What are you currently playing?

[Ezekiel]

Finished Leon 2nd Run in RE2 (2019) again. Tried to use very few ink ribbons (8) and still got a C, forgetting that only time matters. I wanted to explore and was confused about the map once or twice again. I'd never play it just to get a grade, but I kind of despise Japan's obsession with them. Glad RE4 doesn't have them. Definitely never playing it at a desk again. My aim with controllers, as clumsy as they are, isn't that bad anyway, and I get much better picture and sound on my bed. One of my favorite games from the last few years.

Got a few more achievements, unintentionally. One for opening all the locks and safes, another for reading a letter left by Jill (which was always RIGHT in front of me when I went into the gun shop) and another for not using any bullets in Ada's chapter. The zombies in her chapter are so easy to circle.

 

[meiam]

Just tried that. Did not work. Its even stupider that when the thing binds you, its action does more damage to your guys and it can just use its ice breath to freeze people. The alien rulers are dumb and stupid and meant for at least mid game, not early game.

Oh I only play with them once so maybe they randomize which one you get first and it doesn't work on some of them? I just remember getting one really early and it rushed my guy and then got overwatched to death. I didn't play on highest difficulty, just second highest so maybe that's the difference?

 

[Worgen]

Oh I only play with them once so maybe they randomize which one you get first and it doesn't work on some of them? I just remember getting one really early and it rushed my guy and then got overwatched to death. I didn't play on highest difficulty, just second highest so maybe that's the difference?

I don't know, I got the kind viper and from what I read that one always spawns first, but I don't know beyond that. I was playing on commander also. Even if I did overwatch with everyone and they all hit that would only have done like 10 damage since it also has 2 or 3 armor. Plus, when it was aggroed every overwatch I did gave it a turn. My guy would still shoot but then it would do something horrible.

 

[gorfias]

Played almost the entire Arizona Sunshine campaign in online coop with my nephew to be (engaged to my niece) on normal. We've gotten too good for this. Took our time getting past all the hordes that used to kill us to death with no problem. But if we go to a harder level, I think it will be less fun (less ammo and fun guns. Love the Deagle). Very different from the same team that made the sequel, "After the Fall". A.S. is sort of strategy. Be careful with your ammo. ATF is Left for Dead 2 in VR. Spray down everything that moves. Much more intense. They both have their fun aspects.

Don't watch if you don't want to know the ending:

 

[Dalisclock]

Doing stuff in and around the ocean in Majora's Mask. The Zora form takes a while to get the hang of but man does it make swimming a lot less painful then OoT. I do have to remember that ZoraLink can only use certain objects when he''s standing on the sea bed and not swimming which caused a problem here and there.

Finished the Pirate fortress, which basically felt a lot like the Gerudo fortress from OoT but with boats and water. And who do the Gerudo Pirates even pirate from? I don't see any ports or shipping nearby and the only nearby coastal things are the zora cove, the aquarium and the little village thingy nearby. It has the stupid "You must be sneaky or else" mechanic like the GF from OoT which I really dislike, the whole "Oh, you got seen. You instantly surrender. All they do is toss you out of the fortress". At least the stone mask pretty much removes having to worry about that and the hookshot makes it so much easier to get back into the fortress any subsequent times.

While the Majora's Mask game world is small, it feels really densely packed. Like there are so many little things and quests all over the place and I keep finding more. There's even a graveyard quest where you can get the skeletons to help you investigate the graves and it's kinda cool if a little weird and creepy. Though that fucking gravedigger is a pain in the ass to escort because if you take more then 2 steps from he him wanders off like a stupid blind puppy.

I really do appreciate just how much they did with what they had here and while the time loop creates a (perhaps artificial) constraint, it also encourages making the most out the space and time available.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Doing stuff in and around the ocean in Majora's Mask. The Zora form takes a while to get the hang of but man does it make swimming a lot less painful then OoT. I do have to remember that ZoraLink can only use certain objects when he''s standing on the sea bed and not swimming which caused a problem here and there.

Finished the Pirate fortress, which basically felt a lot like the Gerudo fortress from OoT but with boats and water. And who do the Gerudo Pirates even pirate from? I don't see any ports or shipping nearby and the only nearby coastal things are the zora cove, the aquarium and the little village thingy nearby. It has the stupid "You must be sneaky or else" mechanic like the GF from OoT which I really dislike, the whole "Oh, you got seen. You instantly surrender. All they do is toss you out of the fortress". At least the stone mask pretty much removes having to worry about that and the hookshot makes it so much easier to get back into the fortress any subsequent times.

