What are you currently playing?

[BrawlMan]

Played the 60 minute Resident Evil Village demo just now. For fifteen minutes. Annoying. How they can even call this Resident Evil anymore, I don't know. It so badly tries to be something else. The fight with the talkative swarm lady in shitty first-person view with gun locked to protagonist's eyes (which is so distracting and silly after not playing play first-person shooters more than briefly for as long as I have) tonally and mechanically felt nothing like RE1 to 5. (Don't remember 6 well and didn't finish 7.) The scripted animations were lame too. Nice tech demo, though.

Village is just RE4 again but in first person. It's ironi, because there are two different first person updates of RE4 and RE4R respectively. The VR.

There's much problems I have with Village, It's still better than RE6, RE7, and the Revelation side games. The problem with villages that RE4 and RE4R especially exists. Making it hard to go back and play. If you ever do a full play too I. Suggest you just by the game use or get it on a deep sale. No I recommend you just get the gold edition at twenty dollars new if you can find it's still that way you don't have to pay for third person mode. If you do, pay for that on the sale as well. It's s what I did. I bought the game used and then they happen to have a sale for the DLC and extra content.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Pretty much covered every area in ER Sherdtree, and only looked up how to get to the hidden areas accessed through Count Ymir’s questline. I will go back to the end boss at a later time, after settling on a fresh build. Still have a lot of new stuff to try out.

 

[Ezekiel]

Village is just RE4 again but in first person. It's ironi, because there are two different first person updates of RE4 and RE4R respectively. The VR.

There's much problems I have with Village, It's still better than RE6, RE7, and the Revelation side games. The problem with villages that RE4 and RE4R especially exists. Making it hard to go back and play. If you ever do a full play too I. Suggest you just by the game use or get it on a deep sale. No I recommend you just get the gold edition at twenty dollars new if you can find it's still that way you don't have to pay for third person mode. If you do, pay for that on the sale as well. It's s what I did. I bought the game used and then they happen to have a sale for the DLC and extra content.

It's not RE4.

Not buying it for third person mode because, according to the description I read in the game, it has to switch to first person for cinematic moments anyway. A game where third person is secondary, an afterthought, won't have it that well implemented anyway.

 

[BrawlMan]

It's not RE4.

No shit, but it does take a lot from RE4 anyway. At the end of the day, it's still copying that game just with a different flavor of monsters.

Not buying it for third person mode because, according to the description I read in the game, it has to switch to first person for cinematic moments anyway.

I can live with that fine personally, because I prefer the 3rd person view. I don't find it jarring nor that much of an issue. I already knew about that part so it didn't frustrate me at all and I expected it. Capcom even mentioned it when promoting the golden edition. It's understandable why you don't want to buy it, nor do I blame others for not making this purchase. I'm never going back to Village anyway , so I took whatever advantage I could and had my fun.

 

[Worgen]

Touhou Luna Nights is from Team Ladybug of Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, another super fast-paced almost-shmup that cribs to some degree from SotN. This is still one of those doujin fangames that adapts a Japanese IP I'm not familiar with into a throwaway chapter that is either All a Dream or All a Simulation so it doesn't really matter but if you're a fan you get to point and recognize characters I guess. The notable thing here is a timestop mechanic that lets you weave around the bullet hell and comically pile on attacks (flurries of knife throws) on enemies. Suprisingly the timestop develops beyond a mere gimmick as different enemies and platforms react differently to it. Like "Deedlit", you're also very much in charge of balancing a passive-aggresive healing mechanic: "graze" enemies while time flows normally to regain HP, graze them while time is stopped to regain MP. Attacking normally consumes MP, and stopping time consumes a timer.

I quite like Team Ladybugs games, the only one I haven't gotten into as much was Deedlit since it was really Record of the Lodoss war fan based, like throwing in all the characters from the manga or anime without explanation. I don't recall that being as much of an issue with Luna Nights, but it also might just not have as big of a cast.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I quite like Team Ladybugs games, the only one I haven't gotten into as much was Deedlit since it was really Record of the Lodoss war fan based, like throwing in all the characters from the manga or anime without explanation. I don't recall that being as much of an issue with Luna Nights, but it also might just not have as big of a cast.

As someone who isn't familiar with either property, it really doesn't matter at all. Both stories are about the protagonists walking into NPCs and going "Bobert! What are you doing here?" and then Bobert says something like "I'm the weapon merchant" or "I man the save points" and that's it. It's all supposed to be recognizable but "off". For Deedlit it's all a dream, for the Touhou maid it's all a simulation. It's the lowest form of narrative impact possible for what are essentially fangames anyway. I guess the broadly comedic tone of Touhou makes it more inviting for randos like me.

 

[Agema]

Command Ops 2

Harcore WW2 wargame, right down to the "counters on a board". This game is quite old. So old that the latest update to the AI has spent so long in gestation that many indy devs could have released two whole games by now. I've booted it up again... just because.

This is what they call "pausable continuous time", which means sort of real-time, except you're generally expected to pause a lot whilst you think, issue orders, etc. It's very complex, with detail down to individual troops and weapons, logistics, orders delay, command structures, etc. An interesting feature is that you generally tell a higher-level command to do something, and then the AI orchestrates the action of units under the command, so expect (like a real general) that some of your orders might not turn out exactly as you'd have done it. The basic unit size is a company (~100-200 men, or 6-20 tanks), and depending on scenario size you normally command anywhere up to about 1 corps (~400 units). The enemy AI is not always the best - it's too active at night (night actions were relatively rare), and it is a little too focused on objective points in a way that can make for unrealistic actions, but it's usually tough enough to make for a decent struggle.

Elite: Dangerous

Also an old game recently fired up again. After a screwed up expansion and a while in the doldrums whilst the devs did other things, the devs have recommitted to the game and are releasing new ships, content, and upgrading some of the gameplay, evidently to the pleasure of the players. Got myself a lovely new explorer ship with an amazing new FTL drive. It's probably still the best general space sim out there overall, bearing in mind that Star Citizen (LOL!) is still nowhere near release, although some of its rivals (No Man's Sky, X4) might be better at some specific features.

 

[Worgen]

As someone who isn't familiar with either property, it really doesn't matter at all. Both stories are about the protagonists walking into NPCs and going "Bobert! What are you doing here?" and then Bobert says something like "I'm the weapon merchant" or "I man the save points" and that's it. It's all supposed to be recognizable but "off". For Deedlit it's all a dream, for the Touhou maid it's all a simulation. It's the lowest form of narrative impact possible for what are essentially fangames anyway. I guess the broadly comedic tone of Touhou makes it more inviting for randos like me.

The comedic tone certainly helps with not knowing the characters. For Deedlit it felt more fanservicy. Like "OH HEY so and so is here, coool." Which makes it impenetrable to those without a much deeper understanding then I of the property.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The comedic tone certainly helps with not knowing the characters. For Deedlit it felt more fanservicy. Like "OH HEY so and so is here, coool." Which makes it impenetrable to those without a much deeper understanding then I of the property.

Sure, I don't think I would've cared more but maybe it would've made me appreciate the game a bit more. I don't think it'd make the plot any more interesting since again it's all just Deedlit walking into a room, asking someone she recognizes what the hell is going on and being told hahaha wouldn't you like to know before they fight her or sell her something.

It's like playing any tie-in SNES game for a cartoon in the 90s. You don't need to watch Animaniacs to understand that the "story" is plotless you beat the game by going right, but Brain piloting a headless mecha is a neat reference instead of a random boss fight.