What are you currently playing?

[Worgen]

In my experience, most fighting games are just normal vs AI fights, loosely strung together by a cutscene or two. I had no idea that the singleplayer mode in this game was so extensive.

You should also check out Thems Fightin Herds. Its got a really impressive single player campaign too with a rpg style world to roam around, lots of characters to talk to and even good boss fights.



Beat Boltgun, really good retro style shooter, final boss is a bit more of just dealing with normal powerful enemies but damn good game. Will need to start it on the highest difficulty at some point.

 

[BrawlMan]

More SF6 World Tour. I did a side quest and got more plane tickets (10), so I can travel back and forth to different countries a lot more often, if I choose. I am currently on Chapter 8, and I got my character to level 20. I gave him a mix of Luke, Dee Jay, and Chun-Li's move set. Stopping for tonight, because I've been playing all afternoon to evening.

This game hit in the nostalgia feels when accessing the subway! They play a hip hop remix of the subway station theme from Final Fight when fighting all of the gang members in a train! Oh, it felt so good! Getting to Urban Park nets you a great retro intro that summerizes the plot of FFi1.

Here's all of the ways to find masters, if anyone is interested. I'll be using it, because I want those moves, damn it!

Spoiler: Master Locations

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I wasn't planning on playing Street Fighter 6 ever, but based on the glowing recommendations I've been seeing from everybody, and now here as well, I might just have to look into it once I'm done with Breath of the Wild, though Final Fantasy 16 is still higher on my list for now.

Decided this time to go exploring everywhere I could before committing to the dungeons, since usually I go into them fairly quickly. It's been an interesting experience so far, and it's gotten me a few shrines and quests that I never managed to locate before. Right now I have 14 hearts, the Master Sword, one Divine Beast finished and working on a second, and most of the memory spots located with a couple of exceptions. Still haven't gone into the desert yet though, which I never managed on my previous playthroughs either. Not really looking forward to that; I'm bad at stealth when games are designed around actually helping you to pull it off, and forced stealth in non-stealth games is even worse.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Still on Fez, about 80% complete and just now realized there's a map to let you know what areas you're done with and what are you missing in each. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something with all those glyphs and notations that keep showing up everywhere and don't know how to even begin translating them, or separate set dressing from actual information.

I've never played it, but I seem to remember something about some of Fez puzzles being really ridiculous to solve.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've never played it, but I seem to remember something about some of Fez puzzles being really ridiculous to solve.

Oh it gets stupid. You're somehow supposed to deduce that the weirdo language in the game made from nonsense glyphs is read vertically right to left instead of horizontally left to right; that each glyph corresponds to one, two or three different letters of the English alphabet; that one unremarkable grafitti out of hundreds is meant to serve as the game's Rosetta Stone; that once you've decrypted the alphabet you're now tasked with decrypting riddles before even attempting to answer them by rotating and rearranging glyph cubes forming the solution.

The puzzles where you rearrange platforms with changes in perspective are solid but the game starts losing its mind as it keeps introducing different kinds of ciphers (letters, numbers, commands) in obscure ways and asks you to employ them in even more obscure ways.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

The puzzles where you rearrange platforms with changes in perspective are solid but the game starts losing its mind as it keeps introducing different kinds of ciphers (letters, numbers, commands) in obscure ways and asks you to employ them in even more obscure ways.

The number and command ciphers didn't bother me that much, but I still have no goddamn idea how the game's conlang works, and honestly, even once you do know how to read various things, exploring and seeing all the different locations is more fun than inputting commands.

Also, you didn't mention that you need a QR code reader on your smartphone to 100% the game, and when it came out that wasn't a built-in feature of most phones.

