What are you playing?

[chronovore]

TORCHLIGHT is on the verge of overstaying its welcome. I'm only playing on Normal, so maybe I'm missing something, but I always felt on the verge of my seat in Diablo 1 and 2. I've got only one more boss to go and then I've cleared the story.

…hold the phone. Just as I wrote this, I'm on the hell level, and suddenly everything is able to hit me after I've been walking through every other level. May need to re-evaluate the difficulty.

[agrajag]

Yeah Wrath, I just fell in love with the world of HK, the atmosphere, the lore, the attention to details. Apparently there is a type of bug called Menderbug that repairs all the signposts that you break, but it is very rare and he hasn't spawned for me yet. After my post last night I got the Hunter achievement, and I almost got the flower quest. So today I think I'll finish the flower quest and do the second ending just to see it and see what my completion percentage is at.

Freyj, for the Colosseum's third challenge what helped me a lot was the shaman stone to quickly wipe out the flying enemies that spit projectiles. Some people swear by the dreamshield, but I never use that charm at all. The toughest part is the end where you are jumping off walls and you have to fight off a shitload of battle obbles that shoot projectiles everywhere. That's where the vengeful spririt spell with the shaman stone equipped becomes essential.

[Freyj]

Pogoing on Switch is hell 

[agrajag]

I got pretty good at pogoing but didn't really use it in the colloseum. Pogoing doesn't seem very effective when there are projectiles coming from every direction. Sharp shadow is really good, but like i said in the third challenge I'd much rather have the shaman stone.

[I'm a Puppy!]

So I settled to move away from 16 bit for a bit and started Wizardry 8 I've never played this installment. I wonder if I should play 7 first so I can import those characters. But I do have a huge backlog and I already know Wizardry will likely take me 50-60 hours by the time I'm done Dragon Quest XI will likely be out, no way I can get through 7 AND 8 in that time.

Great pick!

Wiz8 is about 50 hours long, hard fights in the late game mind you.

If you can play Wiz7 first - doeeeeeet.gif, it is a bit better. On the other hand because it is so good you can play it after Wiz8 as well They are both fantastic RPGs! Can't go wrong with any of them. Wiz7 is much harder than Wiz8, though.

Surprise, surprise!!! There is also Wiz9 on the market... you didn't know, huh? It's called Wizards & Warriors however. GREAT GAME and a 100% spiritual Wizardry game! Recommended!

Yeah, I'm "too" far in Wiz 8 to start 7. I'm about to leave the monastery, yeah it's only the first few hours, but I've got enough momentum to not want to stop now.


The last one I played was the Wizardry Renaisance on the PS3 which was fine enough (but that felt a step backwards from the PS2 Wizardry Tale of the Forsaken Land).
I didn't know about Wizards and Warriors. Imma go look that up right now.
Is it like Wiz 8/Tales of the Forsaken land or more like the Wizardry Renaissance? I'm assuming you're not talking about the NES series right?

[tiesto]

Spent all weekend at a local retro expo but tbh I didn't play too much, was mostly busy with volunteering and seeing panels. Played some Zenki FX there, which is easily the best PC-FX game with some amazing 2D spritework. And also a bit of Jaguar CD, which was a first for me. Vid Grid, some weird slider puzzle game but with 90s alt rock/metal music videos instead of still pictures, and Battlemorph the sequel to Cybermorph, featuring super touchy controls, terrible popup, and poor hit detection. What a terrible console.

Sega CD > Marty > 3DO > PC-FX > 32x > Jaguar > LaserActive > CDi > Jaguar CD

[I'm a Puppy!]

So I settled to move away from 16 bit for a bit and started Wizardry 8 I've never played this installment. I wonder if I should play 7 first so I can import those characters. But I do have a huge backlog and I already know Wizardry will likely take me 50-60 hours by the time I'm done Dragon Quest XI will likely be out, no way I can get through 7 AND 8 in that time.

Great pick!

Wiz8 is about 50 hours long, hard fights in the late game mind you.

