What are you currently playing?

[Dalisclock]

Ill have to look into that. The premise of the game is great, the execution is just a little slow and shallow. They make a big deal of the reaper leviathans, they're the real deal legit big bad. Okay where are they? Oh a few over there, and a few over there. Okay do I ever need to go over there? Once, in the beginning of the game. And do the reapers ever travel to other locations? Nope, they're just over there. And I have no reason to ever go back there? None. So they're not really a threat so much as a temporary annoyance...once. Basically.

I think it is scarier when you don't know where they can pop up and even trying to sneak past them to get to the crashed ship can be pretty harrowing. Apparently it's possible for those guys to migrate if you mess with their AI in the wrong way, to the point they are hanging out in the shallows. But yeah, I think they wanted to mitigate their lethality by restricting them to certain areas. Imagine there's a mod that lets them move around the map though.

Honestly, I was more creeped out by the Crabsquids, because those boys can show up a lot more places. I tried calling them "Mr Hugs" to make them less scary. It did not work.

 

[Trunkage]

I think it is scarier when you don't know where they can pop up and even trying to sneak past them to get to the crashed ship can be pretty harrowing. Apparently it's possible for those guys to migrate if you mess with their AI in the wrong way, to the point they are hanging out in the shallows. But yeah, I think they wanted to mitigate their lethality by restricting them to certain areas. Imagine there's a mod that lets them move around the map though.

Honestly, I was more creeped out by the Crabsquids, because those boys can show up a lot more places. I tried calling them "Mr Hugs" to make them less scary. It did not work.

I thought the Warpers were worse. Not creepy just really annoying.

 

[SilentPony]

I think it is scarier when you don't know where they can pop up and even trying to sneak past them to get to the crashed ship can be pretty harrowing. Apparently it's possible for those guys to migrate if you mess with their AI in the wrong way, to the point they are hanging out in the shallows. But yeah, I think they wanted to mitigate their lethality by restricting them to certain areas. Imagine there's a mod that lets them move around the map though.

Honestly, I was more creeped out by the Crabsquids, because those boys can show up a lot more places. I tried calling them "Mr Hugs" to make them less scary. It did not work.

I get that sneaky sneak monsters can be scarier, i do, but I'm reminded of the Yahtzee's line from the A Machine for Pig review where he says something to effect of "I became aware of how infrequently I was actually in any danger". I feel that sums up Subnautica quiet well, especially in the late game when you learn where everything is. There would be entire sessions where I'm resource hunting, just swimming along fully confident there is no threat within a kilometer. I agree that a mod to have like roaming packs of Reapers or Ghosts would be awesome - add a little threat to the game.

And its funny you mention the crabsquid, 'cause I think I broke them too. I found a crabsquid egg and brought it back and hatched it in my little aquarium. After that the crabsquids never appeared again. even in that cave with the research facility where you first meet them, I'd be going back and forth 'cause I built my second base there, and nothing. Never saw a crabsquid again, except for the little baby one in my base.

 

[laggyteabag]

Ive been spending a lot of time achievement hunting in Halo The Master Chief Collection.

I don't usually achievement hunt in games anymore, as I dont really care for it - especially on Steam - but I guess Halo is the exception.

I really like how the achievements are done. Sure, there is a lot of "beat X level" and "beat game on Y difficulty", but there are also collectibles that are fun to find, or fun easter eggs to find, or new ways to play levels that I have beaten dozens of times, over the past 20(?!) years.

Recently, I have been trying to beat the par time and par score for each level, which means either sticking the level on Easy, and then running through it as fast as I can, often completing each one under 15 or 20 minutes, or cranking up the difficulty and maybe enabling a few skulls (modifiers that make the game harder, like less ammo, or no regenerating health) so that I can reach an arbitrary score limit.

Its a lot of fun, and it does bring me back to when I was desperate for achievements back in the Xbox 360 days.

 

[BrawlMan]

I did a few rounds of DMC5, DmC, and Vanquish. It's just fun selecting different levels from Bloody Palace in 5 and just cutting loose. Especially when you beat the mode and playing as Dante. Going ham or practicing on bosses without ever have to replaying regular missions is even more of a convenience.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition.

Metroidvania themed around Día de los Muertos, so you're an undead luchador fighting creatures from Mexican folklore - skeletons, aluxes, alebrijes, etc - while following a telenovela plot about rescuing the president's daughter. Obviously it's all very tongue in cheek - Coco without the Disney schmaltz, basically. Gameplay seems a little *too* simple at first but the challenge ramps up nicely as levels become increasingly built around chaining the right moves in one go and generally being more precise in combat. Wish there was more to the exploratory angle of Metroidvania other than the occasional crossroads where the "wrong" path is either immediately blocked or leads to an optional puzzle room. As it is even the backtracking feels streamlined. The other minor thing I'd point out is the co-op aspect. Not sure how co-op would affect gameplay; the levels/puzzles don't look like they're designed for it for sure. Wish the "Press X to join" ads at the top of the screen would go away. But overall the game's cute and charming and I'm having lots of fun with it.

