What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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@hanselthecaretaker2, @CriticalGaming, @The Rogue Wolf, @Old_Hunter_77, and @NerfedFalcon, I beat Gunrgrave GORE on GORE difficulty! I didn't die once either! Whooo! I am never doing that again! There's no trophy for it, but the unlock is Young Brandon Heat! So I don't care about the lack of trophy for the hardest difficulty.
Congrats! The fact there’s an unlock for it makes the lack of a trophy a moot point, especially since most games don’t seem to factor in difficulty settings for max achievement/platinum anymore anyways.
Just about to finish Ryse: Son of Rome. It is one of those "great 5/10" games, where the flaws are evident, and I can't justify giving it anything higher, but it is still a fun game.
It is simple, not particularly deep, and the UI/UX might be the worst that I have ever seen in a shipped AAA game, but the combat is flashy and quite fun, and the game doesn't overstay its welcome.
It is simple, not particularly deep, and the UI/UX might be the worst that I have ever seen in a shipped AAA game, but the combat is flashy and quite fun, and the game doesn't overstay its welcome.
Almost certainly. For the Xbox One. And to be fair, it still looks excellent today (almost 11 years later!).
But yes, it definitely gives tech demo vibes. It is incredibly linear, and has basically zero mechanical depth beyond what the game shows you within the first five minutes, but it is still pretty entertaining in that "junk food" kind of way.
I carried the body of the dude that attacked the bastion and then to not restore the calamity and hangout with my buds because the girl asked me to.
Using the Final Nights mod for Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. According to the maker, it shouldn't be called : Bloodlines anymore, because it's now a new game.
Which...no. The mod has seven new clans instead of the old seven, some loot is in different places, and they've changed the way weapons work. Using the knife gives you a defence bonus, which is nice, there's a sword that gives you a sneaking bonus for just having it equipped, which is odd. Otherwise much the same.
It's also harder, at least in my Assamite playthrough...and there's a bug that means you can't get quite to the ending. Though, first time I played the game way back when without this mod, it kept crashing before that, though at a suitable ending point anyway.
Which...no. The mod has seven new clans instead of the old seven, some loot is in different places, and they've changed the way weapons work. Using the knife gives you a defence bonus, which is nice, there's a sword that gives you a sneaking bonus for just having it equipped, which is odd. Otherwise much the same.
It's also harder, at least in my Assamite playthrough...and there's a bug that means you can't get quite to the ending. Though, first time I played the game way back when without this mod, it kept crashing before that, though at a suitable ending point anyway.
So it turns out I was using OP equipment in MHW... which explains why the game felt a little too easy. This equipment was meant for people who wanted to play the DLC, since you can more or less speed run through the game with it. Which is annoying, because I don't even have the DLC. Sigh.
Going back to Doom 2016. Wanted to see if the game was as awesome as I remembered, and if it really is "better" than doom eternal as I always told myself
And this is a very interesting experience, because while the core gameplay is the same as Eternal, if feels like different game, and they both excel in their own ways;
Doom 2016 definitely feels more like modern take of the classic Doom games, especially considering it's set mostly in Mars or Hell.
Doom Eternal adds more dynamical movement, strategic weapon usages, and attempt to add lore. However, I think it plays like modern asymetric shooter rather than feeling more like classic Doom.
And this is a very interesting experience, because while the core gameplay is the same as Eternal, if feels like different game, and they both excel in their own ways;
Doom 2016 definitely feels more like modern take of the classic Doom games, especially considering it's set mostly in Mars or Hell.
Doom Eternal adds more dynamical movement, strategic weapon usages, and attempt to add lore. However, I think it plays like modern asymetric shooter rather than feeling more like classic Doom.
For the armor, that's kinda my bad. They did give you a notification that the armor is meant to help you rush through the game. But I didn't think they meant it was literally the best armor ever for the entirety of the game...
