What are you currently playing?

[NerfedFalcon]

I was introduced by a friend of mine to a game called 'HoloCure', which is basically Vampire Survivors, but based on the HoloLive VTubers instead of Castlevania. Besides the fact that I don't actually know anything about VTubers, the enemies are a bit harder to distinguish; similar-model enemies have different facial expressions or slightly different clothing to distinguish them instead of being outright different colors, which in the chaos of dodging around a mob makes it hard to properly tell what you're up against. Also, new characters are unlocked through a gacha (game is free and you don't spend real money on it), meaning that if your waifu is part of the Council, it could potentially take a pretty long time before you get a chance to play as them. It also only has one level, pretty clearly based on Mad Forest, and while it does have an endless mode, I don't see it having a lot of replay value in the long run.

However, it does have a few ideas of its own to distinguish itself mechanically from VS: Each character has a totally unique starting weapon instead of just starting with a different weapon each that the others can also get. Each character also has three 'skills'; during the run, you can level each of them up from 0 to 3, and they don't take up inventory space, so you'll probably end up getting them at some point. The anvil drop I think is also unique to HoloCure, and picking one up lets you choose a single weapon or item in your inventory to upgrade rather than it being random from a list like when you level up, or outright random from treasure chests.

If you like HoloLive, or want something slightly different from Vampire Survivors while still having the same basic ideas, it may be worth looking into; it's free, so all it costs is time and interest. For everyone else, just stick to Vampire Survivors.

 

[BrawlMan]

Back at Final Vendetta again. I beat my high score once again, and only managed to die once. I beat Boss Rush legit this time from start to finish. I used Claire Sparks for both Arcade and Boss Rush.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Just played through Kero Blaster, another game from the renowned Pixel, maker of Cave Story. It was a fun little retro shooter, but not really anything to top Cave Story.

 

[09philj]

Doom 2 with the Russian Overkill mod.

Russian Overkill is a mod for Doom and Doom 2 that replaces the original selection of weapons and powerups with a larger, more powerful, and more ludicrous selection. I've a particular fondness for the Power Overwhelming, a chaingun with a built in grenade launcher, a homing bullets mode, and the ability to drop a health and ammo dispenser powered by spent ammunition casings. Also if you play as the cyborg class you get a jetpack. It's joyous.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Doom 2 with the Russian Overkill mod.

Russian Overkill is a mod for Doom and Doom 2 that replaces the original selection of weapons and powerups with a larger, more powerful, and more ludicrous selection. I've a particular fondness for the Power Overwhelming, a chaingun with a built in grenade launcher, a homing bullets mode, and the ability to drop a health and ammo dispenser powered by spent ammunition casings. Also if you play as the cyborg class you get a jetpack. It's joyous.

Even the intro to the weapon animation showcase is a thing of beauty.

​

 

[Dalisclock]

Expeditions: Rome.

Still rolling through Act 1 with much of Asia Minor Conquered. Still not sure how a I feel about the differences in combat and crafting in this game. In Viking you could find items or craft them if you spent exp on the crafting skill, but in Rome they're locked behind having an armory and you can't build one until you've conquered a few provinces in act 1, and thus you can't craft anything until that point. Vikings also allowed you to craft new or better armor if you had access to a blacksmith(which wasn't hard) and the required(common) materials but again, here you have to find shit to equip your troops with until you're able to build the proper upgrade for your camp. I find it wierd that the average village in dark ages britain had more blacksmiths then a Roman Legion does. Otherwise, at least I'm not hurting for money or resources now so I don't have to wander between markets looking for the best prices.

I'm also still adjusting to the new leveling system. So Viking had you earning EXP for doing quests and such and you could spend it on anything you wanted as soon as you had enough. Rome has 3 skills trees per class but you can only unlock the more advanced things on the skill trees once you do the lower ones, but only in a certain order and while you can unlock one skill or level of a skill per point, it doesn't feel like much of an improvement over "you can unlock this skill if you have 15 exp" Viking had(keeping in mind Vikings made you level up certain skills in order(1-5) and locked some levels behind number of exp spent on a character(for example, 250 exp total to unlock level 5 skills). So less confusing but I don't know if it's better.

