I played the demo for this and it was just extraordinarily "meh". It felt like they got it to a playable alpha state, with all the basic mechanics ironed out, then released it.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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Also note, if you plan on doing the expansion later on, it’ll be easier on the first game cycle regardless of whatever level you’re at. The only requirements for access are beating Radahn and Mohg (the main one).
Curious what you thought of Rykard too, if you’ve fought him yet, but maybe I missed a post.
No plans on doing the DLC yet but I'll keep that in mind. I'd definitely play it before replaying the whole thing again.
Nothing much to say about Rykard, I left Mt Gelmir early because I didn't want to run the risk of breaking up the assassination questlines and by the time I came back I may have been a bit overleveled for the fight since it was two tries and done, no summons. There was a lot going on in the screen for sure though. Sweet boss intro/design though.
Spent a rainy day playing Mixtape.
I don't really have much to add to the surprisingly vast amount of attention this short little interactive narrative has gotten other than to confirm that you'll know from a trailer or article right away if it's for you or not. It's great, charming, cool, brief, and simple.
Its most brilliant move is the title- it blocks critics from complisulting by crediting the licensed soundtrack for carrying the experience. The music is the point.
Gameplay is walking around and pressing X, watching cutscenes, and occasionally steering the skateboard / shopping cart / drunk guy. These are the same devs what made The Artful Escape and their thing is, I guess, interactive music videos, which is cool.
I don't really have much to add to the surprisingly vast amount of attention this short little interactive narrative has gotten other than to confirm that you'll know from a trailer or article right away if it's for you or not. It's great, charming, cool, brief, and simple.
Its most brilliant move is the title- it blocks critics from complisulting by crediting the licensed soundtrack for carrying the experience. The music is the point.
Gameplay is walking around and pressing X, watching cutscenes, and occasionally steering the skateboard / shopping cart / drunk guy. These are the same devs what made The Artful Escape and their thing is, I guess, interactive music videos, which is cool.
Halo Infinite (at least in its campaign) bins all of the Spartan abilities from Halo 5 (Spartan Charge, Ground Pound) etc, and beneficial ADS. In exchange, you gain permanent access to a bunch of equipment (namely the grapple hook), which is an incredible amount of fun, and is the first thing that has ever been added to the Halo sandbox where I will be genuinely disappointed if it doesn't return.
Unfortunately for Halo Infinite, at least from the perspective of the campaign, whilst the actual sandbox is a series high, it is built around the most lackluster campaign in the franchise. Its got a boring open world, combined with incredibly boring missions; other than boss fights, there are zero memorable encounters, and zero setpieces to gawp at, which results in zero memorable missions - not to mention that they all use one of three dfferent biomes. Plus it is easily at least twice as long as the other games, assuming you aren't just beelining from one campaign mission to the next.
Its the only Halo game I haven't replayed, and I love Halo. (but I will replay it eventually)
I rolled credits on it yesterday, but that was after a little cheating to just speed things up.
I think the thing that really dragged down the whole experiece, was simply that there was no evolution to the way the game played from the second you start, to the second you finish. The whole game is based on you, running around, manually gathering rocks from the ground. Automation options are few and far between, and generally quite slow as to not be depended on.
Even when new biomes appeared, or the planet evolved in a meaningful way, there were no changes consequences to how you played. A new river? Well your car can still just drive through it, and you still have to manage your oxygen anyway. There are now animals? No predators to avoid, everything is docile. Trees? Completely uninteractable, you cant climb them, and there is nothing to collect from them.
It is genuinely impressive watching this barren wasteland evolve into something green, and actually quite pretty, but that change is very slow, and entirely cosmetic.
Personally, I think I would be better served by something like Subnautica or Satisfactory, but if a low stakes crafting game is what someone is looking for, then I could probably recommend it in that scenario.
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Subnautica has two difficulty settings lower than the default that make life significantly easier, and Satisfactory already has pretty low stakes compared to Factorio. While I have seen several positive reviews of Planet Crafter-in-progress, I reckon both of those games you mentioned out of the box would also fit the bill of 'low-stakes crafting game', at least for Subnautica if you pick a difficulty without hunger and thirst.
