What are you currently playing?

[Dalisclock]

Just replaying Mass Effect 2, and whilst I enjoy this game, it does lack focus.

For example, did you know this game only really has 6 main missions? You've got the Prologue, Freedom's Progress, Horizon, the Collector Ship, the Reaper IFF, and then the Suicide Mission.

The vast majority of the game is comprised of either squadmate recruitment missions, or loyalty missions; neither of which really have much to do with either the Reapers, or the Collectors.

Then, when you also take into account that ME3 basically did nothing with a couple of the plot threads that ME2 left open, it really feels like a major narrative detour, sandwiched in between the "OMG, the Reapers are coming/here!" storylines of the first and last game.

I can appreciate that this is definitely more of a character-driven story than the other two games, but when you are stuck in Act 2, doing little more than back-to-back loyalty missions for hours, it really does make me desperate to get to Mass Effect 3.

Yeah, I honestly feelt that ME2 basically gimped any chance ME3 had of being a satisfying finale. Don't get me wrong, ME3 makes plenty of mistakes on it's own, but ME2 did very little to advance the overall plot of getting everyone ready to fight the reapers as the whole collector thing ends up being almost meaningless in ME3.

 

[Bartholen]

I did love the theme and story of W1, but gameplay was something that I didn't want to go through again. I can't imagine gameplay being worse that what I sat through

WItcher 1 is definitely an unfortunate case of bad gameplay being so bad it overshadows the greatness of the story. When I played through all Witcher games in 2017 for the first time, the first one was genuinely agonizing. I could tell the story had a butt-ton of nuance, choices, branching paths and different alliances you could form, but the gameplay was so ass that after act 4 I just speedran through everything in order to not have to suffer through more of it. Considering how little almost anything in it has part in the later games, to this day I haven't felt the slightest tinge of wanting to go back to it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I did love the theme and story of W1, but gameplay was something that I didn't want to go through again. I can't imagine gameplay being worse that what I sat through

Jankier, buggier, even less intuitive!

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Ah, Witcher 1. What a game,
I played it a while back having played and liked Witcher 2 and loved loved loved Witcher 3, so read all the books and had to play the first game.
My PC setup was console-like- controller, TV, couch. And W1 is in the CRPG mode with kb+m. So, I went through this whole rigamarole of using some software to map kb+m to controller. Then I couldn't understand the combat at all and all that walking so I added mods to basically make my invincible and faster, turning the action RPG into a telltale-style interactive narrative. It was certainly interesting.

As much as I love W3, there is one thing about W1 that is better than its sequels- the quirkiness. There is just some weird shit in that game.
Act 4 is justifiably its most beloved part- with fish people and the wraiths. In fact, the wraiths is a great example of how the greater success and accessibility of the sequels came on the back of sacrificing character. The noon/night wraiths in Act 4 of W1 is a great side-plot, with a post-death love triangle and genuinely creepy ghost women. In W3, those same wraiths are visually brilliant, creepy enemies to fight. But the vibe and story of W1 IMO makes much better use of the whole idea of a jilted murdered bride-to-be. It's really affecting.

On the other hand, the W1 swamps is something I never need to deal with again, just endlessly respawning drowners and those damn monster plants.
In fact you can also see lots of references to W1 in W3, like the Velen swamp around the Crones also has respawning drowners and the same beggartick flowers you can pick. And of course Blood & Wine is full of W1 references.

 

[Ezekiel]

Wondered why the quality of the Alien: Isolation cutscenes was so poor, so I extracted some of the USM video files with vgmtoolbox. Turns out they are MPEG-1. Who the fuck still encoded for PC monitors and HD televisions in MPEG-1 in 2014? 12 Mbps is low for 1080p, but I've seen videos of much better quality, with far less macroblocking, at that bitrate. Only they weren't in MPEG-1. I wanted to compress a video in MPEG-1, 2 and 4 to see what the visual difference is, but Handbrake doesn't even encode in MPEG-1, because it's so dated and obsolete.

