What are you currently playing?

[Elijin]

Anybody pickup everspace 2? I loved the 1st one but didn't like the rogue like element so I'm pretty stocked that they made it open world, but at the same time I'm tired of picking up space sim game and finding out I just purchased "space eurotruck simulator".

I bit the bullet and picked it up, even though my gut feeling says it's a tad overpriced. I'll let you know.

 

[meiam]

Started playing Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War.

So far it's a notable improvement on AC4 in a number of ways, though it is a bit different in others.

There's finally some actual characters(who you work with, not in a parallel but tangential story to the one you're living) this time, so your wingmen aren't just different voices on the radio and you actually get to see them. So hooray. I mean, they aren't particularly fleshed out characters or anything, but it's some improvement. Also, yet again, Steve Blum shows up as a wingman only to die, which is a shame because having Spike Spiegel yelling in my ear during missions the entire game would have been interesting.

There's also a system to tell your wingmen to do stuff during battles, which is kinda cool, though I'm unsure just how useful it is. I've never really noticed AC wingmen being particularly good at actually killing stuff, though I've seen them actually take down enemy planes in this one, which makes them about 100% more useful then the wingmen in AC4. The whole thing where they ask you questions and you're supposed to hit a button for yes or no is kinda distracting because they often do it when I'm trying to concentrate on blowing stuff up, and I've also been in the middle of issuing wingmen orders when they ask me stuff as well, giving a wrong answer at times. I'm not even sure it matters much though, so I guess whatever.

It feels like something resembling a plot is finally starting to kick into gear now, about 7 missions into the game. The Arkbird looks like a boss fight waiting to happen, so I'm sure the enemy will grab it at some point because there's no way the Oseans will get to keep something that cool for very long. So as usual, it looks like it's gonna be my 4 planes winning the war ourselves, especially since the Yukotobians(?) seem to have an uncanny ability to read the Oseans every movement and have a massive attack force always ready to strike. I can't tell if the Yukotobians are supposed to be master planners with great intel, the Oseans just suck that much or there's going to be a reveal that the Yukatobians have a mole on the inside the entire time.

There's also the Belka thing.
Me: "Hey, AC5.Are you planning a plot twist concerning Belka?"
AC5: *Looks around nervously* "No! Why?"
Me: "Then Why do you keep bringing up a 15 year old war against Belka that ended in Nuclear disaster?"
AC5: "It's purely a coincidence, I assure you. Oh, look, a Spaceplane!"

Probably the biggest difference I've noticed so far is that I wasn't able to buy new planes until a few missions in and now I can buy multiple planes and choose what planes my wingmen use, which is kinda cool and its the first game in the series I've seen it in. Overall it's pretty fun so far.

WIngman order don't really matter (it didn't stick around for later entry). I usually just leave mine on free roaming just so they distract some of the enemy. The question the game ask you mid mission don't really matter, except in 2 case where the game split between 2 possible missions, except the split don't matter from a story point of view, it'll matter of you go trough it again and want to see the other mission. The question have nothing to do with mission, it's something like "do you like ice cream?" and if you say yes you get mission 15a and no get you 15b.

The war from 15 year ago is the event in AC:zero, I'm guessing they were already planning on doing zero when they were making 5 cause it's more developed than it needs to be for just 5. But yeah, since you already played 7 you know that the Belkan are the bogyman of this world.

Doesn't matter too much, but later in the game you'll have a few missions where you'll launch from an aircraft carrier which will limit which plane you can take, just keep that in mind and keep enough money so that you can buy yourself a nice plane if that happen, you don't want to be using an old clunker because you're too poor to buy the nice stuff then.

 

[Dalisclock]

WIngman order don't really matter (it didn't stick around for later entry). I usually just leave mine on free roaming just so they distract some of the enemy. The question the game ask you mid mission don't really matter, except in 2 case where the game split between 2 possible missions, except the split don't matter from a story point of view, it'll matter of you go trough it again and want to see the other mission. The question have nothing to do with mission, it's something like "do you like ice cream?" and if you say yes you get mission 15a and no get you 15b.

The war from 15 year ago is the event in AC:zero, I'm guessing they were already planning on doing zero when they were making 5 cause it's more developed than it needs to be for just 5. But yeah, since you already played 7 you know that the Belkan are the bogyman of this world.

Doesn't matter too much, but later in the game you'll have a few missions where you'll launch from an aircraft carrier which will limit which plane you can take, just keep that in mind and keep enough money so that you can buy yourself a nice plane if that happen, you don't want to be using an old clunker because you're too poor to buy the nice stuff then.

