What are you playing?

[MMaRsu]

No customizable cat sucks ass

[Let's Cyber]

Disco Elysium-The Final Cut, is unbelievable.

The setting is so well fleshed out and it really feels like a lived in place with real people. The massive lore dumps can be a bit much with certain characters and sometimes the game is too far up it's own ass but those are really the only negatives so far.  I'll probably do another playthrough right away.

Peak role-playing.

 

[Nintex]

Final Fantasy II: Pixel Remaster
It was too hot to turn on my PC yesterday so finished this bad boy on the deck.

The first 2 Final Fantasy games are both weird but this one has a more coherent story than the first.
Basically an empire tries to gain control of the land and you have to stop them and fight their various super weapons as well as do your own fetch quests.
Your party changes throughout the game, with the 4th party member being swapped out a couple of times.

It's very ambitious gameplay wise (especially for a Famicom game), all your stats level based on how much you use things.
So if you use your sword a lot, your sword levels. If you get hit a lot, your HP levels etc. . You can also equip two weapons instead of one which is kinda neat.
For magic this is more cumbersome. Each spell starts at level 1 and you have to cast many many spells to get late game spells to any usable level.

The encounter rate is insane, like every 2 - 5 steps a group of enemy attacks in the latter half of the game. The dungeons have lots of empty rooms, that might've been hella confusing on the Famicom back in the day. Thankfully the Remaster has a map.
I read they certainly did some QOL and balance fixes for this release as it mixes the Wonderswan and GBA versions. Still, nearly 99% of the enemies attack with status effects and often these are stacked.
So any given battle could start with your entire party being poisoned, turned to stone or paralyzed or both and just waiting for the monsters to spend 5 minutes grinding your HP down or flee.
Because of the high number of encounters, a big pile of cash and a few very powerful weapons you completely level out of any challenge eventually.

Overall my feelings are mixed about this game, it's neat to see how some of these ideas were attempted on the Famicom but overall it's a bit messy.

[Polident Hive]

Anybody have a take on the Ghost of Tsushima DLC? Finished the main game early last year. PS5 definitive edition is on ps gamepass. Worth downloading 60GB for it? Or is it some two hour side quest?

[Svejk]

Anybody have a take on the Ghost of Tsushima DLC? Finished the main game early last year. PS5 definitive edition is on ps gamepass. Worth downloading 60GB for it? Or is it some two hour side quest?

I found it to be basically more of the same.. A good 3-6 hours of more Ghost... If you're craving more of the combat and want to see prettier locales, it's worth it.  Personally, I didn't feel the story really brought more to the table.. It was just there. But still solid all around.

[chronovore]

Anybody have a take on the Ghost of Tsushima DLC? Finished the main game early last year. PS5 definitive edition is on ps gamepass. Worth downloading 60GB for it? Or is it some two hour side quest?

I'm having trouble working up energy for finishing the main game, last thing I want is more of the same. Feels a bit like Assassins Creed did the first couple times: "Wow, this is fun!" and then 30 hours later, having done nothing but repeat that loop, it's a slog.

Oddly, the multiplayer feels more compelling and dynamic. Having to strategize when to heal, where to engage forces together or split up. That stuff's fun.

[Svejk]

Anybody have a take on the Ghost of Tsushima DLC? Finished the main game early last year. PS5 definitive edition is on ps gamepass. Worth downloading 60GB for it? Or is it some two hour side quest?

I'm having trouble working up energy for finishing the main game, last thing I want is more of the same. Feels a bit like Assassins Creed did the first couple times: "Wow, this is fun!" and then 30 hours later, having done nothing but repeat that loop, it's a slog.

Oddly, the multiplayer feels more compelling and dynamic. Having to strategize when to heal, where to engage forces together or split up. That stuff's fun.

I heard the multiplayer is where it's at.. Got a friend that played it with a group A LOT.  But yeah, the main game is really the feudal Japan AC that everyon's been whining about... But played very safe in ways..  Almost too grounded and by the numbers... If it weren't so pretty and the gameplay being solid af, it'd be rather mediocre.   I don't think I'll ever have the desire to go back and play through it again...  And I hope they don't make a sequel that some people are asking for... Please just move on to a new IP, SP.

[Let's Cyber]

Anybody have a take on the Ghost of Tsushima DLC? Finished the main game early last year. PS5 definitive edition is on ps gamepass. Worth downloading 60GB for it? Or is it some two hour side quest?

