What are you currently playing?

ObsidianJones

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There was a sale on Vermintide 2. I got all of the dlcs and stuff for 33 bucks (no cosmetics because who cares?)

I'm way back in. I was always a WH 40k fan more than Fanta... Age of Sigmar. But I love building these characters to my liking. I didn't even think I would like Grail Knight, but I'm walking through like a Black Templar and owning massive amounts of Chaos and Vermin Scum.

I just wish they would tackle 40k in a manner that the majority of people would want. I'm excited for Darktide as well, but I would rather have Space Marines, Orcs, Eldar, and Tau in all their delicious specialties and powers than just plan Guardmen. And to be able to pick up relics... hell, Primarch weapons and progress in powers? I would be in love and play it all the time.
 

NerfedFalcon

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I've nearly finished the first set of Kingdom Hearts 2's worlds. The second half is where the game starts ramping up a lot, with more dangerous enemies and bosses, more involvement of the primary story arc in individual worlds, and more reveals that can throw people for a loop who weren't paying any attention. But as long as you do pay attention, it's not that difficult to keep up yet, despite Sora's protestations in character that he can't.
 

meiam

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I've nearly finished the first set of Kingdom Hearts 2's worlds. The second half is where the game starts ramping up a lot, with more dangerous enemies and bosses, more involvement of the primary story arc in individual worlds, and more reveals that can throw people for a loop who weren't paying any attention. But as long as you do pay attention, it's not that difficult to keep up yet, despite Sora's protestations in character that he can't.
I remember really liking the gameplay of the second half because dungeon got longer with less interuption and you had more ability to play around but I just couldn't care about the story, nothing felt like it mattered and it felt like they were making up everything as they went along.
 

ObsidianJones

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Is there anyone who plays Vermintide 2 on steam that has room for a Bounty Hunter Saltzpyre? I can handle recruit no problem, but the bots aren't smart enough for Vet and the damage scaling is insane, and every time I quick play, I jump into a almost fully dead toon.
 

Bartholen

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Hollow Knight, after like a year of not playing it.

There's so much to love about it, but it's just too obtuse for its own good. I must have spent a good 10 hours just bumbling around wondering what the chuffing fuck I was supposed to do, finding nothing but dead ends and inaccessible places. Since I had no recollection of the already incredibly vague story I had no idea if there was someplace in particular I was supposed to be heading to. When I found the crystal dash all I could think of was "Oh, would have been fun to have had a hint where this was. Or that it even existed in the first place." This game is just crying out for an NPC who could drop some hints about important things in the world, instead of them being left entirely up to the player to discover. Or alternatively you could scale the world back a bit, so that the player won't have like two dozen places to go while needing some ability for all of them. Just a teensy bit more linear progression would have helped there a bit.

It also doesn't help that the game has no system to mark what kind of obstacle is at the end of each inaccessible place, so I ended up constantly wandering back to them in the hopes that whatever I'd just unlocked would maybe help with it. Easily 30% of my around 22 hours have been just wandering around aimlessly. Another aggravation is that the travel distances between different zones can be incredibly long, and the fast travel spots are very sparse.

Before Hollow Knight I also played a bit of Darksiders 2.

It's a game that's about the sum of its parts, but for each individual part I can think of a game that's done it better: the combat is better in Dark Souls and God of War, the loot collecting is better in Diablo, the platforming is better in Prince of Persia, the dungeons and semi-open world are better in Zelda. The standout here is the soundtrack that's actually really good, but it's entirely in the wrong game. The artstyle and graphics have some personality and are pretty well executed, but are in service of entirely the wrong story. And when everything in a game is either average or at odds with itself, the end result is... well, average.