The weapons however, that's definitely on the game. It has its own upgrade tree, if they were meant to let you power through the game, then why even let you upgrade it? Why not just have it be insanely OP from the beginning?
Anyway, I changed up my equipment and suffered my first ever faint lol. This will take some getting used to.
I started up Mass Effect Legendary Edition again, because I've only played through the whole trilogy once years ago and it was on the old versions. This time I picked the Biotic class (already forgot what its actual name was) because I've never played with it. And... ehhhhh, I'm kind of having second thoughts about playing through ME1 again. I never understood all the hype about it even when I originally played it around ´09. Maybe because I didn't have much experience with western style RPGs at the time I failed to grasp the true scope of its innovations, but to me it always felt very awkward and clunky. Not just on a mechanical and storytelling, but even on a technical level: the sound mixing is straight up ass even in the legendary edition. Ambient sound effects right down to the characters' footsteps are incredibly quiet and lacking, making even the Citadel feel small and sleepy. And this is with the sound effects and music turned up way more than the dialogue.
The storytelling always felt like it expected me to take a huge amount of information for granted at the beginning. We see Saren for all of like 1 minute of screentime, and then we're told he's the biggest threat to the galaxy. It's very "tell, don't show" storytelling, where we barely get time to even settle into the setting, and then we're already expected to take Saren for Darth Vader when we barely know what Turians are. The Bioware style cutscenes look hopelessly quaint, but I can hardly fault it for that. The dialogue system was undoubtedly revolutionary for its time, but IMO it always hurt the setting that Shepard is supposed to be a super elite, acclaimed soldier, but all the Renegade dialogue options have them acting like a needlessly abrasive, short-sighted prick. All in all time has not been kind to the beginning bit of this game. I can't help but think of Yahtzee's recent review of KOTOR 1, where he points out that over time trying to judge games by the standards of their time becomes basically impossible, because we've grown used to improvements since then. It's very hard to feel immersed in the setting in a post-Cyberpunk 2077 world when Mass Effect's way of feeding you information is to have every character be ready to burst into long-winded exposition, a lot of which I feel is information Shepard should already know.
Eh, I'll keep playing, ME1 is a surprisingly short game anyway, it's not like I'm committing to Divinity OS 2 here.
The storytelling always felt like it expected me to take a huge amount of information for granted at the beginning. We see Saren for all of like 1 minute of screentime, and then we're told he's the biggest threat to the galaxy. It's very "tell, don't show" storytelling, where we barely get time to even settle into the setting, and then we're already expected to take Saren for Darth Vader when we barely know what Turians are. The Bioware style cutscenes look hopelessly quaint, but I can hardly fault it for that. The dialogue system was undoubtedly revolutionary for its time, but IMO it always hurt the setting that Shepard is supposed to be a super elite, acclaimed soldier, but all the Renegade dialogue options have them acting like a needlessly abrasive, short-sighted prick. All in all time has not been kind to the beginning bit of this game. I can't help but think of Yahtzee's recent review of KOTOR 1, where he points out that over time trying to judge games by the standards of their time becomes basically impossible, because we've grown used to improvements since then. It's very hard to feel immersed in the setting in a post-Cyberpunk 2077 world when Mass Effect's way of feeding you information is to have every character be ready to burst into long-winded exposition, a lot of which I feel is information Shepard should already know.
Eh, I'll keep playing, ME1 is a surprisingly short game anyway, it's not like I'm committing to Divinity OS 2 here.
Started atomic heart, which is a true immersive sim, even reference the 0451 in the first few min of the game, so I'm mostly having fun. Biggest problem, like everyone was saying, is the main character just being an asshole for no reason Its really weird, like they couldn't think of a decent personality trait so they just made him have sarcastic reply to every comment, except they went too far and he's just abrasive to everyone for no reason. Dunno if it'll have a payoff at some point, but for now I'd rather just have a silent protag. Otherwise, environment is quite nice, story is pretty standard but world building is fun.
