What are you currently playing?

[meiam]

Playing triangle strategy, I really want to like the game as it tries hard to be FFT in story, but urgh, the story seems to be entirely dictated by cut scene incompetence. You keep getting trough fight where you slaughter dozen of enemy, just to have cut scene where your character lose the fight or do something incredibly stupid. One really important event has you retreat from an enemy you outnumber almost 2 to 1 because...? As a results it feel like the main character is entirely passive, you just show up somewhere, witness some sort of important event and then run away, accomplishing nothing or even just helping the bad guy.

Small disappointment with the game, it tries to setup this complex geopolitical intrigue, but there are very clear bad guys who are just clearly evil. Also, gameplay wise there's no class system so it doesn't really feel like your building up your own personal army. Character can change class, but it's all linear, there's not even a choice of different class.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

Neat game. It's not super original but does all things Metroidvania just about right. So far it's the closest thing I've played to Castlevania since Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The map looks like a mess and isn't super detailed but it's good enough that they color the rooms that you've "completed". Checkpoints are abundant and thankfully there's one by every boss room. Bosses are tough but fair, so long as you memorize every pattern of every phase and don't get greedy. Combat is slow and tactic or else any mook will make short work of you. Crucially, there isn't much of a penalty for dying - just respawning at the lastest checkpoint. No souls to lose, no bloodstain to touch. You can fuck off in a different direction without feeling like a loser.

The artsyle is pretty in the vein of any number of moonlit landscapes on DeviantArt. Story is worthless (you're the chosen one and have to lift a curse from a dying kingdom, what else do you ever do in these). You essentially play a Loli who is defenseless but can Pokeball rogue spirits into attacking for her. You move and play as her but any attacks are carried out but the spirits literally shadowing her. It's not as clunky as it sounds. There's some noticeable lag in some attacks as well as her roll but I guess that goes with doing a Soulslike without a stamina bar.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Witcher 3

The update came out so I dove in again. What else is there to say? I'll probably die of old age trying to get to the end of this thing with both DLCs.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

Neat game. It's not super original but does all things Metroidvania just about right. So far it's the closest thing I've played to Castlevania since Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The map looks like a mess and isn't super detailed but it's good enough that they color the rooms that you've "completed". Checkpoints are abundant and thankfully there's one by every boss room. Bosses are tough but fair, so long as you memorize every pattern of every phase and don't get greedy. Combat is slow and tactic or else any mook will make short work of you. Crucially, there isn't much of a penalty for dying - just respawning at the lastest checkpoint. No souls to lose, no bloodstain to touch. You can fuck off in a different direction without feeling like a loser.

The artsyle is pretty in the vein of any number of moonlit landscapes on DeviantArt. Story is worthless (you're the chosen one and have to lift a curse from a dying kingdom, what else do you ever do in these). You essentially play a Loli who is defenseless but can Pokeball rogue spirits into attacking for her. You move and play as her but any attacks are carried out but the spirits literally shadowing her. It's not as clunky as it sounds. There's some noticeable lag in some attacks as well as her roll but I guess that goes with doing a Soulslike without a stamina bar.

This illustrates an important point about videogames, when a story can be worthless but it can still just be really fun to play. But if the gameplay was worthless with a great story…well, guess there’s always youtube for those.

 

[Chimpzy]

Duke Nukem Forever

But not the Gearbox one. The first slice of the 2001 restoration. It's really jank. Glitchy, unbalanced, and tends to crash. Everything works, but only sort of, and you can easily softlock yourself out of making progress. Combat needs some polish and balancing. Enemies have fast reflexes and perfect accuracy, and they're all hit-scan. Combine with high damage and a group of enemies can chew through you in no time. There is a health on kill mechanic, but it won't reliably keep up. I suppose it's a characteristic of old game design, but there's not much signposting or feedback whenever you push a button or pick up a mission critical item, so it's often pretty obtuse what changed or where to go, despite the button that shows you your mission objectives.

In its current state I'd call it more interesting than actually good. Which is only to be expected from a project that's only a couple months in, and based off incomplete pre-alpha assets and code. Really more a proof of concept that the mess 3D Realms had cobbled together back in the early 00s can be made into something playable.