I'm genuinely puzzled about the stylistic choices in this game. I remember having similar feelings about the first also, but I played it like a decade ago and my memory is hazy at best. The story and main character strike such a harsh dissonance with every other element that it feels like two completely different games have been mashed together with little consideration to how well they fit. The main character, Death, looks like an edgy comic book character from the 90s, rides an undead horse named Despair, wields a revolver and dual scythes and cynically croaks every voice line. He's on a desperate quest to resurrect humanity and save his brother from damnation. And yet he's surrounded by these world and character designs out of World of Warcraft where everything has exaggerated proportions and the color palette is really bright. The end result looks like someone dropped a Spawn action figure in the midst of a bunch of Playmobil toys, and it never stops being jarring.

The story doesn't fare much better, since like 90% of the narrative is setting, and next to no story. There's nearly no narrative momentum since nobody is given almost any characterization, and the stakes are far removed from where the game takes place. The vast majority of dialogue is just spent on rather dull worldbuilding, and the few characters that have some personality are little more than stock archetypes.

What's left is the gameplay, which is perfectly fine, save for some aggravating design choices in the combat. Who the hell thought that having to hold L2 for lock-on in combat was a good idea? But like I said, everything it does has been done better elsewhere. Its only claim to fame is that games that combine all these gameplay styles are still quite rare, so it stands out by that merit alone. But it being a sort of jack of all trades, master of none type game also makes it difficult to recommend, because whatever elements I can think of there are other games that do them better.
 

NerfedFalcon

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It also doesn't help that the game has no system to mark what kind of obstacle is at the end of each inaccessible place, so I ended up constantly wandering back to them in the hopes that whatever I'd just unlocked would maybe help with it.
Did you buy the markers that you can place yourself from the map shop in Dirtmouth? Use those to keep track of areas that you can't get to yet. They even come in different colors so you can use different causes of being stymied in different areas to keep better track.
 

BrawlMan

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It's a game that's about the sum of its parts, but for each individual part I can think of a game that's done it better: the combat is better in Dark Souls and God of War, the loot collecting is better in Diablo, the platforming is better in Prince of Persia, the dungeons and semi-open world are better in Zelda.
While a majority of that is true, I don't know where you are getting Dark Souls from. Darksiders II tried to be nothing like Dark Souls. Darksiders III on the other hand.....yeah. There was an update that made III play more like the first two games. The Darksiders series was always these mish-mashed ideas that ended up average and not always coming together. The first game takes from Zelda, DMC, God of War, Prince of Persia, and most importantly: Soul Reaver and The Legacy of Kain franchise. That's where the influence is most notable, if you've been gaming since the 90s. II is mostly the same with those ideas, except you have Diablo loots that don't add much.

The main character, Death, looks like an edgy comic book character from the 90s, rides an undead horse named Despair, wields a revolver and dual scythes and cynically croaks every voice line.
He is voiced by Michael Wincott, so that is to be expected.

 
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Johnny Novgorod

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Batman: Arkham Knight. I'd forgotten I'd bought the season pass (thought I had just bought Season of Infamy, adds R'as, Freeze, Mad Hatter and Killer Croc) and turns out there's all this DLC for it I didn't even know I had. Playing through that and then doing NG+ with all the newly added villains.
 
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Gergar12

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Genshin Impact's Labyrinth Warriors event. It sucks, it's too hard for 60-80% of the community because many don't have a Fire/Pyro DPS, have too weak of a DPS, or their team synergy sucks. I couldn't get past the second trial because I don't use healers. When it comes to games like that you need as many types of characters as possible, Main DPS, Sub DPS, Supports, Healers. Bows, claymores, swords, spears, and magic. And all the elements, but it seems this event was designed to appease the streamers who want harder content.
 

