- Apr 1, 2009
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Interesting choices is right, holy crap, if I wanted to play that game, that song would have stopped those urges.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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I completed RE3R on Nightmare for the first time. Fuck the final boss; I hate him. I will never do Inferno mode.
Finished Hades. While I love the wholesome silliness of the ending, it felt incredibly abrupt. I haven't romanced anyone, I haven't concluded any side character stories, and I haven't seen quite a few abilities. I'm sure some of it was my own fault, but it felt like the development of the story and evolution of gameplay could have been more organic.
Played Phantasmaphobia on my cousin's Occulus Quest. After about 4-5 hours I'm not really too hot on the game. I definitely don't think the game was really intended for single player. You have about 10 different gadgets you need to use and you can carry up to 4 objects if you don't mind dropping and picking something up every time you open a door or turn on a light switch, which is incredibly annoying so the item limit is pretty much 3. You also can't monitor your sanity unless you go back to the van, and I don't really even know what the sanity meter really does. Honestly, I was never really very clear about what my objective actually was. I think I'm supposed to find a bone that's randomly in a level and figure out what kind of ghost (out of 30 types) that's haunting the place and maybe take a picture of it, but like, shouldn't we be trying to exorcise it or something? I don't know, the manual talks about stuff like salt and incense and stuff but I didn't have any and never found any.
My playtime mainly consisted of wandering around in the dark barely able to see anything because the flashlight really sucks (you can upgrade this at level 19, we ended up on level 4 after 4 hours). Sometimes something spooky would happen, most of the time it wouldn't and then eventually I would randomly be killed because I ran out of sanity or something. I spent a ridiculous amount of time wandering around lost inside a sanitarium where absolutely nothing was happening. I did hear some yells inside the basement, but couldn't find where they came from and was more concerned with finding the exit again because I wanted to get out alive for a change. After I found my way back to the van and found I had 40% sanity left I went back in, but I never did find my way into the basement again. I don't know, whatever the appeal is supposed to be I'm just not seeing it.
On a side note, VR is really cool. I don't think I'll be getting one myself yet because it seems pretty gimmicky and I don't think it's something I'm going to want to play a lot as the headset gets kind of uncomfortable and I did feel a bit motion-sick after a while, but it's a cool gimmick.
My playtime mainly consisted of wandering around in the dark barely able to see anything because the flashlight really sucks (you can upgrade this at level 19, we ended up on level 4 after 4 hours). Sometimes something spooky would happen, most of the time it wouldn't and then eventually I would randomly be killed because I ran out of sanity or something. I spent a ridiculous amount of time wandering around lost inside a sanitarium where absolutely nothing was happening. I did hear some yells inside the basement, but couldn't find where they came from and was more concerned with finding the exit again because I wanted to get out alive for a change. After I found my way back to the van and found I had 40% sanity left I went back in, but I never did find my way into the basement again. I don't know, whatever the appeal is supposed to be I'm just not seeing it.
On a side note, VR is really cool. I don't think I'll be getting one myself yet because it seems pretty gimmicky and I don't think it's something I'm going to want to play a lot as the headset gets kind of uncomfortable and I did feel a bit motion-sick after a while, but it's a cool gimmick.
I've Played Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup for a couple hours and I'm not sure about it yet. It's very different from Nethack and I feel like I have fewer options in the early game. The game is simpler in a lot of ways. There's no hunger and you can't eat corpses for resistances, there's an auto-explore feature, you can't sell items, items don't have blessed/cursed status, you can't steal from shops, don't have to identify most items, can't polymorph items etc. etc. etc. However, I keep dying around dungeon level 4.
Part of the problem might be that the auto-explore and weak initial monsters promotes playing on autopilot until you run into something you can't kill, but I feel like I keep running into named monsters and don't really have many options against them. Once you are in combat you simply can't get away. Most monsters are as fast as you and running away gives them a free attack every turn, unlike Nethack where only faster monsters get free attacks. You can't just stay on higher floors and grind because there is no monster generation beyond the initial population, once you've finished a level, it's done. You don't have many potion/scroll options because you don't know what they do until identified and you can't do price identification in shops to make a reasonable guess. I don't know if the game intends for you to quaff random potions or what, because lacking the mass identification options that Nethack has I don't know what choice you really have. But my Nethack experience has taught me that using unidentified items is a bad idea, not only is there a chance you are going to use something bad for you, most of the time you are just wasting a potentially rare effect for the sole purpose of identification.
