Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 3558324 times)

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Pissy F Benny

  • Is down with the sickness
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37560 on: October 19, 2021, 12:51:04 PM »
what if its outer worlds obsidian writing? :-X
(ice)

Rahxephon91

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37561 on: October 19, 2021, 09:32:31 PM »
I'm happy that a Tales game is selling well and that Namco made a more high budget game.



But...



I honestly did not care that much for it and feel I've just outgrown the Tales series. Or rather, I was probably never into them.

I know people say Tales games are "comfort food" and I guess I mostly thought that. I'd play Tales games because they were just more jrpgs to play. During the PS3 era they also were one of the few games in town when it came to console jrpgs. They didn't fall into strange otaku bait pit. Respectable compared to whatever Idea Factory puts out.



But my problem is Tales just refuses to do something different. Tales game start to blur together for me. Generic pastel anime fantasy lands/settings that I don't care about. Nondescript game worlds that don't feel very realized. Characters that kind of all feel the same.



I was excited when Xillia 2 started off in a cool modern setting. Felt different, but of course, the game becomes asset reuse and just goes back to the bland looks of Xillia 1.



Tales of Arise I hoped would be a daring change to the series. And in terms of production values, it's a jump kind of. The game looks and animates wonderfully. The in-game cutscenes really make me question why even have anime cutscenes anymore. The panel styles skits, which I thought would become overbearing are actually pretty dynamic and more expressive. The level design in the world does not feel as copy and paste as previous HD Tales. The scale and realization of the world feel detailed and well crafted. The dungeons on the other hand in the back half really seem to resort to the copy and paste texture box rooms though. Also who the hell thought backtracking after the dungeon's boss would be a good idea?



But the story and world still feel like typical boring Tales. The world itself is unengaging. It looks great, but it also feels like yet another whatever fantasy world. With no real hook to it and none of it feels like an actual world that could exist. It's boring and in gameplay I guess Tales has just given up on solving the "what are towns for". The towns are the most pointless aspect of the game, where everything you need is in the inn. making them just pretty rooms you visit. It's as bad as any Tales. One day I hope a jrpg has some engaging towns and worlds that feel alive.

The structure of the game also doesn't help. I remember Abyss and how they had the villain team show up routinely and had a lot of presence in the story. They may have not been super deep, but I was more interested in them than the bad guys here. Beyond the fact that there doesn't seem to be that much to them past "im evil and cruel", the structure means you forget about them once their "episode" is done. Go to their town and kill them, rinse and repeat. And all their episodes beyond maybe some stylistic changes in how they are told all kind of play out the same. They are cruel evil people that's it. They don't get that much screen time, often feeling like their screen time is mostly at their final battle. They feel like they have no real attachment to the story. Pretty much forgotten after the story moves past them. In Persona, the episodic bosses usually have an attachment to one party member and there's plenty of build-up. I don't remember any of the bosses and in the end, the game fails to create a real villain to care for, settling for typical Tales' "some evil force of nature" is behind it all. Even if they tried to do with Voharn a "he is what Alphen could become" it falls on deaf ears because this all comes through mostly info dumps, not actual characterization.



As for the main characters. This really is Tales of Shipping, which is fine. Most of the stuff was cute even if still never moves past characters talking as if they want to pass around "do you like me papers". Constant talks about how a character is blushing in relation to someone else etc.



Battle system though is still where this shines or rather it should. It does feel modernized here. Feels more accessible than any other tales. Though again there are things that I don't like or maybe I missed. Enemies feel spongy and I for sure hated fighting the bigger mid-boss-like ones. But regular enemies are really the time when the battle system is the most fun. Mostly because to me that's when it makes the most sense. The whole boost gauge thing continues this trend in jrpgs where they have this thing where if you are able to do enough correct damage you can break an enemy in order to not draw out the battle more. It kind of sucks here in my experience. It does feed into the combo system which as I said is really easy to do now. Maybe its dumbed down since you aren't doing fighting game inputs, but having the abilities tied to just the button meant I paid more attention to how my arts worked with each other. The boost gauge though can fall back pretty quick, which feels annoying. Yet it also seems this mechanic really only deals with trash mobs. During boss battles or bigger enemies, it could feel like no matter what it did, the boost gauge would only activate when the game said so. Defeating the whole point. It also felt like the whole "attack the weak point" was pointless. Sometimes that would lead to a boost attack, sometimes it wouldn't. It would lead to the enemies sitting for like 5 secs which in the end was pointless and Alphen's special attack when mostly do the same. I also disliked how the boost attacks would interfere with the battle thanks to that weird pause after them during battle, where it kind of restages where everything is.