I'm aware of AC:0, which I plan to play after this one(though probably not immediately afterwards) and yeah, AC7 also spoils a couple of things as well(but at least now I see where some of the references in 7 come from). It does feel like we're headed for a "Belka did it" reveal. Especially since they haven't given a particular reason why Yukatobia decided to just start a fight. At least AC7 had a stupid "You guys built an elevator in our backyard" excuse for a casus belli. I can't remember if AC4 even bothered to explain why they went to war(Something about the Asteroid Smacking Erusea something hard and caused a lot of economic damage, or something to that effect, I believe).

I've already upgraded my group to the F-18, which served me well in previous games and since it's normally a Naval aircraft, hopefully that should be fine.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Still on Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
It's probably the prettiest looking game in the series, and the renewed focus on puzzle rooms is a good send up, but there's a distinct air of Arkham Origins to the whole thing (ie the usual devs were busy so they handed over the assets for a quickie in-house sequel) and the whole thing feels rushed and lacking cohesion. There's an inordinate amount of padding as well in the form of pointless fetch quests, where Lara simply walks up to a bunch of people and checks off dialogue one at a time. And the story just doesn't add up. First off Lara does a Kratos by summoning a tsunami that kills an entire city yet her attempts at owning up to thw responsibility feel self-centered and disingenuous. Then she "discovers" a "lost city" that has been supposedly isolated for centuries from the outside world yet 1) there's an oil refinery next door, 2) everyone speaks English and I just don't buy these people living like America was never discovered yet also having integrated just enough into the modern world. And it looks so silly that the bad guys are dressing up in ancient Mayan costumes and performing ritual sacrifice in a place that simply never feels that cut off from the rest of the world.

Another reason they shouldn’t go full Uncharted. The writing in these games is sub-serviceable and outside of a handful of good VA performances, feels like wasted effort. These games should just be about discovering ancient tombs and designing top tier platforming mechanics and puzzles. The generic tropetastic plot and themes over the last three games blend into one another enough to make a killer smoothie, and while the combat is fun at times there is always far too much of it. Less is more there.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I know this isn't the hot takes thread, but I'd describe GoW '18 's combat as 'like Bloodborne, but fun'.

GoW nailed how the axe should feel, even as a projectile. The skill trees and upgrade paths are also more gear-based, with more freedom for experimentation. It’s still hack n slash but can’t help from feeling a bit clumsy though next to its lineage.

Bloodborne has a lot less in way of power-ups to spam, making it more of a true melee game where positioning is often as important as attacking. Also a greater focus on core weapon variety vs special moves acquisition. And being able to freely move your character around independently of the camera.

I enjoy both for what they are.

 

[Worgen]

True, but you can also have the problem, that many action games/movies have, of relying too much on the action, to prop up a dull plot, and it doesn't always work. Like the John Wick films. The first one has a very simple revenge plot, but it's structured so well, and the acting is so good from everyone (except Keanu, love him, but he's a wooden board of emotions), that it carries the film brilliantly. And then JW 2/3 came around, and had basically NO plot at all, and just banked their success on lots of shooty shooty bang bang. "Ooh look! Keanu is being technically accurate with how he is holding that weapon!" Me: "Yeah? And? Why is he doing it though? What is the point of this scene?" Fans "....but...technically accurate shooty shooty bang bang!" Me: *facepalm*

Thats why you have the secrets and platforming scenes. Those give you a nice break in the action so things don't become numb. COD MW3 has a problem with just making the player numb. I've beaten the game 3 times and it always happens at the same time, right near the end after you play the C130 and have just blown a hole in a bunker door and you have enemies staggering around and your team mates execute them. I'm always numb and tired of action at that point.

 

[happyninja42]

Thats why you have the secrets and platforming scenes. Those give you a nice break in the action so things don't become numb. COD MW3 has a problem with just making the player numb. I've beaten the game 3 times and it always happens at the same time, right near the end after you play the C130 and have just blown a hole in a bunker door and you have enemies staggering around and your team mates execute them. I'm always numb and tired of action at that point.

Yeah but secrets and platforming, aren't a plot. They are just another game mechanic, that can be completely devoid of any plot significance, and thus still a shallow game design. I mean ok, so part of the game is Doom Guy running around collecting plushies of himself....ok? And? Why? It just pulls me out of the game to have things like that. And if the game can't be bothered to insert their story INTO the game in an organic way, and just say "meh, just read the codex" sorry but that's lazy writing to me. It doesn't make for a fun game, or at least not a game that I will be invested in, and will probably get bored with as soon as the gameplay becomes tedious and repetitive....like what happened to me with DOOM 2016 after about....1 hour of playing? I just, didn't care.

 

[Elijin]

Anybody pickup everspace 2? I loved the 1st one but didn't like the rogue like element so I'm pretty stocked that they made it open world, but at the same time I'm tired of picking up space sim game and finding out I just purchased "space eurotruck simulator".

Alright so I played 2 hours and lets lay out some initial impressions.