It's the best part of the single player game, IMO. You'll probably get 5-8 hours out of it depending one how much side stuff you do.

It has some of the best looking locations, most interesting outfit abilities (monkey pirate outift is amazing if you enjoy getting perfect parries) and most challenging combat scenarios.

I got pretty burned out on Ghost during the snow area but I thought Iki Island was fantastic.

[Polident Hive]

Thanks, all. Probably gonna give it a download. Evidently I wasn’t sick of it because last night I checked and I had a platinum trophy for it. Sometimes it’s difficult to jump back into DLC set in the middle of campaigns.

[Bebpo]

Final Fantasy II: Pixel Remaster
It was too hot to turn on my PC yesterday so finished this bad boy on the deck.

The first 2 Final Fantasy games are both weird but this one has a more coherent story than the first.
Basically an empire tries to gain control of the land and you have to stop them and fight their various super weapons as well as do your own fetch quests.
Your party changes throughout the game, with the 4th party member being swapped out a couple of times.

It's very ambitious gameplay wise (especially for a Famicom game), all your stats level based on how much you use things.
So if you use your sword a lot, your sword levels. If you get hit a lot, your HP levels etc. . You can also equip two weapons instead of one which is kinda neat.
For magic this is more cumbersome. Each spell starts at level 1 and you have to cast many many spells to get late game spells to any usable level.

The encounter rate is insane, like every 2 - 5 steps a group of enemy attacks in the latter half of the game. The dungeons have lots of empty rooms, that might've been hella confusing on the Famicom back in the day. Thankfully the Remaster has a map.
I read they certainly did some QOL and balance fixes for this release as it mixes the Wonderswan and GBA versions. Still, nearly 99% of the enemies attack with status effects and often these are stacked.
So any given battle could start with your entire party being poisoned, turned to stone or paralyzed or both and just waiting for the monsters to spend 5 minutes grinding your HP down or flee.
Because of the high number of encounters, a big pile of cash and a few very powerful weapons you completely level out of any challenge eventually.

Overall my feelings are mixed about this game, it's neat to see how some of these ideas were attempted on the Famicom but overall it's a bit messy.

Yeah, FF2 PR is neat in retrospect for how ambitious it is. I like it about the same as FF3 PR but less than FF1 PR.

FF2 PR has a dumb glitch that really hurts it though. Status effect hit % is tied to physical attacks connecting, so unless you really grind up your evasion to dodge the physical hits you get bogged down by status effects constantly. You can use that in reverse and use the one or two weapons with status effects like death or HP cut in 1/2 to basically one or two shot everything.

I liked the game but at some point I just grinded for a few hours to get crazy high evasion and then coasted through the rest. Still would be a much better game and actually pretty solid if not for that glitch and the encounter rate being kind of high like in the last dungeon with all the troll empty rooms. Playing it with cheat engine and 200-300% speed fast-forward made it a lot more tolerable for that at least.

Unfortunately CE speed up starts to become a problem in FF4 onwards because of ATB. But it definitely helps make FF1-3 PR super breezy.

[Nintex]

This game goes so fucking hard 

[MMaRsu]

This game goes so fucking hard 

(Image removed from quote.)

Might be gud for a video

[Nintex]

Monsoon is the boss battle where they unveil the secret that you can't just parry the red flashy attacks but literally every attack and you have to press your buttons 10 times as fast if you want to survive 

[Nintex]

Finished the final DLC Mission of Ace Combat 7. Just couldn't do it with the F35.

So I bought an Su-34 Fullback and bombed the shit out of that submarine.

[tiesto]

Took a break from Nocturne HD (where I'm up to the diet building) to play what else, but Live A Live HD Remaster.

Beat 5 of the chapters so far: Modern, Near-Future, Prehistoric, Ancient China, Wild West

Gonna play most of today, try to get to the final chapter.

Really impressed with the remake. It keeps so much of the gameplay with some nice little tweaks here and there (like seeing enemy weaknesses). The graphics look nice and the remixed music is lovely (especially Megalomania), though I don't like the near future music as much as the original game (the lead synth I don't like as much here). The original is one of my favorite games and I've played through quite a few times, and it's so nice to see how much loving care was put into this remake. The fact that this remake exists is seriously a dream come true for me.

Favorite chapter is of course still the near future one, and least favorite is still the wild west. The prehistoric chapter is probably the most difficult as far as combat goes.