It was an ok game, but for me I feel like I'm done with Tales.

« Last Edit: October 20, 2021, 09:58:24 PM by Rahxephon91 »

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37562 on: October 20, 2021, 01:14:10 AM »
near the end of arise and feel the same way. it's just the same junk tales as it's always been.

started metroid dread and its A+++++ tho

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37563 on: October 20, 2021, 03:30:47 AM »
Never liked Tales games. Boring trite shit
What

tiesto

  • ルカルカ★ナイトフィーバー
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37564 on: October 20, 2021, 10:13:41 AM »
There's definitely better Tales games than Arise. Not sure I understand the praise this is getting, especially from the normally Japanese-game-averse games media.
Rahx did a good summation of my thoughts on Arise - the story never feels engaging, the last quarter of the game is Xenogears Disk 2-level in terms of its pacing and design, characters lack the ridiculous over-the-top nature that make other Tales characters so engaging. Towns feel fairly empty and NPCs lack any kind of personality.
^_^

Potato

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37565 on: October 22, 2021, 04:42:39 AM »
Super Monkey Ball is just as fun as I remember. My kids are having a blast too
Spud

Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37566 on: October 22, 2021, 05:55:38 AM »
Finished Resident Evil Village.
All in all it was alright, visually and setting wise it was very strong, as a game it was mostly mediocre.
Although i think they're starting to stretch the idea of BioWeapon to justify just about any horror idea, a bit too much.
Next we'll have like, The Exorcist, but Pazuzu is really a little bug Umbrella found in a cave in Iraq, instead of some statue.

The weakest parts were probably the shooter aspects, if you compare it to something like RE4, there's too few guns, too few enemy types, encounters aren't particularly interesting, and bosses are mostly super simple.
As a horror it had a few cool moments at least, although it wasn't trying very hard to be scary.

It's weird how they throw the best setting at you in the beginning, including a whole cast of characters (villagers) that immediately die, and then you're left, more or less alone for the rest of the game, with locations that are far less evocative.
Although most RE titles start strong a finish weak(er), RE7, RE2remake, RE4...

I found it funny how they try to make you give a shit about Ethan by the end, but i'm not about to blast a RE for its story.

Mr. Nobody

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37567 on: October 23, 2021, 02:38:05 PM »
Continuing Yakuza 0 after a 2 year layoff and went straight to the blackjack and pool tables  :dead

Don Rumata

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37568 on: October 24, 2021, 09:54:42 AM »
Player about 2 hours of Visage on gamepass.
The state of horror games is fucking tragic, jfc.

At least you can still find some cool things in the (even more) indie scene.
I mean i know Visage Is basically indie buy i mean Itch.io level experimental stuff.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37569 on: October 24, 2021, 01:24:19 PM »
Player about 2 hours of Visage on gamepass.
The state of horror games is fucking tragic, jfc.

 :'(

Yeah, from what I've seen a lot of indie stuff is just copy/pasting RE/SH/PT and mainstream AAA horror gaming (or even BB) is pretty much dead. Do the Metro games count as horror FPS? Because that's probably the highest budget horror anymore.

I haven't played a good horror game in a while discounting RE8, but I did pick up a few weird horror games. Amnesia Rebirth was not good. I think I played The Last Door S2 this year or last year and that was a pretty good point & click.



I feel like most good/decent horror games these days are indie adventure games.






Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37570 on: October 24, 2021, 01:52:01 PM »
Also this developer that made fishing games made a Dagon visual novel and it's free on Steam and has very good reviews. Supposed to be one of the best adaptations of the novel in visual form.


Don Rumata

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37571 on: October 24, 2021, 07:09:26 PM »
No one lives under the lighthouse is more my speed, i was keeping an eye on that one.
I like surreal horror, like Paratopic or Lost in Vivo, but these PT spawns like Layers of Fear and Visage are just boring.
It's mostly creaking sound, the occasional cheap jump scare (that rarely works) and "turn 360° to make the door appear/disappear.
On top of that. they can't really model/animate convincing humans/creatures, so you already know it's going to be mostly furniture flying around and lights turning on and off, with possibly some annoying "survival" mechanic slapped on.

I also dislike the Outlast games, just because it's not the kind of horror i dig, but at least those feel like real games, somewhat.

Darkwood was a also one in recent years that was particularly clever and well put together.
Generally though, i tend to stick to experimental shit on Itch because although it's usually little 20 minutes tests, you get some interesting visual gags and spooky moods.