If you can play Wiz7 first - doeeeeeet.gif, it is a bit better. On the other hand because it is so good you can play it after Wiz8 as well They are both fantastic RPGs! Can't go wrong with any of them. Wiz7 is much harder than Wiz8, though.

Surprise, surprise!!! There is also Wiz9 on the market... you didn't know, huh? It's called Wizards & Warriors however. GREAT GAME and a 100% spiritual Wizardry game! Recommended!

Yeah, I'm "too" far in Wiz 8 to start 7. I'm about to leave the monastery, yeah it's only the first few hours, but I've got enough momentum to not want to stop now.

The last one I played was the Wizardry Renaisance on the PS3 which was fine enough (but that felt a step backwards from the PS2 Wizardry Tale of the Forsaken Land).
I didn't know about Wizards and Warriors. Imma go look that up right now.
Is it like Wiz 8/Tales of the Forsaken land or more like the Wizardry Renaissance? I'm assuming you're not talking about the NES series right?

Wiz&War is literally Wizardry 9. It's made by the same dude who left SirTech IIRC and who created Wizardry 5, 6, 7. Dawid Bradley. I am obviously not talking about the NES game Wiz&War

I also like the JWiz series (the PS3 game was dope as hell) but it's more of a strict dungeon crawler with zero story and some uber RNG encounters from hell.

Wish the dude had named it something a little more distinct. Makes finding info about it a huge pain.

[Beezy]

Hyrule Warriors for the Switch is my first Musou game (not counting Attack on Titan) and I'm loving every minute of it. I'm sure me being a lifelong Zelda fan helps a bit too.

[kingv]

I played through it and liked it well enough... but actually started Fire emblem warriors today and imo it’s a much better game even though the story is shit even by fire emblem standards.

[demi]

Hyrule Warriors for the Switch is my first Musou game (not counting Attack on Titan) and I'm loving every minute of it. I'm sure me being a lifelong Zelda fan helps a bit too.

Play Dragon Quest Heroes its good too (think its JP only for Switch). Fire Emblem Warriors is dogshit.

[Fifstar]

Beat the Mantis Lords in HK 27 hours in the game. Didn't find them before. With my upgrades the fight wasn't that hard. Must be tough if that's the third boss you fight. Interesting charm at least. Otherwise I think I am 75 % done with the main content. 2 dreamers are down, probably finish the third tonight.

Overall a fantastic game, might prefer it to Botw as far as switch games go. I thought the first 10 hours were good, but after it opens up it's on another level.

Also, at least the main game has a false reputation for being overly hard or punishing. Loosing geo isn't any problem after the opening hours. And save for one boss fight I never thought the way from the save point to the boss fight was long or annoying. Only thing that kinda sucks is spike bouncing, but I think that partly due to the joycons. Neither the sticks nor the the dpad are good for quick downward presses.

[studyguy]

Smashing my giant stone dick on helpless monsters in MHW.
It's pretty good, connection issues are fucking ass though. 

[Nintex]

Did Nier just tell me

spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is only one solution to the conflict for 9S, which is to jump to his death?

[close]

[Fifstar]

OK, watcher knights are tough. Just died maybe 20 times and called it a day.

[kingv]

I have put it aside for those too.

[nachobro]

More WoW sorry, but damn Blizzard has really done well so far with working little cutscenes into the story and the questlines and have really made the game feel like a single player RPG with their storytelling for these beginning parts of the expansion







It almost has me wanting to make an alliance alt to see what their storyline is like

[Rufus]

Been going back to old GTA games again. Didn't think I would after finishing San Andreas, but here we are. I went back to GTA3 first and once I had adjusted to its age (draw distance is so fucking low) I got further than I ever had before. For once I played enough to unlock faux Manhattan, did some missions for the Yakuza - ...and lost interest again. Something about this game just doesn't grab me.
On to Vice City! This one I will actually finish. I don't know if it's just the theme or what, but I'm having much more fun with it. I'm now at the asset buying stage, which is a bit annoying until I found the helicopter on the villa. That also hammered home just how small VC actually is. The shorter travel distances resulting from this might actually be why I'm enjoying myself more. The inevitable mission retries are a lot less painful that way.