 

[Dalisclock]

Went back to Tails of Iron, which is the Rat Souls-like I started a year ago. I stopped because I reached a part where I had to do Side Quests to raise money to finish repairing the castle. And it is annoying. OTOH, it ends up being like an hour or so of a couple of Difficult boss battles(like 2-3 but I hate to attempt them numerous times each). After that the plot picks up, with an attack on the iron mine which then ends up with my guy being trapped in abandoned part of the mines. And then it gears wierd because there's modern looking ruins down there(in a game that the entire setting has been more or less medieval) and a society of communist moles with electricity, radios and guns....I think I stumbled into a furry version of Metro 2033 somehow? It's weird.

I really didn't mean to take a year between putting it down and picking it back up again because I'm remembering I really did enjoy it. The art style is very evocative of Medieval illustrations, Doug Cockle(Witcher's Geralt) does the narration in a particularly amusing, lemony way and the combat is 2d soulslike that does not fuck around.
It also has some of the best attention to detail in the environmental transitions I think I've seen in a while. Early in the game, an army of frogs rampages through the rat kingdom and devastated it, leaving everything on fire and destroyed and infested with angry frogs. And as you defeat bosses and clear areas, the areas become repopulated and get fixed up to being thriving hubs or peaceful transition areas(forest and such) and seeing that change from dangerous dungeon area to relatively peaceful rebuilt environment is really cool.

SO yeah, think I'm getting close to the final act(the game is only like 10 hours long) and enjoying it a lot.

 

[Chimpzy]

Portal RTX

This shit makes my 3080 sweat at a mere 1080/30 with dlss on performance, and even then it still droppped frames in the bigger test chambers. It's kind of unreal how heavy it is. But that true real time path traced lighting does look nice. As for the game, it's Portal. Still good. The added realism does kind of work against, because it makes it harder to parse which surfaces can be portaled, and which can't.

 

[Bartholen]

I got Warhammer 40k: Shootas, Blood & Teef as a christmas gift and played through it. It's a 2D sidescrolling shoot 'em up in the vein of Metal Slug, but set in the WH40k universe, where you're playing as an Ork. It's really good, but almost insultingly short for the $20 pricetag. I cleared it in less than 4 hours, and there isn't really much replay value. There's zero exploration, alternate paths or anything of the sort to find. There is 4-player co-op, but apparently that's buggy as hell.

If I put aside the $20 pricetag, there's fairly little to complain about. Despite being a small budget game, it's clearly made with love and passion for both the genre and the setting. The artstyle is just the right amount of goofy while remaining perfectly faithful to the setting, and the visuals are always extremely clear and readable. The sound design, music and voice acting are all basically perfect, and what little writing there is is quite funny. It's extremely tightly designed: there are no stats, no puzzles, no platforming challenges, or even upgrades to your maximum health. You have all abilities available from the word go, and the only thing you get more of are the weapons, but even they are more sidegrades to each other than anything. They are designed with quite a lot of variety and purpose, so props for that.

But the best thing about this game is how well it understands the concept of 40k Orks, and actually turns what would otherwise be faults into strengths in a way. There's zero other core gameplay elements besides combat because all Orks want to do is fight. The "story" is tissue-thin, because all Orks want to do is fight. There is no exploration because all Orks want to do is fight. And so on. It's relentlessly fast-paced: you're basically never not shooting your gun or not moving, but it never gets samey or repetitive. The enemy and environment variety deserve props for such a short game, and it's nice to see factions other than Imperium, Chaos, Orks or Eldar being represented for once.

Aside from the obvious lack of content for such a price, the other big fault this game has is the lack of transitions. When defeating a boss for example, the game cuts basically instantly to the following cutscene or level transition, giving you zero time to adjust which can be disorienting. Several times I was wondering if I'd switched between levels or if I'd just been through a mid-level loading screen. But given how short the game is anyway, this is little more than a nitpick.

So ultimately not worth $20, and feels more like a proof of concept or a demo than a full game. But what's on display here is very well executed.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Evil Genius 2.
Oh this is quite good actually. Not a nightmare to use a controller with either. Would prefer more blood and evil, but ok if you must insist on the Pixar tone then what the fuck else choice do I have, this'll do nicely. For now!