[Nintex]

Finished Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Very few games go this hard but it's also fairly short and I assume it was made on a shoe string budget considering the asset flipping and repetition going on.
You can leave it to Platinum Games to make a blood pumping action game but it feels like what was supposed to be a 12 hour game was crammed into 6 and it doesn't live up to its full potential.

The final boss being Dick Cheney in a massive Metal Gear was fitting 

[chronovore]

Finished Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Very few games go this hard but it's also fairly short and I assume it was made on a shoe string budget considering the asset flipping and repetition going on.
You can leave it to Platinum Games to make a blood pumping action game but it feels like what was supposed to be a 12 hour game was crammed into 6 and it doesn't live up to its full potential.

The final boss being Dick Cheney in a massive Metal Gear was fitting 

(Image removed from quote.)

My impression is that Platinum has several lines going at any given time, and what may have been a priority for Konami may not have been Platinum's priority at that moment. The gameplay being solid is a sign that solid effort was given to the title, but maybe their modeling and animation resources were pointed elsewhere?

[Bebpo]

Finished Opus: Echo of Starsong. It was ok. It looked gorgeous, but the story was trying so hard to be a Makoto Shinkai anime thing but the lead woman is terrible and the plot jumps around and felt lacking any emotional impact. The world building is fantastic, up there with like Mass Effect, but then all the interesting thing like the lore of ancient gods/races never ends up going anywhere because it's just a small story within a larger and more interesting world aka the world lore was way more interesting than this story and its cast.

Gameplay was minimal, survival mechanics were ok but a bit stressful. Was like 10 hour side-scrolling VN.

I'd give it a B-, the art and world lore basically carries it, but don't think it's a great game. This is one of those games that steam recommends me and it has like 3,000+ overwhelming positive reviews and they're all in Chinese because the game is huge in Asia and it makes me think something is lost in the localization.

It's also annoying that there is hardly any English information out there/wiki because I'd like to read up more on the lore but it's all in languages I don't know

[paprikastaude]

jfc, the default mode for the Klonoa remaster is that there's a tutorial for every new platforming element that's introduced. And spoiling every puzzle, the only mild challenge these games had. You can turn this off, but still - is this were we're going? Eliminate problem solving even in simple ass platformers? Yes this is optional and in a kid's game, but we already had Doom Eternal giving you unskippable video walkthroughs before every new enemy. Last gen had more successful hardcore games than ever, so I don't know why recently everything becomes even more braindead than it already was thanks to magic GPS everywhere. People whine about mobile games, yet console games are becoming just as dumb. With trends like this, games will eventually be nothing but glorified QTEs. Hold stick toward GPS icon, press button that pops up in a tutorial, watch numbers go up for cheap instant gratification. 

I wish the success of Elden Ring would prove to publishers that people are still fond of games that require a little thinking. But BotW already had little to no impact in that regard, so I'm not holding my breath. Just like Doom 16 being a hit didn't prevent Doom Eternal from being handholding hell.

[Nintex]

I really can't tell where this is heading but I'm sure we'll see more studios look at Elden Ring because it was so succesful, despite being difficult and unbalanced.

To me it seems like they sometimes correctly identify a problem during play testing but are too late in development to fix it in an elegant way.
I think that's what happened with DOOM Eternal at least.

This is certainly more of an issue in the AAAA+ and remaster space.
Lots of developers like Capcom and Square Enix however still make their games challenging.

I was sort of surprised that Nintendo didn't tinker with the difficulty of Metroid Dread.

[paprikastaude]

I really can't tell where this is heading but I'm sure we'll see more studios look at Elden Ring because it was so succesful, despite being difficult and unbalanced.

To me it seems like they sometimes correctly identify a problem during play testing but are too late in development to fix it in an elegant way.
I think that's what happened with DOOM Eternal at least.

This is certainly more of an issue in the AAAA+ and remaster space.
Lots of developers like Capcom and Square Enix however still make their games challenging.

I was gonna mention Capcom, though they added some funky stuff into RE8 - spoiling treasure locations after a certain amount of time, iirc. I hope the next RE doesn't follow up with fullblown idiot mechanics like Doom Eternal, or a handholdey open world  But RE2make was top tier non-intrusive game design. And MH World had a GPS that at least felt like it was a natural part of the hunting process.

