Its still built from the first one, which came out probably like a decade ago at this point, so the requirement aren't too crazy for it.
What are you currently playing?
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I'm in a kind of groove of switching between My Time at Sandrock and Starfield. It's kind of a strange feeling as well. I'm liking Sandrock, but not as much as I enjoyed its predecessor Portia. And I'm liking Starfield, but not quite as much as I enjoyed any of the Fallout titles or The Outer Worlds. And I can't help but think I'd be enjoying both more if I hadn't been so satisfied by Tears of the Kingdom just months ago.
Decided to take a break from my Durge run Baldur's Gate 3 and install Cyberpunk. I got the game and started a Corpo run a year ago after I finished watching Edgerunners, where I got 2 hours in. MAN is this game gorgeous to look at. Every interior and every character's animation and voice acting is just polished to a sheen. Even during the broken state the game was released in, it makes Starfield look even more outdated. I am at the mission where we have to steal the relic. While the main quest design and presentation is a little too railroadey for what's supposed to be an RPG/immersive sim, the experience is still pretty immersive and interesting.
How are you enjoying the combat?
I played this game and while I did like it, I got really annoyed with that camera up against the right shoulder with enemies flying around off screen thing that has become popular of late. I also probably shouldn't have played it so soon after completing God of War Ragnarok.
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Overall I'm enjoying combat. I don't mind the close camera, especially since enemies seem to kinda be willing to be less aggressive offscreen... well slightly and they also kinda just stand around when your doing the electric punch combo... mostly. Really my main issue with it is that till I remembered my ult, big enemies would take awhile to beat down. Also the electrified enemy punch combo is a bit tedious and needs at least a second combo to break it up.
Due to highly sensitive matters of national security, cannot yet divulge much of the classified top secret documents recently obtained from my shadowy network of international spies - already had to shake off 3 tails on the drive here after finding out they bugged my apartment from top to bottom. Commander of the newly hired 24hour private military guard patrolling the windowless safehouse am currently bunkered down in just got fired for cheekily asked if videogames are taking themselves too seriously these days. We can't have attitudes like that weakening our last line of defense. And yes I am sleeping a gun under my pillow. Well, 6 guns. And a grenade. Launcher.
Weirdly isn't even a game I've seen much enthusiasm for neither. and how confidential can it really be when I only signed up cause it was advertised on mainstream gaming websites anyway.
Weirdly isn't even a game I've seen much enthusiasm for neither. and how confidential can it really be when I only signed up cause it was advertised on mainstream gaming websites anyway.
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Since we were discussing TW3 earlier, have you played it since the Next Gen update? They added this type of camera as the default view. I tried it for a while, but in places like dark caves with ledges or stairwells of ruins it can feel like you’re almost rubbing shoulders with Geralt through the screen lol. I put it back to the normal view.
Yeah I played the next gen update. New default camera sucks, but indeed it was clearly done to match the trend of such games that happened since TW3 originally launched. It is actually ok for just walking around and exploring, but not for combat or horse riding IMO.
The other default settings like the "alternative" movement and such are good though. Just stuff that came from years of player feedback.
There are a whole bunch of changes with skills and perks that are rather interesting if you get into the details- the best one is that none of the skills have a max of 5 upgrades so you can spread your skill points and get more skills faster. But you're still stuck with the same number of skills slots- if you know the tree well, it just means you can get OP skills like Refreshment earlier and breeze through the game even easier.
But yeah the best thing is of course the visuals and that is the reason to play the upgrade.
I started playing Shovel Knight. It's fun! Definitely frustrating in parts though. But so far it's doing exactly what I wanted it to- give me something to play in short doses and, if I want, while listening to other things.
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There is a lot of Shovel Knight and its all great, but be careful about playing Plague Knight right after Shovel Knight. They have almost the exact same levels with just a few new areas. The story is cute, but doing the same stages can be tedious even though they play different.
I've tried running it on my computer before and it chugs. I could probably lower the settings and run it but, ehhh, I'll get a new PC someday. Maybe sooner rather than later as Windows 7 isn't really being supported at all anymore.
Been playing Mario Odyssey and it's... ok. It's good I guess, but I don't know it feels lacking compared to previous Mario games. 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy were all great games and the movement always felt really good. Odyssey's controls honestly feel a little stiff, and I've just reached New Donk City and thus far the game has been utterly lacking in good platforming challenges. It's mostly about exploring every nook and cranny for one of the nine thousand power moons hidden throughout the game. Most of them are extremely obvious as well.
More than ever before Mario feels like a kid's game, especially with all the aggressive tutorialization worthy of even Skyward Sword. Not only does the game have a character in every level dedicated to reminding you the Action Guide exists, and not only are you forced to listen to the hat explain a move to you every single time you travel between levels (after skipping through 4 different cutscenes), not only are there signs in front of places that you need to use a move that brings a popup onto the screen for far too long showing the move being done (I can't not read a sign in a video game, what if this time it's something interesting!), but the game will always display the button combination to do whatever move it wants you to anyway! And no, there isn't an option to turn off tips.
There are also a ludicrous number of coins in the game. I currently have over 2000 stockpiled having bought everything available and new items pop up for, like, 100 coins.