Also unsure exactly what trigger Interrupt(aka Overwatch) attacks. I swear I set characters for interrupt and enemies walk right up to them without them attempting to attack for no particular reason.

I do appreciate that the general history behind the game kind of gels with real history. The game is set during the Third Mithridatic War which I had never heard of except in passing. I also appreciate how the game more or less explains that your appoint to Legate(head of a legion) was basically because your father was in tight with the consul(aka one of the two leaders of the Republic) and thus he's taken a shine to you. More succiently, your noble status and good old fashion Nepotism basically got you in the door there and that's just enough of a handwave for me to buy it, even if you're playing a female character. Yeah, Rome was Sexist, but it was also Elitist and Corrupt, so the fact a member of the Nobility whose dad was good friends with one of the leaders of Rome could have their gender overlooked just in this particular case is something that works, especially given it's an alternate history.

 

[09philj]

Doom 2 with the Russian Overkill mod.

Russian Overkill is a mod for Doom and Doom 2 that replaces the original selection of weapons and powerups with a larger, more powerful, and more ludicrous selection. I've a particular fondness for the Power Overwhelming, a chaingun with a built in grenade launcher, a homing bullets mode, and the ability to drop a health and ammo dispenser powered by spent ammunition casings. Also if you play as the cyborg class you get a jetpack. It's joyous.

I've now finished this. I enjoyed it a lot, but I think it was much too easy. Despite playing on the hardest difficulty, I was only killed by enemies a couple of times throughout Doom and Doom 2. There are a couple of major culprits for this:
1. Your health isn't capped, as far as I can tell. This means you can keep grabbing health pickups forever and by the end of Doom 2 I had something like 18000 health, much too high for any fight with enemies to touch me.
2. A couple of the guns are overpowered even by the standards of the mod. First and foremost is the aforementioned Power Overwhelming, which is extremely easy to use thanks to its homing bullets mode, and can dispense huge amounts of health and ammunition from its dispenser. Second is the fully automatic super shotgun. Normally, the walls dropping away to reveal a million Cacodemons, Barons of Hell, and Arch Viles is a cause for concern. However, with the automatic super shotgun equipped it's barely an inconvenience. A lot of the other guns gesture at the idea of balance through a slow fire rate, or a risk of damaging yourself, or a weird firing arc, but the auto super shotty is pretty much a no risk screen nuke that you can continue to use as long as you have shotgun shells, which is almost all of the time, especially if you have the Power Overwhelming, which you probably do because it can spawn anywhere a chaingun normally can.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Completely missed the dragonlord plaximedusa boss earlier so now I should be done with the crumbly floating world. Suffice to say he gives Midir a run for his money at being the alpha dragon prick, but thankfully took far, far less tries. The runback to the battle site is no less shite though. It’s almost like FROM was trolling here. Guessing a statue on one of rocky bits would break the lore somehow, because I hadn’t seen any up there.

Anyways, this whole fight does a good job of illustrating why ER should be the sawn song of the Souls era. I mean, at some point there can only be so many dragons with fire/lightning/laser light shows; the last of which I miraculously was able to dodge through and henceforth seal the victory. I basically wound up saving my opaline bubbletear physik specifically for this too but wound up getting hit just beforehand, so it was basically an ohshitohshitohshit moment followed by surprise and some relief, because I still had to chase it down a bit further and land a couple more good hits, which dragons being dragons can easily spoil rather quickly.

Now it’s finally time to buckle down and take down Malenia. Her first phase isn’t much of a bother anymore, but that second phase is still touch and go.