[Rufus]

Yeah, GTA3 was a big leap for Rockstar. But the game's just kind of soulless.

[MMaRsu]

Yeah, GTA3 was a big leap for Rockstar. But the game's just kind of soulless.

no way

[Rufus]

 

[benjipwns]

III took a lot of effort just to get working decent enough, it's got a lot of engine issues, then VC was polished which let them get ambitious with SA. You can see a similar under the hood transition with IV -> DLCs -> V.

A lot of III's weird vehicle/mission limitations are to hide that the engine can't stream effectively like it should and doesn't have enough LODs. IV does some similar stuff with mission design requiring you to do stuff in certain specific orders.

IIRC, you can land on every building in VC. You can't in III because many buildings don't have actual roofs modeled.

III also has the infamous bug that made a lot of their map design with hills and buildings to occlude areas ultimately irrelevant, because it draws stuff within a distance even if it's impossible to see.

The one benefit to III's messiness is that on the Xbox version and now that PC's have no issue with it, there's no LOD fade-in/pop like even games from the next gen have noticeable. SA has some places where it's pretty noticeable during certain times of day. Instead you get those nice thirty second load times when you drive over a bridge on PS2. (Or if you're using a PC circa 1999 or 2000 or so.)

[Rufus]

The load times on PC are instantaneous. You barely have enough time to register what loading screen picture you're even looking at.

There's a XBox to PC mod for 3 that is pretty neat.
https://gtaforums.com/topic/399016-iii-xbox-version-hd/

[benjipwns]

neat, The Power of The Xbox™ was able to give everyone hands instead of claws

[benjipwns]

wow, people are importing the original GTA maps/models into the SA engine: https://gtaforums.com/topic/829914-grand-theft-auto-renderware-edition/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-1070172241

[benjipwns]

https://gtaforums.com/topic/904506-city-of-chicago/

This mod ports the Driver 2 Chicago map to GTA San Andreas

sometimes i miss wasting time making goofy or clever mods for games

[Rufus]

Fucking racing missions...

[Shuri]

Mega Man 2 on the NES classic.

This might be my favorite Mega Man. Everything is just so smooth 

I played it to death back in the days, it was one of the first games I bought with my own money. Compared to other titles available at the time, it felt so colorful, the big sprites for enemies were really amazing at the time.. and DAT SOUNDTRACK. So catchy.

It was so great, It kinda ruined the rest of the franchise for me, the other franchise releases just felt 'off'. It's hard to explain. They never had the same impact on me and I always felt that the new robots had this bootleg feel to them. They simply weren't as iconic.

[chronovore]

Been going back to old GTA games again. Didn't think I would after finishing San Andreas, but here we are. I went back to GTA3 first and once I had adjusted to its age (draw distance is so fucking low) I got further than I ever had before. For once I played enough to unlock faux Manhattan, did some missions for the Yakuza - ...and lost interest again. Something about this game just doesn't grab me.
On to Vice City! This one I will actually finish. I don't know if it's just the theme or what, but I'm having much more fun with it. I'm now at the asset buying stage, which is a bit annoying until I found the helicopter on the villa. That also hammered home just how small VC actually is. The shorter travel distances resulting from this might actually be why I'm enjoying myself more. The inevitable mission retries are a lot less painful that way.

Rufus, are you playing VC or Vice City Stories? I thought property management was only in VCS.

[Rufus]

It's in Vice City, too.

The last one I bought (should have been the first) was the Malibu, which unlocks the heist (for some reason). The Printworks gates a story missions, too, as I've found out. Your old Mafia pals shake it down, then move onto your other assets.

I should have looked up which to buy, because now I own everything (?) despite only needing two or three to progress... Oh well.

[Svejk]

Downloaded DA: Inquisition again for the 3rd time...  Third times a charm?    Gonna give it one more try before I write it off for good.   I want to play through it so bad, but something always steered me off.   

[Rufus]

The mantra around launch was to "get out of the Hinterlands."

[Joe Molotov]

The Hinterlands is where the game Ubisofts you with sidequests and collectibles.