These excessive pseudo-QOL updates in remasters are inane too. We all beat Mario World and Pokemon Red as little kids, newer generations much more complex games like Minecraft. Plus games don't age nearly as bad as they claim. There's improvements that make sense, but usually little tweaks are enough gameplaywise - like in the Shadow of the Colossus or OoT remasters. I'm currently replaying Silent Hill 2 and it wouldn't hurt if a remaster made small items blink like in RE. But many are way too quick to dismiss anything that doesn't play like a standardised Uncharted-clone. This is how perfectly playable and easily available games like TLoU and Dead Space get completely redundant remakes. Best case, some dumb rewind feature - which probably defeats the point of the game - is optional. If one's not so lucky, classics like Majora's Mask are simplified to the point of being unrecognizable junk; for the sake of super casuals who won't care anyway.

[Nintex]

From what I understand they think the remasters are mainly for:
- People who played the old games and have gotten older (have less time to play)
- Kids who never got a chance to play them

and with this in mind and the overall accessibility drive they're made easier.

There's also the issue of a short attention span in general and critics sucking at games.
You need to get a decent Metacritic score, if Soy Suckman from IGN can't play it, he's going to knock points from the score and Kotaku will accuse you of being a gamergater.

In most cases though, the biggest changes are made to the opening act or first 1 or 2 hours. Just so you get those thumbs up on Steam and great footage on Twitch during your marketing blitz.
Once the complaints about a 'difficulty spike' roll in, the hype train has long left the station.

The Mass Effect remaster is an example of this that comes to mind. They tweaked the opening acts of each game but didn't change much beyond that.
You'll run into the exact same bugs, progression blocks and balance issues as you did in the originals 

[Pissy F Benny]

From what I understand they think the remasters are mainly for:
- People who played the old games and have gotten older (have less time to play)
- Kids who never got a chance to play them

and with this in mind and the overall accessibility drive they're made easier.

There's also the issue of a short attention span in general and critics sucking at games.
You need to get a decent Metacritic score, if Soy Suckman from IGN can't play it, he's going to knock points from the score and Kotaku will accuse you of being a gamergater.

In most cases though, the biggest changes are made to the opening act or first 1 or 2 hours. Just so you get those thumbs up on Steam and great footage on Twitch during your marketing blitz.
Once the complaints about a 'difficulty spike' roll in, the hype train has long left the station.

The Mass Effect remaster is an example of this that comes to mind. They tweaked the opening acts of each game but didn't change much beyond that.
You'll run into the exact same bugs, progression blocks and balance issues as you did in the originals 

legit

[Kestastrophe]

Entering third day of chocobo racing in Final Fantasy X on vita 

[Polident Hive]

Tony Hawks Pro Skater PS5.

It’s got a modern game menu with tabs and stores and all this shit. Just wanted to do backflips in the warehouse as Bob Burnquist. Couldn’t figure it out. The skating itself feels awesome. Old style with some QOL improvements.

Also, first time I’m learning my TV is capable of 120hz. It’s an older spec OLED. No HDR and limited to 1080p. No VRR. Nice to know? It’s smoother for sure. But my understanding is that 120hz games are built with VRR in mind. Not fussy about it in consoles. Comfortable with 60FPS.

[bork]

Picked up Frogun on Steam.  It looks kind of like if Captain Toad were made for the Playstation 1, but plays a bit differently.  You have more camera control, can jump, and have your frog gun, which is used for attacking enemies, but also functions like a grappling hook of sorts and can be used to pull put boxes or hit levers.  It's pretty fun!  There's also hidden items to find on levels and you get rewarded for clearing stages without dying and/or finishing within a certain time.

[tiesto]

Beat the Live A Live remaster, got all the endings. Really cool part near the end of the game that iirc wasn't in the original.

[Polident Hive]

Eating crow for judging Guardians of the Galaxy without playing it. It’s really quite good so far. Marketing sold it as this generic third person shooter. If there’s a reductive way it feels to me, it’s arcadey pop rock Mass Effect.

Aesthetically, among other areas, it liberally borrows from the first movie. The good one. With more characterization from the comics woven in. Liking all the characters and dynamics. Choices may be inconsequential flavoring, but helps with the illusion. So far, anyway. Maybe it plays off in later chapters.

Shouldn’t have been too surprised, looking at who is behind it, it’s the Deus Ex HR/MD people. Guess it sold poorly because recently some of those people left to BioWare. Maybe it bodes well for Mass Effect or Jade Empire. Whatever they’re doing.

[tiesto]

Back to Nocturne. Just cleared all 5 'kalpas' of the Amala Labyrinth, now onto the final dungeon and what probably will be a shit-ton of grinding to beat Lucifer.