 

[Chimpzy]

System Shock remake

Having a blast tho, slicing and dicing with my lasier rapier. Guns? Grenades? Who needs those when your can bum rush all the things with a power shiv. Anyway, aside from a modernized control scheme and UI, it is an almost relentlessly old school experience. The first couple rooms are tutorial, but after that you're more or less on your own. No waypoints, no quest log, no tooltips. It's not too hard to piece together where to go and what to do, but compared to modern games it might as well be nothing. Gameplay wise it imo holds up really well, like all it needed was a couple quality of life changes. Tho as far as ImSims go it doesn't hold a candle to its own sequel, as there isn't much real player choice on how to tackle obstacles, and the story critical stuff has one solution.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I don't have the patience for Humanity. It's like I know basically what the solution should be but I don't have the patience to move my doggy around 3D platforming to time moving the lemmings around at the right time, and it's a lot of falling off the level and getting frustrated. Oh well.
And then Street Fighter 6 comes out and I am into like all of it and that eats up all my gamer time and head space now until, I dunno, maybe Final Fantasy 16 or something.

 

[meiam]

System Shock remake

Having a blast tho, slicing and dicing with my lasier rapier. Guns? Grenades? Who needs those when your can bum rush all the things with a power shiv. Anyway, aside from a modernized control scheme and UI, it is an almost relentlessly old school experience. The first couple rooms are tutorial, but after that you're more or less on your own. No waypoints, no quest log, no tooltips. It's not too hard to piece together where to go and what to do, but compared to modern games it might as well be nothing. Gameplay wise it imo holds up really well, like all it needed was a couple quality of life changes. Tho as far as ImSims go it doesn't hold a candle to its own sequel, as there isn't much real player choice on how to tackle obstacles, and the story critical stuff has one solution.

Hopefully they remaster 2 (and we won't have to wait 8 years for that).

 

[Chimpzy]

Hopefully they remaster 2 (and we won't have to wait 8 years for that).

Nightdive is doing an enhanced edition of 2, but thats going to be making it run properly run on modern systems, fix bugs and some quality of life improvements. Maybe better textures and some of the popular community gameplay patches. Not a full on remake

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The number and command ciphers didn't bother me that much, but I still have no goddamn idea how the game's conlang works, and honestly, even once you do know how to read various things, exploring and seeing all the different locations is more fun than inputting commands.

Also, you didn't mention that you need a QR code reader on your smartphone to 100% the game, and when it came out that wasn't a built-in feature of most phones.

There's also Fez only really being accessible (in theory( to English speakers. "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is the key to deciphering the game's gibberish and as far as I can tell the puzzle hasn't been adapted to other languages.

 

[laggyteabag]

I finished Alan Wake yesterday, and I am just about to tick off both of the "Special Episode" DLCs.

Overall, Alan Wake is a really ambitious game, that mostly succeeds, though it is unfortunately hampered by it being just way too easy, and having some generally pretty poor pacing when it comes to balancing the gameplay sections and the story moments.

The combat is enjoyable, but there is just so much of it, and there isn't a great amount of variety. There are roughly about 10 enemy types, but almost all of them are functionally the same to fight (aside from different health/damage), and all but three are used far too sparingly to spice up the normal gameplay loop.

So what results is a game with a really interesting story, stretched out far too long by endless, repetitive combat sequences. Its never really bad, it just gets exhausting after a while, and I just really wish it had trimmed itself down by a few hours.

On that note, I do feel for the developers of linear, singleplayer games. Something like Alan Wake obviously wouldn't have suited some kind of multiplayer mode, so the campaign is literally the only thing that this game has to offer. How do you justify selling that game to someone for full price? I guess you pack it full of content, even if that unfortunately often comes at the cost of pacing.

Anyway, as for the DLC, it is once again unfortunately the actual conclusion of the game, and it does feel almost necessary to wrap up the cliffhanger of the main story, but again, these were bundled in with the version of the game that I played, so I don't really feel short-changed by it.

It is mostly more of the same, with you running around a lot of remixed locations ripped straight from the base game, but there are also a lot of setpiece moments that the original levels lacked, and the scenery is often given a lot more of a supernatural context. The standout moments occur in the second "Special Episode", where at one point you are on a giant Ferris wheel of locations from the main game, bizarrely mashed up as you go around in a giant loop. The second was an extended combat sequence, where you could blast giant rocks out of the way, and let the giant beam of light from the nearby lighthouse completely melt any enemies that spawned in.

