What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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Xbox Gold game Hoa. Charming side scrolling platformer. Nice art direction. Lotta frustration though.
I finished up Quantum Break.
First of all, I want to praise the game's ambition. I have never seen a videogame with full episodes of a TV spliced in between its levels, let alone ones that actually react to your choices. I have my issues with the content of these episodes, but the premise is intriguing, and the game executes these well enough to be worth the praise.
Secondly, I just really liked the time gimmick of this game, particularly in combat, during moments where time has stopped for everyone. Then you and a bunch of evil time goons are able to run around these frozen environments, blasting away at each other. Mechanically, its not too different from the moments that aren't frozen in time, but it passed the rule of cool, and I just loved walking around these environments after every fight, seeing all of these enemies frozen in time, having just taken a bullet, or been blasted by an explosion.
The acting was also pretty decent, too. This game employs the likes of Shawn Ashmore, Aiden Gillen, Dominic Monaghan and Lance Reddick (RIP) in some of its major roles. You would normally expect these roles to be phoned in, but they were generally well done - especially compared to Alan Wake.
As for the rest of the game, the combat was your fairly normal third-person shooter, with an emphasis on cover. Weirdly though, the shooting does somehow feel floatier than Alan Wake, despite being a much newer game. There are also a few oddities, like the inability to fire from the hip (you must always zoom in). You also can use a number of time mechanics for combat, and occasionally for traversal. However, as this game is structured like a cover based shooter, none of these abilities ever felt particularly essential, because you could just pop out of cover, and headshot an enemy. I feel like going for this style of cover-shooter was probably a bit of a misstep.
The story was intriguing, and had its fair share of time travel shenanigans, but whilst the latter quarter of the game really ramped things up, I did feel like the first portion of the game was quite meandering, and I never really felt a sense of urgency. Mostly because the threat that they were trying to avoid "the end of time" was never really overtly explained, and was just kind of left as a vague bad thing that they wanted to avoid, instead of a tangible threat that is shown or demonstrated to you.
When it comes to the live action portions of the story, this is where things get a little weird. So these episodes would take place concurrently with the events of the game, and would often bridge the gap between Acts. The characters from the main game would appear in these episodes, but they were mostly focused on a group of three side characters, who barely actually appeared in the game itself. The rare moments that did feature the main cast felt essential, but the hour+ of content featuring these side characters felt entirely skippable. Again, im going to praise the attempt, but I just wish they focused on the main cast, instead of this B-plot.
What was quite cool about these episodes, at least in theory, was how your choices in the game would influence certain scenes. These manifested in two ways: whilst you are running around in the game, you can find "Quantum Ripples" which cause minor changes, like a background character mentioning something you did. And Junctions, which are choices that you make, whilst playing as the antagonist, which cause much more major changes.
The Quantum Ripples were pretty pointless, and frankly never really added anything of value. The Junction choices, whilst much more impactful, were a lot more curious in their execution. So to be clear, in these moments, you play as the antagonist, then make a choice that impacts the direction of the story. In one example, you must choose someone to mark for suspicion as being a traitor to the cause. As the player, you know more information than the antagonist knows, so you can effectively accuse someone based on information that this character simply cannot possess. The other major kink in this concept, is that you are making choices, potentially at the expense of the protagonist, or possibly breaking what you might consider to be in character, to potentially benefit the protagonist. Its just a strange spot to put the player in, IMO. Ultimately, these choices could be very significant, and could even decide the fates of multiple characters within the story - its pretty cool stuff.
Generally, I don't think that Quantum Break is a particularly great game, but I do feel like it is ambitious enough, for it to be worth experiencing.
First of all, I want to praise the game's ambition. I have never seen a videogame with full episodes of a TV spliced in between its levels, let alone ones that actually react to your choices. I have my issues with the content of these episodes, but the premise is intriguing, and the game executes these well enough to be worth the praise.
Secondly, I just really liked the time gimmick of this game, particularly in combat, during moments where time has stopped for everyone. Then you and a bunch of evil time goons are able to run around these frozen environments, blasting away at each other. Mechanically, its not too different from the moments that aren't frozen in time, but it passed the rule of cool, and I just loved walking around these environments after every fight, seeing all of these enemies frozen in time, having just taken a bullet, or been blasted by an explosion.
The acting was also pretty decent, too. This game employs the likes of Shawn Ashmore, Aiden Gillen, Dominic Monaghan and Lance Reddick (RIP) in some of its major roles. You would normally expect these roles to be phoned in, but they were generally well done - especially compared to Alan Wake.
