What are you currently playing?

[XsjadoBlayde]

Neon Chrome, you're an alright indie cyberpunk roguelike twin-stick shooter. But why are you asking me to pay another £15 for the PS5 version? You briefly mention upgrades, but you don't say what, and the screenshots don't look any different.

Is...this a grift? Not too fond of paying twice for the same game tbh. (Unless it's Supergiant)

 

[Dalisclock]

About halfway done with Ace Combat 5. Made it up to the mission where Nagase needs to be rescued and yeah, finding her isn't that bad but trying to keep the helo alive is driving me nuts. I swear the mission spawns a bunch of planes the moment the location is found(I tried clearing the map before triggering the 2nd part last time and....yeah). Damnit, Edge.

Beyond that, it has been pretty fun(the Demons of Razgriz mission was really nice) but at the same time, It's hard to shake the feeling Team Aces really likes reusing their setpieces a lot. It's almost uncanny how often I go "Man, this reminds me of a mission in another game that uses almost exactly same idea". Maybe it's a good thing I played AC7 first because otherwise I'd probably feel it felt like AC7 felt like a greatest hits mixtape(actually, that would explain so much, come to think of it). Especially the "10 million relief plan" DLC from 7, which owes not a little bit from the Submarine missions in this game(The Alicorn is stated to be a successor class to the Scinfaxi, but all of them are kinda dumb from a Naval Engineering standpoint and goddamnit Team Aces, BALLISTIC MISSILES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!).

I'm just counting down to THE TWIST I know is coming. Because I slightly cheated and checked how many missions are in the game(27) and I'm at 15 now, with the war going fairly smoothly, so I know something is gonna happen probably once the Yuke capital is taken or thereabouts. My current guesses are Belka, some kind of inside job(there's some special unit, 8492, that DOESN'T OFFICIALLY EXIST apparently) or both. Also, the whole mission where You're framed for killing civilians makes me think there's some kind of setup in the offing. Also the fact both of the known enemy superweapons have been sunk already means there's probably a backup somewhere, because who doesn't keep a couple massive, expensive, extremely specialized and ridiculously hard to replace superweapons on standby?

 

[meiam]

About halfway done with Ace Combat 5. Made it up to the mission where Nagase needs to be rescued and yeah, finding her isn't that bad but trying to keep the helo alive is driving me nuts. I swear the mission spawns a bunch of planes the moment the location is found(I tried clearing the map before triggering the 2nd part last time and....yeah). Damnit, Edge.

Beyond that, it has been pretty fun(the Demons of Razgriz mission was really nice) but at the same time, It's hard to shake the feeling Team Aces really likes reusing their setpieces a lot. It's almost uncanny how often I go "Man, this reminds me of a mission in another game that uses almost exactly same idea". Maybe it's a good thing I played AC7 first because otherwise I'd probably feel it felt like AC7 felt like a greatest hits mixtape(actually, that would explain so much, come to think of it). Especially the "10 million relief plan" DLC from 7, which owes not a little bit from the Submarine missions in this game(The Alicorn is stated to be a successor class to the Scinfaxi, but all of them are kinda dumb from a Naval Engineering standpoint and goddamnit Team Aces, BALLISTIC MISSILES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!).

Yeah sadly there's not that much you can do with jet plane for diversity, although that's partly because you're replaying them so close together, there was 15 year between 5 and 7. There's also some intentional element to this, almost all the game finish with a tunnel sequence.

The game will often spawn enemy when you reach certain threshold so unless you're doing a mission with a score goal it's not really worth full clearing.

 

[Dalisclock]

Yeah sadly there's not that much you can do with jet plane for diversity, although that's partly because you're replaying them so close together, there was 15 year between 5 and 7. There's also some intentional element to this, almost all the game finish with a tunnel sequence.

The game will often spawn enemy when you reach certain threshold so unless you're doing a mission with a score goal it's not really worth full clearing.

Yeah, I do kind of lose track of when these games were released. I'm also aware there's a bunch of these games but only a couple of them are considered really good(4,5 and 0 are the ones I hear most often, with 3 being good in Japan) and the rest are generally take them or leave them.