Ultimately, I have really enjoyed my time with Alan Wake, and it is great to finally tick it off my backlog, after literally being at the top (alphabetically) for the past decade. It was an enjoyable experience, that I think was just too long for its own good.

Next up, I guess I will check out the Alan Wake's American Nightmare spin-off, then maybe hop onto Quantum Break, and continue my modern Remedy binge.

 

[Bartholen]

Some more Boltgun.

It's really good. Not much more to say honestly, it aims to do one thing, and does that thing very well. One thing I definitely hope the devs would add in a future update is clearer damage indication and the direction of the damage. It can be often unclear just how much damage you're taking from individual attacks and where they're coming from. The game frequently puts you into open arenas with enemies spawning in all around, so it can become an issue. I had to resort to cheesing one encounter because of this, because the frenetic, run'n'gun style the game aims for just wasn't working. Funnily enough what's giving me probably the most trouble are the Nurglings. They're a fodder/annoyance type of enemy that swarm you with numbers and die in one hit. The problem is that the slippery little bastards are surprisingly hard to hit, and can take up a lot of priority in the middle of a firefight.

 

[Worgen]

Some more Boltgun.

It's really good. Not much more to say honestly, it aims to do one thing, and does that thing very well. One thing I definitely hope the devs would add in a future update is clearer damage indication and the direction of the damage. It can be often unclear just how much damage you're taking from individual attacks and where they're coming from. The game frequently puts you into open arenas with enemies spawning in all around, so it can become an issue. I had to resort to cheesing one encounter because of this, because the frenetic, run'n'gun style the game aims for just wasn't working. Funnily enough what's giving me probably the most trouble are the Nurglings. They're a fodder/annoyance type of enemy that swarm you with numbers and die in one hit. The problem is that the slippery little bastards are surprisingly hard to hit, and can take up a lot of priority in the middle of a firefight.

The Nurgle stuff in general are the most dangerous rank and file enemies. Tzeeche's stuff is easy to avoid but Nurgle's tends to have quicker projectiles and more hp. The exception is the greater demon where the lord of change is the dangerous one if you give it half a chance, but the great unclean one is a big target who's most annoying aspect is just summoning nurglings.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Alright, back on Isaac. I unlocked the flighty shotgun blast dude that breaks the game and did the boss rush first try like it's nothing. It's super low on health but... what's the catch, really? Just avoid any pickups that look like a dead thing and you're OP halfway through any run. Last run I was flying, on fire, immune to projectiles, with three familiars doing DPS and regenerating health with every kill. The potential amount of stacks and buffs is insane.

I also beat Fez and got to NG+. The first person mode is a nice twist. Once you have every cipher figured out the puzzles become fun again but figuring them out at all is not intuitive in the first place.

 

[Bartholen]

Alright, back on Isaac. I unlocked the flighty shotgun blast dude that breaks the game and did the boss rush first try like it's nothing. It's super low on health but... what's the catch, really? Just avoid any pickups that look like a dead thing and you're OP halfway through any run. Last run I was flying, on fire, immune to projectiles, with three familiars doing DPS and regenerating health with every kill. The potential amount of stacks and buffs is insane.

You mean Azazel? He's definitely OP, having access to the most useful abilities in the game from the get go. I don't know who else you could be referring to. I guess the Keeper, but he's a very different type of character, and much harder to break the game with.

 

[mirbrownbread]

Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate is heavily discounted on the ps store, so I couldn't resist... Yeah, let's see how good the story mode turns out to be cuz I sure as hell will never be good enough to play it online

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

You mean Azazel? He's definitely OP, having access to the most useful abilities in the game from the get go. I don't know who else you could be referring to. I guess the Keeper, but he's a very different type of character, and much harder to break the game with.

Yeah him. I don't know why would I ever play anybody else other than for the trophies.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

On that note, I do feel for the developers of linear, singleplayer games. Something like Alan Wake obviously wouldn't have suited some kind of multiplayer mode, so the campaign is literally the only thing that this game has to offer. How do you justify selling that game to someone for full price? I guess you pack it full of content, even if that unfortunately often comes at the cost of pacing.

