What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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I know about the Steam port, but odds are it won't run well on my laptop.
14 hours into Hollow Knight.
Yeah, it's good.
Yeah, it's good.
Warframe, as ever, lol.
Anyhow, on the less endless games, started up Ghost Song. Thus far a solid seeming, if obvious in its inspirations (Metroid+Souls). Complete with trying to go opposite the tutorial and smashing my face on an optional boss like 7 times in a row (unlike most Souls, you don't get the i-frame dodge til later) (If you particularly want to look at it, the first stream VoD is here, (skip like 20 minutes in if you want to pass over my rambling about recovering from pneumonia and aforementioned boss-facing to the more general gameplay)
Anyhow, on the less endless games, started up Ghost Song. Thus far a solid seeming, if obvious in its inspirations (Metroid+Souls). Complete with trying to go opposite the tutorial and smashing my face on an optional boss like 7 times in a row (unlike most Souls, you don't get the i-frame dodge til later) (If you particularly want to look at it, the first stream VoD is here, (skip like 20 minutes in if you want to pass over my rambling about recovering from pneumonia and aforementioned boss-facing to the more general gameplay)
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- Nioh 2 (thanks PS plus!)
- Diablo 3 (this season is the best one so far)
- Spelunky (I've only beat one end boss thus far...)
(I also might start Like a Dragon or the FFVII Remake today...)
- Diablo 3 (this season is the best one so far)
- Spelunky (I've only beat one end boss thus far...)
(I also might start Like a Dragon or the FFVII Remake today...)
I found I was able to push through the crashing sequence by pressing the Xbox's Home button, and have successfully gotten past that section. Still playing, though I'm about done, I'm sure. Really enjoying it save for the technical issues.
Still playing through Borderlands 3. I've found that this is a great game to play while listening to a podcast, because the core gameplay is excellent, but the writing is so fucking terrible that the experience is improved vastly by turning down the dialogue altogether. I have no idea how on earth a character like Ava made it through the story writing process without someone going "Hang on a minute, this is fucking terrible". I'm playing Mayhem 5 with a level 72 character, so it's about as hectic and chaotic as you can get, but it says something that I can stil enjoy this game even when there's nothing left to strive towards.
One thing I'm realizing now that I didn't before is that the damage immunity phases for the bosses and even some miniboss enemies are a terrible design choice, and reeks of "we didn't know how to properly balance our game, so let's just do a cop out". They slam the brakes when fighting bosses, and when fighting normal enemies the encounters become incredibly lopsided. Usually both the player and enemies are glass cannons: deal high damage, can't take damage. But when normal enemies get immunity, the encounters stops dead as you often spend several minutes just dodging attacks that clip 3/4 of your health off in a single hit.
One thing I'm realizing now that I didn't before is that the damage immunity phases for the bosses and even some miniboss enemies are a terrible design choice, and reeks of "we didn't know how to properly balance our game, so let's just do a cop out". They slam the brakes when fighting bosses, and when fighting normal enemies the encounters become incredibly lopsided. Usually both the player and enemies are glass cannons: deal high damage, can't take damage. But when normal enemies get immunity, the encounters stops dead as you often spend several minutes just dodging attacks that clip 3/4 of your health off in a single hit.
Ragnarok, to repeat myself, keeps getting better and better the more I play. It's a slow as hell start and parts drag on for a little too long but I'm at the point in the story where I'm super hooked and wanna know what happens next. There's a great RDR2 style roster of characters that hang around for large chunks of the game and it's nice when you have up to 7 different characters sharing a cutscene and everybody is distinctly written. And Atreus' side of the story has finally gotten interesting enough I don't call it a day whenever the game switches to Young Adult mode.
Borderlands 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and when it comes to couch co-op, it's probably the greatest game ever. I still haven't tried BL3 since a couple of my friends who've tried it say that it 'feels' very different from BL2. I was mostly drawn to a melee playstyle in BL2 - chaining MMF kills and staying invisible for minutes with Zer0 is a BLAST even after 10 years! So, is there a class in BL3 that can replicate that?
As for the balancing issue, I don't expect Gearbox to put out a balanced game lol (though I won't ever forgive IGN for what they did to Battleborn back in 2016) but it's part of the 'charm' of this series - if you feel like a character is OP (cough* money shot!!! *cough), you don't have to use it...
I've never played her, but Amara (the new Siren character) has a couple of skill trees that lean into melee damage.
Though if Borderlands melee is your thing, I would probably look at Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, which added actual melee weapons into the sandbox.
Taking a break from Minecraft to play some Neon White I just got on sale. Very fun game! Clearly the dialogue is whacky anime bullshit incarnate, but being a self described weeb I am ok with this. I got a little taste of the game when visiting my brother, and now that I own it, I'm having a lot of fun with it. Not very far in, but, I can tell it'll both leave me feeling frustrated at times but rewarded at others.
Edit: Some side dialogue with a character made me snort laugh, which doesn't happen very often. I think I'm gonna enjoy the silly dialogue plenty~
Edit: Some side dialogue with a character made me snort laugh, which doesn't happen very often. I think I'm gonna enjoy the silly dialogue plenty~
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So Rogue Legacy 2 got a major update while I wasn't looking, and I've been playing it again. Even though I haven't played it in a pretty long time, though, I've kept most of the old muscle memory and game knowledge, to the point where I've beaten the first two bosses in three runs. I'm not sure that's really supposed to happen, but I'll probably hit the wall sooner or later, considering how many hits it took just to beat the second boss with only 33 damage per swing.