Surely there has to be options to you that don't rely so much on RNG, but I don't know what they are I think before I play again I'm going to have to read over the available documentation, and then maybe I'll see what the 'hints mode' has to tell me.
Part of the problem might be that the auto-explore and weak initial monsters promotes playing on autopilot until you run into something you can't kill, but I feel like I keep running into named monsters and don't really have many options against them. Once you are in combat you simply can't get away. Most monsters are as fast as you and running away gives them a free attack every turn, unlike Nethack where only faster monsters get free attacks. You can't just stay on higher floors and grind because there is no monster generation beyond the initial population, once you've finished a level, it's done. You don't have many potion/scroll options because you don't know what they do until identified and you can't do price identification in shops to make a reasonable guess. I don't know if the game intends for you to quaff random potions or what, because lacking the mass identification options that Nethack has I don't know what choice you really have. But my Nethack experience has taught me that using unidentified items is a bad idea, not only is there a chance you are going to use something bad for you, most of the time you are just wasting a potentially rare effect for the sole purpose of identification.
Surely there has to be options to you that don't rely so much on RNG, but I don't know what they are I think before I play again I'm going to have to read over the available documentation, and then maybe I'll see what the 'hints mode' has to tell me.
The game doesn't really have a clear "end game" point, since you can always keep going and every "ending" unlock more stuff to do. There's a metric crap ton of conversation too so that even player who have to restart often can still keep going (and plenty of new one unlock after every ending).
- Feb 7, 2011
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I have succumbed to peer pressure and bought Balder's Gate 3.
Ha! Joke’s on you. If you’re looking for the omg GotY you should’ve boughten Baldur’s Gate 3.
No-one Lives Under The Lighthouse.
Hey who put A24 movies in my videogame?? It's not merely the obvious connection to a certain William Dafoe masterpiece, it's the soundtrack and cutscene direction too. You'll know what I mean when/if you see it for yourselfs: lingering still shots of innocent things as a haunting ambient audio breathes Into your ears, then quick cut to other innocent things as the breathing audio gets a little louder, then omg quick cut again but it's normal humans doing normals things with normal ambience ahah bet you didn't expect that did you silly audience! Yet it is what works for me, so have restarted this bloody slow boil game to try and get the shotgun I obliviously failed to do first time.
Hey who put A24 movies in my videogame?? It's not merely the obvious connection to a certain William Dafoe masterpiece, it's the soundtrack and cutscene direction too. You'll know what I mean when/if you see it for yourselfs: lingering still shots of innocent things as a haunting ambient audio breathes Into your ears, then quick cut to other innocent things as the breathing audio gets a little louder, then omg quick cut again but it's normal humans doing normals things with normal ambience ahah bet you didn't expect that did you silly audience! Yet it is what works for me, so have restarted this bloody slow boil game to try and get the shotgun I obliviously failed to do first time.
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No I get that, but the return of Persephone to the Underworld felt completely out of nowhere. I was ready to die against Hades with my shitty ass build and he just let me pass. Didn't feel like a big triumphant thing that was built up to properly. And yes you can say that's not the end game point since there's still stuff to do, but cmon. The credits rolled and that banger song played. That moment would have felt a whole lot better if I felt like I could just leave the game then and there satisfied.
- Feb 7, 2011
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I was wondering why my version seemed to be missing hair textures.
And?
I'm a cheap bastard and only just got Divinity 2 Original Sin which I hear is a prehistoric version of BG3. Its OK.
Astrea: Six Sided Oracles.
A damn good Roguelike that uses dice instead of cards and has an interesting purification/corruption system. Your character has health (3 hearts except for one character that has 2) but they also have six bars for corruption and purification. Only once you go over six corruption will you lose a heart. You also have Virtues, special effects that become available once you get corrupted enough.
Enemies don't have hearts, once you fully purify them they are defeated, but they also have an Over corruption bar that triggers an effect if it gets filled.
So you have dozens and dozens of different effects spread across six characters and all the different enemies and this fun balancing act of managing corruption levels, the randomness of your dice, and trying to trigger effects at the right times and it's really engrossing. I highly recommend it.
A damn good Roguelike that uses dice instead of cards and has an interesting purification/corruption system. Your character has health (3 hearts except for one character that has 2) but they also have six bars for corruption and purification. Only once you go over six corruption will you lose a heart. You also have Virtues, special effects that become available once you get corrupted enough.
