What are you playing?

[Polident Hive]

I keep wavering on Horizon 2. By the end of the first (+DLC) on PS5, I was done with the gameplay loop. But the story was pretty interesting. One day I could see returning to it, when that fatigue dies down. That, and I read it’s coming to PC. So that’s an easier sell.

[The Sceneman]

Started Armored Core 6. Game is excellent so far! Love the combat and I'm really pumped to get my hands on the array of weaponry that has been promised. Handler Walter

[Bebpo]

Finished my first run of Road 96 and did another one. Interesting concept. Apparently it takes six runs to get to the end. At least each run is only like an hour. Can see how it can get repetitive, really depends on how much variety there is each time you encounter the same person.

Good immersive hitchhiking game though. Enjoyed most of the episodes so far and it's interesting how your rep stuff affects further runs instead of your current run most of the time.

[Svejk]

I keep wavering on Horizon 2. By the end of the first (+DLC) on PS5, I was done with the gameplay loop. But the story was pretty interesting. One day I could see returning to it, when that fatigue dies down. That, and I read it’s coming to PC. So that’s an easier sell.

After wrapping FFXVI, I jumped back into Horizon 2 some.  I'm having a better time with it now and appreciating it more.  Game is flipping gorgeous, and I'm coming to terms with the sometime awkward controls, but definitely clicking more for me now.  Roughly around the 40% mark. 

But yeah, I think I was feeling the fatigue from the first one still at the time.  I think that's my problem with TOTK currently.. Still feeling the fatigue from BOTW's open world and feeling so samey.

[Bebpo]

Finished Road 96. I liked it and the characters all grew on me and enjoyed seeing their stories play out. I don't really like that you don't see 100% of the scenes for each character in one playthrough, because when the vast majority of the game will be the same on new game+ it's not really worth sitting through again to see one or two more scenes for a few characters. The game doesn't have replay value imo. The first run and it's 6-10 runs are fine because there's no repeat scenes.

I felt like sometimes the choices I made didn't match up or have an effect on the scenes or ending which didn't sit great. Like I got a terrible ending after all that work and it didn't match my choices, but I looked up the good version of it to see now that plays out.

I looked up the dev and saw it was the team that did 11:11 Memories Retold. That makes a lot of sense and the character episodes are a bit similar. I really liked 11:11 and the director also did Valiant Hearts which I really liked too, so I guess I like all their games.

I read the prequel to Road 96 they released this year sucks though, so I will skip that. I saw Embracer bought them. Hopefully that doesn't fuck up the studio.

[Himu]

Yeah it's a chill game. You're just a long for the ride though and even then a lot of it is circumstantial. Like a lot depends on the skills of your character at that one point in time. In my game main girl died during the escape. I think you're supposed to die for her to be in the good ending for example.

[Bebpo]

I

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Died for her and she still dies in the ending.
Also the cop shot the trucker guy even though I was nice to both of them.

From what I read basically you need Fanny the cop NOT to shoot John the trucker. Because if she shoots him Alex the kid runs out in front of the soldier and Zoe runs out to save him and gets shot.

If Alex doesn't run out, then some rando runs out and gets shot instead of Zoe.

[close]

Like I said, I got the bad ending. But yeah, one thing I don't like is that it felt like none of the choices I made made a difference. You can't change the fate of any of the characters in the game except

spoiler (click to show/hide)

John getting shot or not, Zoe dying in ch.4 on the escape or in the ending or not

[close]

Everything else just plays out the same no matter what you do the whole game. Like

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jarod the serial killer, there's no way for him to actually kill Sonya the reporter, because he'll always back out and the bank robbers will stop him and he'll run off and kidnap the brigade leader

[close]

I really like the game despite this, and it's a very immersive experience with fun episodes. But they totally bs'd when selling the game has some choice heavy choose your own story procedural adventure. I feel like you should have at least been able to change the final path ending for each of the 7 characters depending on how you interacted with them.

[Himu]

Yeah like I said, it's repetitive and has flaws but it's likeable despite it. It really makes me want to play an immersive RPG where you're trying to cross the border and security gets tighter and tighter the closer you get.

[Bebpo]

Yeah like I said, it's repetitive and has flaws but it's likeable despite it. It really makes me want to play an immersive RPG where you're trying to cross the border and security gets tighter and tighter the closer you get.

Yeah, that would be cool. The survival aspects of the game weren't bad. Different methods of travel costing different amounts of energy, food and sleep replenishing, money useful at times, hacks like lockpicks and hacking to steal.

I think instead of the prequel game they made which was panned, they should've taken the Road 96 concept and done a rogue sequel that doesn't have much story and is gameplay rogue game of trying to get to the border with procedural encounters. I think doing a gameplay-focused sequel would've been a better choice and in the current market that loves them rogue-likes, it probably would've been a smarter business choice too.