Anyway, finished Twelve Minutes.
It's a very cool concept, but the trailer was better than the game.
Just poor execution of a potentially great idea, with awkward dialog, janky animations (for such a limited and controlled title) and in general just a tedious implementation of the concept.
The second half of the loops are basically doing the same exact thing with one dialog line added in, and if you factor the trial and error, it becomes a nightmarish experience to finish it.

Nintex

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37572 on: October 24, 2021, 07:14:29 PM »
Around 50 hours into Tales of Arise.
I finally found out what the hell is ​going on, well partially at least.
Probably headed for the final grind now.
🤴

Joe Molotov

  • I'm much more humble than you would understand.
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37573 on: October 24, 2021, 08:52:58 PM »
I finished Tales of Arise and got 1000 GS, good game.

I’ve gone back to playing Trails of Cold Steel 1 again. I replayed the first ~10 hours at least 3 times but I decided this time I wasn’t restarting, I’ll just play from my last save and try to remember what’s going on. I started at the beginning of Chapter 3 and finished that this afternoon.
©@©™

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37574 on: October 24, 2021, 09:42:36 PM »
No one lives under the lighthouse is more my speed, i was keeping an eye on that one.
I like surreal horror, like Paratopic or Lost in Vivo, but these PT spawns like Layers of Fear and Visage are just boring.
It's mostly creaking sound, the occasional cheap jump scare (that rarely works) and "turn 360° to make the door appear/disappear.
On top of that. they can't really model/animate convincing humans/creatures, so you already know it's going to be mostly furniture flying around and lights turning on and off, with possibly some annoying "survival" mechanic slapped on.

I also dislike the Outlast games, just because it's not the kind of horror i dig, but at least those feel like real games, somewhat.

Darkwood was a also one in recent years that was particularly clever and well put together.
Generally though, i tend to stick to experimental shit on Itch because although it's usually little 20 minutes tests, you get some interesting visual gags and spooky moods.

Anyway, finished Twelve Minutes.
It's a very cool concept, but the trailer was better than the game.
Just poor execution of a potentially great idea, with awkward dialog, janky animations (for such a limited and controlled title) and in general just a tedious implementation of the concept.
The second half of the loops are basically doing the same exact thing with one dialog line added in, and if you factor the trial and error, it becomes a nightmarish experience to finish it.

I liked the few hours I played of Darkwood. I should go back and try to finish it. Interesting game though it felt a bit repetitive as you make slow progress during the day while gathering and getting prepped for the night and it's real easy to get lost. But great atmosphere and interesting mechanics.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37575 on: October 25, 2021, 02:27:00 AM »
Finished Psychonauts 2. That was amazing. It's long, the art & animation & music & VA are great. So much variety, really imaginative stages. Great story.

I have small nitpicks like the game is kind of dick for people going for 100% by often putting collectibles at the end of a stage and then ending it before you can get them so you have to go all the way back (though there are thankfully shortcuts), and the platforming isn't perfect and the controls for handling more powers than there are shoulder buttons means you're constantly swapping stuff which just feels messy and the combat isn't great,

But...it really is an amazing game. Every time I talk about the game I just splurge over the BUDGET because this is for sure the highest budget weird artsy game like EVER. It feels like Psychonauts...with the budget of Uncharted 2-4. It's crazy. Everything is so polished, there's an insane amount of assets, the pacing is fantastic because they have the budget to keep showing you new objects and art and animations. It's just incredible. This game wouldn't be anywhere near as good if it didn't have all this money & time put into it. Maybe that's all previous Double Fine games really needed?

I sure hope MS gives Double Fine this kind of budget and time going forward. I don't care if it's Psychonauts 3 or a new IP. Just be this polished and good.

I really enjoyed the story and the stages and all the writing. It was really funny and the characters were fantastic. I actually think this is not only far better than the original Psychonauts, which I loved, and leaps and bounds the best game Double Fine has ever made, but...I'd honestly say this is the best game Tim Schafer's made which is a really high bar with Grim Fandango.

I'd probably put this around the top30/top40 games of all time. I can't think of many 3d action platformers this good. Kicks the crap out of Ratchet PS5 for instance.

I wonder if I kickstarted it. I played it on game pass but the kickstarter was so long ago I can't remember. I'm gonna have to look it up and see if there's any goods or something I have somewhere.

Anyhow, 2021 GoTY. Can't see anything beating this. It's also probably game soundtrack of the year 2021. Fantastic score, felt very Kingdom Hearts-ish.