Even though I rag on them, I do enjoy them or else I wouldn't be putting the time into going through them. They're almost as fun to make fun of as they are to play(Oh, man, some of the dialoguewhen the yukes are framing you in Blind Spot is fucking hilarious and I'm not sure the writers realized it.)

Also, one other gripe. As much as the being able to respond to your wingmen is cool, man they get fucking obnoxious with asking you questions in the middle of dogfights and combat situations and then get pissy if you don't respond. Even worse if I'm about to change the flight orders and they go "Hey, Cap, I got something stupid to ask you right now...." SHUT UP CHOPPER! I"VE GOT 3 PLANES TRYING TO RAM MISSILES UP MY TAILPIPE. IT CAN WAIT, OKAY!

 

[happyninja42]

Been playing FO 4 again. Got to the mid 20s a few weeks ago, and got distracted by other things. Started playing again the other day, and forgot how much fun I have playing that game. Especially with Survival Mode activated. Just makes the world feel way more engaging and personal, when you have to walk everywhere. And factor in things like supplies, travel time versus any timed missions you might have, weather, etc.

 

[laggyteabag]

Still on Assassin's Creed 2, and I just need to moan about something.

This game still looks fine - graphically. Texture quality is decent, and it scales to 4K really nicely. Model quality is pretty basic, but some of the character designs look great. Cities and landmarks are recreated wonderfully, even for a game that is coming up to be 12 years old. Even the animations are nice, especially a lot of the facial animations, which must have been key-framed.

But one thing lets this game down, and a lot of other games from this period: the colours.

This game features some of the most washed-out colours that I have seen in a game... pretty much ever. In some scenes, the game may as well be in black and white, aside from the palest yellow from some lamps, or the faintest green of some bushes. It just really lets down all of the other great work that has gone into this game.

I don't normally even think about applying some kind of ReShade filter to a game, but I have really thought about it for AC2, because beautiful environments are routinely let down by poor colours.

What is it with games from this period, and dodgy colour filters? Were colours not considered manly enough or something, for these gritty games for men. Were their focus testers like "Sorry Ubisoft, im far too grown-up and cool, for the colour blue"?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've been playing Age of Empires 2 again.
I always play Franks (farm perks) and go 1 v 1 on normal or moderate difficulty, coastal settings. And every match more of less plays out the same way, which makes the experience somewhere between comforting and tedious. Build a watchtower and some infantry, stifle a puny Feudal Age attack, develop cavalry, build a castle at the halfway point and then start the siege (enemy always walls itself in). The game is basically over at this point but I enjoy squishing panicky villagers too much.

 

[Dalisclock]

What is it with games from this period, and dodgy colour filters? Were colours not considered manly enough or something, for these gritty games for men. Were their focus testers like "Sorry Ubisoft, im far too grown-up and cool, for the colour blue"?

Somebody somewhere decided that REAL IS BROWN and WASHED OUT=REALISM! and everyone else went along with it because....I guess everyone was bored? The Illuminati wanted us all to get used to brown because it made people 12% more likely to buy lucky charms? People were stupid back then? I don't know.

TVtropes says it's due to technical limitations, partially because its easier to hide lighting problems if everything is muddled.

 

[BrawlMan]

Somebody somewhere decided that REAL IS BROWN and WASHED OUT=REALISM! and everyone else went along with it because....I guess everyone was bored? The Illuminati wanted us all to get used to brown because it made people 12% more likely to buy lucky charms? People were stupid back then? I don't know.

TVtropes says it's due to technical limitations, partially because its easier to hide lighting problems if everything is muddled.

it's exactly why I don't bother with a lot of seventh-gen games that use the real is brown color filter. A lot of them are too ugly to go back to. as much as I love Bayonetta 1, even though it has color, it has the washed out look too. It's really noticeable when you go from the first game to the second game. if I ever brought up a list of my favorite games from gen 7, you would notice that most of these games are either small titles or have color of some kind that's just not dogshit brown or gunmetal gray.