First of, the negative waivers. It's proper early access. Like, there's a level cap a fraction of the total, and the story is unfinished etc etc. The devs have also upfront said "It's early access, there's no guarantee that we wont have to reset saves if updates change too much."

Ganeplay!
So I feel I'm still in the starting hand holdy elements, because I am an explore all distractions kinda guy. But the game plays like everspace drunkenly knocked up freelancer. It's the combat and flight of everspace, directly slotted over a space rpg. Which so far, is great!

There's leveling up with perks, a homebase to upgrade (offering more perks), a faction reputation system, your typical rpg boxes.

My only real warning would be that initial early access spiel. If you enjoyed the raw gameplay of 1, over an rpg skeleton, you're golden.

 

[Samtemdo8]

Just finished Devil May Cry 1.

Gonna finish it all the way up to 5. No Devil May Cry 2 and DMC though.

Never fully played 4 and beaten it and never fully finished 5.

 

[CaitSeith]

I decided to replay Ocarina of Time 3D. I forgot how frustrating the fishing game could be. Also, this game kept some of the original design that was made with the N64 controller in mind: going forward in a straight line is harder than it should be. Let me explain. The N64 controller stick had an octagonal frame surrounding it so the player could hold it easily in any of the 8 precise directions. Such precision isn't as easy to do with the 3DS stick, but the game still expects it.

 

[BrawlMan]

Just finished Devil May Cry 1.

Gonna finish it all the way up to 5. No Devil May Cry 2 and DMC though.

Never fully played 4 and beaten it and never fully finished 5.

If you ever decide to do DmC (2013), just get the definitive edition. It's surprisingly good and improvement. It turns a 6 out of 10 game into a 7 out of 10. Must style mode and Gods Must Die mode are really fun. I do recommend you play the reboot after you do five, just for comparisons and what influences the reboot had on 5.

 

[meiam]

Alright so I played 2 hours and lets lay out some initial impressions.

First of, the negative waivers. It's proper early access. Like, there's a level cap a fraction of the total, and the story is unfinished etc etc. The devs have also upfront said "It's early access, there's no guarantee that we wont have to reset saves if updates change too much."

Ganeplay!
So I feel I'm still in the starting hand holdy elements, because I am an explore all distractions kinda guy. But the game plays like everspace drunkenly knocked up freelancer. It's the combat and flight of everspace, directly slotted over a space rpg. Which so far, is great!

There's leveling up with perks, a homebase to upgrade (offering more perks), a faction reputation system, your typical rpg boxes.

My only real warning would be that initial early access spiel. If you enjoyed the raw gameplay of 1, over an rpg skeleton, you're golden.

Sounds good, how much of the ships are there in atm and are they all fighter or do you have some kind of battleship/carrier stuff at higher level?

 

[EvilRoy]

So I genuinely dislike Hideo's work, and find his fan's justification of "Yeah his stuff's insane, but that's the good part!" a terrible defense for games that seem to be nothing more than the fever dreams of a cocaine addled brain. But I've heard some people mention bits about Death Stranding, that imply it's got some kind of positive reinforcement of society elements. I'm not sure how to phrase it, but that, the game is designed, at least on some levels, to try and make you empathize with other players in the game, and to reinforce an idea of community and shared humanity, through the struggles of the game. Which that part, I admit, does sound interesting to me. But then the rest of my brain goes "Yeah but.. this is a Hideo game, the insane guy that made the metal gear series, which you loathe with a passion. Do you really want to pay money for this if it's nothing but another variation on *shudders* Metal Gear?"

So, would you say, that for someone who is almost fatally allergic to a typical "Hideo game", would I like it? I get that you don't know me and stuff, but, well basically just how fucking batshit insane is it, versus how much is actual engaging content?

I had to THINK on this.

As far as weirdness... Yes, its very weird, but the weirdness is only gratuitous a few times from what I've seen thus far. The majority of the weirdness is what I would honestly class as creative. The monsters and how they work are bizarre and extremely interesting. The cataclysm that rips up the world is definitely weird, but it honestly makes some sort of sense in the larger context of the story. People started fucking with time and death, time and death fucked back. Fine. Even the baby in a jar goes from gratuitous at the start to a meaningful, reasonably straightforward, part of the story by the stage I'm at.

Watching some cutscenes of the MGS series, a lot of the weirdness in there comes off to me as trying too hard. Like someone wrote themself into a corner and is trying to metaphor their way out of it. Like... Nanomachines, son. Scenery chewing, over the top weird because if I get weird enough people will think its deep, I hope, otherwise they'll realize I'm up a tree with no way down thanks to literal novels worth of preceding material I can't retcon. This game isn't that. I can tell Hideo is a generally competent writer, or at least has a good editor this time, because yeah there are problems, and yeah he gets up himself now and then, but so far there is actually a real, hopeful - acceptably written if dull in the cutscenes - story being told. Sometimes you get bogged down in metaphor, but at least I can recognize it as intentional metaphor even if it feels too flowery.