 

[BrawlMan]

Power Rangers: BFTGRD - Super Edition. I got it on sale, physically, for $16. This edition already comes with most of the DLC (and no need to put in a code). You don't get the Season 4 characters unfortunately, so no Adam without paying first. It's a lower budget fighting game, so I am a bit more forgiving. PR is basically your Marvel vs. Capcom style fighter with PR characters, with two from Street Fighter as guest characters. The game is more casual friendly, but AI can be brutal at times, even on Easy. To the point that they should re-name the difficulties. I have not tried online yet, but it has rollback net code and cross play function that works well. I did some rounds of training, tutorial, and arcade mode to get myself adjusted. Another problem I noticed with the game is that there is no mega crash like in M vs. C, or even FighterZ, causing you or your opponent to get stuck in infinite combo loops. It's so annoying when it happens. Otherwise, a fun fighting game, and one the best uses of the license in a long time for the franchise.

EDIT: My first team for Arcade mode and completion was Eric "Quantum Ranger "Myers (voiced by Vergil), RJ, and Ryu.

 

[Bartholen]

I was introduced by a friend of mine to a game called 'HoloCure', which is basically Vampire Survivors, but based on the HoloLive VTubers instead of Castlevania. Besides the fact that I don't actually know anything about VTubers, the enemies are a bit harder to distinguish; similar-model enemies have different facial expressions or slightly different clothing to distinguish them instead of being outright different colors, which in the chaos of dodging around a mob makes it hard to properly tell what you're up against. Also, new characters are unlocked through a gacha (game is free and you don't spend real money on it), meaning that if your waifu is part of the Council, it could potentially take a pretty long time before you get a chance to play as them. It also only has one level, pretty clearly based on Mad Forest, and while it does have an endless mode, I don't see it having a lot of replay value in the long run.

However, it does have a few ideas of its own to distinguish itself mechanically from VS: Each character has a totally unique starting weapon instead of just starting with a different weapon each that the others can also get. Each character also has three 'skills'; during the run, you can level each of them up from 0 to 3, and they don't take up inventory space, so you'll probably end up getting them at some point. The anvil drop I think is also unique to HoloCure, and picking one up lets you choose a single weapon or item in your inventory to upgrade rather than it being random from a list like when you level up, or outright random from treasure chests.

If you like HoloLive, or want something slightly different from Vampire Survivors while still having the same basic ideas, it may be worth looking into; it's free, so all it costs is time and interest. For everyone else, just stick to Vampire Survivors.

I follow Hololive Vtubers from time to time, and what I've seen of the game looks really wholesome. For example, one of the bosses that shows up is a meme that was originally started by the community, and then adopted by the talent themselves. I think it's cute.

In other games I've been getting back into Mass Effect legendary edition, more precisely Mass Effect 1. It's essentially Mass Effect 1.5, since a lot of the clunkiness and technical issues from the original version have been ironed out. I remember there being lots of framerate issues and especially audio clipping in the Citadel, but they're gone now. The combat's also a little better, with emphasis on "a little". There's only so much you could refine ME1's cumbersome combat without completely altering game balance, but I think they've done a decent job.

 

[Piscian]

Got a steam deck today. Struggled real hard on not selling it since it's still a commodity for the moment. I finally talked myself into opening it, reminding myself that I can use it to play retro consoles like PS2 which I don't have a handheld for. I think it counts as a game because so far it's already a bit of a game on its own getting it set up. Not quite terrible, but not as smooth as getting going with a Switch. Found my first problem two games in, trying Resident Evil 0. Since it's detecting the screen as keyboard you're stuck with that mouse cursor on screen and I can't get it off the screen. Probably some community fix for it already, but annoying.

I think what I'm most torn on is the horrid deck layout. I'm assuming the giant track pads are supposed to appeal to PC and disabled gamers. My problem is I am disabled, but the trackpad is so squirrelly I'd rather just struggle with the thumb stick. That's my other problem. You have this giant ass controller and the thumbsticks are right on top of the d-pad and buttons. Speaking of which the d-pad is definitely not fighter/brawler friendly. You really gotta mash it to get it to move. Tempted to try and replace it. Honestly I think trying for the universal appeal thing was too much. I'm 100% certain more than one developer was like "You know if we just ditched the left track pad the deck is pretty ergonomic", but then somebody was like "BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS!? WHAT ABOUT THIS AND THIS!?". I also would prefer that if they are keeping the trackpads then give me an option to just disable the touch screen while in game. You got too many features here Valve. Maybe you still have a chip on your shoulder because everyone hated your dumb controller.

