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Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
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I couldn't finish it either. Which was surprising after how much I liked the Gravity Rush remaster. Yeah, way too tedious. The original benefited from being made with less money.
I think it changed directors too, which might also have something to do with how messy GR2 feels. It was the side quests that really made me hate and ultimately drop this game. They were so weirdly strict, where one false move instantly resulted in failure. I also must've spent 10 minutes trying throw a damn frisbee for a dog, because it had to land in a specific spot.
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
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Child of Light by Ubisoft(yeah, that ubisoft).

Child of Light is a cute platformer with JRPG turn based style combat(with sort of an ATB mechanic going on). The Premise is that Aurora is the daughter of an Austrian duke in 1895. Mom dies, he remarries, who falls ill and possibly dies in her sleep(?). She wakes up in the fantasy land of Lemuria(named after a real world proposed Lost Continent believed by some to have once linked India and Madagascar/Africa) with no idea how she got there and an urging to go home. Basically, it's kinda like the Wizard of Oz except everyone in Lemuria speaks in Rhyme(except one person who joints your party, who keeps messing up the rhymes).

Generally it's a platforming(though you gain an ability to fly early on and the levels swifty become based around flying just after that) game and enemies can be seen, in which case you shift into a JRPG style battle. There's a basic crafting system involving various gems which can grant bonuses to attack, defense or grant another ability and while you quickly gather a number of party members, only two of them can be in combat at a time(granted, you'll never face more then 3 enemies at a time), but at least the game allows you to swap party members in and out in midbattle(something more game should learn from FFX). There's also a fairly basic elemental rock-paper-scissors system, but there is a way to interrupt enemy attacks(and they can interrupt yours) so hypothetical you could keep an enemy from ever getting a hit in.

The gameplay isn't any special to write home about and the difficulty is either somewhat easier or quite a bit more difficult depending on one of the two difficulty modes(Essentially Easy or Hard, with no middle ground). The really shines in it's beautiful oil-painting style artwork that also evokes fairy tales and high fantasy, which is problem why the game is in love with the rhyming and the music is nicely done too. It's got a nice charm to it, even if it does make it feel like it's supposed to be more suited for older children or teenagers when the generally basic gameplay and short length(around 10 hours) is taken into account.

I'm around the halfway point so maybe I'll have more to say about it when I finish it. It is kinda of amazing that this game is 6 years old and yet is a type of game that Ubisoft just doesn't make anymore since they decided to become "ALL OPEN WORLD TOWER CLIMBING/STUFF COLLECTING ALL THE TIME" and I kinda wish they'd go back to making different types of games again. They don't all have to be blockbusters or make all the money, and they don't all have to be AC clones.
 

sXeth

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I'm around the halfway point so maybe I'll have more to say about it when I finish it. It is kinda of amazing that this game is 6 years old and yet is a type of game that Ubisoft just doesn't make anymore since they decided to become "ALL OPEN WORLD TOWER CLIMBING/STUFF COLLECTING ALL THE TIME" and I kinda wish they'd go back to making different types of games again. They don't all have to be blockbusters or make all the money, and they don't all have to be AC clones.

ubi's still pumping out a variety of projects outside the open worlds, they're just significantly less marketing push behind them. 2019 for example had Trials Rising and Anno 1800 (which is a city-builder strategy thing) sandwiched amongst Ghost Recon, division 2, and a Far Cry game that I though was actually a DLC. And a Just DAnce game which is certainly formulaic, but nothing to do with Open Worlds.


Although the UbiArts stuff (Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, etc) seems to have largely been packed away.



Anyhow, we got Farmjing Simulator and Cities Skyline on PSPlus this month. So I've kind of poking into those. Ye usual Warframing. Planning to start up the Doom 64 I got with Eternal as well.
 

Tireseas

Plaguegirl
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Mafia III while it's on a free-play period
Ace Combat 7
XCOM Chimera Squad
and Stellaris
 

Trunkage

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Chimera Squad

This is actually a really short game for Xcom. About 20 to 30 hrs. Almost got most of it done in a weekend. There is certainly plenty of randomness like the mainline games but it feels far more tailored. The missions feel more varied and your agents have far more personality and can now have banter

The economy is interesting but I do find it silly dealing to the black market in intel rather than credits, which you use elsewhere. I find it a compelling set up as there definitely would be lots of immigrants. You can’t just Prawn them like in District 9. But there would be lots of unrest. I do find it ridiculous to deal with so many situations in the few months this game is staged, than most ops team would deal with in a lifetime. During a war.