Instead they made another game about Zoe because someone there is really into their maniac pixie dream girl they made. I saw a reddit post that talked about how Zoe is kind of a bad person in Road 96. Like she's selfish and entitled and oblivious to other people's problems and every encounter you have with her she gets you arrested or in trouble or killed. And the reddit post was saying maybe it's intentional and she's kind of like "this character would be the cute girl you want to save in most games, but here she's kind of a jerk and will get you killed if you simp on her", but...I don't think that was intentional    They basically thought she was the Chloe of Life is Strange and people would want a prequel about her.

[Bebpo]

Did you ever play Where the Water Tastes like Wine?





It's my favorite game of this hitchhiking/traveling narrative style, even if it's fucking massive and I never finished it (I doubt very many people did). It doesn't have the rpg gameplay stuff you're looking for, but has the narrative episodes (hundreds of them) and handful of story people you encounter multiple times to get their whole store that Road 96 does.

Also this game was a huge indie bomb. They made a company for this game, put a ton of money into it, made an epic ambitious country-trotting game that almost no one was interested in, and it bombed and they lost almost all their money and closed down. The post-mortem by the director is interesting to read and depressing. I feel like Road 96 was influenced by it and it's one of the most ambitious indie games I ever played.

[Bebpo]

I finished reading A Profound Waste of Time Volume #2 gaming zine and tried a few games that were featured in articles that I hadn't played/heard of.



Wattam - I somehow missed that right before the pandemic, Keita Takahashi (Katamari/NobyNoby) put out a new game. Katamari is of course, awesome fun; NobyNoby was somewhat entertainingly amusing. I tried and I really tried to get through and like Wattam but...this is not a good game for adults.

It's basically just random wacky stuff, simple puzzles, and awful controls. It feels like Takahashi made it for his kid(s). Sorta like when Mike Park of Skankin' Pickle/Asian Man Records and Jeff Rosenstock of Bomb the Music Industry made an kids album including the alphabet song:



Wattam is like that in game form. If I had a kid I'd say it's a good game and let them play it. But as an adult it's kind of a boring game that wears out its charm pretty quick and is just unintuitive and unfun. Oh well, I'm currently playing Takahashi's next game Crankin's Time Traveling Adventure on Playdate and need to play more to comment on it, but it's no Katamari that's for sure.





When Rivers Were Trails

This is in the same genre we were talking about like Road 96 and Where the Water Turns to Wine. It's a game about playing as a Native American during the Oregon Trail era where their land was continually stolen from them and the tribes had to keep moving and surviving. You move around, interact with people and try to keep enough food and medicine as you go to not die. You can hunt and trade with people. There are random encounters. And you learn a lot.

As a game it's ok. I don't think it keeps attention more than an hour or so of the 3ish hours because the gameplay is very repetitive (there's only 1 BGM song that plays the whole time). It's not bad, I'd say kinda like average? But, as an edutainment game to learn about the history and culture it's a very good game. I got bored by 30-45 mins in, but I kept playing because I was learning a lot.

Tonight going to check out Humanity that came out this year and was free day 1 game on PS+. I hadn't touched it, but when I was reading the interview with Mizuguchi and his new studio Enhance games that did Tetris Effect I was wondering what they were up to and I saw they made that. I had no idea it was by Q games/Enhance. So will definitely give it a try and see if I like it.

[Nintex]

Separate Ways

This DLC is so good, holy shit Capgods stay winning. No budget cuts on Ada Wong either 

There's a new weather effect which is just insane and reminds me of the storms it had on the GameCube.
Hopefully they don't patch it out because you lose like 10fps or 20fps whenever it hits.

It's frankly insane how good Capcom now is at action games. They could've packaged this and sold it separately like they did with RE3:Remake.
A publisher like Embracer would probably suck dicks on the streets if they could exchange it for 1 hour of content like this.

[demi]

October is here which means time to play random horror games from replay or backlog

- Separate Ways (RE4Make DLC)

Was good. Got Professional S+. Definitely worth the $10

- Resident Evil: Survivor (PS1)

Played it on stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1932600336 ). Very short game. Was ok I guess.... way shorter than I remember

- Tormented Souls (SeriesX)

Pretty well done RE clone. The early game is kinda brutal but it's gotten more comfortable now that I have some ammo and guns and better understanding of the game.

[Bebpo]

Ya, I played the first couple of chapters of Separate Ways and seems fun enough. Will clear it this weekend prob.

[demi]

Tormented Souls playthrough - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1933556243

[Bebpo]

Finished Separate Ways.

Great stuff. Way longer than I expected. Took me about 5 hours and basically felt like a speedrun, shorter and tougher route B run of the entire RE4r campaign.

Thought the encounter design was great, level design great. A couple of annoying spots, but not too bad.

