What are you currently playing?

[BrawlMan]

I finished the entire first chapter and the first section of Chapter 2 in RE5. I'm getting used to shooting without moving at the same time. It works, and there's clear balance, but I much prefer having my special forces soldier being able to do both. The game clearly wants you to melee more and I am happy to oblige. Kneecapping an enemy than uppercutting, punching them, stomping them on the ground, or doing a neck break from behind never gets old. Sheva's AI is actually better in the 8th gen ports, so she's much more useful here then the old console releases. Making them pretty much near obsolete now.

While the game is more action heavy compared to RE4, there's still plenty of tense atmosphere and build up to suspense and horror. The horror is still there, just not as often, but still effective. If you have the 8th gen ports, then mercenaries is already unlocked from the start, and it makes a nice practice to get used to the controls, if you've never played RE4 or RE5, or hadn't played these games in a long time.

 

[Summerstorm]

I am playing lots of Hell Divers 2 on PS5 and some Diablo 2 r on PC

So if anyone plays these games, hit me up!

I have caved this weekend. Got myself Helldivers 2 .
Usually i don't get myself multiplayer games... and not "Service-games" which will burn out too soon... and not full-priced games. AND not games with terrible invasive anti-cheat engines attached to it.

Buuuuuut: I heard that it is good, easy fun, and i don't want to fall back behind ALL the times. And i read that i can play with some randos in quickplay without much stress.

So i played a few hours Saturday and Sunday, got to Level 9 so far. AND: It's pretty good. seemingly i had some luck with no crashes (Just once it wouldn't connect me to anyone, but a restart fixed it easily) And sometimes I just die (Apparently by my own hand, even though i didn't use any explosives) and once there spawned a group of bugs on top of me.

And i also HATE the Warbonds (Character XP) progression, where you need to buy most things (Much of the stuff you will never use) to access different tiers with more equipment. Also: I just bought your game for 40 bucks... Go easy on the premium cash selling there, goddamn.
(So you can find a few "10 supercredits" in Missions, and "buy them for "Medals" (XP) - but only once "100 SC" per tier, in ever-increasing costs. - but it takes 1000 to access a new "character-Class-like leveling path") So far i have about ~600

Also armor works weird in the game. It seems Heavy armor negates "small" damage types... but since those are not what kills you, even in light armor, pretty much all you have is way less sprinting and speed, and since a lot of the game is running a damn marathon it is very annoying. But the 50% reduction in "being blown the fuck up" still is pretty handy... you know, because of your teammates, hehe.

The game itself was fun though. You have to do some easy missions before medium, and medium before hard and so on - so at the start it was a pretty bad start because you run over empty maps, and sometimes a handful of basic enemies spawn in. So much waiting for nothing.
But than after unlocking the higher difficulties, and not having yet the player-experience and character-equipment, it is like hitting the wall: Getting called into a heated firefight with gigantic aliens or murderbots, just panicked trying to find a rock to hide behind and hoping the other dudes can keep the masses away from your ass until you have your support-weapon dropped in and oriented yourself is pretty fun.

And soon i was a Lvl7 guy in a game where shit went south and the Lvl 25+ dudes were all dead, no reinforcements left, 4 minutes to extraction. Had to run to it alone with activated enemies, one emergency reinforcement queued up, held of the killerrobots for a while (Until he brutally died). And i as the lone survivor saved the examples while the robots stormed the landing pad i jumped into the dropship.

Overall i like the statistics and vibes of the setting: How many Bugs/Robots were murdered and how many millions of Helldivers died for it. "Planet-Liberation stats". The fact that, after you died, the standard setting is you get just another rando helldiver to play (You keep your achievements and equipment and stuff, but just the sex/voice changes). Voicelines going from "Huraaah-DEMOCRACY" to "ARGHS... MAH LEGS" in like five seconds.

Also quite nice explosions.

The game needs personal vehicle-drops (Apparently in testing) new enemies (whole factions) and maybe a few more things to do on the map, variety-wise. (And maybe something like "Story-Missions" like Warframe does it to present the setting a bit more (We need some characters and news-segments and such)

So far i had some fun. Let's see when it dies...