[The Sceneman]

I saw Top Gun: Maverick at the cinema yesterday, and I will be piloting the special Top Gun aircraft in Ace Combat 7 in celebration.

Maverick is probably the best thing I've seen at the cinema this century

[Nintex]

 

[tiesto]

Some of the Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy @ the local retro expo:

[Kestastrophe]

Tried Torchlight III again after a few months away, man what a turd. It feels like a mobile game, huge letdown after the first two games

[Hamarr]

I finally finished the campaign to Powerwashing Simulator. That was the most addictive game I've played in a long time, and great for mindlessly cleaning while listening to other things. I actually started to think of each level as a job, but in a good way. I would love to get a power washer in real life if I had something to use it on.

I've also been playing a bit more Far Cry 5 now that it is on Games Pass. I bought the season pass a long time ago but never got around to playing it.  I'm also getting back to Mass Effect 3 in the remastered collection. I zipped through 1 and 2 then ran out of gas midway through 3.

[Polident Hive]

Yeah. Power wash simulator is incredibly relaxing. Listening to music or a podcast and zoning out playing, basically, the erase tool in MS Paint. The little ding noise when you complete a section is somehow as gratifying as the the headshot chirps in shooters.

[Svejk]

Been trying to play Papers, Please....  Quickly realizing it's basically a dystopian version of my day job I've had the past 15 years... 

[Potato]

Picked up Dungeons 3 on Steam after having a massive itch to play Dungeon Keeper.

I really don't like the meta humour, but man did they nail the gameplay.

I'm about 3 missions in to the campaign and am enjoying the hell out of laying waste to the good guys.

[Bebpo]

I finally say down to play Her Story since the dev's 3rd game is that Immortality which is out in a few days and I wanna play it. Might play Telling Lies as well before it since I like FMV games and I like playing dev games in order to see their progression as a developer.

After playing some Her Story though, I couldn't figure out what the game part of it was. Like I got that you put in searches and watch short video clips. But I couldn't figure out how you actually input anything and do anything besides watching videos aka the gameplay. I finally gave up and looked up a guide to figure out what the "goal" of the game was and saw the goal is just to watch all the videos.

Will do that and see what happens. I'm just kind of confused at how this is a game and not a movie that you watch in a bunch of small out of order parts.

[HardcoreRetro]

You try to figure out what happened by using keywords from the clips you have and getting the database to spit out other videos to help you piece together what actually happened. That's the game.

You get to feel like a detective figuring out what happened.

[Bebpo]

In the back half of Her Story (aka ending rolled) and it's kind of boring just guessing around with words and getting a few videos here and there to finish it out. Not sure if I'm a fan of the gameplay in this.

Picked up Immortality and Telling Lies. Since Telling Lies is just supposed to be a worse version of Her Story, will play Immortality first.

[Snoopycat_]

I've been playing through the Uncharted series. They're good but it's amazing how ND gets a pass for the amount of bullshit in their games. Endless crumbling ledges/bridges. A couple of times would be ok but they really hammer that shit. Endless button mashing. Again, all the way through. Every 3 minutes it's bash triangle to lift a plank of wood/open a door. Cheap deaths. ND seem to think having 9 enemies rushing you as soon as you come out a cut scene is fun. Most, if not all of this is in TLOU as well. I like ND's characters and stories, but a lot of the gameplay is deeply average to seriously outdated. Somehow they never get called out on it.

[HardcoreRetro]

People have been calling that shit out for ages. You just end up getting branded as a hater or a boomer. People who actually care about the quality of something are not the target demographic anymore.

[Joe Molotov]

I played Immortality for a few hours. At first I was watching all the clips, but after an hour I just started clicking shit and trying to find the good parts.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the boobs

spoiler (click to show/hide)

just kidding

spoiler (click to show/hide)

kinda

spoiler (click to show/hide)

okay, it was the boobs

[close]

[close]

[close]

[close]

[BIONIC]

 : “Are ya winning, son?”

[Pissy F Benny]

To answer the question the thread title asks: Saints Row

(not right this second)

Lets just say it feels about a year to 18 months undercooked

[Bebpo]

Her Story kind of sucked. I'm super big on indie stuff and I like narrative games well enough like VNs. Her Story is one of those indie games I've had in my backlog forever that always gets talked about as a great indie game like vvvvv, or papers please, or zachtronics stuff, or any of the hundreds of original top notch indie games.