Enemies don't have hearts, once you fully purify them they are defeated, but they also have an Over corruption bar that triggers an effect if it gets filled.
So you have dozens and dozens of different effects spread across six characters and all the different enemies and this fun balancing act of managing corruption levels, the randomness of your dice, and trying to trigger effects at the right times and it's really engrossing. I highly recommend it.
Started playing STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN ( Square likes its uppercase letters I assume ), which seems to basically be Nioh meets Final Fantasy... which I'm down for, I thoroughly enjoyed Nioh 1 and 2, but why is this game so god damned ugly!
Got Superfly VR Hero with a Humble Bundle cheap so what the heck. I'm sure I'm playing it wrong. I'm supposed to be a hero, but I'm blowing up busses and cop cars and dirigibles and causing as much destruction as I can and loving it. A nice lark for a couple of bucks.
12 hours into Alan Wake 2, just started return part 5. It's has been amazing so far!
I'm starting to think this game was robbed of Best Narrative Award at TGA 2023. I did enjoy the story of Baldur's Gate 3 very much, But I'd say AW2 has the edge of telling a story in such an unconventional way. There's just nothing like it.
I cannot wrap my head around how well-connected Control is to this game. I know it was already established, but here they are just being blatant about it. Buy I have to wonder if this game takes place after Control or just before? If it is after, how much control does Jesse have over field agents actions? Because I'm pretty sure she'll be against the way some of these field agents are behaving.
The flashlight focus are sometimes hard to land, or doesn't seem to do anything even though I light the enemies up at the point-blank range.
VA is still superb, and those live-action sections are surreal and throws me off. I also gotta hand it to Remedy for including those Koskela commercials. They have never failed me to make me laugh.
I'm starting to think this game was robbed of Best Narrative Award at TGA 2023. I did enjoy the story of Baldur's Gate 3 very much, But I'd say AW2 has the edge of telling a story in such an unconventional way. There's just nothing like it.
I cannot wrap my head around how well-connected Control is to this game. I know it was already established, but here they are just being blatant about it. Buy I have to wonder if this game takes place after Control or just before? If it is after, how much control does Jesse have over field agents actions? Because I'm pretty sure she'll be against the way some of these field agents are behaving.
The flashlight focus are sometimes hard to land, or doesn't seem to do anything even though I light the enemies up at the point-blank range.
VA is still superb, and those live-action sections are surreal and throws me off. I also gotta hand it to Remedy for including those Koskela commercials. They have never failed me to make me laugh.
Powerwash Simulator, which, I'm sorry to say, has accurately captured the fun of powerwashing.
> I'm starting to think this game was robbed of Best Narrative Award at TGA 2023. I did enjoy the story of Baldur's Gate 3 very much, But I'd say AW2 has the edge of telling a story in such an unconventional way. There's just nothing like it.
So this is what I was getting at in the other thread where we made top 25 lists, and I made one specifically about narrative.
To me "narrative" in video game could mean either an over-arching story OR the consistent ability to tell individual stories.
I don't know exactly what the game awards had in mind with their categories (it sure would have been nice if they'd discussed that).
Niether AW2 nor BG3 appeal to me in terms of gameplay so I'm not making a qualitative judgement or anything, but it seems like the strength of AW2 is the over-arching narrative, while the strength of BG3- and RPGs in general, honestly- is individual stories. This quest, that quest, this character, that side story, maybe this specific part of the main quest, etc. It's why Skyrim and Witcher 3 are two of the most beloved narrative games despite their main stories being kinda lame.
So this is what I was getting at in the other thread where we made top 25 lists, and I made one specifically about narrative.
To me "narrative" in video game could mean either an over-arching story OR the consistent ability to tell individual stories.
I don't know exactly what the game awards had in mind with their categories (it sure would have been nice if they'd discussed that).
Niether AW2 nor BG3 appeal to me in terms of gameplay so I'm not making a qualitative judgement or anything, but it seems like the strength of AW2 is the over-arching narrative, while the strength of BG3- and RPGs in general, honestly- is individual stories. This quest, that quest, this character, that side story, maybe this specific part of the main quest, etc. It's why Skyrim and Witcher 3 are two of the most beloved narrative games despite their main stories being kinda lame.