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

And sometimes I just die (Apparently by my own hand, even though i didn't use any explosives)

Death notifications are bugged. It's more than once told me I killed myself even as the giant insect that was the true culprit was still trampling me into the dirt.

Also armor works weird in the game. It seems Heavy armor negates "small" damage types... but since those are not what kills you, even in light armor, pretty much all you have is way less sprinting and speed, and since a lot of the game is running a damn marathon it is very annoying. But the 50% reduction in "being blown the fuck up" still is pretty handy... you know, because of your teammates, hehe.

Armor is also bugged. There are some sets that don't grant the damage reduction they purport to.

 

[Piscian]

I finally finished Persona 3 Reload. I would guess my total playtime was around 120 hours. I don't know the exact number because I left it on quite a bit and with farting around I think I was at 136. It definitely "felt" quite a bit longer than Persona 4, though I don't mean that as a criticism in the way that Persona 5 Royal or Last Of Us 2 drags. I just mean the story was longer/larger in scope.

If I could compressed my feelings into a single thought of good/bad, in visual - I was a pretty bummed because I made a pivotal mistake early on in the game. I focused on finishing out a couple character stories and spending my freetime maxing out my social stats because I thought I didn't have anything better to do. Unfortunately it turned out there was a story that doesn't open up until you get part way into another character story. I wouldn't have ever known if I hadn't been snooping online. This led to me finishing the game with a single storyline unfinished and a mere 3 Personas missing out of the hundreds needed to complete the game 100%. This led me to very nearly for the first time starting New Game+ because I really wanted to finish everything.

I think thats a recommendation. If I, of all people, was on the edge of restarting the game at midnight then it's probably a good game.

By the end of it the game still managed to do a bit of compelling character development. Still no where near the level of Persona 4 or 5 however. I liked all the characters, but they never felt interconnected. There's a scene at the end where they're all together and it's supposed to be meaningful, but as it played I thought..is it? Do these characters have any reason, outside of love interests, to talk to each other now that the battle is over? They never really shared any interpersonal experience outside of "we did battle together.". It reminds me of my Dad talking about how his army buddies would seek him out every so many years and he just has nothing to say to them. Nothing in common.

I think thats where Persona 4 and 5 make the largest improvements. In those games much of story "revolves" around the characters sharing their inner lives with each other where as a lot of Persona 3 Reload is just you the protagonist getting prompted to go do a personal cutscene with each character.

Still all the stories are solid and the gameplay is exactly what you want from a Persona game.

If we're doing points I'm taking 2.

1. It makes that Classic RPG mistake of only allowing you to use one group of characters at a time. I spent a ton of time leveling up and unlocking abilities and equipment for 9+ whatever characters and only used 4 in the final battles. I even upgraded one character in particular in the last days of the game to not even end up using them. Persona 5 fixes that.
2. It's a more classic dungeon crawler with near entirety of combat taking place in a Tower that ends up having 257 floors. It makes up for this with some variation of floor aesthetics and most floors can be cleared in under 5 minutes, but it still at times felt like quite a drag. I actually took a break from the game in the last 20 hours, just due to burnout on the Dungeon. Persona 5 fixes this by breaking the game up into Castles for some diversity.

8/10

 

[Worgen]

And i also HATE the Warbonds (Character XP) progression, where you need to buy most things (Much of the stuff you will never use) to access different tiers with more equipment. Also: I just bought your game for 40 bucks... Go easy on the premium cash selling there, goddamn.
(So you can find a few "10 supercredits" in Missions, and "buy them for "Medals" (XP) - but only once "100 SC" per tier, in ever-increasing costs. - but it takes 1000 to access a new "character-Class-like leveling path") So far i have about ~600

You do end up finding plenty of them, its quicker if you want to spend money, but its not hard getting access to new bonds.