Weird West.
Some enjoyable kleptomanic sneaky sim stuff. When it bloody works. The menu mouse pointer circle (curse you destiny for popularising this abuse on consoles!) sometimes gets bored of doing what I ask and beelines to the top-left corner of my telly screen when I'm trying to navigate the inventory and quest tabs. Not sure yet what triggers or stops it.
Then there's the mischievous whims of the quick save genie - seemingly a Faustian bargain designed purely to snare save-scum peasantry like myself - for my character who's definitely hidden from the bad dudes during the quick save is too often reloaded but with the bad dudes staring straight at me and getting all mad about it. You cannot...absolutely can-fucking-not trust that quick save. It belongs to the streets!

 

[BrawlMan]

Prodeus - Good old fashion, classic 90s fps style game with modern improvements. The game is basically Doom combined with Quake. A former Raven Software developer worked on this game. It's in the DNA!

I've only played the first two missions so far, but I love the sprawling level design and nonlinear flow. This is definitely my favorite first person shooter of the year. I don't do secret hunting much, but I will try to put more of an effort. Otherwise, I'm all about going forward and just having fun. The guns in this game have crazy alternate fires, and you can upgrade them.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I got Warhammer 40k: Shootas, Blood & Teef ...

...So ultimately not worth $20, and feels more like a proof of concept or a demo than a full game. But what's on display here is very well executed.

Well, that makes a change from the usual GW low budget license fare of being overpriced, feeling like a beta at best and being just about passably executed, so I'll count that as a win.

 

[Kyrian007]

Weird West.
Some enjoyable kleptomanic sneaky sim stuff. When it bloody works. The menu mouse pointer circle (curse you destiny for popularising this abuse on consoles!) sometimes gets bored of doing what I ask and beelines to the top-left corner of my telly screen when I'm trying to navigate the inventory and quest tabs. Not sure yet what triggers or stops it.
Then there's the mischievous whims of the quick save genie - seemingly a Faustian bargain designed purely to snare save-scum peasantry like myself - for my character who's definitely hidden from the bad dudes during the quick save is too often reloaded but with the bad dudes staring straight at me and getting all mad about it. You cannot...absolutely can-fucking-not trust that quick save. It belongs to the streets!

Yeah, I wound up using a menu save before encounters and only using my quicksave once I was out of hidden status. The inverse is also true, I'd have a half dozen guys in cover shooting at me, quicksave, and when I reload 2 or 3 of them are back in their original positions and the others aren't alerted.

 

[Bartholen]

Well, that makes a change from the usual GW low budget license fare of being overpriced, feeling like a beta at best and being just about passably executed, so I'll count that as a win.

40k is doing pretty well lately: the game I mentioned, Darktide, the Henry Cavill announcement, and the Space Marine 2 trailer last year. If only 9th edition weren't so fucking terrible...

 

[Zykon TheLich]

40k is doing pretty well lately: the game I mentioned, Darktide, the Henry Cavill announcement, and the Space Marine 2 trailer last year. If only 9th edition weren't so fucking terrible...

Generally yes, but those 2 aren't exactly what I'd call low budget. Their bigger games are usually pretty decent.

Rogue Trader til death! DEEEAAAATH!!!

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Yeah, I wound up using a menu save before encounters and only using my quicksave once I was out of hidden status. The inverse is also true, I'd have a half dozen guys in cover shooting at me, quicksave, and when I reload 2 or 3 of them are back in their original positions and the others aren't alerted.

Hm, was wondering if the normal save had similar issues. I hadn't thought to try the inverse quick save tip before, as that demands going against all those save-scum stealth instincts, thanks! It also won't save object placement, I observed after spending far too long engineering an environmental gauntlet trap only for it all to disappear upon reload. Such meticulous genius devilry thrown to wind!

 

[Dalisclock]

Not quite done with Tails of Iron. As much as I am liking it, the game has a pacing problem for sure. I thought I was about to start the final act, but told "No, you have to go get an item to proceed" and the item costs a fair bit of money. The only money making tasks are fighting and killing Bosses. This is the third time I've been sidetracked by a cash gate into fighting a couple of bosses while the story doesn't advance. And the game isn't that long, so it feels like these beef gates are strictly to pad the length and it's just frustrating because I'm otherwise enjoying it. It just feels like every time i feel like I'm getting going, getting to see new areas and advance the story, the game decides to hit the breaks because fuck you.

It's also irrating because your brother gets kidnapped by the frogs but you can't follow him until you get a gasmask from the moles. The gas mask costs 25 coins, which means you have to fight at least 2 bosses in the moletown arena to earn those. All of said bosses are rated at 4 or 5 stars of difficulty(out of 5). I'm basically ready to go and rescue him but nope, I have to go do busy work first.

