What are you currently playing?

[BrawlMan]

I played USFII:TFC and did an arcade run of Chun-Li on Normal. The AI seemed toned down compared to the arcade game, and I have no complaints. There's still a challenge, and I was able to beat Akuma and did a 1CC run. I didn't lose any rounds, but almost did during the first round with Sagat. This game has custom colors the player can create and I just love that. I decided to paint Chun-Li red with blue lines, and give her a dark tan. I played with my custom color set. More fighting games need color customization! This features has not been seen since Capcom vs. SNK 2. Before that, I had fun with Buddy Battle and more of it later. The Way of the Hodou mode is Joy-Cons only. That's dumb, but I will give it a shot. I rarely bother with my Joy-Cons. It's why they're in such great condition. Also, Evil Ryu and Violent Ken are the newest characters, and they're not simple color swaps.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Played Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and beat the game on my very first try. Ok I know there's more to the game and there's and ending behind the ending behind the ending but... I got to the credits first try so I'm gonna take that victory.

The RNG probably did only half the work. Guy was all bulked up into some Lovecraftian monstrosity by the end of the run. Some pickups fucked up the build along the way but was generally pretty OP halfway through the run.

 

[laggyteabag]

Played Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and beat the game on my very first try. Ok I know there's more to the game and there's and ending behind the ending behind the ending but... I got to the credits first try so I'm gonna take that victory.

The RNG probably did only half the work. Guy was all bulked up into some Lovecraftian monstrosity by the end of the run. Some pickups fucked up the build along the way but was generally pretty OP halfway through the run.

Ah, the duality of the Roguelike.

You are either doomed to play this game forever, or you complete it on the first try (wondering what all of the fuss is about).

Congratulations on being the latter, I tend to be stuck playing these sorts of games endlessly.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I have decided to return to Skyrim. After getting all the achievements, I thought there was nothing left to do. I played as archsage, a goodie-two-shoes chivalrous knight, a cunning thieft, spellblade, ranger, and even as a npc-turned-mc wearing nothing but regular clothing.

And this was after installing 200+ mods. You are probably wondering what is there left to return for?

Well, somehow i never bothered to install any combat overhaul mods. The vanilla combat is pretty bad, and it’s probably why stealth archer is so famous and memed to death, because facing enemies head on is pain especially on legendary difficulty. To that end, I’ve installed Valhalla combat mod. Hopefully this will bring some life back to this game.

I am also trying out alternate start mod, because goddamn i am so sick of that meme intro

Okay, it took some time for me to get the animation mods right, but I am now enjoying the game. Sadly even with all this, skyrim feels really weird to play in 3rd person. The camera, movements, hitboxes doesn't feel quite right even with mods. Still, I like the changes enough to keep me going.

Alt start was a huge deal. Because starting in a high-level area as level 1 felt really challenging. Going over to Helgen after hearing a rumor from local inn was exciting. It felt like I was playing another game. Sadly when I got to Helgen, the town was already destroyed and emptied. I was hoping to see at least a few survivors limping away, or mourning over thier losses, but the exterior area was just void of any NPCs. When I headed inside (the usual prison path that the player takes), everyone were dead, indicating there was a huge fight between imperials and stormcloaks. This was interesting, because If I was someone who just started playing Skyrim for the first time and had the mod installed, this is how I would've been introduced to their relationships.

By entering the cave the other direction, you can either save Hadvar or Ralof, or save neither of them. They thank you for saving their lives, and the two of you get of the cave together and head to Riverwood. And because of this, their talks about how greatful they are, and introducing you to their family as a friend, made a ton of sense even though the two of you didn't escape the burning city. The dialogs still mention my "execution" so that did break a immersion a bit, but I'm suprised how well Alt. Start fit in.

Now onward to spend 70+ hours playing the game. RIP my social life again

 

[Baffle]

Solasta. It seems fine, the combat mechanics are good so far, though I'm looking forward to having more options as I level. The dialogue is intensely weird. Opening cut scene with my rogue speaking:

"This beer tastes like donkey piss!" she declares. "Not that I'm complaining", she adds with glee.

 

[mirbrownbread]

I'm like 90% done with SW: Fallen Order, another one of those I had sitting in the PS Plus library, collecting dust for months...
A like the game, it's very well made. Definitely among the easiest soulslikes out there, and the maps are fun to explore, which is a big win. There are lot of technical hiccups and jankiness though, which is something I did not expected to find in a 4-yar-old game with numerous patches (I'm playing it on a PS4 Pro in performance mode with HDR on, maybe it runs smoother on a PS5...).