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Started playing episode 3 of Supplice. Playing it on super hard is certainly hard, this episode likes to start out really rough in a big arena with lots of ranged enemies in high places and like 4 boss type enemies running around when you don't have a full arsenal. But its still damn fun and one of the best Doom style shooters around.
I played the trilogy well after it was done and I only had trouble getting into it at first, mostly because of all the shooting and I find that kind of gameplay hard and annoying. But I was into the graphics, story, characters, setting and everything right away- real space opera stuff, my jam. I restarted as a Vanguard and being able to just punch everything made the game fun too and I loved the whole trilogy.
Sometimes I get the desire to replay it but I was so happy with all the choices I made in the game and the Vanguard playstyle that I don't trust myself to do anything different (except maybe the "romance," the least important part of any such game anyway) so then I don't replay it. But perhaps someday...
Playing Vernal Edge, which to my mind starts you off with a wealth of perks and abilities for a Metroidvania. I feel like I'm controlling a character who's already like 50% of the way there.
It's a very combat-oriented Metroidvania, prone to locking you in rooms and spawning waves of enemies. The focus of the combat is juggling them and building up a combo, which means that everything has to be a damage sponge. The twist is that you can get your health back by building up a combo, marking an enemy with a button and then performing a lunge attack at them. It's a nice reward for fighting "well".
Conversely a lot of the other mechanics feel worthless. You're simply too fast and powerful to bother with anything that might break the flow, like parrying (which doesn't work while moving) or using spells. You're Yoda at the end of Attack of the Clones, jumping and dashing around the screen. In fact the movement alone is so freeing that the game doesn't really have good platforming challenges to match it (at least so far). Despite the setting being a series of floating islands you mostly run down halls either dashing past or blocking projectiles.
The story has the Timespinner problem of everybody sharing the same "voice" and talking like a petulant teenager, regardless of whether they're one or not. It also has the same premise as Timespinner: girl warrior looking to kill her dad. Where the protagonist of Timespinner (Luna? Lunail? Lunais? Soleil?) behaved heroically, mostly, Vernal starts every sentence with an ugh and her character portrait is always rolling her eyes, insistently treating friends and enemies like crap. So the best I can say for the story's sporadic interruptions is that there very easy to tune out.
It's a very combat-oriented Metroidvania, prone to locking you in rooms and spawning waves of enemies. The focus of the combat is juggling them and building up a combo, which means that everything has to be a damage sponge. The twist is that you can get your health back by building up a combo, marking an enemy with a button and then performing a lunge attack at them. It's a nice reward for fighting "well".
Conversely a lot of the other mechanics feel worthless. You're simply too fast and powerful to bother with anything that might break the flow, like parrying (which doesn't work while moving) or using spells. You're Yoda at the end of Attack of the Clones, jumping and dashing around the screen. In fact the movement alone is so freeing that the game doesn't really have good platforming challenges to match it (at least so far). Despite the setting being a series of floating islands you mostly run down halls either dashing past or blocking projectiles.
The story has the Timespinner problem of everybody sharing the same "voice" and talking like a petulant teenager, regardless of whether they're one or not. It also has the same premise as Timespinner: girl warrior looking to kill her dad. Where the protagonist of Timespinner (Luna? Lunail? Lunais? Soleil?) behaved heroically, mostly, Vernal starts every sentence with an ugh and her character portrait is always rolling her eyes, insistently treating friends and enemies like crap. So the best I can say for the story's sporadic interruptions is that there very easy to tune out.
I'm gonna give the "Score Attack" mode in Bastion a go. I don't normally do NG+ or hard modes or whatever but Bastion was pretty sure and I don't have the mental bandwith to learn a whole new game and I did like this one so why not. This mode less a normal NG+ (which the game also has) but it adds some score multiplier counter thing and there is an achievement to get a million points with it so I figured I'd use this mode on the small chance I go for the full 100%. I probably won't as I save that only for easy games on Playstation (I'm playing this on my laptop via Steam) but I'll go as far as I can/feel.