What are you currently playing?

[EvilRoy]

Still Hades. 40 deaths in. Made it to Hades twice. Cheating bugger, got him down to zero health and he refills it! But good lord those last chambers are hard! Some of the enemy attacks are almost unfairly hard, like the stupid snake statues that fill half the screen with laser beams constantly. I picked a skull door to see what would happen one time and died in 5 seconds to some Satyr miniboss at the end.

Only thing I don't like is that enemies always spawn in waves. Just makes rooms take longer than they otherwise would when there's always, always more spawning in.

Also, it kind of sucks that you need to replay the beginning stages every time when the difficulty ramps up to insane levels in comparison in the last ones. Just kind of a waste of time, because I'm pretty much not going to die before the minotaur anymore. Such is the way with roguelikes, though. But what I like about Nethack is that the game is mostly top loaded with difficulty. If you can make it past the early stages of Nethack, you can usually go all the way and win if you know what you are doing. Although, Hades is a much shorter game than Nethack.

Something that might help is the little widgets you get from giving people stuff. I spent a lot of my early playthrough with the Tooth superglued to my forehead because I figured a second (or third) chance would always be the most valuable option, but there is actually a strategy in making your selections depending on your weapon. You can be getting % increases on your overall damage all through Tarterus if you're at the point where you rarely get hit, or you can take a look at what weapon you're using and optimize for Elysium. Right now I'm working on getting a few more wins with my bow and that means that enemies are rarely behind me, so the bracer is suddenly more useful than most other trinkets. Since you get the option to swap out every level, I'll usually boost my damage output, then boost my health, then boost my money, then take a defensive perk for the end - either the tooth or armour depending on what kind of weapon I'm working with.

The other thing that may help is getting all those weapons unlocked and getting some titan blood in there. You don't need to win the game to do this, you just need to grind up keys and cycle weapons to get more blood. Once you can get in there and rub some blood on some stuff you may find aspect unlocks that mesh well with your playstyle. In my case I rarely cast - I feel it takes way too long in hectic fights and focusing in on individual conflicts usually gets me stabbed in the ass by a spear trap. But, with mirror power you get a huge damage boost from sticking a crystal in somebody so you really should be doing that. How do I get around my own mental block? Well, certain weapons have aspects that mesh your cast with your regular attack, or make your cast easier to get off. So now I'm sidestepping my own failing and rendering a greater benefit than another aspect boost would give me arithmetically. 3% higher crit chance? Cool. Don't care, Artemis will give me that by Hel usually. Shoot a projectile that is both my regular attack and my cast, combining all the boon benefits of both into one shot? Easy call.

 

[happyninja42]

Something that might help is the little widgets you get from giving people stuff. I spent a lot of my early playthrough with the Tooth superglued to my forehead because I figured a second (or third) chance would always be the most valuable option, but there is actually a strategy in making your selections depending on your weapon. You can be getting % increases on your overall damage all through Tarterus if you're at the point where you rarely get hit, or you can take a look at what weapon you're using and optimize for Elysium. Right now I'm working on getting a few more wins with my bow and that means that enemies are rarely behind me, so the bracer is suddenly more useful than most other trinkets. Since you get the option to swap out every level, I'll usually boost my damage output, then boost my health, then boost my money, then take a defensive perk for the end - either the tooth or armour depending on what kind of weapon I'm working with.

The other thing that may help is getting all those weapons unlocked and getting some titan blood in there. You don't need to win the game to do this, you just need to grind up keys and cycle weapons to get more blood. Once you can get in there and rub some blood on some stuff you may find aspect unlocks that mesh well with your playstyle. In my case I rarely cast - I feel it takes way too long in hectic fights and focusing in on individual conflicts usually gets me stabbed in the ass by a spear trap. But, with mirror power you get a huge damage boost from sticking a crystal in somebody so you really should be doing that. How do I get around my own mental block? Well, certain weapons have aspects that mesh your cast with your regular attack, or make your cast easier to get off. So now I'm sidestepping my own failing and rendering a greater benefit than another aspect boost would give me arithmetically. 3% higher crit chance? Cool. Don't care, Artemis will give me that by Hel usually. Shoot a projectile that is both my regular attack and my cast, combining all the boon benefits of both into one shot? Easy call.