The game needs personal vehicle-drops (Apparently in testing) new enemies (whole factions) and maybe a few more things to do on the map, variety-wise. (And maybe something like "Story-Missions" like Warframe does it to present the setting a bit more (We need some characters and news-segments and such)

In the first game there were 3 factions you fought against and in this one it does look like there are at least 2 more fronts for war to open on, which to me, implies 2 new enemy factions at some point.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

In the first game there were 3 factions you fought against and in this one it does look like there are at least 2 more fronts for war to open on, which to me, implies 2 new enemy factions at some point.

Methinks the enemy factions will be the biggest limiter of this game's lifespan.

Anyway, I've been playing Sleeping Dogs. I know its an old game, but... I didn't expect it to be this bad.

The combat is punchy (heh) and satisfying from a visual, audio, and animation standpoint. From an actual gameplay perspective though? Kinda ass. I always hated the people who said Arkham combat was just pressing the counter button. A blatantly false statement. Hell, even Assassin's Creed doesn't commit that mistake. This game though? When the difficulty rises, I really just sit on my ass and counter everything. I've spent 10 hour so far so maybe new enemy types will show up, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

The gunplay in this game.. fuck me. There are missions where you are given a sniper rifle and you need to take out a criminal who is holding some hostage. I literally had to aim the reticle FULLY AWAY from the dude's head because the recoil pattern for the gun starts OUTSIDE your crosshairs.

The story is flat out hilarious. The main character is an annoying piece of shit who is borderline schizophrenic. There are absolutely no surprises in the story, except I guess the random inclusion of Oscar Award-winning actress Emma Stone.

The one thing I did appreciate in this game (after playing Cyberpunk especially) is the vehicle gameplay. They really nailed the arcadey fun of drifting your car at 100 MPH through the streets of Hong Kong. The handbrake in the game is surprisingly smooth to use. I generally despise being forced to drive around in open world games, but I didn't mind it here.

 

[Bartholen]

I finished my third, "barbarian" run of Elden Ring. Ended up ultimately rolling a strength/faith build, which was... exactly what I did in my first playthrough. Oops. Anyway, 'twas still fun, and the game feels a bit more balanced now than when I last played it this extensively. For example, it seems that the roaming Ancient Dragons stoop their heads much lower now, allowing for easier targeting. Malenia's second phase doesn't seem to have Scarlet rot on all her attacks anymore. This time I made extensive use of Spirit ashes, and they're actually pretty fun. Sure, they trivialize the bosses a lot, but they have interesting dynamics with some being better suited for some situations than others. Black Knife Tiche just melts big boss healthbars for example. I still don't know how you're expected to run a pure magic build in this game. Spells seem so weak and ineffectual compared to just smacking things: they have limited use due to FP, split up your resources due to having to split up flasks, enemies dodge them very easily, and some seem to have weirdly short ranges like Lightning Spear. I did feel a bit of burnout again after finishing it, so I'll probably shelve it for a good while again. Maybe in the mean time I'll finally get to work on Final Fantasy XVI.

 

[BrawlMan]

HiFi Rush is out now! I am playing it on PS5!

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

HiFi Rush is out now! I am playing it on PS5!

Oohla, just started this literally right now, have no idea what to expect other than vague hearing about the focus on musics and combos, don't even know what music genres to expect neither lol

 

[meiam]

Playing crystal project an old school JRPG (think FF5) with platforming and a big focus on exploration and non linearity. There's essentially no story to speak of beyond a vague "adventuring is fun!" but there's a lot of stuff to explore in the world and there seem to be a lot of classes you can unlock to mix and match abilities to make your preferred unit.

The non linearity is no joke, after just a handful of hours there's already 3 path I can follow (think a bit like dark soul), but I think it'll run into the risk of overleveling by mistake. The game also doesn't unlock area map until you're essentially done with them which is pretty annoying since you can mark stuff after you've unlock it, but that's usually too late, so you often just have to go trough area you've already been just to mark down stuff to come later once you can get them.