[Great Rumbler]

Downloaded DA: Inquisition again for the 3rd time...  Third times a charm?    Gonna give it one more try before I write it off for good.   I want to play through it so bad, but something always steered me off.   

Just play Witcher 3 instead.

[kingv]

The whole game is frankly not that good. Either 3 shits on it from amazing heights. As do a whole lot of other games.

[Svejk]

Downloaded DA: Inquisition again for the 3rd time...  Third times a charm?    Gonna give it one more try before I write it off for good.   I want to play through it so bad, but something always steered me off.   

Just play Witcher 3 instead.

You know, it crossed my mind to start NG+, but the way Blood & Wine ended after putting about 150+ hours into the game, was one of the greatest send-offs in my gaming memory.. 

I guess I'm trying to tie up some back log I never finished.  Of course playing W3 before playing DA:I initially may be the reason I'm had difficulty playing through it. lol

[Rufus]

Aaand finished Vice City. Didn't realise I was so close to the end. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Theme counts for a lot, as it turns out, even for a bouquet of gangster movie clishees.

Worst mission(s): "The Driver", which I complained about yesterday. Two dozen tries or so that took. /shakefist

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And then this fuck I arduously recruited dies during the heist! But OK; we raced so that I can drive the getaway car. Fair enough, Rockstar. But then the Pay'n'Spray is like 200m down the road from the bank!? And we're in a TAXI, wich looks IDENTICAL when it's resprayed!?

[close]

The last mission was also trying, but only because of the endlessly respawning mooks.
Thankfully I could switch to KBM. If I were stuck with a controller during this (or any of the shooting in this game, honestly), I would have broken at least one. I cannot imagine doing this with analogue sticks.

[benjipwns]

the one i always remember as annoying is pretty early where you are flying the remote control helicopter in the construction site

[Rufus]

Many moons ago that one made me quit an attempt at Vice City. This time I did it first try.

Actually, doing similar missions in San Andreas probably helped a lot.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Wizardy 8 continues to be so excellent. Sorta surprised. I thought after finding Baldur's Gate 1 to be sorta..."meh" I thought maybe CRPGs from around that time were not for me. But this is fantastic!

[kingv]

I think all of the earlier gtas were hampered by some uneven difficulty.

I really loved San Andreas... until I got to that mission where you have to scare some dude strapped to your car without killing him while cops are after you.

That one made me give up.

[porkbun]

That's one of the easiest missions in the game, just stay on the main "strip" road and drive on the opposite side.

The Driver is indeed one of the worst missions in any GTA game, because of the insane rubber band ability they give Hilary and the fact that one random car knocking into you basically fucks you over.  So many times I would almost win just to be hit by some schmuck in a Faggio and spin out.

[kingv]

Huh, I wished I’d known that in 2004.

[Cindi Mayweather]

Aaand finished Vice City. Didn't realise I was so close to the end. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Theme counts for a lot, as it turns out, even for a bouquet of gangster movie clishees.

Worst mission(s): "The Driver", which I complained about yesterday. Two dozen tries or so that took. /shakefist

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And then this fuck I arduously recruited dies during the heist! But OK; we raced so that I can drive the getaway car. Fair enough, Rockstar. But then the Pay'n'Spray is like 200m down the road from the bank!? And we're in a TAXI, wich looks IDENTICAL when it's resprayed!?

[close]

The last mission was also trying, but only because of the endlessly respawning mooks.
Thankfully I could switch to KBM. If I were stuck with a controller during this (or any of the shooting in this game, honestly), I would have broken at least one. I cannot imagine doing this with analogue sticks.

The Driver is awful.

[Great Rumbler]

Aaand finished Vice City. Didn't realise I was so close to the end. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Theme counts for a lot, as it turns out, even for a bouquet of gangster movie clishees.

Worst mission(s): "The Driver", which I complained about yesterday. Two dozen tries or so that took. /shakefist

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And then this fuck I arduously recruited dies during the heist! But OK; we raced so that I can drive the getaway car. Fair enough, Rockstar. But then the Pay'n'Spray is like 200m down the road from the bank!? And we're in a TAXI, wich looks IDENTICAL when it's resprayed!?