 

 

 

   

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37576 on: October 25, 2021, 08:24:09 AM »
Psyconauts looks cool (I never played the original), but I can't help but get "Made in Dreams" vibes form those screenshots.  :doge 

Mr Gilhaney

  • Gay and suicidal
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37577 on: October 25, 2021, 08:32:11 AM »
The art style is what it is. If you don't like it then you probably never will. But there's a lot more care and attention to details hidden in the graphics and in everything in it, than pretty much any other game out there, let alone dreams trash.

Going into people's minds is a good excuse to have very different levels I guess, and it works extremely well. Easily in my top 10 of all time.

TaySan

  • Junior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37578 on: October 25, 2021, 10:33:50 AM »
Just finished Crysis 2 Remastered(PC) over the weekend and now starting up Sonic Colors: Ultimate(PC).

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37579 on: October 25, 2021, 03:39:36 PM »
While I wouldn't call Dreams trash lol and I like Dreams a lot for what it is and Media Molecule from LBP/Tearaway/Dreams definitely has a similar art style vibe to Double Fine (which is a good thing, these games have great art design)...

...the difference between Dreams visuals and Psychonauts 2 is like 100x the polished budget. Dreams, even for MM, is a bit budget and a little jank. Psychonauts 2 visually is like Dreams if it had the budget of The Last of Us 2.

Mr Gilhaney

  • Gay and suicidal
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37580 on: October 25, 2021, 03:58:23 PM »
Dreams is cool, really fascinating tool/game. But have you actually enjoyed anything made with it? Everything people make it with just feels meh and samey, also graphically

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37581 on: October 25, 2021, 04:10:18 PM »
Yeah, Art's Dream was a nice 3-4 hour real game by MM. Enjoyed it a lot. In a lot of ways it ironically feels like a Double Fine/Lucasarts short adventure game.

Otherwise the rest has been fun little oddities here and there, but yeah that's about it. Then again I never got into user levels in LBP games either and just enjoyed the MM campaigns. I think MM is a very good studio at making single player games when they get a chance.

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37582 on: October 25, 2021, 04:37:33 PM »
While I wouldn't call Dreams trash lol and I like Dreams a lot for what it is and Media Molecule from LBP/Tearaway/Dreams definitely has a similar art style vibe to Double Fine (which is a good thing, these games have great art design)...

...the difference between Dreams visuals and Psychonauts 2 is like 100x the polished budget. Dreams, even for MM, is a bit budget and a little jank. Psychonauts 2 visually is like Dreams if it had the budget of The Last of Us 2.
Dreams is cool, really fascinating tool/game. But have you actually enjoyed anything made with it? Everything people make it with just feels meh and samey, also graphically
I agree with both of y'all.  If Psychonauts happened to come to PS, I'd definitely try it; I like the idea and art style of it, it was just one of my hot takes. lol  And Dreams has such amazing potential, but it'll never be maximized by any dev or individual unfortunately.  If Sony only dished out some skrilla to some dev to make a game only using Dreams, that'd be interesting.

chronovore

  • relapsed dev
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37583 on: October 25, 2021, 07:47:32 PM »
I agree with both of y'all.  If Psychonauts happened to come to PS, I'd definitely try it; I like the idea and art style of it, it was just one of my hot takes. lol  And Dreams has such amazing potential, but it'll never be maximized by any dev or individual unfortunately.  If Sony only dished out some skrilla to some dev to make a game only using Dreams, that'd be interesting.

Both the first game and the sequel are on PlayStation:
https://www.amazon.com/PsychoNauts-Playstation-2/dp/B0007PIEB0/
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP6312-CUSA27145_00-PSYCHONAUTS2SIEA/

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37584 on: October 25, 2021, 10:07:12 PM »
 I thought it was a MS exclusive.  :lol  :doge

Don Rumata

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37585 on: October 25, 2021, 10:14:36 PM »
They bought them after the contracts for PN2 were already done, i'm assuming.
They also had to honor Deathloop's after all.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37586 on: October 25, 2021, 11:01:53 PM »
I thought it was a MS exclusive.  :lol  :doge

Yeah, the only shame about no PS5 native version is pretty sure it's 30fps on PS4 and playing this on PC at like 120fps 4k or something was pretty glorious.

If MS funds them for a quality Psychonauts 3 in 3-4 years from now, I bet it'd move a lot of Xbox systems. There's a decent amount of Psychonauts fans on Playstation.

tiesto

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37587 on: October 25, 2021, 11:44:12 PM »
Finally 100%ed Dread, and finished the postgame in Actraiser Renaissance.