Also interesting is that the extracted video played smoothly. It looked like a 30 fps video, while the game plays them back seemingly under 20 fps. That's not just me either; it's widely reported.

https://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php/USM

 

[Bartholen]

Finished the Raya Lucaria academy in Elden Ring. Unfortunately I discovered the key to it hopelessly late, and thus was colossally overpowered. As a result it didn't really give much challenge or satisfaction. I was especially bummed about Rennala's boss fight, because holy crickety christ that looked gorgeous. Six swings from my +16 Heavy Zweihander later it was over. At least I got to respec and switched to the Blasphemous greatsword as my main weapon, because that thing is just so twisted and cool. Outpaces the Zweihander's damage by a mile too, which is nice.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Finished the Raya Lucaria academy in Elden Ring. Unfortunately I discovered the key to it hopelessly late, and thus was colossally overpowered. As a result it didn't really give much challenge or satisfaction. I was especially bummed about Rennala's boss fight, because holy crickety christ that looked gorgeous. Six swings from my +16 Heavy Zweihander later it was over. At least I got to respec and switched to the Blasphemous greatsword as my main weapon, because that thing is just so twisted and cool. Outpaces the Zweihander's damage by a mile too, which is nice.

Funny, I never found the Zweihander in Elden Ring, though like many it was my late-game savior in Dark Souls.
I actually found the Rennala fight impossible because I simply couldn't dodge her spamming spells while also chasing her around. I ended up summoning another player.
But I definitely love the character design.

 

[Ezekiel]

In testing the cutscenes, I lost my save current file. Forgot that you can't reload an old save after starting a new game. But it's okay, because Hard mode is boring, and you can't switch from Hard to Nightmare. Items are too abundant. It's Nightmare or nothing. I'm gonna see how playable this is without using the objective magnet thing.


Ugh, just remembered the HUD is gone on Nightmare, which would be fine if you could only see your own health. Still, Hard's boring.

 

[Worgen]

Hardspace: Shipbreaker launched the full release today so I've been playing a lot of that. It feels much better then the last early access build I played, which was pretty early. The story is kinda... odd, like one of the other cutters says hi then pretty much decides you are her new best friend and tells you her hopes and dreams out of the blue, which is kinda weird. But, I'm still early on in it and cutting apart the ships is very enjoyable.

 

[Dalisclock]

Hardspace: Shipbreaker launched the full release today so I've been playing a lot of that. It feels much better then the last early access build I played, which was pretty early. The story is kinda... odd, like one of the other cutters says hi then pretty much decides you are her new best friend and tells you her hopes and dreams out of the blue, which is kinda weird. But, I'm still early on in it and cutting apart the ships is very enjoyable.

I played it a year ago in Early Access. It was fun but not enough me to me play more than a few hours. I might jump back into it once I finish ER. Who knows. I might need something zen to clear my head after a souls game.

For anyone whose played in EA and since it went 1.0, any notable difference now that it's officially out?

 

[Bartholen]

Funny, I never found the Zweihander in Elden Ring, though like many it was my late-game savior in Dark Souls.

I used a wiki to find out where you can find it, because I have a tradition of playing a Zweihander dodge build as my first character in Soulsborne games. You can buy it from the isolated merchant in the Weeping Peninsula, near the wandering monastery.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Still playing Dandara. It's a lot of fun and I can't figure out why it didn't make a bigger splash within the indie/Metroidvania scene, maybe not Hollow Knight big but up there. I guess it doesn't have much of a personality and no real story or characters or lore to connect with. But the levels are fun, the control scheme is unique, there's a few nice surprises (in regards to gameplay) along the way and the difficulty is a plus for these kinds of games. It's short but well worth replaying. And the music's great.

Sounds a bit like something from Furi.

Hhm, looks like fun, I'll give it a look sometime. As for why it didn't make a splash, I'd guess we're just reaching a threshold of saturation with the genre where it's becoming harder to parse out the gems from the mediocre.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

View attachment 6200

Didn't even remember this part. It's immoral. Where you have to reflect the light from mirror to mirror to sunlight block as the Black Boes keep interrupting you and the light keeps cooling off. Someone on the team was thinking, "How can I really piss off the player?" Maybe I was less shit back then and that's why I don't remember.

Eh? That's not much of a problem. First time you play it can frustrate you but it's not a big deal once you understand how to do it.

Far more annoying for me still is dealing with the gibdos in the well.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Just beat Rykard in Elden Ring. One of the coolest boss designs Fromsoft has ever created. I also can't wait for the "soul level 1 punch only Rykard no damage no healing" attempts some mad folks will inevitably try.

I will be knocking on his door shortly where I’m currently at based on what I’ve read. The fully grown Fallingstar beast was the best version in terms of location. The fight went pretty smoothly once I stopped relying on spells to drop it for a crit. and just did ride by’s with my katana. Was also fun doing mounted overhead attacks to its weak spot and watching its pincers not like that too much.