As for the rest of the game, the combat was your fairly normal third-person shooter, with an emphasis on cover. Weirdly though, the shooting does somehow feel floatier than Alan Wake, despite being a much newer game. There are also a few oddities, like the inability to fire from the hip (you must always zoom in). You also can use a number of time mechanics for combat, and occasionally for traversal. However, as this game is structured like a cover based shooter, none of these abilities ever felt particularly essential, because you could just pop out of cover, and headshot an enemy. I feel like going for this style of cover-shooter was probably a bit of a misstep.
The story was intriguing, and had its fair share of time travel shenanigans, but whilst the latter quarter of the game really ramped things up, I did feel like the first portion of the game was quite meandering, and I never really felt a sense of urgency. Mostly because the threat that they were trying to avoid "the end of time" was never really overtly explained, and was just kind of left as a vague bad thing that they wanted to avoid, instead of a tangible threat that is shown or demonstrated to you.
When it comes to the live action portions of the story, this is where things get a little weird. So these episodes would take place concurrently with the events of the game, and would often bridge the gap between Acts. The characters from the main game would appear in these episodes, but they were mostly focused on a group of three side characters, who barely actually appeared in the game itself. The rare moments that did feature the main cast felt essential, but the hour+ of content featuring these side characters felt entirely skippable. Again, im going to praise the attempt, but I just wish they focused on the main cast, instead of this B-plot.
What was quite cool about these episodes, at least in theory, was how your choices in the game would influence certain scenes. These manifested in two ways: whilst you are running around in the game, you can find "Quantum Ripples" which cause minor changes, like a background character mentioning something you did. And Junctions, which are choices that you make, whilst playing as the antagonist, which cause much more major changes.
The Quantum Ripples were pretty pointless, and frankly never really added anything of value. The Junction choices, whilst much more impactful, were a lot more curious in their execution. So to be clear, in these moments, you play as the antagonist, then make a choice that impacts the direction of the story. In one example, you must choose someone to mark for suspicion as being a traitor to the cause. As the player, you know more information than the antagonist knows, so you can effectively accuse someone based on information that this character simply cannot possess. The other major kink in this concept, is that you are making choices, potentially at the expense of the protagonist, or possibly breaking what you might consider to be in character, to potentially benefit the protagonist. Its just a strange spot to put the player in, IMO. Ultimately, these choices could be very significant, and could even decide the fates of multiple characters within the story - its pretty cool stuff.
Generally, I don't think that Quantum Break is a particularly great game, but I do feel like it is ambitious enough, for it to be worth experiencing.
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Diablo 4 is super addictive, once the game opened up a bit and you could do side quests and explore caves and so on I just got into this zone and like 4 hours flew by. Gotta say I love how dark the world feels. It feels very desperate and hopeless but people are still somehow managing to live on.
SF6WT - I am on chapter 11-2. I unlocked Nayshall earlier and that spot actually has an explorable open world, like Metro City. Enemy levels are higher there, and they got some new treads there too. I am currently at level 38 with my character. I had him cosplaying has Adam Hunter for a good three chapters, primarily using Ken and Chun-Li's move sets. Since Adam is a kickboxing character, I thought it would be fitting. I dyed my training A-shirt yellow, and dyed one of my jeans black, along with the leather boots black. I might switch to Ryu so I can get some Style EXP and get his level 1 super. After dinner, I'll do a couple of rounds of Arcade Mode.
I knew going in that Splinter Cell: Blacklist was going to be a disappointment, but it scratches my eternal stealth itch and has been the last Splinter Cell for the past decade, so being better than Conviction by a country mile works fine for me.
I was pretty positive about Splinter Cell Blacklist, though the only other game that I had played in the franchise was Conviction (which I hated) which is probably why I was comparatively quite happy with it.
With that being said, I do acknowledge that it probably isn't a very good Splinter Cell game. From what I know about the franchise, it is one that focuses very firmly on stealth gameplay, and Blacklist is a game that lets you load into most a missions with heavy armour, and heavy weapons, which reeks like one of those "broadening the audience" decisions.
Fingers crossed that pure-stealth fans get the Spinter Cell game that they have been waiting for, eventually. Not that I really trust anything that comes out of modern-Ubisoft, though.
I figure if you want a solid stealth game you're gonna have to go digging in the AA at most pile. Arkane had the brief moment in the sun but has just kept sliding ever since (notwithstanding that the other games since Dishonored have only had the most token nod to stealth in them almost like an obligation)
On Switch I’m currently replaying Portal 2, then on PS5 I’m playing RDR2 (probably my favourite game).