 

[bluegate]

Started playing Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

Only just 5 chapters in and I'm not sure if I like the combat much, what wich Peter's low range, low damage peeshooters, but it's fun enough for me to keep going on.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Solasta. It seems fine, the combat mechanics are good so far, though I'm looking forward to having more options as I level. The dialogue is intensely weird. Opening cut scene with my rogue speaking:

"This beer tastes like donkey piss!" she declares. "Not that I'm complaining", she adds with glee.

Actually a pretty enjoyable game, I really liked what I played, but ragequit when I realised I had been selling magic items as they weren't identified as "unidentified magic item X" but things like "super fancy high quality looking belt" and couldn't be bothered to play back through.

Just wait until you get to the dwarf city. The voice acting of one particular character...you'll know it when you hear it. Like, the guy had to have been a high tier patreon backer or won a competition or some shit, because I can't see any other way that they would have kept that voice acting in.

 

[Bartholen]

Profanity-laced bashing of Pillars of Eternity incoming!

Okay Pillars. If the only way you're going to provide something interesting to do is by giving me a blood pool to jump in, of course I'm going to fucking do it. But if you're not going to give a single shit's worth of indication that this is a one-way street to Murder-Rapetown, population: a zillion high level enemies, then at least give me some fucking supplies so I can limp through. But oooh nooo, can't have that in your "ignore the last 15 years of innovation and improvement for no fucking reason simulator"... I mean, old school CRPG. So fuck you, I'm going to use console commands. Disable my achievements all you want, asshole, I don't give a fuck. What fucking assholes made this game? What brainwormed dolts thought this was a good idea? The kind of people who thought it was a good idea to not have an inventory sort button in an RPG, that's who. The kind of people who kept a mechanic like the combat log in their game. The combat log was entirely a product of technical limitations! When you didn't have enough pixels to render animations more complicated than a stick figure waving a smaller stick you had to provide accurate combat information some other way. But not anymore! Now you can actually show if the attacks are missing by just showing a small text that says "miss"! But by golly, this game equivalent of a stick-up-their-ass boomer goes "Nuh-uh, we did it this way and we liked it!" and just pouts in the corner, refusing to move a single inch towards modernity.

Also, why are the first party members in this party-based RPG (where balance is key) I meet in order: a wizard, a cleric and a bard, ie. DPS, healer and support. Where the fuck is my tank? Where's the frontliner? Where's my fucking rogue? This comp is abysmal and melts like butter the moment enemies so much as cough at them. I legitimately can't even gauge my combat effectiveness because there's so little information to be gleaned from fucking anywhere. I can't tell what I should be equipping or what affects who in how serious ways. The game provides zero clues about this. I've legitimately never experienced a combat system that's more impenetrable.

Yet for all my bitching, this is easily the longest I've been able to play this game without falling comatose out of boredom. The combat's still an uninvolved clusterfuck, the dialogue bores me to tears and there's zero momentum to do anything. But this dungeon crawl is the one place where the game has come halfway alive for me. Let's see how long it takes for me to go "ZZZZZZ" again.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Well I just beat Binding of Isaac again (base game + two floors and mom's heart) on run two, still no deaths. Fuck beginner's luck, I'll take some kudos. This game is supposed to be hard.

 

[laggyteabag]

Im playing through Alan Wake, and im thoroughly enjoying myself.

I actually tried to play this game 10 years ago (almost to the day, actually! 26th May 2013) but my computer would just shut itself off, iirc, because my computer was drawing too much power and overloading the power supply.

But yeah, having a really great time. The combat is pretty tense, though I feel like I can execute the dodge rather effectively, to the point where encounters can become a bit trivial. Im also loving the tone and setting. The narration is a bit goofy, and immediately put me off a little, but they have tied it into the story, so I can appreciate that.

Excited to play more.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ah, the duality of the Roguelike.

You are either doomed to play this game forever, or you complete it on the first try (wondering what all of the fuss is about).

Congratulations on being the latter, I tend to be stuck playing these sorts of games endlessly.

No way on Earth you played this on PS4, right? I can't get the game running anymore. Just goes to error. Don't know what to do. There's like a decade of posts of people complaining about PS crashing and no solutions other than delete save data/reinstall game (did both).

 

[sXeth]

Well I just beat Binding of Isaac again (base game + two floors and mom's heart) on run two, still no deaths. Fuck beginner's luck, I'll take some kudos. This game is supposed to be hard.

Eh, by 2012 standards. Also the classic "most mainstream visible example of a hard genre" thing where people who don't generally play the game play it because its become the hype darling of the day,

Compared to most other things in the Bullet Hell genre, its pretty tame.