 

[Dalisclock]

it's exactly why I don't bother with a lot of seventh-gen games that use the real uss brown color filter. A lot of them are too ugly to go back to. as much as I love Bayonetta 1, even though it has color, it has the washed out look too. It's really noticeable when you go from the first game to the second game. if I ever brought up a list of my favorite games from gen 7, you would notice that most of these games are either small titles or have color of some kind that's just not dogshit brown or gunmetal gray.

Yeah. There are a number of PS3 games I rather like, I occasionally have to wonder why quite a few PS3 games have this weird Greenish/Brownish/Yellowish Tint on like everything and I imagine it has something to do with this. Not that the PS2 doesn't have similar issues in some games but the PS3 seems to hit this problem harder. I was reminded of this when watching a youtube video discussing MGS4 and the first thing that always jumps out at me is the yellowish tint the game has. Yeah, the game starts in a desert in generic-middle-eastern-country-land but it doesn't exactly go away when the game moves on from there.

 

[Dreiko]

Still playing Ys VIII. I dunno what it is about the setting of the game but it feels extremely fresh and original, the feeling of adventure it encapsulates in allowing you to explore the cursed uninhabited island which feels like the Lost World, replete with dinosaurs and giant spiders and all sorts of unique beasts is just unmatched. Also the gameplay is really tight.

They do this parry system which is extremely flexible. It's kinda like in Sekiro but a big difference is that there's no parry startup animation, and the parry input is the same input you hold down to change your normal buttons into your skill shortcuts, so this means you can parry during any action and if you don't parry right you can still attack or dodge roll since your char will just blink with blue right in the middle of whatever animation they were doing and keep doing that other animation like nothing happened. Also you can't parry repeatedly, each attempt seals parrying for like 2-3 seconds, so you can't button mash parry and hope to time it right. The actual active frames of parrying are shorter than in Sekiro but the sheer flexibility makes it an incredibly strong action. You can parry and roll and parry again out of the roll, also you can air-roll and air-parry too, and you can cancel skills into rolls or parry during attack animations. Just insane amount of freedom. Also there's no blocking at all, so the game promotes a high pace action playstyle.

 

[happyninja42]

it's exactly why I don't bother with a lot of seventh-gen games that use the real uss brown color filter. A lot of them are too ugly to go back to. as much as I love Bayonetta 1, even though it has color, it has the washed out look too. It's really noticeable when you go from the first game to the second game. if I ever brought up a list of my favorite games from gen 7, you would notice that most of these games are either small titles or have color of some kind that's just not dogshit brown or gunmetal gray.

I do wonder, given how prolific it was, if it wasn't an artifact of the gaming engines of the time. Like, some elements just didn't look "right" if they had too vibrant of a color scheme. While I'm not an expert on game development, and I'm sure a lot of it is just copy the lead dog, I know devs will take shortcuts and "cheat" with stuff in engines, to try and work around problems. So I wonder if, killing the color palette somehow helped to resolve some visual, graphical bugs, and they just ran with it at the time.

 

[BrawlMan]

I do wonder, given how prolific it was, if it wasn't an artifact of the gaming engines of the time. Like, some elements just didn't look "right" if they had too vibrant of a color scheme. While I'm not an expert on game development, and I'm sure a lot of it is just copy the lead dog, I know devs will take shortcuts and "cheat" with stuff in engines, to try and work around problems. So I wonder if, killing the color palette somehow helped to resolve some visual, graphical bugs, and they just ran with it at the time.

While technical limitations might have been part of the issue, by 2009 or 2010, that excuse wore out its welcome for me. I'm not saying either you or @Dalisclock our excusing it. Especially when a lot more colorful games started coming out after 2009 that were on HD consoles and AAA games. It was mostly different publishers and developers just playing follow the leader.

 

[happyninja42]

While technical limitations might have been part of the issue, by 2009 or 2010, that excuse wore out is welcome for me. I'm not saying either you or @Dalisclock our excusing it. Especially when a lot more colorful games started coming out after 2009 that were on HD consoles and AAA games. It was mostly different publishers and developers just playing follow the leader.