 

[BrawlMan]

Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition.

Metroidvania themed around Día de los Muertos, so you're an undead luchador fighting creatures from Mexican folklore - skeletons, aluxes, alebrijes, etc - while following a telenovela plot about rescuing the president's daughter. Obviously it's all very tongue in cheek - Coco without the Disney schmaltz, basically. Gameplay seems a little *too* simple at first but the challenge ramps up nicely as levels become increasingly built around chaining the right moves in one go and generally being more precise in combat. Wish there was more to the exploratory angle of Metroidvania other than the occasional crossroads where the "wrong" path is either immediately blocked or leads to an optional puzzle room. As it is even the backtracking feels streamlined. The other minor thing I'd point out is the co-op aspect. Not sure how co-op would affect gameplay; the levels/puzzles don't look like they're designed for it for sure. Wish the "Press X to join" ads at the top of the screen would go away. But overall the game's cute and charming and I'm having lots of fun with it.

I got the physical version of both games on Switch. I played the first one a good amount on XBLA back in the day.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Sekiro: After no small amount of frustration from those guys with the Twinblades who always come in groups and constantly cover each other so you can't stealth kill them to only ever fight one at a time, and then the area boss being annoyance incarnate, I managed to get through Senpou Temple and get the Mortal Blade, as well as the fourth skill book. Next: Sunken Valley. Hopefully having 5 ATK instead of 4 will make those Snake Eyes guys a little bit easier to handle...

 

[Dreiko]

Just started Ghost of Tsushima finally, they freaking have Kazuya Nakai voicing Jin! How is this so perfect!? (he's Roronoa Zoro's VA)

Also your uncle is Daisuke Ono (Solid Snake's VA). Super in love with the game already.

Sekiro: After no small amount of frustration from those guys with the Twinblades who always come in groups and constantly cover each other so you can't stealth kill them to only ever fight one at a time, and then the area boss being annoyance incarnate, I managed to get through Senpou Temple and get the Mortal Blade, as well as the fourth skill book. Next: Sunken Valley. Hopefully having 5 ATK instead of 4 will make those Snake Eyes guys a little bit easier to handle...

Those guys are super weak to the air-to-air assassination instakill skill. Try to jump at them as they leap, you can air block in this game so it's not too risky but the reward is great.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Also your uncle is Daisuke Ono (Solid Snake's VA). Super in love with the game already.

Akio Otsuka, in both cases, though I understand the confusion.

Those guys are super weak to the air-to-air assassination instakill skill. Try to jump at them as they leap, you can air block in this game so it's not too risky but the reward is great.

They would be if they ever jumped forward, but I've never seen them jump forward; only backward, out of the reach of your anti-air deathblow.

 

[Dreiko]

Akio Otsuka, in both cases, though I understand the confusion.

They would be if they ever jumped forward, but I've never seen them jump forward; only backward, out of the reach of your anti-air deathblow.

Oh wow you're right, that was a random mixup if I ever saw one lol.

They dodge sideways a lot from what I remember, you wanna send em off dodging by throwing a shuriken or something at em, they tend to do like 2-3 leaps back to back giving you enough time to get in.

 

[Elijin]

Snowrunner. Just play it, there's no explaining the appeal of a title of this kind of niche.

 

[Ravinoff]

I think it is scarier when you don't know where they can pop up and even trying to sneak past them to get to the crashed ship can be pretty harrowing. Apparently it's possible for those guys to migrate if you mess with their AI in the wrong way, to the point they are hanging out in the shallows. But yeah, I think they wanted to mitigate their lethality by restricting them to certain areas. Imagine there's a mod that lets them move around the map though.

See, it depends on your luck and where you build. There's a map with their spawn points kicking around, but 1) that just feels like cheating and 2) a number of the better places to set up bases mid to late-game are uncomfortably close to leviathan spawns. Explanation below in spoilers, in case anyone cares about that.

Spoiler

Once you move past solar power and the Seamoth, one of the most useful things to have available is hydrothermal vents. You can power a base off thermal generators until you get the scans and resources for nuclear, and by far one of the best modules to install on the Prawn and Cyclops is the thermoelectric reactor unit that allows charging their batteries off high water temperature zones. Problem is, the two best spots I've found with vent clusters are on a ridgeline coming off the defense station island, and a valley in the Deep Grand Reef not far from the deepest Degasi outpost and Lost River entrance. Both of which are more or less directly under Leviathan spawns.