The Gangs are varied but the leaders of these factions could have been fleshed out so much more.I like how you can use your agents doing a variety of things but I don’t know why I can’t have the normal 6 man team. Battles are generally quick (10 mins on classic difficulty).

The game is less... punishing? I feel the battle are quite challenging but the agents can’t die. There are a variety of relief valve in the overlay map. This last point stopped me from trying impossible difficulty in Xcom 1 as you had to rely on luck in the first month of impossible to not lose a country and there was no way to get it back. You can’t afford to use overwatch like the mainline games otherwise, you will be overwhelmed. You always need to attack.

My only trouble is shredding armour. You don’t get many grenades and some guns seem to shred, but not all and I want to know how I get to that quickly

Like the other two Xcom, great game and very different from the first, but lots of the base traits that definitely make Xcom fun

8.5/10
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
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I think this was the game I could play with my daughter, and she could be the fairy healing me or distracting theenemies. I was good in that sense
Yeah, I forgot to mention the limited co-op where player 2 can control the fairy and either heal, distract enemies(which helps a lot in battles by slowing them down) or help gather resources via the wish plants(extra light, extra HP/MP) which are basically free for the taking, even in battle. I read somewhere it's set up so a small child could play the fairy, something within their skills. It does lend credence to the idea the game is geared towards younger players and there's nothing wrong with that. I've noticed the same thing about the LEGO games.
 

Trunkage

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Yeah, I forgot to mention the limited co-op where player 2 can control the fairy and either heal, distract enemies(which helps a lot in battles by slowing them down) or help gather resources via the wish plants(extra light, extra HP/MP) which are basically free for the taking, even in battle. I read somewhere it's set up so a small child could play the fairy, something within their skills. It does lend credence to the idea the game is geared towards younger players and there's nothing wrong with that. I've noticed the same thing about the LEGO games.
I’ve tried Lego games on my daughter. She couldn’t pick up on all the ‘signs’ in a video game yet. Shiny object mean one thing, red/blue pixelation for another, grill for squeezing. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t know all the characters, so a lot of these symbols go over her head. She doesn’t know how Robin is and only knows the major Avengers. But this might be the year to show all the MCU to her
 

wings012

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I was playing Green Hell. While I often watched youtubers play all manner of survival games, I never actually played one. I suppose I did play Subnautica if that counts.

It was alright I guess. I think the story mode could've been better, but it's fairly divorced from the survival gameplay loop. The story mode is essentially figuring out where to go next and going down a breadcrumb trail until it finally ends. There's no special enemies or challenges in particular along the way. So I wasted time building up a HQ, when I really should've just gotten some basic gear and food supplies and legged it.

Each subsequent location will have more food supplies(and provide save points) so you shouldn't really have to go out of your way to 'survive' much along the story's path. If you get lost or run into accidents while on the road, it's often better to just reload your save and try again than to attempt to 'survive' out of your predicament.

I did play some survival coop with friends, and yeah. It's fun at first but eventually you figure out how to survive, explore most of the map and there's bugger all else left to do.

Some of the more 'immersive' mechanics are kinda a pain in the arse. It has a limb inspection system where you have to check for wounds, leeches and whatnot. If you don't realize you've been wounded, it can actually get infected and kill you. It was interesting at first, but you kinda get leeches at a stupidly high frequency and having to go through each limb to pluck them off one by one is hella annoying after the nth time.

It could definitely use more updates and content.
 

Dreiko

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Just got SaGa Scarlet Grace.

Game is very old school, mostly in a good sense. It's all about the intricate turn based combat, Jrpg junkies like me will find a lot to love. The game uses a system where you can only use special attacks or guard so you have to pick who is gonna act each turn based on the amount of action points you have (different moves use different amounts and different formations give your party more or fewer total points, it's likely to just do 1 action with your whole party for an entire turn). You can also learn new moves during combat as well as execute interrupt counters (one for each damage type like slice/blunt/ranged etc.) and also do combination moves when you kill enemies in specific turn order (so like, if the enemy who died was gonna act between two of your guys, you get the team attack, if it was between enemies, they do, so you have to plan accordingly who to kill). I'm only scratching the surface here but as a fan of the ps2 remake of Romancing SaGa this game feels familiar but very enhanced too. The best thing is that everything you can do the enemies can do so you can apply your logic to them as well as learn how to play from what the enemies do against you Also the "bonus" goals each battle has which give you more loot drops function as ninja tutorials which explain to you things the game hides very masterfully (such as the fact that you can interrupt counters of physical type moves by hitting the enemy with ranged moves for example).