- Apr 1, 2009
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Beat Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem on serious newgame+ mode, was really fun. Its nice having access to the full arsenal and any leftover special items, certinally makes the biggest horde in the game easier when you can use 3 black holes, 2 artillery strikes and a nuke on it. Also kinda made the last boss pretty easy, turns out that there is a newgame++, it adds a few more enemies and increases game speed by like 25%. I'll get to it eventually, for now,
Playing through Supplice again since they added a secret level, something to do while waiting for the next episode.
Playing through Supplice again since they added a secret level, something to do while waiting for the next episode.
Haha ofc, that's a MK staple since the classic titles when the CPU openly cheated... Thanks Ed Boon!
I forgot to mention, but I played Raiden IV X Mikado on Switch during Saturday. It's a fun old school shmup though 3 happened to be a big fan of the series. More so the second game in the franchise, but this is definitely a great game. Tough too. It's an updated re-release that adds a new fairy ship as a playable character, and has a whole bunch of bonus and score modes. I thought about getting the re-release of the third game, but there's not a lot of bonuses sadly, and I'm better off just getting the RayCrisis Collection at the end of the month.
I unlocked Dhaslim, Zangief, and Juri as masters. I wish I had checked sooner, but there's still plenty of content left. Now I need more skills to unlock to more special move sets, and I am close to building my ultimate Final Fight character! I literally have a Shotokan character with wresting moves, and Chun-Li's kicks! It so fun doing spinning pile drivers and suplex on mofos! Currently on Chapter 14-2 in SF6: World Tour.
Binding of Isaac. Managed to beat both Sheol/Cathedral bosses with Azazel. And that was after fucking up a run where I had the giant homing ring of death n brimstone covering up a quarter of the screen. He really breaks the game. I checked trophy % and sure enough most people get to the end with him.
I'm supposed to beat both bosses again as well as do the boss rush again with EVERY other character in the game to 100% but Azazel is so OP that everybody else, including Isaac, just doesn't feel right. Too slow and too weak. Mob fights take forever, which is a drag whenever you have to start a run anew and it's the same series of encounters again until you reach the endgame.
I'm supposed to beat both bosses again as well as do the boss rush again with EVERY other character in the game to 100% but Azazel is so OP that everybody else, including Isaac, just doesn't feel right. Too slow and too weak. Mob fights take forever, which is a drag whenever you have to start a run anew and it's the same series of encounters again until you reach the endgame.
Moved on to Timespinner, Kickstarter game and closest thing to Symphony of the Night since (or before) Bloodstained. It's a solid metroidvania with nothing worth bringing up other than the pixel art is nice (what's an example of ugly pixel art?) and the ability to pause time is fun (if not absolutely necessary in most situations). Maybe there's more to the game but two bosses in and everything has been pretty standard (but good).
- Apr 1, 2009
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- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
Timespinner was pretty cool. Does have a few weird story bits though, you'll see what I mean, but quite fun and great looking.
I have had it in my Ubisoft library forever. Never played. Probably bought it in a bundle. Well, downloading now. I need a Splinter Cell that is kinda easy. Hope they let me bring a BFG 5000 with me at all times.
Did another round on Cyberpunk 2077. Some jank aside - and there is jank - and a disappointing amount of missing or overly expensive cyberware (no night vision, really?), I still find that I love this game. I love the way it looks, the way both V’s are distinct in their voices, I like the choices we have for romance partners and most of the plot critical NPCs are a delight. Vik, Jackie, Delamain and Takemura are all so awesome that if the rest of the post Konpecki heist game was just us as a Mass Effect/DragonAge like squad going around Night City and just doing biz, I’d have been a happy man.
Still, despite the disastrous fuck up that was its launch and the ping ponging quality of post release support, I love it to death.
Still, despite the disastrous fuck up that was its launch and the ping ponging quality of post release support, I love it to death.
Yeah I really like the game, mostly I like night city as a place to wander around and do stuff.
I will say, I think the game story really peaked early with the failed heist and the rest isn't that engaging, especially since its mostly fetch quest with very loose connection to the central plot. Keanu does a good job and there's plenty of good moment, but the silver chips heist and the build up to it is just really tight.
I've been holding off doing another play trough waiting for DLC and it seems like that was a good idea since they apparently changed every system in the game.
I like it enough so far. With time travel plots I just brace myself for "they can do any twist hereon because time travel" and just roll with it.