When it comes to a sense of community, you are correct. The game has an online world kind of similar to Dark Souls >_>; People do stuff and you see the effects of that stuff in the game but you don't ever directly interact with them. There are hosts of things you can make or do in game and they effect other people. Building a road, bridge or shelter is a huge resource commitment, but with the help of others it becomes quite doable.

Early game I wondered why I would care about shared buildings - its not that bad crossing this land, I can carry enough stuff to make my own way, so who needs them. But as the game progresses it gets tougher. At one point I took on a delivery of really fragile beer. This shit lasts about 10 real world minutes in rainfall, less than that before I don't get a reward for delivering stuff in poor condition, and guess what just started and would not let up. I had a 15-20 minute walk ahead of me and a 30 min time limit, so this is basically an auto fail. But then I noticed someone made a rain shelter about a 5 minute walk away, and I had the shit to make another. So I ran to their shelter, and then traveled about 5 minutes further to make another. A little fucking around later and a lucky break on the weather and I managed to deliver some guys precious booze, mildly ruffled. I came back a couple (real life) days later thinking I could make another high value run, and what do I see but a whole host of dudes had taken the cue from the two of us and daisy-chained shelters across across the plains, so now a very difficult route for fragile goods was actually traversable, for everyone. The nature of the game means when I came back later some were missing and some new ones were present, but it was startlingly uplifting to see a whole bunch of people who will never meet or speak with each other band together to go all in on connecting a brewery to a weather station.

As long as you are okay with the idea of a game based around solitude and walking from point A to point B for long stretches of time, I would honestly suggest it. The cutscenes drag on and the dialog gets a little exhausting, but I just left and got a drink when it got to be too much. You'll still follow the story without someone reading a glossary to you. And so much of the game is fallout-style where you can stay occupied and exploring without engaging with the story for long periods of time. I got it on sale on steam, it'll probably be back on for the lunar new year sale if you read through the brick above and figure it sounds ok.

 

[Elijin]

Sounds good, how much of the ships are there in atm and are they all fighter or do you have some kind of battleship/carrier stuff at higher level?

I do not have answers to these questions

 

[Gergar12]

Spiderman Mile Morales, love the culutral references hate the chases.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Finished Jake's campaign of Resident Evil 6. The action was... hit or miss, as usual, but I'd argue that it's probably got the best writing and characters of any of the three campaigns so far.

We're probably going to do Ada's campaign as well, and then I'm never going to touch RE6 again.

Summary so far: Leon and Helena had the best atmosphere and horror, Chris and Piers had the best action and gunplay, Jake and Sherry had the best writing and characters. Why we couldn't have one game with all of those things instead of three games with some of those things, I'll never know.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[stroopwafel]

As far as I recall, by the time RE6 was being made Capcom had realized that the series was essentially liked by three disparate groups and RE6 was an attempt to give all those groups something they liked while also providing a breadth of gameplay. For the old school fans who liked everything up to RE4 they had Leon's part, for the RE4-5 enthusiast you had Chris' section and for those that were really into the whole lore of Umbrella and whatever Chris' weird NGO was called you had Jake's part. The idea was that if you only wanted to do a ton of RE5 style action, you played Chris section and didn't have to slog the horror of Leon's and vice versa if you preferred horror. In execution, it all fell kind of flat as neither section was polished enough to be really outstanding and it all just felt disjointed and weird.

I wouldn't say necessarily 'liked' but rather that the obsession with Call of Duty's sales numbers and the popularity of co-op at the time ruined RE6 just like it ruined Dead Space 3. It's more like they retrofitted these elements into a game where it totally didn't belong. I believe Jake was more for the younger players to attach too. If anything RE6 is a game built entirely from 'marketing research'. If it wasn't for RE Remake's popularity on the PSN store in 2015, and restoring faith at Capcom that there was still a demand for these kind of games, I don't think we would have had the more recent titles which are all pretty good.

 

[happyninja42]

Spiderman Mile Morales, love the culutral references hate the chases.

I don't remember chases much in that one. Which bits are you referring to?

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Well the resident evils demo was a nice visual showcase. It even labels itself as one for the credits, so this is not an opinion, it's an irrefutable fact, you judgy wanker. Fulfilling the exact role to the letter of the Resi 7 demo - sans the video camera section - for presenting flavoursome bait to reel in salmon stuck on the underwater fence of jaded doubt. Seems they wanted to show they trying to tackle criticism of previous blob enemies by teasing dash-happy vamp bints and wolverine dominatrix tower. Curious why you aren't allowed to see your own body unlike 7 though, been wondering if there's a dumbass resident evil secret twist they're chugging downstream towards with it.