I also started playing the first Rolan's Curse on GB...and while its sequel was slow-paced and frustrating at points, the original is just a disaster. None of the charm or the interesting things of the sequel... and even more repetitive, obnoxious music. Apparently the game is super short and I'm already like 75% of the way through, after playing for about an hour when my friend was over. So I'll just stick it out and finish it.

And tomorrow I'll finally get down to Deltarune ch 2.
^_^

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37588 on: October 29, 2021, 02:16:20 AM »
So almost exactly one month after the launch of Trails of the Black/Kuro Falcom put out a patch and fixed the graphics lol

They added an unlock framerate option which goes from a broken judder 30fps -> silky smooth 60fps. This means the real-time battle stuff feels smooth like Ys' now, the turn-based battles feel slick, city/dungeon exploration is nice, cutscenes look good.

Also you can now skip S-Craft animations again and the top level longer spells can be skipped with start button.

A lot of people who marathoned 140 hours in the last month are a little bitter. I'm only 62 hours in and just about halfway so I'm glad the back half will look good and play better. Plus when part #2 comes out next year it'll be like this from the start now that they fixed this.


It is kind of sad or funny or both that they released the game and were like whoops if we unlock the framerate it fixes everything why didn't we think of this. Like does Falcom not have any PS5s to test their games on....

Rufus

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37589 on: October 29, 2021, 09:15:28 AM »
They added an unlock framerate option which goes from a broken judder 30fps -> silky smooth 60fps. This means the real-time battle stuff feels smooth like Ys' now, the turn-based battles feel slick, city/dungeon exploration is nice, cutscenes look good.
:lol
Sounds like they used double-buffered vsync before. I thought everyone agreed to stop doing that last-gen.

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37590 on: October 29, 2021, 10:37:15 AM »
Been playing Jump King after buying it on a whim since it's on sale. I can't tell if I like it or loathe it. It looks nice and the level design is pretty smart, but the jump control just feels too precise. It might work on a keyboard, but on a controller, at least the Switch's, the timing for medium-low to medium and medium high to max is just too tight for me to get right. Once I reached sections that require lot of medium and medium high jumps it just started feeling like random chance to me now.

bork

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37591 on: October 29, 2021, 10:52:29 AM »
Castle In The Clouds (DX) (Steam) - This is a metroidvania that's pretty polished for a cheap little indie game.  Has multiple weapons you can get and use, plus abilities to find to make fighting and traversing easier.

The developer also made Tower And Sword Of Succubus (an 8-bit style Zelda clone) and Midnight Castle Succubus DX, which feels like a less-polished more 8-bit prequel version of this game.  You might be getting what's up with these games by the names of those two titles- yup, they're adult-oriented, but you can play them in SFW mode to remove all that content if you want to.

I was wondering what the point of the nsfw version was at first.  There's some pretty explicit cut scenes and some monsters can trigger these too, but besides looking at this and going :beavis, so what?  Well, when you get 'hit' by one of these, it gives you one lust point.  Get 10 and go back to the town leader and he gives you a prostitute pass so you can go screw NPCs in town and get money to buy more stuff with.
:dead

Finishing the game unlocks two more playable characters and you can switch between them. 

Fatal Frame: Maiden Of Black Water - Picked this up on Steam and first tried it out on my handheld GPD Win 3 PC.  Ran just fine; controls seemed a bit too sensitive, but nothing that couldn't be adjusted.  Tried it on my desktop PC last night and the game ran at 120 FPS- as in twice the normal speed.  Checked Steam discussions and you just need to go into the GPU settings and force 60 FPS for this game.  OK, that's fine, except I saw other posts saying how the PC port is broken and crashes at certain key points in the game, making it impossible to play.  Refunded and bought on Switch- there's not much difference visually since this is a Wii U port anyway.  I don't know what KT's deal is with PC games.  They're very hit and miss.

Severed Steel (Steam) -  This is a 'cyberpunk parkour FPS' action game where you're supposed to move real fast and do cool stuff to avoid bullets and whatnot.  Kind of reminds me a little of Ghostrunner.  It's not in early access, but it sure feels that way.  Had issues getting this to run properly at 1440P and had to drop down to 1080P, then my connected Xbox controller started to drift, but the controller itself is fine- it only happened in this game.  KB/mouse controls just didn't feel right.  Might refund this one too and wait for the console ports or just skip it entirely.

Spider-Man Remastered (PS5) - Looks pretty nice with the raytracing effects on and is a smooth 30 FPS.  Not sure if I want to try the 60 FPS performance mode since it runs so well as-is.  The PS4 version kind of fell off for me with how repetitive it was, but I want to give it another try.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2021, 11:03:05 AM by bork »
ど助平

HardcoreRetro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37592 on: October 29, 2021, 11:13:30 AM »
The Spider-Man remaster has Insomniac's 60fps with raytracing mode as well. You'll lose some of the resolution clearness though.