At the end of the day the steam deck reminds me a lot of the "homer mobile". The compatibility isn't terrible so far. out of my 500 or so games a 110 or so are reported as 100% steamdeck ready. Retroarch isn't detecting the controller. I'm honestly kinda surprised. I know there's probably just some trick to getting it going, but you'd think they know that's gonna be a big chunk of the audience for this thing. I'm hoping compatibility testing is a limitation of the user base being so small that valve just isn't getting that feedback and community support it needs so when this thing is 100% retail the bugs will get cleaned up fast. Idk, Im gonna give it a few days. What concerns me is that rather than keep messing with it my eyes keep glancing over to my Switch because I've been playing..

Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE encore #$ etc etc

I'm quite enjoying this game. I'm maybe 10-15 hours in and what I've seen so far is kind of a "Persona Lite". Thematically it's Persona - highschool kids going in dungeons, beatin up monsters to a banging soundtrack. It's lacking in the expansive Monster trainer/pokemon aspect and the social interaction stuff is comparatively limited. You still collect monsters, but it's mostly just in service of upgrading a linear progression of companion Persona's Mirages that give you magical and weapon augmenting abilities.

In the last couple Persona's, if you attacked an enemy's weakness you could chance a partner hopping in for a free attack and this improved as you improved your social relationships. TMSFEED$%# instead makes this the main focus of combat, if you attack an enemies weakness and a partner has a similar skill, say you cast fire and they have fire-strike or something they'll join the beating and the purpose is to keep this combo going as long as possible, getting several attacks off and possibly eliminating all enemies in a single characters turn which can feel extremely cathartic.

aside from that TMSFEE**&> is more focused around the music. For story reasons you almost get immediately roped into joining an idol studio and all the fights take place on a stage with a big audience. I expected to feel more turned off by this weeb nonsense, but to be honest it's got a really addictive sound track. Honestly while Persona 5's music started to get on my nerves after a while I find myself getting drawn into the music of this game. There's already been a lot of music act cutscenes that were pretty cool.

Overall, I feel like this game could best be described as Persona: Mystic Quest. It reminds me a lot of the charm of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest which lacked the depth of the Final Fantasy main series, but instead felt like a breezy romp. I just checked and this game is a measly 50 hours. After feeling like I lost ten years of my life playing through the 150 hour Persona 5 royal campaign I relieved by the idea that I could knock this out in a couple weeks before it wears on me.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Well, Malenia has known defeat. I wound up RoB’ing her of her life and dignity, and have no shame in it. I’d done decently enough with a fully upgraded Meteoric Ore blade and also power stancing a pair of fully upgraded Lordsworn straight swords with cold and fire, but to have her just say “No, fuck you…” right before so nonchalantly either one shotting me or undoing a bunch of damage upon surviving a few hits or having the gumption to *gasp* block, I said fuck it right back. Let’s just say it was giggly fun dishing her bullshit right back in her face for a change. Oh, she still got me at least a couple times with the rot explosion but my mimic powered through while I ran in to finish her with the last few bloody slashes.

Now I’m really liking messing around with Dex/Arcane stuff, and am DW’ing a fully upgraded Elenora’s Poleblade and +24 Godskin Peeler with Bleed + Seppuku until I find another Ancient stone. This combo would’ve probably melted her pretty well too from the looks of how they blew through a few random bosses even before having them both upgraded.

Now I’m considering end game, but might do a bit more scavenging after noticing I missed a bunch of good stuff walled off in Sage’s Cave and a few other places. Mirage rise was pretty neat, and damn does that burning Erd tree look wicked as a backdrop to Altus Plateau, especially when spirit jumping.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Just about finished the last limited-time event in Genshin Impact just in time for another one to start, though they're both going to continue running concurrently. At least this way I don't have to split my focus between them much, and once I get the new one done I'll be able to get back on the actual plot for a while. I was out for a few months, so quite a lot's been added to the MSQ and character quests in the meantime.