 

[BrawlMan]

Oohla, just started this literally right now, have no idea what to expect other than vague hearing about the focus on musics and combos, don't even know what music genres to expect neither lol

I won't spoil anything for you. You're going to get a bunch of surprises.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I finished my third, "barbarian" run of Elden Ring. Ended up ultimately rolling a strength/faith build, which was... exactly what I did in my first playthrough. Oops. Anyway, 'twas still fun, and the game feels a bit more balanced now than when I last played it this extensively. For example, it seems that the roaming Ancient Dragons stoop their heads much lower now, allowing for easier targeting. Malenia's second phase doesn't seem to have Scarlet rot on all her attacks anymore. This time I made extensive use of Spirit ashes, and they're actually pretty fun. Sure, they trivialize the bosses a lot, but they have interesting dynamics with some being better suited for some situations than others. Black Knife Tiche just melts big boss healthbars for example. I still don't know how you're expected to run a pure magic build in this game. Spells seem so weak and ineffectual compared to just smacking things: they have limited use due to FP, split up your resources due to having to split up flasks, enemies dodge them very easily, and some seem to have weirdly short ranges like Lightning Spear. I did feel a bit of burnout again after finishing it, so I'll probably shelve it for a good while again. Maybe in the mean time I'll finally get to work on Final Fantasy XVI.

Same thing here with spells. I’ve tried various magic setups but it never really clicked. Spell blading was kinda neat but otherwise with casting it felt like you really need to crank up stats and other slotted buffs to make it effective on most enemies. I’ve also used high Faith for flame stuff which was way more powerful for me, especially on big bosses.

Generally though I’ve always defaulted back to melee with different affinities, mostly using a bow for range. Dual wielding curved swords and great hammers is fun too. The rotten battle hammer and great stars in particular can be tuned with poison and cold to dish out four different status effects, often on a single jump attack or two. Then the frost can be reset by any basic fire spell or just throwing a volcanic pot, which has the easiest material to farm.

 

[Piscian]

I'm almost afraid to ask on reddit - Is it ok to just play Assassin's Creed Black Flag?

I've never had any interest in the series, but it seems like this is the only one that everyone seems to rave about and I do like pirate stuff. Am I not going to enjoy it without having played the others?

 

[BrawlMan]

I'm almost afraid to ask on reddit - Is it ok to just play Assassin's Creed Black Flag?

Yes.

Am I not going to enjoy it without having played the others?

The best part about Black Flag is that you don't have to know/play I, II, Brotherhood, nor III to know what is going. Black Flag is nearly isolated from those games.

I completed the first and second stage for Hi-Fi Rush. Then I went back to RE5 and completed the entire second chapter. Now it's on to Chapter 3 with the you know who, dressed in the you know what, out in the swamplands.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I'm almost afraid to ask on reddit - Is it ok to just play Assassin's Creed Black Flag?

I've never had any interest in the series, but it seems like this is the only one that everyone seems to rave about and I do like pirate stuff. Am I not going to enjoy it without having played the others?

No. If you play Black Flag and nothing else Ubisoft will send thugs to your house to break your kneecaps and force you to play all 50 Assassin's Creed games consecutively .

 

[Drathnoxis]

Dark Souls 3. Ok I beat the Demon Prince finally. Fromsoft sets a trap for the player with this one. It turns out that if you kill the demon directly in front of you at the start of the battle first, like you obviously will because he starts aggressive, then the prince will do his 100 homing fireball doom special. However, if you kill his identical brother first then he does a pathetic laser beam instead that is trivial to dodge and didn't even kill me a couple times when it hit me at full health. I don't know why and I don't know how I was supposed to intuit that would be the case. Maybe because the one guy is a little bit of a deeper red I was supposed to think "ah, I should kill this one first so he doesn't murder me later with a million unblockable, undodgeable fireballs."

Anyway, it was a near thing regardless because I ran out of FP because I opted to use great magic shield to block the laser so as to not take any chances and he had one tiny sliver of health left. So I dodged past the laser and was standing there ready to take the final stab, but I must have pressed the switch weapon button at the wrong time and my weapon didn't switch and mashing attack only resulted in my character doing the "Bwuh?! No mana?!" animation over and over which messed up my next attempt to switch weapons. All in all I screwed around so long that he finished his entire laser beam attack and managed to land a hit on me at the same time I killed him. Luckily it wasn't one of his big attacks and I survived.