The story is thin and feels almost like you're playing a p&p rpg where you just get brief explanations about things in short, often witty lines and then are thrust into quests or combat. The graphics are unique and the fact that the game is an upgraded vita game shows there the most but the actual attack animations are excellent and all the enemy designs are creative and detailed as well. They often feel more interesting than the actual characters you control lol. It also starts with this short personality quiz which decides which of the 4 protagonists you will play as. In true SaGa form you will eventually have to beat the game with all of them to see the true end I'm sure. My answers gave me the cutesy princess who is actually a tanky soldier somehow statswise. Not disappointed at all lol.


Now on the negatives, the game is short on explanations and requires old school gridning. It's so much fun to me that I enjoy the grind but you do have to trial and error a lot and if you go into it expecting story motivation to do stuff and not just "I wanna unlock all these new moves with this new spear this dragon dropped!" (cause yes unique weapons teach you unique moves) then you may be disappointed. Also the game is old school in the worst way possible due to not having dual audio, but the original vita game didn't have any voice acting at all so this actually plays fine if you turn off the volume of the english dub down to 0. Not ideal but still a fine and truly old school gaming experience.
 

XsjadoBlayde

~it ends here~
Apr 29, 2020
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Child of Light by Ubisoft(yeah, that ubisoft).

Child of Light is a cute platformer with JRPG turn based style combat(with sort of an ATB mechanic going on). The Premise is that Aurora is the daughter of an Austrian duke in 1895. Mom dies, he remarries, who falls ill and possibly dies in her sleep(?). She wakes up in the fantasy land of Lemuria(named after a real world proposed Lost Continent believed by some to have once linked India and Madagascar/Africa) with no idea how she got there and an urging to go home. Basically, it's kinda like the Wizard of Oz except everyone in Lemuria speaks in Rhyme(except one person who joints your party, who keeps messing up the rhymes).

Generally it's a platforming(though you gain an ability to fly early on and the levels swifty become based around flying just after that) game and enemies can be seen, in which case you shift into a JRPG style battle. There's a basic crafting system involving various gems which can grant bonuses to attack, defense or grant another ability and while you quickly gather a number of party members, only two of them can be in combat at a time(granted, you'll never face more then 3 enemies at a time), but at least the game allows you to swap party members in and out in midbattle(something more game should learn from FFX). There's also a fairly basic elemental rock-paper-scissors system, but there is a way to interrupt enemy attacks(and they can interrupt yours) so hypothetical you could keep an enemy from ever getting a hit in.

The gameplay isn't any special to write home about and the difficulty is either somewhat easier or quite a bit more difficult depending on one of the two difficulty modes(Essentially Easy or Hard, with no middle ground). The really shines in it's beautiful oil-painting style artwork that also evokes fairy tales and high fantasy, which is problem why the game is in love with the rhyming and the music is nicely done too. It's got a nice charm to it, even if it does make it feel like it's supposed to be more suited for older children or teenagers when the generally basic gameplay and short length(around 10 hours) is taken into account.

I'm around the halfway point so maybe I'll have more to say about it when I finish it. It is kinda of amazing that this game is 6 years old and yet is a type of game that Ubisoft just doesn't make anymore since they decided to become "ALL OPEN WORLD TOWER CLIMBING/STUFF COLLECTING ALL THE TIME" and I kinda wish they'd go back to making different types of games again. They don't all have to be blockbusters or make all the money, and they don't all have to be AC clones.
That was an alright game. Never managed to finish it before losing the console unfortunately, so couldn't find out if she was in death-land or coma-world in the end. I miss the ubi-art projects, including the rayman titles. Now they got mister French dude creator on the live-service beyond good and evil sequel, the fascist bastards.


Hitman 2. Please finish the narrative with any semblance of conclusion for once for fucks sake. And please don't charge me 32 bloody quid merely to access the last 2 levels, of which I've no idea if they provide any further narrative anyway. I'm not giving you any more money until you garuntee some sort of conclusion in future. There's a huge difference between planting a sequel hook and just not bothering to respect your audience by suddenly ending out of nowhere with nothing tied up. I was actually getting invested, making it all the more frustrating and kind of insulting in a way, especially with that price tag for last two shitting levels with no option to buy seperately. Are you taking the piss?