While the Majora's Mask game world is small, it feels really densely packed. Like there are so many little things and quests all over the place and I keep finding more. There's even a graveyard quest where you can get the skeletons to help you investigate the graves and it's kinda cool if a little weird and creepy. Though that fucking gravedigger is a pain in the ass to escort because if you take more then 2 steps from he him wanders off like a stupid blind puppy.

I really do appreciate just how much they did with what they had here and while the time loop creates a (perhaps artificial) constraint, it also encourages making the most out the space and time available.

They pirate from the Zoras obviously, hence all the zora eggs. Maybe people pay extremely well for a zora omelette. More seriously, they could probably just sail out to open waters and do piracy there, you don't necessarily need to establish your pirate base directly across from those you intend to rob and, in fact, it is probably advisable not to do so.

 

[Dalisclock]

They pirate from the Zoras obviously, hence all the zora eggs. Maybe people pay extremely well for a zora omelette. More seriously, they could probably just sail out to open waters and do piracy there, you don't necessarily need to establish your pirate base directly across from those you intend to rob and, in fact, it is probably advisable not to do so.

Fair enough. I can't really think of much to say about the gerudo in MM other then the gerudo valley theme in OoT had Spanish guitar and flaminco going. The gerudo music in MM does not.

0/10. Zelda is ruined forever. You done fucked up Nintendo.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Fair enough. I can't really think of much to say about the gerudo in MM other then the gerudo valley theme in OoT had Spanish guitar and flaminco going. The gerudo music in MM does not.

0/10. Zelda is ruined forever. You done fucked up Nintendo.

Oh, there's not even a comparison. The Gerudo Valley theme is one of the best songs of the entire series.

 

[Bartholen]

My hunger for tactical fantasy RPG combat took me over the edge, and I bought Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous on sale. I'm less than 2 hours in, basically not even out of the tutorial, so I'm sure the game has yet to open up properly. But so far I'm enjoying it. The character creation alone had me salivating. I don't think I've ever seen such an insane array of options for character creation, which perfectly scratched my TTRPG itch. It was so satisfying to finally get to create a character I've been wanting to play on the tabletop.

At first I was horrified at the potential prospect of having to play in real time with pause, a system that I absolutely despise to my bone marrow. Thank heavens there was a turn-based mode as well. The inevitable comparison with my limited experience will be Divinity Original Sin 2, and so far the comparison hasn't exactly been favorable. Though again, I'm sure this'll open up more as the game progresses. But simple things like Health indicators and conveying what you can and can't do seem a tad less noticeable. It'll take some time to adjust to it.

To be honest the start of the story didn't exactly jive with me. I'm the type that likes my RPG stories to start out small, it's why I'm one of the like 10 people on the planet who liked the beginnning of the first Borderlands, and why I enjoy the random alternate start mod in Skyrim so much. This game opens up with a city invasion where a demon lord slaughters a dragon in front of the PC's eyes, and like an hour later you find some angelic artefact whose meaning I'm not sure of yet, but I'm certain it's big. I dunno, showing your guns like that right at the beginning feels kinda spoilery to me. Like I know right from the outset what I'm going to be facing at the end.

I've also played more of New Vegas, and the game is pulling me in more and more. The nuances of the world and story really take their time to show themselves, but once they do it's really engaging. I also installed the autoloot mod, which removes a huge amount of scrounging containers and having to (for some goddamn fucking arbitrary shitbrained reason) specify how much of the weightless ammo you want to pick up.

I still think the game has a huge favoritism issue when it comes to the weapons you can find. I already said this, but it's just a constant aggravation when I'd like to play a sci-fi themed energy weapons and science specialist, but the vast majority of the game heavily favors using conventional guns and lockpicking. Even the satisfaction of finding like 20 fission batteries was hampered by the fact that in order to make them into energy cells you also need drained energy cells, and those are really hard to come by.

But perhaps the biggest disappointment about the game so far is the titular location. You spend like 10 hours getting there, but once you do there's basically nothing there. Oh sure, there's slot machines and such, but the actual city and casinos are shockingly devoid of life and content. I feel like I should be tripping over quests in this place, but all there is to do or gain in Gomorrah for example is succeeding on a few speech checks that just give some extra XP. Am I doing something wrong here?

 

[meiam]

My hunger for tactical fantasy RPG combat took me over the edge, and I bought Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous on sale. I'm less than 2 hours in, basically not even out of the tutorial, so I'm sure the game has yet to open up properly. But so far I'm enjoying it. The character creation alone had me salivating. I don't think I've ever seen such an insane array of options for character creation, which perfectly scratched my TTRPG itch. It was so satisfying to finally get to create a character I've been wanting to play on the tabletop.