So now I'm in the ringed city and have run into what must be the games 5th artillery segment. This time consisting of a hundred spectral archers that shoot 3 arrows and disappear only to repeat a couple seconds later. See these segments are great because you have to run around dodge rolling looking all around for the one path that will let you get at whatever is making the artillery happen, and then once you've taken care of it you can finally go back over the whole area and do some proper exploring. This is the DLC really demonstrating that the secret to perfection lies in iteration, because every area of the DLC has one of these bloody artillery segments in it!

Oh well, at least I have that boss with the longest run back ever in a souls game to look forward to.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I finished the entire first chapter and the first section of Chapter 2 in RE5. I'm getting used to shooting without moving at the same time. It works, and there's clear balance, but I much prefer having my special forces soldier being able to do both. The game clearly wants you to melee more and I am happy to oblige. Kneecapping an enemy than uppercutting, punching them, stomping them on the ground, or doing a neck break from behind never gets old. Sheva's AI is actually better in the 8th gen ports, so she's much more useful here then the old console releases. Making them pretty much near obsolete now.

While the game is more action heavy compared to RE4, there's still plenty of tense atmosphere and build up to suspense and horror. The horror is still there, just not as often, but still effective. If you have the 8th gen ports, then mercenaries is already unlocked from the start, and it makes a nice practice to get used to the controls, if you've never played RE4 or RE5, or hadn't played these games in a long time.

I actually enjoyed Resident Evil 5 quite a lot when I played it back in... 2021, I think it was. I had one partner for the entire game who'd played it a lot himself though, and was willing to let me be Chris and take the lead for most of it. So I don't have any comments on Sheva's AI, but as a co-op game it's a great time. We also played 6 together, which was... peaks and troughs. Mostly troughs, but just enough peaks to make it hurt whenever the game fell back off the wagon.


OT: Still Black Ops 2. After looking at a story flowchart, it turns out that I actually could influence the ending by completing Strike Force from this position, so I've turned the difficulty down to a level where I can reasonably complete those missions despite all the bullshit. (And by that I mean easy mode.)

 

[Xprimentyl]

MOAR Elden Ring, and holy shit, I just beat the Godksin Duo... FIRST TRY!!!! I fully did not intend it, and I certainly didn't fathom it'd be possible. It was just supposed to be a test run to see how bad it was going to be, next thing I knew, the fight was actually going well. As is typical with me, I panic in the face of success; my hands started shaking, I was fumbling trying to toggle my flasks and pots, and I kept forgetting how to toggle two-handing my weapon. But I managed somehow. Wow, first fucking try.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Hi-Fi Rush is kinda awesome. There's a delightful charm to this whole thing that I can't quite put my finger on. Is it the colorfulness? Is it the feeling of playing an old Ratchet and Clank/Jak and Daxter game? Is it everything moving to the beat? Is it all three of those things? But man, this just tickles my PS2 nostalgia while firmly rooting itself in modern gaming smoothness.

 

[BrawlMan]

Hi-Fi Rush is kinda awesome. There's a delightful charm to this whole thing that I can't quite put my finger on. Is it the colorfulness? Is it the feeling of playing an old Ratchet and Clank/Jak and Daxter game? Is it everything moving to the beat? Is it all three of those things? But man, this just tickles my PS2 nostalgia while firmly rooting itself in modern gaming smoothness.

It's all three of those things and more. HiFi Rush is a game that would have came out back during the 6th generation on either the PS2, GameCube, or Xbox. More so the first two options, and has that mix of basic but interesting 3D platforming, with Devil May Cry style combat. The games art style looks like something you would see in anearly 2000s Saturday morning cartoon, or Jet Set Radio. I find it amazing that we're getting all these sixth generation throwback games now. Penny's Big Breakaway is a cross between a Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast game.