Yeah I've started to fall in love with the fist weapons in Hades. I'm still trying to beat it for the first time, but I've been consistently getting farther through the dungeons with that weapon, even if I am unlucky with boons. So I'm thinking I'm going to focus on that one now. Kind of annoyed I've already spent several titan bloods on the sword and spear, because I liked those more at first but...eh, what can you do. But, when I saw that the fist weapons have a flat %dodge trait, my new strategy I plan on trying tonight, is to start Tarterus with the Hermes keepsake, which boosts your dodge if you finish rooms fast. Which is pretty easy in the first dungeon. So, I've got a base 10% dodge from the gloves, and potentially another 6-10% from the keepsake as I plow through the easy first rooms. Sadly you lose that bonus dodge if I trade out items but, it might be doable. I find, with the gloves that damage output just isn't a real issue. I just spam Special like crazy, and pretty much every boon tied to Special makes the thing insane. So having improved defenses might be a good offset for it. But we'll see. Might decide on a different keepsake overall, since I can swap them out for the different floors, but Hermes' benefit requires me to keep it the whole time.

 

[meiam]

Something that might help is the little widgets you get from giving people stuff. I spent a lot of my early playthrough with the Tooth superglued to my forehead because I figured a second (or third) chance would always be the most valuable option, but there is actually a strategy in making your selections depending on your weapon. You can be getting % increases on your overall damage all through Tarterus if you're at the point where you rarely get hit, or you can take a look at what weapon you're using and optimize for Elysium. Right now I'm working on getting a few more wins with my bow and that means that enemies are rarely behind me, so the bracer is suddenly more useful than most other trinkets. Since you get the option to swap out every level, I'll usually boost my damage output, then boost my health, then boost my money, then take a defensive perk for the end - either the tooth or armour depending on what kind of weapon I'm working with.

The other thing that may help is getting all those weapons unlocked and getting some titan blood in there. You don't need to win the game to do this, you just need to grind up keys and cycle weapons to get more blood. Once you can get in there and rub some blood on some stuff you may find aspect unlocks that mesh well with your playstyle. In my case I rarely cast - I feel it takes way too long in hectic fights and focusing in on individual conflicts usually gets me stabbed in the ass by a spear trap. But, with mirror power you get a huge damage boost from sticking a crystal in somebody so you really should be doing that. How do I get around my own mental block? Well, certain weapons have aspects that mesh your cast with your regular attack, or make your cast easier to get off. So now I'm sidestepping my own failing and rendering a greater benefit than another aspect boost would give me arithmetically. 3% higher crit chance? Cool. Don't care, Artemis will give me that by Hel usually. Shoot a projectile that is both my regular attack and my cast, combining all the boon benefits of both into one shot? Easy call.

The god specific accessory are practically a must for the first level, some weapon are only good if you get specific god (fist/rail and Zeus). No reason to use the tooth unless you're on your last live, even then I'd argue bracer is often more use.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Something that might help is the little widgets you get from giving people stuff. I spent a lot of my early playthrough with the Tooth superglued to my forehead because I figured a second (or third) chance would always be the most valuable option, but there is actually a strategy in making your selections depending on your weapon. You can be getting % increases on your overall damage all through Tarterus if you're at the point where you rarely get hit, or you can take a look at what weapon you're using and optimize for Elysium. Right now I'm working on getting a few more wins with my bow and that means that enemies are rarely behind me, so the bracer is suddenly more useful than most other trinkets. Since you get the option to swap out every level, I'll usually boost my damage output, then boost my health, then boost my money, then take a defensive perk for the end - either the tooth or armour depending on what kind of weapon I'm working with.

The other thing that may help is getting all those weapons unlocked and getting some titan blood in there. You don't need to win the game to do this, you just need to grind up keys and cycle weapons to get more blood. Once you can get in there and rub some blood on some stuff you may find aspect unlocks that mesh well with your playstyle. In my case I rarely cast - I feel it takes way too long in hectic fights and focusing in on individual conflicts usually gets me stabbed in the ass by a spear trap. But, with mirror power you get a huge damage boost from sticking a crystal in somebody so you really should be doing that. How do I get around my own mental block? Well, certain weapons have aspects that mesh your cast with your regular attack, or make your cast easier to get off. So now I'm sidestepping my own failing and rendering a greater benefit than another aspect boost would give me arithmetically. 3% higher crit chance? Cool. Don't care, Artemis will give me that by Hel usually. Shoot a projectile that is both my regular attack and my cast, combining all the boon benefits of both into one shot? Easy call.