Wasn't a big fan of the two big boss fights. Felt like the arenas were kind of small and cramped and the boss moves were annoying. Plus like on Pesenta that tail whip O evade I don't think I ever actually pulled off. I swear the O qte pops up way too late for that move. And stuff like Sadlers tentacle straight forward punches seemed kinda bullshitty and I basically just did the fight from ranged. I mean they're doable, but I felt like I had to kind of cheese tactics them because they were both a bit janky.

One of the reasons I feel like the campaign is a bit harder than Leon's is Ada's weapon selection felt kinda worse? Her shotgun you can buy fucking sucks with how inaccurate it is, the blast arrows are so slow to reload but effective so I spent a lot of the last 3rd just kiting and reloading blast arrows. Her handgun is great, got me through 90% of the DLC and the TMP maxed is actually pretty good but it just eats through ammo too fast. By the time you get the Stingray it's kind of pointless outside the few spots like heatscope. So basically just got through the campaign with handgun and TMP until the end where I mixed in blast arrows.

But her melee with the grapple melee is fantastic and fun and I think grunt fighting was more fun here than with Leon.

But yeah, basically just felt like another run of RE4r again remixed. Yeah there's a few new bits, but mostly just felt like a route B, which is fine. Also reminded me of what I loved about RE4r and what I don't like. Could've done without a regenerators section. Ran out of rifle ammo and not even sure how you're supposed to fight them when your out of rifle ammo. Also the pig mask guys with the machine guns are annoying enemies. But at least each spot they appear in is well designed to stay out of their shot line.

I also was running out of ammo hard early on. I think I got out of the El Gigante fight with like 10 bullets left. I hadn't bought the shotgun yet so all I had was pistol and TMP and that boss has a ton of HP.

[Nintex]

Playing Separate Ways with an infected eye, could it be any more immersive

Nearing the end now I think, great stuff.

[Himu]

Feel better

[demi]

Played some more october games

Resident Evil: Dead Aim - better than Survivor but still not that good. The cutscenes don't match the subtitles at all so its weird.

Nightmare Creatures - Enjoyed this one still. Good bloodborne demake

[Nintex]

Finished Separate Ways.
A nice detour from all the 100+ hour RPG's.

Nice to see that some of the 'cut' content from RE4 wasn't cut at all but simply added to Separate Ways. Gives it even more added value.
They've also added a lot compared to the original making this almost a Separate Separate Ways. 

They even brought the old tunes back

[Bebpo]

What cut content from RE4r was in Separate Ways?

The only areas that felt new compared to my RE4r runs was the laser room lab and the sewers bit. Didn't notice any other locations that weren't just remixed areas from the main RE4r campaign.

[Himu]

I thought SW was free. Didn't know it cost 10 bucks. Oh well

[Bebpo]

I thought SW was free. Didn't know it cost 10 bucks. Oh well

I think everyone agrees it's worth $10. Don't know what other DLCs get you 5 hours of AAA content with replayability for $10.

[Polident Hive]

Played some more october games

Resident Evil: Dead Aim - better than Survivor but still not that good. The cutscenes don't match the subtitles at all so its weird.

Nightmare Creatures - Enjoyed this one still. Good bloodborne demake

Keep meaning to re play Dead Aim. Back then I bought it to justify the guncon purchase. But it didn’t play great with it. You moved using the cheap plastic dpad on the hammer. Later learned you could play with a mix of the gun and controller.

Still, I played and finished a lot of PS2 trash by necessity. Didn’t finish Dead Aim. Maybe that means something.

[MMaRsu]

Nightmare Creatures is something I always found fascinating as a kid but I was horrible at the game.
Well I only played the demo on PS1 but it was crazy as a kid lol.

[Nintex]

What cut content from RE4r was in Separate Ways?

The only areas that felt new compared to my RE4r runs was the laser room lab and the sewers bit. Didn't notice any other locations that weren't just remixed areas from the main RE4r campaign.

- El Gigante fight behind the mill with the destructable buildings and some areas leading up to it (this was an alternative path for Leon in the original)
- The long path along the village (this used to be a QTE zone with a boulder)
- The Cable Car sequence (this has been moved elsewhere and was originally a sequence before the Mendez boss fight)
- The Sewers (this is heavily altered as a 'castle waterway' rather than a dungeon sewer)
- "It" (heavily altered fight sequence but the same creature)
- Laser Room (moved to the lab, instead of guarding Sadlers throne room)
- Lab with the creature (I think this might be a reference to RE4 beta but I'm not entirely sure)
- The Cliffs (Leon climbed these in the original game)
- The upper sanctum route (I believe this was another alternative path Leon could take)
- Comms Tower (In the original game Leon goes here to try and contact his people but I think its another optional thing you can do)

[Nintex]

Played some Mercenaries first, Ada and Wesker slay.

Wanted something chill after Resident Evil 4 and popped Need for Speed Unbound into the 'X.
Took a while to update considering I haven't played it in a long time but they fixed many small things that make the game more enjoyable than it was at launch.
Still one of the most underrated real 'next-gen' games. The city looks stunning and it runs very smooth.