Idk much about how alliances with NPCs affect quests in this game, but I drank the Kool-Aid from the mistress and her henchman in Volcano Manor, then proceeded to kill the red phantom upstairs. Hope she wasn’t too important to them.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Funny, I never found the Zweihander in Elden Ring, though like many it was my late-game savior in Dark Souls.
I actually found the Rennala fight impossible because I simply couldn't dodge her spamming spells while also chasing her around. I ended up summoning another player.
But I definitely love the character design.

Question: how did the Rom fights go for you in Bloodborne? For me they were far more troublesome, but I was decently overleveled for Rennala.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Question: how did the Rom fights go for you in Bloodborne? For me they were far more troublesome, but I was decently overleveled for Rennala.

Why Rom in particular?
But yeah, one of the most memorable boss fights of all time.
I realized on that fight I had two options: patiently kill all of the babby spiders each round before going for mom Rom, like most youtubers and guides say, or going ham on mom Rom while dodging the babbies. I basically chose the latter. I killed all the first round babbies because Rom doesn't do the meteor shower yet. Then after that, I charged mom Rom with a weapon that was like a mace with lightning magic buff, and just f'n went to town on her ass and running around in a circle when the meteors start.

My approach to dealing with most boss fights is to simplify as much as possible. Know the 2 or three things I really have to look out for and react accordingly. Avoid any unnecessary items, spells or consumable because I'll just get confused and press the wrong buttons. Rom became doable once I got the hang of its two big meteor attacks and dodging the easily telegraphed babby spider attacks.

 

[Dalisclock]

I will be knocking on his door shortly where I’m currently at based on what I’ve read. The fully grown Fallingstar beast was the best version in terms of location. The fight went pretty smoothly once I stopped relying on spells to drop it for a crit. and just did ride by’s with my katana. Was also fun doing mounted overhead attacks to its weak spot and watching its pincers not like that too much.

Idk much about how alliances with NPCs affect quests in this game, but I drank the Kool-Aid from the mistress and her henchman in Volcano Manor, then proceeded to kill the red phantom upstairs. Hope she wasn’t too important to them.

The volcano manor people believe the strong should take power anyway they can. So they don't care if you kill people or not. Hell, if and when you kill Rykard they just say he was weak and deserved his death because he let himself be killed. And Tanith.....just yeah.

So at least they're consistent

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

The volcano manor people believe the strong should take power anyway they can. So they don't care if you kill people or not. Hell, if and when you kill Rykard they just say he was weak and deserved his death because he let himself be killed. And Tanith.....just yeah.

So at least they're consistent

Aaaaand on that note if a volcano destroys their manor they basically would deserve it too, because who puts their manor on a frickin volcano anyways FFS. But it would be a shame since it’s kind of a cool place from what I’ve seen so far.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Why Rom in particular?
But yeah, one of the most memorable boss fights of all time.
I realized on that fight I had two options: patiently kill all of the babby spiders each round before going for mom Rom, like most youtubers and guides say, or going ham on mom Rom while dodging the babbies. I basically chose the latter. I killed all the first round babbies because Rom doesn't do the meteor shower yet. Then after that, I charged mom Rom with a weapon that was like a mace with lightning magic buff, and just f'n went to town on her ass and running around in a circle when the meteors start.

My approach to dealing with most boss fights is to simplify as much as possible. Know the 2 or three things I really have to look out for and react accordingly. Avoid any unnecessary items, spells or consumable because I'll just get confused and press the wrong buttons. Rom became doable once I got the hang of its two big meteor attacks and dodging the easily telegraphed babby spider attacks.

Rom because the fight instantly reminded me of it personally. The prelude was actually more Deacons of the Deep-ish, but their “tell” made them especially trivial to dispatch and get on to the main event.

 

[Dalisclock]

Aaaaand on that note if a volcano destroys their manor they basically would deserve it too, because who puts their manor on a frickin volcano anyways FFS. But it would be a shame since it’s kind of a cool place from what I’ve seen so far.

Presumably that's just to prove how strong they are...and to cut down on the heating bills in the winter(the summers must be fucking murder though).

I'm honestly convinced FROM does stuff like this because they want to redo something again but do it right this time. Basically, to me, this is the Iron Keep from Dark Souls 2, except it doesn't suck. This is a well executed take on the Iron Keep. On a related note, someone pointed out that the big curse tree you fight as a boss from DS3 is basically a better version of the Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls 1. It's not called out, but there's enough similarities to the battle that it makes you wonder if it wasn't a stealth "Hey we're sorry the Bed of Chaos sucked. Here's a better version of it".