At first I was horrified at the potential prospect of having to play in real time with pause, a system that I absolutely despise to my bone marrow. Thank heavens there was a turn-based mode as well. The inevitable comparison with my limited experience will be Divinity Original Sin 2, and so far the comparison hasn't exactly been favorable. Though again, I'm sure this'll open up more as the game progresses. But simple things like Health indicators and conveying what you can and can't do seem a tad less noticeable. It'll take some time to adjust to it.

To be honest the start of the story didn't exactly jive with me. I'm the type that likes my RPG stories to start out small, it's why I'm one of the like 10 people on the planet who liked the beginnning of the first Borderlands, and why I enjoy the random alternate start mod in Skyrim so much. This game opens up with a city invasion where a demon lord slaughters a dragon in front of the PC's eyes, and like an hour later you find some angelic artefact whose meaning I'm not sure of yet, but I'm certain it's big. I dunno, showing your guns like that right at the beginning feels kinda spoilery to me. Like I know right from the outset what I'm going to be facing at the end.

Dunno if you played pathfinder kingmaker, but it starts much smaller and reasonable. However the game has, imo, the massive issue that you're constantly on the clock which is really annoying on a first play trough since you can end up wasting days because you didn't go the way the game intended for you to go without actually telling you which way you should have taken.

The turn based system is a bit weird. Pathfinder is a PnP turn base game, but when they made their video game version they decided to make everything real time and built the system with that in mind, but the translation was clunky with plenty of little weird annoyance and some of the skill text still using turn based terminology. After release they made a turn based version but the video game system was still designed to be real time first and foremost, so a lot of element aren't quite adapted for it, like UI and some of the balance don't quite work.

Oh FYI, don't pick fancy weapon as your weapon focus, some of the exotic weapon are really rare and you can go entire chapter without ever seeing upgrade and then plenty of the upgrade you will see will end up not being right for your build. The game really needed a system to reforge weapon into similar weapon class (ie short sword to long sword or something).

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I played through the first hour or so of Fallen Order, and I have to say, I'm really hoping it gets better.

Maybe my controller is getting old or something, but controlling Cal feels like shit. Parrying anything is really awkward, both because of how it looks and feels and which button they mapped it to. The dodge mechanics seem random as fuck. I don't see why they bothered to try and make climbing around so complicated. Simple things like jumping to the ledge above you isn't reliable, even when you're actually sure if the ledge is grabbable or not. Christ, just moving around and sprinting makes you feel so slow.

I don't know. Maybe I just haven't played a real game like this in so long. But I definitely don't feel like a Jedi right now.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Kena: Bridge of Spirits looks kind of good, anyone playing that?

My controller seems to have stopped behaving so I won't buy any games until I resolve this but I'm thinking my next game to be Kena or Sifu. Sifu for sure looks like my thing but Kena is iffy.
On the plus side it's getting praise for the art and I like pretty games. 3rd person action melee with magic, that's also my jam. But the reviews are mixed about combat and difficulty spikes. The Escapist folks seem to be very meh on it, but I dunno how much of that is just that they are bored games journalists.

 

[BrawlMan]

But I definitely don't feel like a Jedi right now.

Play No More Heroes III (I hope you have a Switch); it has the best Jedi combat to date. Travis feels like a "street" Jedi, yet is a better Jedi than Cal.

​

 

[BrawlMan]

I did another round of Devil May Cry 5, DmC, and Streets of Rage 4. I played Doom 64 and did some level select on the harder difficulties.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Been playing some The Last Guardian on PS5, which if you have the disk version and don't download the patch you can play at 60fps. I mean, the game is still a bloody chore to control, but those 60fps sure do help in no longer giving me a headache.

I also downloaded the 10 dollar upgrade for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves, and yeah, it looks nice, but nothing to really write home about. It's nice to play Uncharted 4 without the screen being filled with artifacting though.

And I played some Webbed, which has pretty fun mechanics, but rather confusing and empty level design.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm doing the Great Bay Temple in Majora's Mask and it's....well, it's not the Water Temple, or at least not as confusing as the Water Temple. However, the whole current thing is kinda annoying on it's own merits. I've managed to get the map, the compass, the ICE arrows(because the dungeon item in this game seems to be some variation on the arrow, for some reason) and the boss key and I've gotten all the red switches so now the current is reversed before I saved and went to bed. I've also been trying to get on the fairies on the first go through because I want to get them on the same cycle so I don't have to go back to the temple if I can help it but apparently now it's finding a way back to the boss and the other remaining fairies and the fountains so I can get the reward.