It is possible to unlock NG+ right from the get-go in the new update, and I have a file that was already in NG+, but I figured it'd be better to see if I remembered how to play first. Guess I do, but I'll probably just continue this file as normal now that I've started it.
It is possible to unlock NG+ right from the get-go in the new update, and I have a file that was already in NG+, but I figured it'd be better to see if I remembered how to play first. Guess I do, but I'll probably just continue this file as normal now that I've started it.
No more Cookie Clicker. Ever. I feel I've experienced pretty much all the game has to offer, despite having only just over 50% of upgrades and achievements. I've baked 1.2 undecillion cookies and am making 10 nonillian cookies a second. My prestige level is over 100 million. At this point the game is pretty much ascend, gain a truly enormous multiplier to cookie production, reach your previous production again in 15 minutes, wait until you get a good click frenzy or dragonflight, and then ascend at a prestige level an order of magnitude above your previous one, and repeat. I have over a hundred of every building in the game, and I consider that a victory. No more. It was fun watching the numbers go up at an exponential rate for hours, but I've wasted enough of my life.
I personally prefer the gameplay of BL3 10 times out of 10 over BL2. It's much faster paced, there's more mobility options (vaulting especially adds to the verticality) and the AI is much better and more aggressive. It's comparable to Doom 2016, BL2 feels downright sluggish in comparison. Plus there's more unique effects to the guns that open up entire new playstyles. For example, I had a Vladof cryo minigun that added bullets to the magazine every time I got a critical hit. Combining this with the Operative's lifesteal skill meant that if I froze and enemy, I could keep firing at their crit spot without needing to reload, becoming essentially invincible.
Yeah, the new traversal additions (as well as the butt-slam) seem quite fun, and the Operative's fast TTKs and low health pool probably makes him the BL3 class most similar to BL2's Zer0. As for the gun adding bullets on criticals, it's sounds a lot like Salvador's "5 shots or 6", no?
Ragnarok is now finished. I love the ending and the closing character arcs. Odin as a final boss is fun, but pretty weak overall. Especially in his final phase when you have both Freya and Atreus assisting you. The rematch with Thor is better, and Hiemdal is the best boss in the game. What a great way to close a cap on the series. I never though this series, DMC5, or Bayonetta 3 would end the way they did, yet I am more than satisfied with each and everyone of them.
On to Gungrave GORE now.
On to Gungrave GORE now.
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Got a couple of things in the Steam sale.
First is the PC port of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, the first in the series. As expected it's frighteningly deep, but it's a pretty approachable SRPG nonetheless. I'm not very far into it at all yet, and I'm sure I'll be playing it for many hours. Also, nice port, haven't seen any graphical bugs at all.
The other thing I bought is Dirt Rally 2.0. I played Dirt 4 earlier this year and enjoyed it a lot, and wanted more of it. Codemasters have released two further Dirt games since Dirt 4: Dirt 5, which is meant to be more arcadey and only includes the head to head racing disciplines from Dirt 4, and Dirt Rally 2.0, which is the hardcore realistic game that only does rally and rallycross. I decided I'd prefer the latter. Dirt Rally 2.0 sets out its stall quite clearly by not having a tutorial. This is a game for people who got really good at Dirt 4's rally modes and want more of that, but harder and prettier. The depth of team management from Dirt 4 has been cut down considerably but this is clearly all about the rallying, which is really, really good, albeit also really unforgiving. You're going to oversteer, you're going to understeer, you're going to brake too hard, you're going to not brake enough, and every time you do any of these you'll crash. The only concession to accessibility enabled by default is reduced vehicle damage, which you're going to need if you want to get good at the game. If you think all this sounds good, get Dirt 4. If you've already beaten Dirt 4 and want more hardcore rally action, get Dirt Rally 2.0.
First is the PC port of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, the first in the series. As expected it's frighteningly deep, but it's a pretty approachable SRPG nonetheless. I'm not very far into it at all yet, and I'm sure I'll be playing it for many hours. Also, nice port, haven't seen any graphical bugs at all.
The other thing I bought is Dirt Rally 2.0. I played Dirt 4 earlier this year and enjoyed it a lot, and wanted more of it. Codemasters have released two further Dirt games since Dirt 4: Dirt 5, which is meant to be more arcadey and only includes the head to head racing disciplines from Dirt 4, and Dirt Rally 2.0, which is the hardcore realistic game that only does rally and rallycross. I decided I'd prefer the latter. Dirt Rally 2.0 sets out its stall quite clearly by not having a tutorial. This is a game for people who got really good at Dirt 4's rally modes and want more of that, but harder and prettier. The depth of team management from Dirt 4 has been cut down considerably but this is clearly all about the rallying, which is really, really good, albeit also really unforgiving. You're going to oversteer, you're going to understeer, you're going to brake too hard, you're going to not brake enough, and every time you do any of these you'll crash. The only concession to accessibility enabled by default is reduced vehicle damage, which you're going to need if you want to get good at the game. If you think all this sounds good, get Dirt 4. If you've already beaten Dirt 4 and want more hardcore rally action, get Dirt Rally 2.0.