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37593 on: October 29, 2021, 11:49:38 AM »
Playing Valheim with my bae :-[
What

bork

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37594 on: October 29, 2021, 12:15:50 PM »
The Spider-Man remaster has Insomniac's 60fps with raytracing mode as well. You'll lose some of the resolution clearness though.


Nice, will check that out!
ど助平

porkbun

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37595 on: October 29, 2021, 02:57:57 PM »
Played through GTA III for about the 30th time.  Still my favorite in the series.

Nintex

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37596 on: October 29, 2021, 03:04:32 PM »
Age of Empires IV is fun but it feels more like an Age of Empires 2 remaster than a new game in terms of gameplay.
I can almost play it by muscle memory.

With that said, I really dig the history channel documentary presentation and narrator in the campaign explaining all the events.
Intermediate is already easy though, maybe I should switch to hard.
🤴

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37597 on: November 01, 2021, 02:15:51 PM »
Was amped to play Returnal on Friday after what seemed like the longest week ever...  Didn't even make it through the first biome.  I just didn't have it in me.   That game demands you to be in top gaming form.... Which I wasn't.  I was already exhausted and needed to change gears.   The game is so awesome, but just leaves little mercy for mistakes. 

Still working my way through Kena.  Finished the 3rd Toshi(?) boss; The Hunter.  At first I thought there's no way I'm getting past this one....  Decided to throw a bomb at him and hit it with a rot arrow.... Boom.  Knocked out 1/3 of his health with it.  Took him out second try.

Cyberpunk... once I dive into this game, an hour or two is gone in a blink of an eye.  This game's all sorts of an incredible achievement.  Super fun and immersive.  Thank goodness the PS5 runs this at a relative solid 60fps without a hitch so far.    So awesome.

Joe Molotov

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37598 on: November 01, 2021, 02:51:01 PM »
Playing through the mahou shoujo moe moe kyun JRPG Blue Reflection before Blue Reflection 2 comes out later this month. :uguu :uguu :uguu  :patel

Also still playing Trails of Cold Steel, I'd like to finish all four games by the end of 2022, but maybe I'll just focus on having any of them finished by then.  :notlikethis

Also, played through about half of Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes with demi yesterday, gonna try to finish the rest of it tonight if we don't get too scared.  :exxy
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naff

  • someday you feed on a tree frog
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37599 on: November 01, 2021, 04:44:58 PM »
Playing through the mahou shoujo moe moe kyun JRPG Blue Reflection before Blue Reflection 2 comes out later this month. :uguu :uguu :uguu  :patel

 :pika

that is some heavy highschool princess lolicon action

kinda interested in trails, but everyone saying you have to play the series in order to really appreciate the later entries when the first game sounds boring af has always put me off. i remember trails in the sky fondly and will leave the series at that, can't imagine i'd like it as much now...
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Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37600 on: November 01, 2021, 05:40:14 PM »
at this point Trails as a franchise isn't worth it. Just play the individual arcs that are good and ignore the rest.

Basically Sky trilogy is worth it
Crossbell duo is worth it

play Reverie/Hajimari that's coming out next. You can play it without Cold Steel if you've at least played Crossbell.

skip Cold Steel
Calvard arc is looking like probably a skip too

Joe Molotov

  • I'm much more humble than you would understand.
  • Administrator
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37601 on: November 01, 2021, 05:59:52 PM »
Playing through the mahou shoujo moe moe kyun JRPG Blue Reflection before Blue Reflection 2 comes out later this month. :uguu :uguu :uguu  :patel

 :pika

that is some heavy highschool princess lolicon action

I only play it for the Oscar caliber dialogue.



spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37602 on: November 01, 2021, 07:00:13 PM »
I defended my castle with a few archers

🤴

BrokenVerses

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37603 on: November 01, 2021, 08:54:54 PM »
Picked up Resident Evil 7 and Village on the latest Steam sale. Pretty good so far.

The Sceneman

  • Did my wife send you?
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37604 on: November 02, 2021, 02:39:54 AM »
OMFG, finally beat Overtime 7 in Going Under to unlock the final achievement. That really, really sucked but I couldn't stop attempting it for whatever reason. Great game but don't bother with the Imposter Mode.

About halfway through Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, game controls worse than the other GBA Castlevanias but this game walked so Aria could fly and I'm cool with that. The dual card system is real neat.