But the story is pretty dull and easy to guess/figure out in about 30 mins, and once you've figured things out, tracking down the remaining clips just for the sake of 100%-ing all the clips when there's no real extra ending for doing so is super boring. I didn't find the gameplay that intuitive after the first 30 mins or so of searching things one after another. And by the time you're in the 50-75% database clear it feels more like just randomly throwing out words to try to grab a new video here and there. I actually think the gameplay being too open and free form kills the narrative pacing because everyone's pacing/journey through it is going to be a completely different order.

Not sure if I'm gonna enjoy Immortality since going from this game, Sam Barlow's style as a writer and game designer does not click with me.

*edit* rewatched some of the key vids in order in the game files after 100%-ing them. I think one of my biggest issues with the game is it feels like it's written by someone who thinks they are way more clever than they are.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The multiple personality disorder has like 500 clues, so no matter what order you go it comes up pretty quick. They could have made it a lot more subtle though I guess some people who weren't seeing all the vids could have missed the key clues that way.

Also reading some discussions on the plot, it's like wowwwww lots of people who play videogames are really, really dumb. Like 95% of people get that it's MPD since the game very clearly spells it out and it's not an ambiguous could it be? thing at all. But like 5% of players get hung up on the red herrings and can't understand that it's MPD and think it's actual twins. Like all the "living in the attic" and "she's gone now" stuff flies over their heads, let alone all the physical stuff like two people disposing a body but only one set of fingerprints, no one seeing the other person for 20 years, etc...

I mean once they started talking about how they would share the same diseases, get sick at the same time, etc...it was not even ambiguous. The writing is just not subtle at all and the plot doesn't have much to it past the twist. Most people who are dumb just get hung up on the simple herring stuff they throw in like one personality having a tattoo and the other doesn't and the easy explanation is just that it's a henna kind of tattoo the other personality puts on when in control just like they change their hair/clothes.

I mean they even put in a knock code where they two personalities are straight up talking to each other as an easter egg for people looking it up. It can't really get any clearer....I think the game actually would've been better if it was more ambiguous and could be either way. It just comes across as trying to be smart but at a J6P level of intelligence.

[close]

[Bebpo]

Tried Telling Lies, story seems maybe more interesting, but definitely has some major flaws in that it starts the clips at the moment the search term is said, so you basically need to rewind the clip to see the whole thing from the start. Thankfully there is a mod that lets you start a clip from the beginning and skip around.

But the biggest issue, which the reviews commented on is that you only see one side of a conversation at a time. So half of each clip is just the person looking at the screen and then you have to find the other half and watch them side by side to see the whole conversation and get what's going on. This is pretty tedious. Will see if I make it through it. I feel like this game would be 10x better if you saw dual screens at a time showing both sides of a video conversation. But I'm guessing that would spoil some of the mystery of who they are talking to.

Then started on Immortality. Pretty cool and unlike Telling Lies which is just Her Story but a bigger budget, this actually plays a bit different. It has the same thing as Telling Lies where it starts mid-clip, but thankfully you don't need a mod this time to instantly jump to the start of the clip and watch the whole thing.

I feel like I'm messing up the experience and not playing it right because from the start using this image search thing the game does instead of text input, I'm like what is stopping me from just starting a new clip, pausing at some person/object, then examining it to open a new clip, then pause it right away and examine something and get another clip, and repeat until I have like a good chunk of all the clips available right from the start and then actually sit down and watch them all in chronological order? Because Her Story is a lot more enjoyable chronologically and with Telling Lies the goal seems to be to find the videos and organize them chronologically by date to get the story. And here it seems the same off the start and the game even auto-orders your clips in chronological order. But I feel like I'm cheating and missing the "game" experience of Immortality if all I'm doing is clicking all over and grabbing all the clips and then sitting down and watching the whole thing like a movie. Idk, the image search clip find system seems kinda janky? Maybe this will change as I get further and run out of random clips and need to start searching for specific things.

[Bebpo]

Ok, been going through a lot of the clips from the first film and Immortality is pretty fun. Definitely a more "fun" experience than either of the two prior games. My only nitpick is I wish the clips had a clip length on them like in Her Story and Telling Lies so you know whether you're getting into a 2 minute scene or a long ass scene.

[Snoopycat_]

People have been calling that shit out for ages. You just end up getting branded as a hater or a boomer. People who actually care about the quality of something are not the target demographic anymore.

I'm playing Lost Legacy and I think it's the best one of all. I could see ND sticking with Chloe and Nadine in the next Uncharted

[Hamarr]

People have been calling that shit out for ages. You just end up getting branded as a hater or a boomer. People who actually care about the quality of something are not the target demographic anymore.