More than ever before Mario feels like a kid's game, especially with all the aggressive tutorialization worthy of even Skyward Sword. Not only does the game have a character in every level dedicated to reminding you the Action Guide exists, and not only are you forced to listen to the hat explain a move to you every single time you travel between levels (after skipping through 4 different cutscenes), not only are there signs in front of places that you need to use a move that brings a popup onto the screen for far too long showing the move being done (I can't not read a sign in a video game, what if this time it's something interesting!), but the game will always display the button combination to do whatever move it wants you to anyway! And no, there isn't an option to turn off tips.
There are also a ludicrous number of coins in the game. I currently have over 2000 stockpiled having bought everything available and new items pop up for, like, 100 coins.
So Watch Dogs 2 does the incredibly fun, classic Ubisoft move of having enemies wearing fucking beanies surviving headshots. Man they really are built different over there.
The might be because every gun in Ubisoft games is secretly just a peashooter.
Yes the theme of the day (or month, why not) is vegetables, people. Eat ‘em!
I bought Treasure Trove and a bunch of a other games and my thinking was to alternate between a Shovel Knight and another game, and play the Shovel Knights in release order. I dunno we'll see how that goes.
I'm in the second map and the games gets really challenging for me. I should point out that I quit other recent 2D platformers like Ori because the platforming gets too tough for me. I read that SK is not as hard so I hope the difficulty doesn't spike too much. So far my unsurmountable walls have been optional areas so that's fine if I don't beat everything but I'm hoping that doesn't lock me out of important upgrades.
The thing that attracted me to the game other than just wanting a throwback platformer was to see how level designs work based off of simple gameplay elements. The last area I beat was sort of a water level but there's no swimming so the presence of water just makes jumps a little different... it was pretty cool.
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Err... hmm. I'm not sure if the platforming will become too much for you. I can't really judge since I'm really good at platforming. But, Shovel Knight does give you additional tools that can help with platforming. So hopefully you can enjoy the game to the end.
I caved in and bought the Turok 3 remaster. Pretty good so far, I remember renting it back in the day and not being that into it. I don't think the music is as good as Turok 1 or 2, but it is more orchestral then those games, which were mainly drum. Weapons feel pretty good and enemies aren't as bullet spongy as they were in 2, there is also a kinda neat battle damage system where enemies seem to blow apart based on where you shoot them, like shooting off a limb or head.
Steamworld BUILD. Oh my sweet little darling robots you never disappoint! This steampunk town management and digging adventures game is more slick than previous entries, very console-friendly controls too. And it does this thing where you know you're playing a super polished builder/management cause the ghost models of any building you select for placement have their own cute wobble physics for when you move them about the environment. Unnecessary, yet too pleasing to not admire. Oh there's voice acting this time round, cutscenes 'n all! However, they provide an option to revert back to older games' robot speak in menu, which I switched to after intro mainly for podcast-listening synergy, not a dig (lol) at the voice acting quality.
Trailer presents bias but whatevs.
Trailer presents bias but whatevs.
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I went for a bit of a nostalgia trip and installed the singleplayer portion of the original Call of Duty: Black Ops. And goodness me the campaign hasn't aged well. Which was honestly inevitable: cutting edge graphics are like the cutting edge of a knife. They only maintain that superb edge for a brief bit of time. Nowadays it's impossible to not notice all the ways it's dated: the rubbery action figure character models, the stiff facial animation, the lack of environmental detail compared to modern games, and the incredibly shallow gameplay that's about two steps removed from being a rail shooter. This was criticized even back on release, but one of the worst aspects of the singleplayer is its mind-numbing, non-stop intensity: there's absolutely no use of stillness or pacing, everything's at 11 all the time. Nonstop gunfire and explosions, constant shouted dialogue and bombastic music create an audiovisual vomit that's almost nauseating to play for more than 20 minutes at a time. So yeah, there's literally no reason whatsoever to play the singleplayer in this decade.
The much better aged, but still aged, part of the singleplayer is the Zombies mode, which maintains a much greater level of enjoyment as a simple arcade shooter. It's got a sort of crass, late 00's to early 10's meme charm to it. Like the devs just went "nazi zombies, teleporters, mad science, national stereotypes, lolderp". It's enjoyable enough, though the movement controls feel rather sluggish compared to how fast the enemies get. It gets pretty repetitive in singleplayer, once you unlock the special weapons you've basically seen everything, and then it's just going through the motions. I never got to play it in properly organized multiplayer, and it's probably a lot more fun there because it was designed around that.
The much better aged, but still aged, part of the singleplayer is the Zombies mode, which maintains a much greater level of enjoyment as a simple arcade shooter. It's got a sort of crass, late 00's to early 10's meme charm to it. Like the devs just went "nazi zombies, teleporters, mad science, national stereotypes, lolderp". It's enjoyable enough, though the movement controls feel rather sluggish compared to how fast the enemies get. It gets pretty repetitive in singleplayer, once you unlock the special weapons you've basically seen everything, and then it's just going through the motions. I never got to play it in properly organized multiplayer, and it's probably a lot more fun there because it was designed around that.
Tell that to Seraphim17. He'll words for you on that.
I just remember it for these memes.
I prefer Dead Ops Arcade. That's even better than the Zombies Mode.