I actually just managed to make my first escape today. Cheated a little, though. I had a really good start so when I died I just 'gave up' and it started me off at the same seed or whatever. Still took me 4 tries, but I did it. I did it with the bow with the homing special, which I really like and was crazy powerful with +4 shots from the hammer, Artemis' special crits, and Chaos' +70% to special that I got in the first couple rooms.

Good point about the bracer, though. That's probably a pretty good pair for the bow.

 

[happyninja42]

I actually just managed to make my first escape today. Cheated a little, though. I had a really good start so when I died I just 'gave up' and it started me off at the same seed or whatever. Still took me 4 tries, but I did it. I did it with the bow with the homing special, which I really like and was crazy powerful with +4 shots from the hammer, Artemis' special crits, and Chaos' +70% to special that I got in the first couple rooms.

Good point about the bracer, though. That's probably a pretty good pair for the bow.

I actually escaped for the first time tonight as well. My strategy was the fist weapons, with lots of %dodge, coupled with that mirror effect that gives you 50% dodge for 2 seconds when you dash before being hit, AND using Hermes' keepsake, that gives me +1.2% dodge if I clear a room quickly, which in Tarterus is pretty easy. So I was rocking, even without the dashing buff, close to 30%+ dodge at all times, and 80% or so while dashing which, you know, you do a lot First attempt with that build, i got all the way to the Theseus fight without using a Death Defy at all, and beat Hades on my first attempt with that build. I've come to love the fist weapons, and they are my new primary. Almost escaped a second time with a mixture of Zeus and Hermes and Artemis, but it just didn't come together as smoothly. Still got to phase 2 of Hades though. Going to try and trick out that fist weapon to the max and keep going at it tomorrow.

I also really enjoy playing Mythical Wingman for the various beings of the game. Like I don't really care that (at least so far) there isn't really a love interest for Zagreus, but I do enjoy him playing matchmaker to at least 2 different couples that I've run into so far. I've made it my personal goal, to devote all nectar to Orpheus and Eurydice , and actively try and push their story at every opportunity. It's quite fun

 

[Worgen]

EDIT: Also, @Worgen, how about that Cold War?

Cold war?

I've been playing Gunfire Reborn a lot lately. Even early access its really good, I can see why it was overwhelmingly positive on steam. Your characters move a bit slower then I expected with an FPS game but it works with the gameplay and I'm having a ball.

I'm also still playing Hardcore Mecha, its just awesome, fun story still, great gameplay, good music, good story and dynamic entry.

Once I get finished with Hardcore Mecha I'll probably install Ori and the Will of the Wisp.

 

[Worgen]

Hotline Miami

Lots of fun. It's the finest trial and error gameplay I can think of: levels are small, every floor gets a checkpoint, there's no score penalty for dying and you could reload 50 times before you finished reading this sentence. So the trial and error loop keeps you pumped up and I think gets you to the zen point of murdering everybody without missing a beat rather satisfyingly. You die in one hit, but then so does everybody, so fair is fair. There's not much to the story beyond giving some context to the action but I think downtime is used effectively to give (or muddle) meaning to your actions and the overall crazed atmosphere and encroaching madness is rather well played. Reminds me a bit of Killer7. Presentation is great, VHS filters, neon lights et al. And the synthwave/trip hop soundtrack is fantastic.

Make sure you try Hotline Miami 2. I made the mistake of listening to people who said it was bad and ended up really really liking it.

 

[EvilRoy]

I actually just managed to make my first escape today. Cheated a little, though. I had a really good start so when I died I just 'gave up' and it started me off at the same seed or whatever. Still took me 4 tries, but I did it. I did it with the bow with the homing special, which I really like and was crazy powerful with +4 shots from the hammer, Artemis' special crits, and Chaos' +70% to special that I got in the first couple rooms.

Good point about the bracer, though. That's probably a pretty good pair for the bow.