I'm playing Lost Legacy and I think it's the best one of all. I could see ND sticking with Chloe and Nadine in the next Uncharted

I enjoyed it a bit more than Uncharted 4. They even managed to make Nadine likable there. The Uncharted series is one of the few where I like the characters way more than the gameplay and will play them for that.

I picked up the TMNT Cowabunga Collection. I went through the two arcade games. The levels in the first game are way shorter than I remember.  I think managed to get the Arcade game and TMNT II:The Arcade Game squished together a bit.  It's still really fun.

I had never played Turtles in Time before. At least not the arcade game. It seemed a bit easier. I liked the new moves a bit. The bosses are generally pretty terrible, though. Like they went all out with the characters in the first game and then just picked the most random stuff for you to fight in this one.

[Bebpo]

As for the secret narrative in Immortality, a couple of hours in and I'm feeling like with Her Story, that Sam Barlow is about as subtle as a brick in his writing. It's fun, but this is like David Cage kinda stuff and I'm surprised he gets a lot of praise.

Also so far not really seeing where that Edge review got a 10 from. It's a fun/neat game, but a 10 from Edge? Maybe the reviewer just really had a thing for redheads and boobs.

From the first movie it seems like the plot is going in the direction of

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mary mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene from the bible are the same person, that Mary didn't ascend to heaven but just went into a deep sleep and awoke and inserted herself in this Ambrosia movie as the actress Matilda (Matilda being her Magdalene persona whereas the secret rewind scenes being her Mother of Jesus persona). Just not sure what the reason is at this point yet but haven't even looked at the next two movies.

[close]

[Himu]

Fell back in love with games again. Somehow it was the games I dismissed my entire life: first person shooters. I bought Xenoblade Chronicles for Switch and realized I just...didn't want to play another bloated RPG. I was exploring the first city, saw a bunch of menial quest requests and haven't played it since. Over the summer I've acquired Halo 1 and 2 original games and played them on my Xbox 360. I haven't looked back since beating CE. I've beaten Halo 1-3 (3 on MCC Steam). I've been deep diving and playing the first person shooter genre from the beginning starting with the original Doom and Doom 64. I've been playing Doom on Ultraviolence and it's really, really hard for me but really rewarding.

I've bought Doom 1, II, 3 on PC, Doom 64 on Switch, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Quake, Hexen, full Halo MCC. I want to work up my way to Farcry 2, Battlefield games (I have BF1 which is fantastic), and eventually Doom 2016 and Eternal, Valorant, Overwatch, Halo Infinite. I even want to give Fortnite a try. No Build mode looks dope. I also really want to play Resident Evil 2 Remake, 3 Remake, 7, 8.

I got Gears of War for 360 and played it for the first time since 2008. I had literal achievements stopped mid game all the way from 08. I ended up playing and beating the game in a few sittings. It's really fantastic. I didn't like it back in the day but loved it now. I don't know, my taste in games have changed and for the first time in a long time I'm really open-minded to exploring video games. I've accumulated a long list of games to play both blockbuster and indie and been having a great time. Looking forward to getting Gears of War 2 and 3. I have no idea what Judgement is or if it's good.

I've found cutting off RPGs and super long games (that aren't of really high quality like Elden Ring or Oblivion) to be a real boon for my gaming because now I don't have to pretend to be interested in shit like Xenoblade 3, SMTV, Soul Hackers 2, Final Fantasy XVI that look - personally, to ME - really wack and feel pressured to buy it and let people who like it tend to what they like. It's really freeing being able to filter what you want to play or what you think is cool and not feel pressured to buy something because of what you used to like. Feels weird to say I'm more interested in buying the next Halo than the next Final Fantasy and I'd probably die if you heard me say that twenty years ago but there it is.

Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Oblivion, OG Doom, and Halo: ODST. Halo ODST may be the worst Halo game so far for me, but it's alright. It's got good ideas but I dislike The Rookie missions. It's hard to really care about empty streets in Mombasa and vlogs of the annoying African girl are kinda zzz. But when it's on, it's really on and it has some of the best enemy encounters in the franchise so far. Oblivion is Oblivion and I'm convinced might be the GOAT wrpg

I'm really leaning PC and Xbox these days and having the most fun in games since 2008. Really loving it!

Here's to games! I'm counting the days till I get a Series X.

[Himu]

[Bebpo]

Immortality feels like a game that Kojima is both going to love and feel jealous that he didn't make it. It kind of goes through a lot of his motions.