Bob_McMillan

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Batman: Arkham Knight. I'd forgotten I'd bought the season pass (thought I had just bought Season of Infamy, adds R'as, Freeze, Mad Hatter and Killer Croc) and turns out there's all this DLC for it I didn't even know I had. Playing through that and then doing NG+ with all the newly added villains.
I've been getting recommendations for Arkham Knight content on YouTube lately, no idea why. It does make me want to replay the game though. I remember being hugely disappointed by the game's season pass, since a lot of it felt either like cut content or wasted potential. Maybe a fresh start with all the DLC and updates will change my mind.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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I've been getting recommendations for Arkham Knight content on YouTube lately, no idea why. It does make me want to replay the game though. I remember being hugely disappointed by the game's season pass, since a lot of it felt either like cut content or wasted potential. Maybe a fresh start with all the DLC and updates will change my mind.
It did look like cut content to me (especially since you've already faced all the Season of Infamy villains in the previous games) but I really enjoyed the game and figured I'd buy the season pass to shake up NG+. Usually goes for 4 or 5 bucks on sale on PSN.
 

meiam

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Genshin Impact's Labyrinth Warriors event. It sucks, it's too hard for 60-80% of the community because many don't have a Fire/Pyro DPS, have too weak of a DPS, or their team synergy sucks. I couldn't get past the second trial because I don't use healers. When it comes to games like that you need as many types of characters as possible, Main DPS, Sub DPS, Supports, Healers. Bows, claymores, swords, spears, and magic. And all the elements, but it seems this event was designed to appease the streamers who want harder content.
If you're at world level 5+ you can lower it to easily get trough it. Otherwise you can just repeatedly do the first encounter to grind the resource that let you buy the bonus so runs get easier. Still beyond that you can just rush the boss and then just spam the shigigami that do damage, 3 of them per bosses will kill them without you even having to do anything.

I did the whole thing never using a secondary team, I started less than 2 months ago so I don't have many characters, my only fire character is the cooking girl that everyone gets for free (and she's still C0). Everyone gets a healer since you're guaranteed to get Noelle (and she's pretty good even C0), plus you can use a shikigami that heal. Quite frankly I'd say the event is really easy and even if you can't do it, you're not really missing out that much, it doesn't gate any content, isn't part of the main story and the storyline is quite silly (it's another one those events where everyone conveniently forget that Tartaglia is a mass murdering psycho who tried to nuke the biggest city in the world).
 

NerfedFalcon

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(it's another one those events where everyone conveniently forget that Tartaglia is a mass murdering psycho who tried to nuke the biggest city in the world).
In this case, they didn't so much forget about it as intentionally lie about it in order to keep the group from falling apart. YMMV whether that's better or worse. Speaking of, I managed to get Tartaglia for my roster at the last possible chance by cleaning out the event shop, so I'm pretty happy about that.
 

Bartholen

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Did you buy the markers that you can place yourself from the map shop in Dirtmouth? Use those to keep track of areas that you can't get to yet. They even come in different colors so you can use different causes of being stymied in different areas to keep better track.
That wouldn't have helped much anyway, since by the time I got back to the game after my absence there were so many blocked paths I couldn't remember half of what they were. And I don't really like the concept of forcing myself to learn some abstract code for different obstacles just because the game insists on being as obtuse and roundabout as possible. Just let me make text notes on the map dammit!

Edit: besides, since the game at no point even hints at the various traversal abilities even existing, it was basically impossible for me to know beforehand if a place I encountered was an actual dead end, an obstacle that could be crossed later, or a pathway I'd encounter later from the other side.
 
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Bartholen

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While a majority of that is true, I don't know where you are getting Dark Souls from. Darksiders II tried to be nothing like Dark Souls.
I meant as just a singular element, meaning the combat. It's got the same perspective, emphasis on lock-on and dodging at the right time, with strong and light attacks and your attack speed depending on your weapon. So yeah, maybe not that similar, but it's still closer to Dark Souls than God of War, which was another influence I mentioned.
 

Casual Shinji

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This game is just crying out for an NPC who could drop some hints about important things in the world, instead of them being left entirely up to the player to discover.
I think that's actually a major appeal of the game; having the player familiarize themselves with the gameworld rather than having the NPCs do it. It also adds to the sense of isolation and loneliness that the game is obviously going for, and the idea that every character is kinda lost themselves.