You know I realized you can do that too when I made a critical error selecting a trinket and I decided to bail rather than prepping to take it on the chin. Something about how the game saves per room and how the random seed interacts seems to make it a little more exploitable than I would expect out of a rougelike.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Make sure you try Hotline Miami 2. I made the mistake of listening to people who said it was bad and ended up really really liking it.

Will do, bought the Hotline Miami Collection.

 

[Chupathingy]

Started playing The Saboteur, the "swan song" of Pandemic Studios. A fun game so far, with a nice aesthetic, likeable characters and the missions have been decent, coupled with the usual jankiness I've come to accept in Pandemic's games.

 

[Drathnoxis]

You know I realized you can do that too when I made a critical error selecting a trinket and I decided to bail rather than prepping to take it on the chin. Something about how the game saves per room and how the random seed interacts seems to make it a little more exploitable than I would expect out of a rougelike.

I don't think it's really too exploitable, you really only get the same rewards for the first couple, and even then it's fairly inconsistent.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

Cold war?

I've been playing Gunfire Reborn a lot lately. Even early access its really good, I can see why it was overwhelmingly positive on steam. Your characters move a bit slower then I expected with an FPS game but it works with the gameplay and I'm having a ball.

I'm also still playing Hardcore Mecha, its just awesome, fun story still, great gameplay, good music, good story and dynamic entry.

Once I get finished with Hardcore Mecha I'll probably install Ori and the Will of the Wisp.

It was a mission in Project Wingman (the giant dogfight over the Bering Strait).

 

[Worgen]

It was a mission in Project Wingman (the giant dogfight over the Bering Strait).

Oh yeah, that mission was pretty awesome but I have a weakness for missions with ground targets since when I was contemplating joining the military I wanted to be an A-10 pilot for ground attack/support.

 

[EvilRoy]

I don't think it's really too exploitable, you really only get the same rewards for the first couple, and even then it's fairly inconsistent.

Its just an interesting note. A lot of roughlike/rougelites use a system where the entire run is pre-emptively determined through a seed that is automatically regenerated every time you start over. It seems like Hades generates a seed based on the number of runs you've been through and then adjusts the seed as you play either through random number generation or based on the path you choose. It makes sense because I had wondered how exactly the game keeps the story thumping along at a reasonable pace, since a true random seed could result in huge story dry spells or extreme story density pretty easily considering just how many different things you can be doing and interacting with per run. Right now it feels kind of obvious to me that the game is intentionally giving me more chances to talk to Thanatos because often I ignored him and for that reason his story was kind of falling behind.

Early days Dead Cells had that problem, where you might just never see certain opportunities for story/ability improvements for ages and then all the sudden it was all you found. Its levelled out now quite well but its pretty clear that the change is the result of a direct developer intervention rather than the game just naturally assuming organic flow through story density.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Second this.

Ghostrunner has a demo on steam. Play it, it's awesome.

Thanks for the heads up. It's funny because when I dl'd it the "similar" games I've played were DOOM 2016 and Deus Ex: HR DC. But I doubt it shares much in common other than perpspective. Well, DOOM might be similar paced.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Got back into Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

I last played last April and was trying to find a bandit camp in the main quest line. The clues for such are as verbally obtuse as the illustrations are for finding treasure in RDR2. Eventually I found it and made some Bane potions to poison their caldron with, but I could only do that once I knocked out a guard and stole his uniform. I also set their arrows on fire before high-tailing it out. It turned out to be mostly a reconnaissance mission up to this point, but I'm sure my efforts at sabotage will prove favorable.

On my way back to report I ran into an odd fellow that wished to duel. He was just standing there on the trail side, looking as awkward as an Eskimo in Jamaica. Since my sword was back on my horse a few dozen yards back, I attempted to reason with him instead, which I could presume from his feeble demeanor wouldn't be too difficult; especially since he didn't seem to mind I was still decked out in Cuman armor from the bandit camp.

My haunch was correct. Turns out his mother sent him out to try gaining some "real world" experience, thanks to her fairy tale delusions of grandeur involving knights in shining armor rescuing princesses apparently. I told him he'd be better off seeking out some virgins instead of attempting to fight me, which seemed to fill him with either inspiration or (false) confidence.