Oh man, this can spawn a million "hot takes" right here lol

All I'll say now: in other forms of media- books, movies, etc- we don't expect price to be dependent on perceived quality, length, genre or style. I understand that games are newer more diverse medium but I guess to me yes it makes sense to charge "full price" for a game that is short, or single player, or even bad.

 

[BrawlMan]

I finished Alan Wake yesterday, and I am just about to tick off both of the "Special Episode" DLCs.

Overall, Alan Wake is a really ambitious game, that mostly succeeds, though it is unfortunately hampered by it being just way too easy, and having some generally pretty poor pacing when it comes to balancing the gameplay sections and the story moments.

The combat is enjoyable, but there is just so much of it, and there isn't a great amount of variety. There are roughly about 10 enemy types, but almost all of them are functionally the same to fight (aside from different health/damage), and all but three are used far too sparingly to spice up the normal gameplay loop.

So what results is a game with a really interesting story, stretched out far too long by endless, repetitive combat sequences. Its never really bad, it just gets exhausting after a while, and I just really wish it had trimmed itself down by a few hours.

On that note, I do feel for the developers of linear, singleplayer games. Something like Alan Wake obviously wouldn't have suited some kind of multiplayer mode, so the campaign is literally the only thing that this game has to offer. How do you justify selling that game to someone for full price? I guess you pack it full of content, even if that unfortunately often comes at the cost of pacing.

Anyway, as for the DLC, it is once again unfortunately the actual conclusion of the game, and it does feel almost necessary to wrap up the cliffhanger of the main story, but again, these were bundled in with the version of the game that I played, so I don't really feel short-changed by it.

It is mostly more of the same, with you running around a lot of remixed locations ripped straight from the base game, but there are also a lot of setpiece moments that the original levels lacked, and the scenery is often given a lot more of a supernatural context. The standout moments occur in the second "Special Episode", where at one point you are on a giant Ferris wheel of locations from the main game, bizarrely mashed up as you go around in a giant loop. The second was an extended combat sequence, where you could blast giant rocks out of the way, and let the giant beam of light from the nearby lighthouse completely melt any enemies that spawned in.

Ultimately, I have really enjoyed my time with Alan Wake, and it is great to finally tick it off my backlog, after literally being at the top (alphabetically) for the past decade. It was an enjoyable experience, that I think was just too long for its own good.

Next up, I guess I will check out the Alan Wake's American Nightmare spin-off, then maybe hop onto Quantum Break, and continue my modern Remedy binge.

I did a comparison to this game and Shadows of the Damned back in 2017 on the Easy Allies forum. What I said back then, still rings true. While Alan Wake is definitely a more polished game and has chapter select, it lacks in enemy variety, and there's pacing issues. Compared to Shadows, where there's way more enemy variety, despite being a much shorter game, enough gameplay types to mix it up. It's not much, but it's more than just the tedious driving sections that could have been cut scenes that go nowhere. Shadows does have the opposite problem, where you can't Skip cutscenes, and that once you beat the game, that is it. So it's in a similar boat as Alan in this case. A game like Shadows you'll only play twice and that's pretty much it. The fact that there's no New Game Plus, definitely does not help either. That said, I've only completed Alan Wake twice in my life.

Oh man, this can spawn a million "hot takes" right here lol

All I'll say now: in other forms of media- books, movies, etc- we don't expect price to be dependent on perceived quality, length, genre or style. I understand that games are newer more diverse medium but I guess to me yes it makes sense to charge "full price" for a game that is short, or single player, or even bad.

If the game is short, but has great replay value and a good amount of bonuses, then I'm not going to complain. Alan Wake at least have more going for it than a majority of the cover shooters and Call of Duty clones from the seventh generation. Notice how titles like it and Vanquish are still here on PC and modern platforms, yet all the other ones are stuck on the generation they started on. Most of them are stuck on PS3 or 360. Yes, there's a backwards compatibility case for 360 games, but a majority of people have already forgotten about them.