The Ascent gets better once you get some more items and can pick and choose your loadout somewhat. Still repetitive gameplay but the shooting feels meaty and it's one of the best looking games I've seen.

Sidelined Metro Exodus and Rise of the Tomb Raider to focus on getting these finished but will get back to those. Theres just too much to play nowadays!
#1

benjipwns

  • your bright ideas always burn me
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37605 on: November 02, 2021, 09:53:05 AM »
About halfway through Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, game controls worse than the other GBA Castlevanias but this game walked so Aria could fly and I'm cool with that. The dual card system is real neat.
Yes, I unfortunately played it after Harmony and it felt so amazingly stiff and like everything was only at 45 degree angles.

Still a good game.

Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37606 on: November 03, 2021, 08:13:55 PM »
Played some Scarlet Nexus.
I like the combat and the look of the world (reminds me of Gravity Rush), too bad there's so much dialog (unbearable anime tripe, too).
It also introduced some kind of waifu mechanic, where you have to go out with these clowns and listen to even more dialog (and give them presents), which i hope won't get too annoying to keep up, since it influences combat.
Also i hope i can fuck the teacher with the big tits.  :-*

Just checked on HowLongtoBeat.. fuck it seems to be quite long.  :yuck
Hope it stays varied in locations at least.

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37607 on: November 03, 2021, 08:26:34 PM »
Age of Empires IV ramped up the difficulty in the second campaign.

The French are much weaker than the English and the objectives are more difficult.
Today I had to defend a town, capture two villages and a city, find a secret camp of English mercenaries and destroy it and then move on to the main camp of a rival French king.
The Mercenaries send about 20 / 30 units every 5 minutes or so to my town and once I took the city the French king send large numbers of heavy cavalry with regular intervals to counter attack.

I watched the population jump from 200/200 to as low as 54/200. The losses were big and the battle took about 2.5 hours.

At one point I had formed a main army of 134 units and at the end only 1 unit survived of that group.
🤴

Trent Dole

  • the sharpest tool in the shed
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37608 on: November 04, 2021, 06:04:14 AM »
Been playing EDF V with some friends a bit. It's EDF. 8)
Hi

tiesto

  • ルカルカ★ナイトフィーバー
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37609 on: November 04, 2021, 10:21:03 AM »
I started playing Metal Gear on NES, made it through the first major building, beat the tank boss, and am now heading into the second building. Looking at a guide it seems I'm close to halfway through the game. It's dated and janky, with a lot of obtuse stuff as typical of the era, but it's still pretty fun and I like all the tools and items you get to use. You can really see the origins of the series here, although I hear the MSX version is much better (I will play that eventually).

I've played MG before back in the day, but never really made much progress due to it being obtuse and not really taking the times to learn the ins and outs. But it's definitely a game that, once you get the rhythm of the game down, exploit the Ration respawns, get some Rank Ups to raise your life, and get some powerups (i.e. the silencer), becomes much more manageable.
^_^

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37610 on: November 06, 2021, 02:52:12 PM »
Beat Kena last night. The last boss, like most the bosses in this game, was super intimidating at first, but figured out his patterns and exploits pretty quick. Felt impossible at first, but ultimately only took me 4-5 tries. The dash practically replaces the roll with it's invincibility frames and the shield maxed out blocks everything, status bar permitting.  Fun game overall I'd say.

Trying out Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-reckoning.  I played some of the original back when it was a freebie on PS3 and somewhat enjoyed my time with it, but never got far.  Playing this one, although still dated, still has a likable charm to it.  I use to kinda dislike the WoW art direction, but kinda of liking it more ATM.  I may mess around with this from time to time.  Love Kirkhope's score.

Cyberpunk is fantastic. Man, this game just sucks me sideways.  Every little side job is like it's own immersive experience.  It's been so fun just going around and doing, hacking, shooting, looting and driving shit. 

bork

  • おっぱいは命、尻は故郷
  • Global Moderator
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37611 on: November 06, 2021, 06:22:37 PM »
Playing through the mahou shoujo moe moe kyun JRPG Blue Reflection before Blue Reflection 2 comes out later this month. :uguu :uguu :uguu  :patel

 :pika

that is some heavy highschool princess lolicon action

I only play it for the Oscar caliber dialogue.

(Image removed from quote.)

spoiler (click to show/hide)
[close]

Are you playing this on pc? I have it on PS4, but I also have it on PC and I don't even remember picking it up on there, LOL, but I want to say the PC version is supposed to be one of the really horrible awful Koei ports that's super buggy?