Onto We Happy Few. This looks like it might have a conclusion. Please?
 
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dscross

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I've been re-playing an old game, 'Discworld Noir' - I play it every couple of years (along with the Blade Runner game) because it gives me a warm feeling. It's the best game in terms of atmosphere and comedy. However, it's a ***** to install so you are going to need a virtual machine of windows XP to play it - and even then it runs a bit dodgy, You have to keep saving. Totally worth it though.

On my PlayStation, I just finished FF7 Remake, which was awesome, if annoying at the end. But I did it on hard mode so I must have really enjoyed it despite the ending. I'm now playing Trials of Mana, the remake of the old Snes game. It's good, although they made it seem more childish in 3d than it did in 16bit. Also, the American voice actors don't work with it at all in my opinion. Otherwise, it's a pretty faithful adaptation - they've only changed the camera and added a jump button, so it's pretty nostalgic. I'm planning on doing a Plague's Tale afterwards so I'll keep you posted on that.
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
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I've been re-playing an old game, 'Discworld Noir' - I play it every couple of years (along with the Blade Runner game) because it gives me a warm feeling. It's the best game in terms of atmosphere and comedy. However, it's a ***** to install so you are going to need a virtual machine of windows XP to play it - and even then it runs a bit dodgy, You have to keep saving. Totally worth it though.
I'd love to play the game but I don't think it's available anymore. I played the first discworld game years ago and liked it(this was before I'd read any of the books).

I keep hoping GOG will get a working version for sale at some point.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I'd love to play the game but I don't think it's available anymore. I played the first discworld game years ago and liked it(this was before I'd read any of the books).

I keep hoping GOG will get a working version for sale at some point.
It's abandonware at this point so you can just dl it form an abandonware site. Keep in mind you will have to jump through some hoops to get it working, but it shouldn't be too hard. I would give a link to it, but I'm not sure if the mods would freak out about that or not.
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
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It's abandonware at this point so you can just dl it form an abandonware site. Keep in mind you will have to jump through some hoops to get it working, but it shouldn't be too hard. I would give a link to it, but I'm not sure if the mods would freak out about that or not.
Thanks for the heads up
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
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I think it changed directors too, which might also have something to do with how messy GR2 feels. It was the side quests that really made me hate and ultimately drop this game. They were so weirdly strict, where one false move instantly resulted in failure. I also must've spent 10 minutes trying throw a damn frisbee for a dog, because it had to land in a specific spot.
The director is still Keiichiro Toyama. I don't know if he's supposed to have a style other than "also directed the first Silent Hill" but I was getting some Silent Hill vibes from the first game and the second one ups the ante big time. Some bosses look straight from Silent Hill: there's one that's a giant cancerous mass of flailing limbs and screaming faces, and another that's just straight up Baphomet from SH1. There's also a major plot point lifted from Silent Hill:

Like Cheryl and Alessa, Kat and Raven are two halves of the same individual split by ancient sorcery.

And yes, that frisbee side mission sucks.
 

laggyteabag

Scrolling through forums, instead of playing games
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I just finished Assassin's Creed Origins, and that game was boring as hell.

This was basically Ubisoft's attempt to convert the Assassin's Creed franchise into The Witcher 3, and it certainly gets the basics right, and a lot of stuff that it tries is commendable, but most just misses the mark.

The one thing that I really enjoyed in Origins, was the combat. Each melee weapon type had a different light, heavy, charge-light, charge-heavy, power, and dodge attack. There were also multiple bow types, which were widely different in function to one and other. This variety in weapon types and combat styles really helped with changing up the combat over the course of the game, as when compared to a game like The Witcher 3, regardless of if you were using a sword, axe or mace, the melee combat was exactly the same, and it did get quite old, quite quickly.

Another thing that it did, was ensure that each and every side quest was different. Sure, there might be similarities in terms of content, such as needing to kill a certain guy, or find a certain thing, but at least they were all different in context. My least favourite thing in most open-world games, is the repeating of the same half-dozen side quest formats, dotted around the world a dozen times. Go do a race. Go blow something up. Go find these collectibles. Ubisoft put some effort in here, and that needs to be commended - even if the execution was pretty lackluster 9 out of 10 times, with fairly uninteresting stories.

As for the game world, it was massive. Huge. But ultimately, I found it to be kind of boring. I just dont think Egypt was a particularly interesting environment. There are only so many times that you can look out upon a big, empty, sandy vista, before it all gets a little dull. Not to mention that going from A to B was always a chore; I get that not every character can be Spider-Man, swinging around New York, but there has to be something more interesting than auto-move slow horses.