I can understand getting frustrated if a game is being obtuse, but I can't say I found much of that in Hollow Knight. Nearly all progression blockers are dead stops that don't invite further attempts beyond the skills you have at that moment. You also encounter very little of each kind before you acquire the skill that nullifies it; you only encounter one armored bug before you get the soul shot skill needed to progress past it, and there's maybe three high walls to see before you get the wallclimb. The only exception maybe being the rickety floors that were hard to keep track of.

All in all I'd say the game funnels you pretty well, and there was always some place new to go in another direction when the game stopped me from the one I was currently headed toward.
 
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Bartholen

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I think that's actually a major appeal of the game; having the player familiarize themselves with the gameworld rather than having the NPCs do it. It also adds to the sense of isolation and loneliness that the game is obviously going for, and the idea that every character is kinda lost themselves.

I can understand getting frustrated if a game is being obtuse, but I can't say I found much of that in Hollow Knight. Nearly all progression blockers are dead stops that don't invite further attempts beyond the skills you have at that moment. You also encounter very little of each kind before you acquire the skill that nullifies it; you only encounter one armored bug before you get the soul shot skill needed to progress past it, and there's maybe three high walls to see before you get the wallclimb. The only exception maybe being the rickety floors that were hard to keep track of.

All in all I'd say the game funnels you pretty well, and there was always some place new to go in another direction when the game stopped me from the one I was currently headed toward.
When I say "drop hints about the world" I mean no more than that. Like there could be one NPC in a hard to find location who could tell the player things like "They say that once upon a time the miners of Crystal Peak could fly through the air like leaves in the wind" or something like that. That would at least be something to guide the player towards the incredibly essential traversal abilities, instead of absolute zero. When I was talking about travel abilities, I was thinking more of the Crystal Dash, the double jump, the acid swim and the shadow dash. The player encounters places where these are needed way, way, way before the abilities in question are accessible. Which definitely led me to retreading old ground in search of something I'd maybe missed.
 
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Casual Shinji

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When I say "drop hints about the world" I mean no more than that. Like there could be one NPC in a hard to find location who could tell the player things like "They say that once upon a time the miners of Crystal Peak could fly through the air like leaves in the wind" or something like that. That would at least be something to guide the player towards the incredibly essential traversal abilities, instead of absolute zero. When I was talking about travel abilities, I was thinking more of the Crystal Dash, the double jump, the acid swim and the shadow dash. The player encounters places where these are needed way, way, way before the abilities in question are accessible. Which definitely led me to retreading old ground in search of something I'd maybe missed.
I think the game bets on the player experiencing a great sense of discovery and excitement when finally acquiring these skills without knowing beforehand what exactly they'll be. When seeing impassible spike pits that go beyond the screen you know there's probably a skill to get past them, but you don't know what. This then adds to the mystery of the world and that feeling of triumph when solving that mystery. The game let's the player ruminate on what the next skill could be, and I think you'd lessen that by having the game tell you what the skill in accordance the hurdle might do.

The game also controls so well that I never had much issue traveling back and forth when I was trying to find where to go next.
 

BrawlMan

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It's got the same perspective, emphasis on lock-on and dodging at the right time
That's Bayonetta. The dodging part, except no Witch Time. I know in II, you can't block unlike the first game. So emphasis was placed on dodging and parrying. Except the dodging didn't exactly work and in certain circumstances made things worse. I know the justification for Death being unable to block like War, is that he's "too arrogant" to do so. Which does not make any sense, because he at least blocks in two different cut-scenes. What the hell THQ?

As far as locking on goes, it's less Dark Souls, and more let's have this semi-over-the-shoulder look to it you find in a 3rd persons shooter. And there are third person shooter elements when locking on and getting certain guns. The only other hack n slash that goes over-the-shoulder when shooting is Lollipop Chainsaw.

So yeah, maybe not that similar, but it's still closer to Dark Souls than God of War, which was another influence I mentioned.
No, Darksiders I & II are way closer to God of War and DMC, than Dark Souls. The only time DS played an influence in the series is III.