[Himu]

A Doom player told me to turn on Always Run on UV and damnnnnnn it's night and day. Levels that were really hard before are easy as cutting butter now. Damn. It's so fun!

[tiesto]

Xenoblade 3 - in the middle of chapter 4, about to storm the castle. Posted more thoughts in our XB3 thread.

Mega Man 7 - up to the Wily stages, this one is pretty underrated. Great graphics and music. Though the large sprite and cramped SNES resolution take a bit to get used to. But there are some decent level designs here (fuck Turbo Man though).

Goof Troop - playing co-op with a friend. Underrated Shinji Mikami classic, it's an overhead action puzzler that is a blast especially co-op. It's a bit short and easy from what I remember (though I haven't beaten it in years).

[Himu]

Mega Man 7 is fun but also not fun because of how big the sprites are?

[Himu]

Beat Portal 1. Haven't played it in over a decade and it was as much a thrill as it when it first came out and I was obsessed with it. Still a classic. I look forward to Portal 2 which I haven't played since release.  God it's good to love games again and revisit the games I feel in love with. I truly believe my depression is cleared.

[Svejk]

Being free from the shackles of Elden Ring, I dabbled in a couple things to see what I want to tackle next...

Did a first biome run in Returnal and was rocking it solo.  I swear they've made the game more forgiving after that last major update.. falling off edges and certain hits took down much less damage.  Plus the green drops were quite more plentiful than before, among other genrous drops, like a +5 hollowseeker.  I decided to suspend my cycle for later while I was having a good run, so I could move onto something else..

Jumped back to PSO2 to at least finish going through the prologue and get to the central city. I want to be able to change my class to a Braver which it seems like you can do once you get past the intro. (Not sure why it wasn't available at the beginning) I have to say the story was actually kind of hooking me a bit. 

Then jumped to Mass Effect.  Eh, it's kind of a slog dealing with the clunkiness of it all.  Especially after playing Returnal, this just felt so slow and dated.  Not feeling this much ATM.

Played a smidge of Tomb Raider(2013 Definitive Edition).. The DE still holds up great.  I vaguely remember certain parts so it's been fun and refreshing in a linear sense. It's been so long since playing it back then on PS3.

Then Horizon 2... Above all, holy crap this game looks stunning.  Even though I'm still doing the beginning stuff, it feels all too familiar.  Ready for it to start opening up more.  And just like the first one, I could really care less about the human interactions. At least Aloy acts like she could care less about interacting with them also and just wants to move on with her quest, so I can relate. Lol I was literally falling asleep on a cut scene where some guy was talking about stuff he can and can't cook. 

Would love to do some more VR, but the major lack of knowing whether PSVR2 will be BC with PSVR1 games has me quite hesitant.  Something like Moss: Book II or Ashina's Castle would a nice break away, but I don't want to dump $30-$40 on each of them because of my above dilema.

[Joe Molotov]

Been putting in some work on my Steam Deck.

Soul Hackers 2 is a little buggy on the Deck. About 50% of the time it freezes on the opening screen (probably some Denuvo bullshit ) and you have to restart. Once it starts, it runs fine except for occasional missing spell effects or audio crackling. It's probably enough to warrant an "Incompatible" rating (although Valve hasn't officially tested it yet) but it's playable. As for the game itself, it's decent. It feels like it's straddling a line between Persona and SMT and it mostly works. It's far more streamlined than SMT and has more story, but there aren't 3 hours of cutscenes and dialogue between gameplay sections like in Persona. Dungeons are kinda bland and boring, but that's Persona for you. Characters are fine, they're actually adults in this game, although the story is so weird it's hard to think of anyone as a real person in this game. "Oh, I died and got brought back to life by a sassy anthropomorphic AI construct to save the world? That's crazy, can we dive into my memories real quick and rewatch the one where I got killed by a occultist rapper?" (not a spoiler btw, this happens like 10 minutes into the game)

Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation -The Endless Seven-Day Journey- on the other hand runs great on the Steam Deck. If you're expecting this to be like the Funimation English dub...well it's not. It's basically a game for children, or at least all ages. There's some occasional butt-based humor, but that's as spicy as it gets. Instead it's just a chill game where you catch bugs and fish in the rural Japanese countryside, similar to the Japan-only My Summer Vacation series. There's not as much to do here as in Animal Crossing by a long shot, but if you're just looking for something you can chill out with for 10-15 hours, it's a great game.