Oh I agree it was definitely an annoying trend. Lucky for me, most of the games impacted by it, weren't ones that I played much back then. But yeah, my comment about it being a work around, was mostly just speculation. It's far more likely it was just a case of copy the best sellers model. But, given how often the same game engines are used, like, say the Unreal engine, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some common issue back then, that was resolved with some washing out of colors to hide flaws.

 

[BrawlMan]

Oh I agree it was definitely an annoying trend. Lucky for me, most of the games impacted by it, weren't ones that I played much back then. But yeah, my comment about it being a work around, was mostly just speculation. It's far more likely it was just a case of copy the best sellers model. But, given how often the same game engines are used, like, say the Unreal engine, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some common issue back then, that was resolved with some washing out of colors to hide flaws.

The best looking (or at the very least decent looking) and colorful games that ran on the Unreal 3 Engine are:

• Asura's Wrath - The Best looking in my opinion.
• Gulity Gear Xrd
• Lollipop Chainsaw
• Killer Is Dead
• Shadows of the Damned
• Bulletstorm

 

[Dreiko]

The best looking (or at the very least decent looking) and colorful games that ran on the Unreal 3 Engine are:

• Asura's Wrath - The Best looking in my opinion.
• Lollipop Chainsaw
• Killer Is Dead
• Shadows of the Damned
• Bulletstorm

Guilty Gear Xrd also runs on unreal 3 and that game was both spectacular and colorful as hell. The engine is not the issue, the way it is used is.

 

[Worgen]

Started playing War Thunder again, ships are so much more fun then those damn tanks are... I mean the tanks are cool, but holy shit if you don't hit the right spot on an enemy tank they will just take hit after hit and it seems like your opponents always get penetrating hits that kill your whole crew or hit ammo or fuel or something.

Also still playing Ori and the Will of the Wisp, its so pretty and plays better then the original.

Picked up Hades again too, still haven't beaten a run but can regularly get the boss to

Spoiler

his second form.

Finally, I also grabbed Cyber Shadow, its hard but also not that hard so far. Great bit tunes and quite fun. Story is both weird and very... classic, so far.

 

[Trunkage]

BattleTech
Well.... I like Mechwarior. Even got an xbox just to play MechAssualt. This was a pretty good MechWarrior game... that I almost didn’t finish. Everything just felt a bit samey over so many missions. It was usually better with a crafted mission rather than procedurally generated. But it was way more of the latter than the former. I don’t remember feeling this way about previous MechWarriors... I’m also 20 years older and probably don’t have the gaming patience anymore.

Goddam this is a whole bunch of melodrama. I don’t remember the old ones being this bombastic. Adam Jensen tries to act his nuts off but the whole situation is so stupendous. It also doesn’t feel like your part of the army when it pretty much jut you doing aall the heavy lifting... and it has the Mass Effect/Xcom problem. Only letting you control 4 mechs at one time while you could have a whole fleet still at base. It just doesn’t make sense.

I enjoyed this game despite all these gripes. I just soured one it because it went for 10 hours too long. 8/10

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The best looking (or at the very least decent looking) and colorful games that ran on the Unreal 3 Engine are:

• Asura's Wrath - The Best looking in my opinion.
• Lollipop Chainsaw
• Killer Is Dead
• Shadows of the Damned
• Bulletstorm

Hates "real is brown" filter. Loves Bulletstorm.






Ok bro.

 

[BrawlMan]

Hates "real is brown" filter. Loves Bulletstorm.

That's mostly the early levels, and the game mainly uses orange and blue contrast. The game is awesome and is still better looking than Gears of War, Inversion, Dead To Rights Reboot, dark Sector, and Wanted: Weapons of Fate. It's Wild 9 combined with Mad World, and the best Duke Nukem game ever made. The game falls under good looking, which is why I have the parenthesis for a reason. Not the best, but still good looking. I give 0 fucks about your opinion and "OK, bro" attitude.