Probably the biggest problem I have playing the game, and it's not so much an issue with the game as with my ability to interact with it, is that I can never decide which of my 30-odd characters I should be trying to work on, or what part of their builds need work. There's so much going on, so many interlocking systems, that it just gets a little bit overwhelming to me. Makes me think a little bit of the Souls games, and how you're given so many weapon and armor choices, even if you don't discover most of them in a single playthrough, that it can be hard to decide what to do, and so I just end up settling for a sword-n-board most of the time.

To invoke a cliche and compare it to Breath of the Wild for a second, that game makes me think a little bit more of Sekiro's combat, which while it has a lot of different techniques you can pull out, it's mostly based around learning a single unified fighting style rather than developing one for yourself. Neither approach is generally speaking 'correct' or 'incorrect' for a game to take, it just appeals to different people. And I happen to like both, even if I do find huge amounts of options and customization intimidating.

 

[Hawki]

Update time:

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

So I mentioned earlier about how I've given up on making it to the Arathi Highlands in time, so I've kind of settled into playing a number of classes. Get levels, get abilities, it'll help with writing the characters in their respective scenes, etc. Other things of note are:

-Darnassus is gorgeous. Empty, but gorgeous.

-I like how the Forsaken starter zone is kind of like the inverse of the human starting zone. Your character starts in a church/crypt, is assigned to kill kobolds/bats, your area is harried by the Defias Brotherhood/Scarlet Crusade, and you make it to Goldshire/Brill. Pretty sure this is intentional, but whatever the case, it's nicely played.

XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 2

So I'm 60 hours in, and up to ch. 7. Random thoughts:

-So, at the end of ch. 6...god damn it, this is more or less a microcosm on my thoughts on the game's writing, because it's simultaniously got some of the worst and best writing in the game occurring literally within minutes of each other. On one hand, you have the tired anime trope of "my powers allow me to do this" (ugh), which is moving at the speed of light (if Jin can do that, he should have had no problem finding anyone if he's the bloody Flash), and convoluted explanations as to how light works. On the flipside, this is balanced out by showing how Rex's foresight is useless against it, because even if his mind knows what Jin is going to do, his body can't move in time to react, which is nice. But overall, the writing is cringe, and cliche, and I'm hating myself until suddenly things git gud. Pyra agreeing to sacrifice herself if Jin lets Rex live, Jin saying (paraphrased), "I thought you were different. But in the end, you were just a blind, stupid fool." The actual writing is better, but for me, it's one of the best moments in the game so far.

I mean, let's face it, Rex is a bit of an idiot, and naieve as hell, but my take on the scene is that this is the moment where he grows up, so to speak. Completely outclassed, and it's at this moment that he just realizes just how naive he's been the entire game. I might be reading too much into this, but that's my take.

-What follows is one of the best scenes in the game, period. While it's the usual "protagonist is low spirited, characters encourage them," it's actually written really, REALLY well. Because on one hand, Rex's emotions are perfectly valid considering what's just happened, while the frustations of the others are also understandable. Plus, Poppi. The game's had hit or miss voice acting up until now, but the way Poppi's voice cracks as she begs him to stay...wow. I know this scene is going to weigh heavy on Rex and...

...oh. He gets over it pretty quickly by the next cutscene. Fine...

-I theorized way back that XC2's theme is "death and decay," but walked back on that, since the revelations are that Tantal's in decline entirely due to extortion from Indhol (long story). So I guess that's a nail in that theory.

-So, since I've put Rex on the sidelines since I no longer have access to Pyra/Mythra, rotated my main between Morag and Zeke. Helps that they're higher levels, but Morag's...okay, I guess, but Zeke is a beast. Got him equipped with Pandoria, Poppi Mk. II, and Perun.

-The underground cavern where we go to find the third Aegis sword, where Blade powers are limited bar Tora's...it's okay, I guess. Visually drab, but it does mean that one has to change tactics, since you can't really chain elemental attacks anymore. Hence my point about Zeke, since I can alternate between his three Blades, while Tora tanks, Nia heals, and Rex and Morag do...whatever it is people outside the party do.