Anyway , the Great Bay Temple feels wierd. I know Zelda tech is schizo and I know this is Termina, not Hyrule, but the temple is more of a giant pumping station and/or hydro power station that exists...for some reason It also feels like something that would be more at home in Metal Gear then link at times. I don't expect Zelda Dungeons to look like real buildings, but still, normally they're some variation of "Ruins/Caves/Temples/Castle/Mansion/Basement" but here it's a power plant because...why not apparently?

Also, I'm just gonna through out that one of the minibosses looks familiar. Where have I seen him before I wonder? And then I realized I'd seen him in Demons Souls to boot. Oh, FROM, borrowing stuff from Zelda.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I'm doing the Great Bay Temple in Majora's Mask and it's....well, it's not the Water Temple, or at least not as confusing as the Water Temple. However, the whole current thing is kinda annoying on it's own merits. I've managed to get the map, the compass, the ICE arrows(because the dungeon item in this game seems to be some variation on the arrow, for some reason) and the boss key and I've gotten all the red switches so now the current is reversed before I saved and went to bed. I've also been trying to get on the fairies on the first go through because I want to get them on the same cycle so I don't have to go back to the temple if I can help it but apparently now it's finding a way back to the boss and the other remaining fairies and the fountains so I can get the reward.

Anyway , the Great Bay Temple feels wierd. I know Zelda tech is schizo and I know this is Termina, not Hyrule, but the temple is more of a giant pumping station and/or hydro power station that exists...for some reason It also feels like something that would be more at home in Metal Gear then link at times. I don't expect Zelda Dungeons to look like real buildings, but still, normally they're some variation of "Ruins/Caves/Temples/Castle/Mansion/Basement" but here it's a power plant because...why not apparently?

Also, I'm just gonna through out that one of the minibosses looks familiar. Where have I seen him before I wonder? And then I realized I'd seen him in Demons Souls to boot. Oh, FROM, borrowing stuff from Zelda.

They are all cluster type enemies to be sure, although Phalanx is more like a pile of slugs with shields rather than eyeball-centric. Phalanx also holds the honor of being the boss that got me hooked on Souls games. Perhaps the best thing is all these bosses are fun to fight, especially with fire in the latter’s case.

 

[Samtemdo8]

I've been binging through a lot of games lately.

In recent weeks I've played and beaten
God of War 2 (On Titan Mode)
God of War Ghost of Sparta
God of War Ascension
Final Fantasy 4
Final Fantasy 5 (First time I've ever played and beaten it)
Final Fantasy 6
Now on Ratchet and Clank having beaten OG 1
Currently on Going Commando (And wishing to finish it quickly to get to Up Your Arsenal)

 

[Dalisclock]

They are all cluster type enemies to be sure, although Phalanx is more like a pile of slugs with shields rather than eyeball-centric. Phalanx also holds the honor of being the boss that got me hooked on Souls games. Perhaps the best thing is all these bosses are fun to fight, especially with fire in the latter’s case.

Yeah, I know there's some differences there. I just couldn't help but think of Phalanx(the only boss in Demons souls I've actually beaten because I barely played any of it) when I saw giant pile o eyeballs and I'm fairly sure the people at FROM are Zelda fans. I know Miyazaki was once asked how he felt his games compared to Zelda and he more or less said he felt the comparison was unworthy or something, like he has that much respect for them. One can make a good argument that FROMs games take influence from them at very least.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I played Vampire Survivors for a couple of hours after seeing SGF play it, and I think I'm pretty much done now. The game is just not.. that good. It's kind of fun for a couple hours but you just don't have enough control. I was able to win on the grassy stage with the guy that starts with knives after a couple hours with 2 evolved weapons, and the next run I was doing really well for like 29 minutes. I had 4(!) evolved weapons, the spinach and tome and armor all maxed, and had hit the level cap and was raking in bonus levels for cash every couple seconds... until 29 minutes when the enemies started to hem me in and not die fast enough, then I only got one more level and took the health bonus and then I died at 29:21, 39 seconds away from the goal. I have no idea what I could possibly have done to deal more damage. I had over double the firepower of my last game, but just couldn't do it. Maybe it's because my computer was lagging like crazy and it just didn't process the damage fast enough or what, but I don't feel like there was any possible way for me to win.

I don't know why it's so popular right now, certainly doesn't deserve 26k positive reviews on steam to 227 negative.