I think the powerup pools expanded over the years to the point its less likely to get the absolute trash now.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Miasma Chrons update. Oki definitely needs a run button. Or 'move faster than this numbing trundle' button. Plus R1/B cycles through party members, but L1/B does nothing: why not have it cycle the other way through members like every other party-based game? Why??
And cooldowns for special moves don't cool down outside of battle. Wtf kinda logic is this? Health and magic/electric metres not refilling is fine, reasonable even. But cooldowns are timed, and where is there not more time passing than the very aimless wandering of the black gooey landscapes? I tried tricking the cooldown system by getting the whole party to take their moves in stealth ambush mode, but it just exits out after the round and pretends no move was made. Tight arse kunt!
Also it took me far too long to realise the bot friend might actually be an attempt at an outdated racist stereotype. Tho it might not, am no expert, and American racial stereotypes are quite different from Brit racial stereotypes.

 

[BrawlMan]

Eh, by 2012 standards

That's still nothing to laugh at. Yes, there were many a AAA game that tone down the difficulty way too much, or constantly held the players hand, but they were also plenty of games that were still difficult or difficult by pre-2012 standards. I'll bring up another small project game that came out in 2012: Double Dragon Neon. While it is the second easiest (to be fair, a lot of Double Dragon games have cheap moments or fake difficulty by giving you no or very limited continues) of the Double Dragon franchise, they're still a fair challenge. DDN's may give you unlimited continues, but you have to start the level all over again if you run out of lives. If you're playing co-op, this is less of an issue as you can revive the player, but it's annoying when it does happen. Not to mention, lives reset after each completed stage, and you have to repurchase them wherever they are available in the level's shop. Assuming it has one. The game can be a challenge, but it has that problem where it goes by numbers on the hardest difficulty. The game expects you that grind out and max out special abilities that do huge damage on the harder difficulties. Which is why the game lacks replay value. There's the game and that's it. No extra bonus modes.

Then you have a game like Hotline Miami. That came out in 2011, and it is really difficult on your first time through. It gets easier on subsequent playthroughs, but they're still challenge there. I never played Binding of Isaac, but I'm sure there will be a decent challenge, if I ever decide to pick it up.

 

[Worgen]

Well I just beat Binding of Isaac again (base game + two floors and mom's heart) on run two, still no deaths. Fuck beginner's luck, I'll take some kudos. This game is supposed to be hard.

I think all the additions they made, made it easier to become over powered. Cause it also lessened the chance of getting a run ending item, like... I think it was the cat head, it gives you 9 lives but only 1 hit. That can fuck you hard.

I got the System Shock remake, I'm a bit torn on it. They did a great job on it, but, it kinda puts me in mind of why I didn't play the original much. The setup is good, Shodan is a great villian, but there is something about it that just doesn't grab me.

 

[meiam]

And cooldowns for special moves don't cool down outside of battle. Wtf kinda logic is this? Health and magic/electric metres not refilling is fine, reasonable even. But cooldowns are timed, and where is there not more time passing than the very aimless wandering of the black gooey landscapes? I tried tricking the cooldown system by getting the whole party to take their moves in stealth ambush mode, but it just exits out after the round and pretends no move was made. Tight arse kunt!

It's like their previous game, I guess the idea is to make using the power more impactful and a big decision, but it just led to situation where you want to waste time at the end of an encounter to make sure everything finish its CD.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I think all the additions they made, made it easier to become over powered. Cause it also lessened the chance of getting a run ending item, like... I think it was the cat head, it gives you 9 lives but only 1 hit. That can fuck you hard.

The Guppy items are some of the best in the game, since if you get three you get a really powerful transformation. The one that gives you 9 lives, Dead Cat, is even really good by itself, as it doesn't prevent you getting additional heart containers or soul hearts, it's just if you die you only come back with 1 heart container, which is still better than not.

 

[Worgen]

The Guppy items are some of the best in the game, since if you get three you get a really powerful transformation. The one that gives you 9 lives, Dead Cat, is even really good by itself, as it doesn't prevent you getting additional heart containers or soul hearts, it's just if you die you only come back with 1 heart container, which is still better than not.

Disagree about Dead Cat. If you plan your run around it, its one thing, but it also takes away all your lives... if I remember correctly, so you have to rebuild your life bar and if you die it goes poof and if you died it was probably to a rough room so its probably just you having to die 8 more times in that room. The biggest problem with it, is that its easy to mistake for one of Guppy's items, which as you said, are good.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Disagree about Dead Cat. If you plan your run around it, its one thing, but it also takes away all your lives... if I remember correctly, so you have to rebuild your life bar and if you die it goes poof and if you died it was probably to a rough room so its probably just you having to die 8 more times in that room. The biggest problem with it, is that its easy to mistake for one of Guppy's items, which as you said, are good.

It is one of Guppy's items. It's Guppy. Guppy's dead.