[close]

The last mission was also trying, but only because of the endlessly respawning mooks.
Thankfully I could switch to KBM. If I were stuck with a controller during this (or any of the shooting in this game, honestly), I would have broken at least one. I cannot imagine doing this with analogue sticks.

The Driver is awful.

But Driver was pretty good back in the day:

[agrajag]

I tried the Monster Hunter GENERATIONS ULTIMATE!!!! demo on Switch. Never played a MH game before. I don't get it.

[benjipwns]

But Driver was pretty good back in the day:

Driver does have some pretty pain in the ass "half a second error margin" missions too.

Also the last mission is just respawning cars to ram you over and over.

[benjipwns]

I tried the Monster Hunter GENERATIONS ULTIMATE!!!! demo on Switch. Never played a MH game before. I don't get it.

I've heard the PC version of Monster Hunter actually literally rapes children every time someone plays it, so I wouldn't even look at it. It's shameful that they even sell it on Steam and such.

[BisMarckie]

But Driver was pretty good back in the day:

(Image removed from quote.)

That tutorial mission in the parking garage


That's the only thing I remember about it though

[benjipwns]

I used my DexDrive to download a save for immediately after the parking garage.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Glad I'm not the only one that only remembers the garage and nothing else.

[Great Rumbler]

I probably spent more time driving around the Miami map and launching myself off those steep little bridges than I did actually doing missions.

[Rufus]

Reverse handbrake turn, bitches! Don't think I ever legit beat the game. The last mission was brutally difficult. Time sensitive, at night, raining, with insane police riding your ass.

Also: Survival mode. SF map. Watch the cops fly past you on the hills. Endless entertainment.

[Great Rumbler]

Reverse handbrake turn, bitches!

[Bebpo]

Didn't realize No Man's Sky was still $60 normally. Damn. Borys' posts have got me wanting to try it but will have to wait for next sale.

[Spieler1]

Getting to the end in Final Fantasy 12 Zodiacs. This had some annoying mechanics towards the end, in particular invisible traps all over the place that fuck you up constantly. You could see them with one character up until a certain point, but then that stopped and I didn't really see any skills to change that. I can now go to the last boss afaik, though the second to last boss I did was probably the hardest that was left in the main story. Took me one or two hours of trying all sorts of strategies, especially since I didn't want to backtrack through the final dungeon. Steamrolled through the bosses afterwards.

I'm not sure whether I'll do the high end game.

[Positive Touch]

you use libra to see the traps. it's an ability and it's also attached to some accessory you get a ton of early in the game. you can also cast float on everyone to avoid the traps.

no man's sky was going used for like under $10 earlier this year and I'm kicking myself for not grabbing it then.

[Spieler1]

The FF12 boss was kind of sick, since I was like 15 levels below him. That was the first time I had to go back to normal speed in the remaster (which at that point felt like superchill slowmotion) to do super finnicky manual menu work for over half an hour, so my party didn't automatically jump into their doom or waste any turns for redundancies.

e: pretty shit that you can solely start NG+ after the final boss without getting a menu option for it, plus then you have to get to the first checkpoint in the game to keep it for later.

[CatsCatsCats]

Game pass stuff mostly besides my regular Overwatch chores

Steredenn — pretty fun, almost killed the battleship a few runs

Doom — lol very entertaining

[Spieler1]

I was quite addicted after the underwhelming start with Vaan, but probably would've liked the og significantly less. Without 2x speed the maps would have been way too big (especially the dungeons that need backtracking) and the job system gives auto-battles enough substance. The world building and exploration was very good, though the ingame graphics were much better than the plastic-looking junk in CGI cutscenes. Thankfully there wasn't much of the latter. I liked the story except for Vaan (him being shoehorned into the climax was particularly striking/goofy), though it reminded me of Legacy of Kain, in which I liked listening to what's spoken while paying attention to the actual content was secondary.

[Positive Touch]

along with the 2x/4x speed the other huge improvement is auto saving. nothing sucked like dying an hour into searching a new area and having so start all the way the fuck over good lord.