As far as immersion goes this is like the medieval equivalent of RDR2 and then some ; at least from a mechanics standpoint. Sure, merely hitting a button to craft potions or sharpen your sword ala The Witcher would be quicker, but it kinda loses some of the RPG appeal that way. Pretty soon I'll be able to auto-craft though, which would basically be the game's way of awarding the fact you should be able to go through the motions in your sleep by now anyways.

Although on the gamier side of things, I also like how it handles perks. Each has both a benefit and a drawback which forces you to weigh which you'd really prefer in the long run. For example, the last one I chose involved drinking and went as such:

Loose Tongue

Lvl 7

When drunk, you get a 50% bonus on Speech and Charisma, when hungover, these stats drop by 50%.

So, my reasoning here was this benefits me in the odd circumstance where I might need to sweet talk my way out of something when caught in a drunken stupor, and to avoid the downside afterwards I can just avoid people when sleeping it off. Or hell, just down a Hair 'o the Dog potion. Which reminds me I should make some of those next. Oh but wait, there is a downside to even that, in way of my charisma getting a 2pt reduction for an hour. *sigh* the trials and tribulations of a young blacksmith's son.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

So I was supposed to start on God of War the other day, but apparently, our household doesn't have a single micro USB cable capable to pairing my controllers back to my PS4. Kinda a shit design for a console and a controller tbh, to be totally dependent on the cable.

So anyway, I ordered one online and was waiting for it when my sister dropped my controller on the floor. I was PISSED, but then somehow, the PS4 turned on and the controller was magically paired. I have no idea what the fuck happened, but I ain't complaining.

 

[Dreiko]

I'm trying Ara Fell. It's a western-made pixel art Jrpg. The cover art looks super generic so I bet most people would look past it but the actual ingame world design is gorgeous, it reminds me of a mix between golden sun and breath of fire. The combat system is kinda basic but solid, music is quite nice and has some decent variety to it but the main draw is the witty plot, every character is very well written and there's a quippyness to everything that I quite enjoy. The plot revolves around an ancient war between elves and vampires and takes place on a floating continent that is loosing the capacity to float and needs saving and there's magic rings and stuff, all in all pretty orthodox stuff but full of soul and heart.


I don't normally care much for indie games but this one was just too gorgeous to not give a shot and I'm definitely glad I did.

So I was supposed to start on God of War the other day, but apparently, our household doesn't have a single micro USB cable capable to pairing my controllers back to my PS4. Kinda a shit design for a console and a controller tbh, to be totally dependent on the cable.

So anyway, I ordered one online and was waiting for it when my sister dropped my controller on the floor. I was PISSED, but then somehow, the PS4 turned on and the controller was magically paired. I have no idea what the fuck happened, but I ain't complaining.

Pretty sure you can pair wirelessly too since the pads have bluetooth technology within them. You may wanna hold down the ps button or something to get it to go into bluetooth seeking mode.


Or it was already paired and something was shook loose within the controller and the impact from being dropped fixed it.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Early days Dead Cells had that problem, where you might just never see certain opportunities for story/ability improvements for ages and then all the sudden it was all you found. Its levelled out now quite well but its pretty clear that the change is the result of a direct developer intervention rather than the game just naturally assuming organic flow through story density.

Dead Cells is something I should probably play more of. I think I did one or two successful runs and then lost interest, but I think there was more story still. I didn't find the gameplay to feel quite as good as Hades, though, and the story never grabbed me as much.

 

[meiam]

Dead Cells is something I should probably play more of. I think I did one or two successful runs and then lost interest, but I think there was more story still. I didn't find the gameplay to feel quite as good as Hades, though, and the story never grabbed me as much.

Dead cell has a pretty big problem where unlocking newer weapons can screw you up if the weapon you unlock suck. I enjoy it at the start but then I focused on unlocking weapon and now it's really rare that I get the weapon I like and I mostly just get stuff I hate and end up with outdated weapon at higher level. It's really weird there isn't an upgrade to take stuff out of the item drop rotation.

Got back into Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

I really like the more "simulation" aspect of it, but hate the combat system. It's really the best example I can think of "Hard to learn, easy to master" system. It seems super complex at first but once you figure out how to do the perfect parry thing you can easily take out as many enemy as you need. So as a results I never enjoyed figthing in the game and ended dropping it. The entire interface kinda suck too, it's a weird game that feel really polish in some aspect but incredibly amateurish in others.