And finally, the story. I liked the simple revenge plot, but It quickly devolved into something much more grand - culminating into some kind of war. One thing that really bugged me was how often you would kill the final person on your list, only for it to be suddenly revealed that 5 more random people were all involved and part of the same club - it wasnt particularly organic, and it just felt kind of cheap. The side characters were also quite weak and unmemorable, to the point where there was this moment at the end of the game, where one character was like "Oh my god, it was HIM all along!” and I just sat there like "Who the FUCK is that?"

So yeah, Origins was a very weak entry for me, and I can't imagine playing it again. That being said, im playing Odyssey right now, and it is more or less the same game setup, just better in every single way.

The PC performance is crap, though.
 

dscross

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Thanks for the heads up
It's worth the effort. I like the other two games but they are nowhere near as good. Discworld Noir is one of my favourite games and I think it severely unappreciated because it's ace all the way through.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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inFAMOUS: Second Son

Can't believe it's already 6 years. Bought this all the way back and never got around playing it. I think most people dismissed it as just another launch title back then, and it's definitely "just" another inFAMOUS game, albeit shorter and smaller, while doubling down on the particle effect spectacle and that sheen of HD moisture that every game started getting circa 2014. But I'll defend it over other launch titles bordering on next-gen demos (The Order: 1886) for being an actual game, on top of very fun. I also like Delsin infinitely over Cole. I couldn't describe Cole as anything other than the protagonist of the first two inFAMOUS games, largely because he was designed as blank slate that would fall in line with your heroic or villainous choices for him. Second Son retains the (pointless) Karma system but at least the protagonist gets a personality. Even if that doesn't make him particularly likeable (he's bratty, brash, upstart) at least it makes him more interesting.

The story branches off inFAMOUS 2, ignoring and undermining the finality of Cole's choice, only to replay the same tale of an asshole government agency laying siege on a city that you're supposed to liberate one district at a time. There're shades of Watch_Dogs in the form of too-cool-for-school activism and side missions involving tracing hidden cameras and lining up hidden messages. Delsin's starter power is "smoke", which acts essentially the same as Cole's lightning powers: you hover, you shoot light/heavy attacks, you throw grenades and there's a special fuck you attack you can charge. And yeah, I guess that's the worst thing you can say for Second Son. A lot of it plays like a palette swap of the other inFAMOUS games, and doesn't do much new beyond changing dresses, prettying up and toying with the PS4 controller's touchpad and motion control sensor for a gimmick.

Maybe cause I'm chasing the way more restrictive Gravity Rush 2 - also a sandboxy superho sim - that I'm enjoying Second Son way more than I normally would. GR2 will put you in a box for every mission and side mission you take, and fail you for not sticking to the script. Second Son gives you free rein to do things your way, doesn't change the rules every 5 minutes, will never stop you with a cutscene or a dialogue exchange. The overworld is more seamless too, with enemies in it (you will never encounter enemies in Gravity Rush outside missions) and random events to spice things up. I also like powering up Delsin with shards because it feels like it makes a difference. I never felt like I needed to power up in GR2 (unlike GR1), and the more useful upgrades happened naturally as the story progressed.
 
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Martintox

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Much like Sekiro, Nioh became dreadfully tedious in its gameplay after some time, and I decided to switch to some other genres. I'm not far enough into Deus Ex to say much about it, but seeing as I'm currently going through RE5 and RE6 again, it's refreshing to play Resident Evil 4 for the first time and experience a more "sober" take on this type of gameplay (it's silly, but it's not Hollywood movie silly like the next two installments for now, which is already something). What impresses me is how quickly you can go into your inventory to switch weapons or grenades; you'd think, coming in from RE5, that it would hinder the momentum of battles, but it doesn't do that at all. I'm already getting accustomed to switching equipment on the fly during combat.

I've also played and completed Pepsiman for the PS1, what a great experience. It's exactly as silly as it looks, but it's also a highly refined Temple Run-style obstacle course. All you can do is move, jump, slide, sprint, and slow down, and you'll need every single one of those actions. It's quite difficult, but it's also very short overall (you can beat it within an hour easily); furthermore, once you complete the game, you can access any level and try to beat your previous record. Thus, it doesn't outstay its welcome and it has great replay value. Very fun speedrunning game, I recommend it.