Tried the demo for the sequel on switch and it's pretty impressive how well it looks and runs on there. Well for an :uguu Gust game anyway.
ど助平

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37612 on: November 06, 2021, 06:59:06 PM »
More Age of Empires IV

Finished the French campaign, which got more fun once Jean D'Arc arrived with the French knights and we could finally beat the English.
Then Jean died but we got big canons instead so it was all good. Canons are very powerful in this game, most building can be leveled with 1 or 2 shots.
Overall the fact that you can now easily damage buildings (either with torches, rams, trebuchets or canons) prevents the game from becoming a drag at the final stages of a battle.

Now playing as the Mongols, taking down the great wall of China. Raiding Mongols make a Zerg rush look like a wheelchair parade.


🤴

Joe Molotov

  • I'm much more humble than you would understand.
  • Administrator
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37613 on: November 07, 2021, 02:38:07 PM »
Playing through the mahou shoujo moe moe kyun JRPG Blue Reflection before Blue Reflection 2 comes out later this month. :uguu :uguu :uguu  :patel

 :pika

that is some heavy highschool princess lolicon action

I only play it for the Oscar caliber dialogue.

(Image removed from quote.)

spoiler (click to show/hide)
[close]

Are you playing this on pc? I have it on PS4, but I also have it on PC and I don't even remember picking it up on there, LOL, but I want to say the PC version is supposed to be one of the really horrible awful Koei ports that's super buggy?

Tried the demo for the sequel on switch and it's pretty impressive how well it looks and runs on there. Well for an :uguu Gust game anyway.

I've been playing the PS4 version. It's a game that I picked up ages ago and never played, but the sequel coming out got me to finally give it a shot. I think I'm about half-way through it so I can roll right into Second Light next week. :rejoice
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Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37614 on: November 07, 2021, 03:15:58 PM »
Tried Metroid Dread for like 30 mins. Game controls incredibly well. Love how fast movement is.

But wow, it is very talky and cutscene heavy at the beginning. Hopefully this is just the intro stuff. I don't want talky in my metroidvanias plz. Castlevania Lords of Shadows was REALLY talky/cutscene-filled, so slightly concerned.

demi

  • cooler than willco
  • Administrator
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37615 on: November 07, 2021, 03:21:52 PM »
There's talky cutscenes, yeah. Some of them are more cutscene than talky
fat

naff

  • someday you feed on a tree frog
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37616 on: November 07, 2021, 04:05:42 PM »
i heard people saying this about dread but they get it over with pretty quick, but there are some funny cutscenes. they're all fairly minimal. even fusion is worse for talky overexplaining imo

you happily sit through tedious visual novel trash breh so your criticism is moot on this point :p
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Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37617 on: November 08, 2021, 01:11:30 AM »
i heard people saying this about dread but they get it over with pretty quick, but there are some funny cutscenes. they're all fairly minimal. even fusion is worse for talky overexplaining imo

you happily sit through tedious visual novel trash breh so your criticism is moot on this point :p

I mean there are story action games like Uncharted or Gears or Halo or whatever.

And there are gameplay games that really should be almost pure gameplay with as few interruptions as possible. Metroidvanias generally fall into the later. Replaying Aria of Sorrow I already get annoyed every time every hour or so you encounter someone and the game stops and I have to read 5 lines of dialogue which I basically skip. It's just a genre where I don't care one bit about plot and just want to explore out a map, get upgrades and kill shit.

It's like if Street Fighter arcade mode had you stop every 2 fights and have a discussion with your enemy before the fight started. Which...some fighting game story modes are and that's why story modes in fighting games fucking suck.

Also Castlevania Lord of Shadows is a bad, bad game and the Kojima style amount of cutscenes is a huge part of why it is bad. Left a real bad taste in my mouth when it comes to MercuryStream, but then I played like 30 mins of Samus Returns and it's pretty cool and Dread seems good outside the cutscenes so maybe they're ok but they're definitely talky.

Potato

  • Senior's Member
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37618 on: November 08, 2021, 04:35:26 AM »
It's like if Street Fighter arcade mode had you stop every 2 fights and have a discussion with your enemy before the fight started. Which...some fighting game story modes are and that's why story modes in fighting games fucking suck.
I agree generally, but Soul Calibur 2 Weapon Master Mode remains the best exception.
Spud

Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #37619 on: November 08, 2021, 05:49:08 PM »
Uninstalled Scarlet Nexus.
Couldn't take anymore of that dialog, and the combat was getting repetitive.
I don't know why they thought having hours of static cutscenes for every two fights was a good idea, but Gravity Rush did the same thing much better.

Anyway ForzaH5 look great, even Series S, i'm impressed.