And those are the good ones. I've worked out of a base perched over the volcanic vents at the bottom of the Floating Islands region, which trades leviathans off for approximately ALL the Bonesharks, plus those spidery things.

 

[gorfias]

I just finished Batman Telltale game.

There is a story element I despise that is anti-canon. Other than that, the game is very fun. I adored the cell shaded graphics. I didn't feel the game cheated making things unnecessarily difficult. Very playable even for an old guy like me. I can't wait to play the next Batman Telltale series that has a focus on the Joker.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Finally had time today to finish Doom Eternal.

I'd say I enjoyed it more than Doom 2016, but I can see why some people think 2016 is the better game.

Mostly I was worried about the way that platforming would be implemented, because I thought the platforming in 2016 was awful (the spire is the worst level in the game by a huge margin), but the additional movement mechanics made the platforming actually really fun, and for the most part the level design was good enough that you always knew were you needed to go.

The only things that I would say were worse were the final boss fight in Eternal wasn't very fun and all of the UI and menus were designed much worse. The menus look like placeholders that they never got around to finalizing. Actually, I would say that the 3 unique boss fights in 2016 were all more fun than the unique boss fights in Eternal, which is kind of disappointing. I also would have liked to see more boss fights in general.

Hopefully the DLC will include more (and better) boss fights.

 

[Weasel Biggs]

I'm mostly playing Strategy titles, lately. Stuff like Surviving Mars, Frostpunk, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Civ VI and SimCity 4.

On the off-side, I'm putzing around Death Stranding and Horizon Zero Dawn's PC ports and slowly working on Izuhara's fog of war in Ghost of Tsushima.

Honestly, all of this is just my keeping my mind occupied until my power supply unit comes in and I can finally build my new PC.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I'm mostly playing Strategy titles, lately. Stuff like Surviving Mars, Frostpunk, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Civ VI and SimCity 4.

On the off-side, I'm putzing around Death Stranding and Horizon Zero Dawn's PC ports and slowly working on Izuhara's fog of war in Ghost of Tsushima.

Honestly, all of this is just my keeping my mind occupied until my power supply unit comes in and I can finally build my new PC.

I had some fun with Frostpunk. I kind of wish it had some more randomness to the map and events to give it some replayability, but it was still fun. Watching a couple speedruns of the game was pretty cool too.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I finished Disco Elysium. It really is a fantastic game. The killer's identity was a little disappointed, but it worked well enough. Didn't really have that murder mystery "Aha!" feel, but it did fit well enough with the rest of the game.

The writing and style of the game really clicked with me. I loved every minute of it and found my self laughing out loud frequently while playing. The visuals were passable. Not really memorable or distinctive, but were enough to lead you to more dialogue. There were a number of typos in the dialogue, though, could have used another editing pass.

The world was interesting and unique. I would have loved to learn a little more about the pale, but we do learn quite a lot as it is. It's just such a strange place, it's kind of funny that the actual plot is so mundane.

I love how much side stuff there is in the game too. You can spend hours talking to people and chasing after nonsense, and a surprising amount of it actually comes back to the main plot in a way.

I'm curious what other endings might be and how much they might differ from the one I got. Obviously, finding the Phasmid was optional and could be left out of the ending without too much trouble. I wonder how much can change about the protagonist's identity and backstory as well. Hmm. I'll definitely be replaying this again in the future.

Definitely GOTY 2020. EDIT: Oh no, this actually came out in 2019 and is thus in competition with Outer Wilds. Hmmm, that makes it tough. Well, I think I'll still give it too DE, but by a nose.

 

[gorfias]

PUBG and Street Fighter 5 dropped on PS+ today. But I also noted that Sony is offering something. Dunno what but something. If you play Fortnight. So, I downloaded it. I have no idea why but I won about the first match I'd ever played at this game. Good fun.

 

[BrawlMan]

Finally got an S Rank on Arcade mode on Hard. Did it with Blaze. I have some disagreement with the patches made. Some make sense like making bosses such as Max (though he is hard enough already, before the patch), Mr.Y, and Ms.Y more challenging. Yet, get rid of certain environment hazards or add unnecessary enemy spawn. For example, they removed the spiked ball section, but now you got fight Big Bens in certain waves, and after doing that, one Shadow spawn behind you after getting to the other end of the hall. That makes no sense. Overall, the patches fix a majority of the problems had with the previous iteration, so it's all good. At least you can combo on the riot shield guys with their shields held up. Axel has actual speed now and the combo counter is a lot more lenient now.