I complained about this a couple weeks ago, where the narrative wants you to hurry up but the gameplay requires you to slow down and do other stuff and there's a simple way to avoid that. Like just have someone give Redgi the fucking gas mask so he can proceed, or not have the gas mask cost nearly as much as repairing the throne room to the castle(How about the iron and bug parts I've been collecting all game that I have by the fucking boatload at this point because every enemy drops it?).

 

[Drathnoxis]

Been playing Rimworld obsessively, which is why I haven't been posting much recently. I've restarted a couple times because I'm playing on a higher difficulty and then started to realize that most of my pawns didn't have combat skills around the time that the raid difficulty starts spiking due to all my wealth gain. The way difficulty scales with wealth is a really frustrating aspect to the game. I also decided not to play a mountain colony, because I always play in a mountain and I was getting sick of bugs spawning in my bedrooms.

High on Life

Quit after 15 minutes. Uninstalled. Refunded. Rick & Morty dialogue is fine, even funny at times, when watched passively. While I'm actively doing stuff? Unbearable.

I played for a couple hours at my cousin's, yeah the humour is pretty terrible, pretty much exactly the same as Accounting+. I don't really see the entertainment value in listening to Justin Rolland ramble on and on in his grating voice. I said I played for a couple hours, but it was more like an hour and then we spent an hour watching Tammy and the T-rex before shutting it off (the game apparently contains 4 full length B-movies).

Because it's EA and they had a brainrot of turn based being unpopular (and also sticking multiplayer into everything, see Mass Effect 2-3) so they tried to make the game which very clearly was made to be turn based seem more actiony.

Considering the game had been in development for around 5 years by the time EA bought Bioware it's unlikely that they had influenced decisions on any major gameplay systems. The inclusion of the DLC merchant at the camp is another story, though. DA:O is real time with pause because the game was intended to be a throwback to classic RPGs like Baulder's Gate, which was also real time with pause.

 

[Dalisclock]

I played for a couple hours at my cousin's, yeah the humour is pretty terrible, pretty much exactly the same as Accounting+. I don't really see the entertainment value in listening to Justin Rolland ramble on and on in his grating voice. I said I played for a couple hours, but it was more like an hour and then we spent an hour watching Tammy and the T-rex before shutting it off (the game apparently contains 4 full length B-movies).

Yeah, High on Life really feels like it's predicated on one thing and that's you find the jokes funny, If you don't, better not even bother. And while I've enjoyed Rick and Morty, HoL from what little i've seen of it isn't hitting my funny bone. Like at all.

And I'm that weirdo who reads shitposting subreddits for fun and mostly makes stupid jokes when I doesn't have anything important to say(so 95% of the time).

 

[Kyrian007]

Hm, was wondering if the normal save had similar issues. I hadn't thought to try the inverse quick save tip before, as that demands going against all those save-scum stealth instincts, thanks! It also won't save object placement, I observed after spending far too long engineering an environmental gauntlet trap only for it all to disappear upon reload. Such meticulous genius devilry thrown to wind!

The normal save does have those issues, I just do that further back out of conflict. Usually just after I finish up any given area. And don't rely on a quicksave to "unglitch" a way out of trouble, it seems to just be a happy accident if it happens. Ultimately, it seems like we have similar instincts. Unfortunately, you may have to abandon some of them. After one run through as my typical sneaky long range specialist, and a second as an up close run in and melee or shotgun specialist... well, they are both as effective. I found Shelby Cross in the first chapter in Copper Mountain (the hidden switches.) But I was having a hell of a time bringing him down sneaky style. My most effective try was agro right away with bullets until he changed forms, getting him with an explosion while I ran from the room, and finishing him with dodge leap shotgun blasts as he came around a corner. It isn't a game that rewards subtle. But, subtle is effective against spread out singular enemies.

 

[Xprimentyl]

More Elden Ring. Just encountered an enemy called a marionette or some such that has a moveset that involves literally throwing a hissy fit and flailing it arms with blades (melee version) or spamming arrows (archer version) in every direction pretty much until your health bar is depleted. Oh, and the roll in packs, so it's possible to find yourself getting ganked by 2 or 3 of them at a time. Ridiculously dick move, FROM; you're better than this.