 

[Piscian]

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Playing Grow Up, the sequel about the robot growing a giant beanstalk on an alien planet. It's cute and pretty chill. Fun physics game.

 

[Chimpzy]

Forgotton Anne
No, that's not a spelling error. 2d puzzle platformer with a hand-drawn anime art style. Not modern anime tho, more old school, like late 80's and quite obviously early Ghibli inspired. Looks really nice. Sounds nice too. Full orchestral soundtrack. Doesn't play that great tho. It plays a lot like og Prince of Persia or Flashback, all unresponsive controls and slow canned animations. not really my thing.

 

[gorfias]

I've now finished this. I enjoyed it a lot, but I think it was much too easy. Despite playing on the hardest difficulty, I was only killed by enemies a couple of times throughout Doom and Doom 2. There are a couple of major culprits for this:
1. Your health isn't capped, as far as I can tell. This means you can keep grabbing health pickups forever and by the end of Doom 2 I had something like 18000 health, much too high for any fight with enemies to touch me.
2. A couple of the guns are overpowered even by the standards of the mod. First and foremost is the aforementioned Power Overwhelming, which is extremely easy to use thanks to its homing bullets mode, and can dispense huge amounts of health and ammunition from its dispenser. Second is the fully automatic super shotgun. Normally, the walls dropping away to reveal a million Cacodemons, Barons of Hell, and Arch Viles is a cause for concern. However, with the automatic super shotgun equipped it's barely an inconvenience. A lot of the other guns gesture at the idea of balance through a slow fire rate, or a risk of damaging yourself, or a weird firing arc, but the auto super shotty is pretty much a no risk screen nuke that you can continue to use as long as you have shotgun shells, which is almost all of the time, especially if you have the Power Overwhelming, which you probably do because it can spawn anywhere a chaingun normally can.

So I see a download here: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=29915&
And Steam has Doom 2 for $5.
Is that what you would/did use to get this game?

 

[09philj]

So I see a download here: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=29915&
And Steam has Doom 2 for $5.
Is that what you would/did use to get this game?

You'll need the mod and either DOOM or DOOM 2 from Steam. The other thing you'll need is GZDOOM, which is a source port that will allow you to run DOOM engine games on a modern operating system, and with expanded capabilities including dynamic lighting, improved mouselook, and mod support. GZDOOM will automatically detect the relevant files it needs if you buy a DOOM engine game from Steam. To run the mod, download and extract the .PK3 file, then open it with GZDOOM. Most mods for DOOM engine games are designed with GZDOOM or its predecessor ZDOOM in mind. You can also use GZDOOM to run Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Chex Quest, and any other games that use the DOOM engine.

 

[Kyrian007]

I just finished Act IV in Middle Earth: Shadow of War. That's main story end + the so called true ending. Early on, that would have taken a lot more time. Act IV was the super long grindy part that incentivized players to buy the lootboxes and speed up the grind. After all the negative press, and basically the black eye that Monolith never recovered from, they reduced considerably the amount of grinding needed to finish the game. Now it can be done in a few hours.

And now, I'm not sure what I'm moving on to. I need to work on my backlog. But the only 2 new games I bought so far this year have been adding content after my break away from them to play the Middle Earth games. Weird West has made several big claims about rebalance, improvement, and they supposedly revamped the entire game economy. Which was much needed considering money was completely pointless outside needing to buy a horse for each character. No luck for me on them changing the entire very anti-climatic final act of the game and its really poor ending. Unless that didn't make their constant bragging in patch notes. And I could... actually should go back to My Time at Sandrock. Just yesterday the devs posted they had just completed a huge optimization update. And frankly that was one of the big issues post the beginning of their Early Release period. And they really had made decent progress in optimization after just a couple of weeks, so it must run pretty well now.

But the ridiculous summer heat is really pissing me off. I don't want to play a chill, serene, social crafting game like My Time. I wanna keep wading untouchably knee deep through rivers of orc blood brimming with the flotsam of severed heads, arms, and legs...

Maybe there's a gory shooter on my backlog, or I could go as evil as possible through Weird West.