Played through the campaign for Psycard, a reinterpretation of Minesweeper as a competitive card game.
It was fine. Though it took a while for me to realize that the skulls in the corners indicated how many instant-loss-cards there were in the deck; before that I was frustrated that it mostly felt like a guessing game.
It was fine. Though it took a while for me to realize that the skulls in the corners indicated how many instant-loss-cards there were in the deck; before that I was frustrated that it mostly felt like a guessing game.
Im currently playing FEAR 2, which has been sat on my backlog for quite some time.
I recall playing FEAR 1 a few years ago, probably around COVID. Quite controversially, I did not like that game very much. Namely, I was quite tired out by the fact that seemingly the whole game takes place in offices/generic industrial environments. The combat was enjoyable (slow mo + a spear gun? Yes please!) but I was so bored by the level design by the end, that I just resented playing it after a while.
I hear FEAR 2 isn't as good, so we'll see how that ends up. I do think there is supposed to be a level in a school though? So at least I know Im not going to be stuck in an office for much longer (the game opens in an office, oh my god).
First impressions: these enemies, or at least their placement in the levels, makes them seem kind of dumb/easy to kill. They do that classic 7th Gen console thing where instead of trying to hold literally and kind of high ground or cover, they inexplicably choose to vault bascially anything they can to get into my line of sight as much as possible, which locks them into the vaulting animation, and thus makes them easy to kill. Not that they aren't particularly difficult to kill in the first place, so when three of them spawn out of a door in a row, one burst from my gun tends to kill them off quite efficiently.
These guns all sound awful, though.
Secondly, these jump scares are kind of whatever. Maybe its because im so desensitised by Dead Space, but BOO ITS A SCARY LADY just doesn't really do it for me anymore. Especially not when Im packing 500 bullets. Double especially when the extent of her gameplay involvement is to just stand there menacingly.
On a random note, the marine lady I'm with is voiced by Jen Taylor (Cortana), which imediately caught me off guard because she doesn't really do much outside of Halo. IIRC, one of the marines in the first game is voice by David Scully (Sgt Johnson). So thats two-for-two in highjacking Halo's voice actors. Here's hoping FEAR 3 randomly has Steve Downes in it, or something.
Second note, this is a legitimate line of dialogue: "You're like free pizza at an anime convention. She can smell you. She wants to consume you"
10/10
I recall playing FEAR 1 a few years ago, probably around COVID. Quite controversially, I did not like that game very much. Namely, I was quite tired out by the fact that seemingly the whole game takes place in offices/generic industrial environments. The combat was enjoyable (slow mo + a spear gun? Yes please!) but I was so bored by the level design by the end, that I just resented playing it after a while.
I hear FEAR 2 isn't as good, so we'll see how that ends up. I do think there is supposed to be a level in a school though? So at least I know Im not going to be stuck in an office for much longer (the game opens in an office, oh my god).
First impressions: these enemies, or at least their placement in the levels, makes them seem kind of dumb/easy to kill. They do that classic 7th Gen console thing where instead of trying to hold literally and kind of high ground or cover, they inexplicably choose to vault bascially anything they can to get into my line of sight as much as possible, which locks them into the vaulting animation, and thus makes them easy to kill. Not that they aren't particularly difficult to kill in the first place, so when three of them spawn out of a door in a row, one burst from my gun tends to kill them off quite efficiently.
These guns all sound awful, though.
Secondly, these jump scares are kind of whatever. Maybe its because im so desensitised by Dead Space, but BOO ITS A SCARY LADY just doesn't really do it for me anymore. Especially not when Im packing 500 bullets. Double especially when the extent of her gameplay involvement is to just stand there menacingly.
On a random note, the marine lady I'm with is voiced by Jen Taylor (Cortana), which imediately caught me off guard because she doesn't really do much outside of Halo. IIRC, one of the marines in the first game is voice by David Scully (Sgt Johnson). So thats two-for-two in highjacking Halo's voice actors. Here's hoping FEAR 3 randomly has Steve Downes in it, or something.
Second note, this is a legitimate line of dialogue: "You're like free pizza at an anime convention. She can smell you. She wants to consume you"
10/10
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Played some of Mixtape a.k.a. Richard Linklater the Videogame.
This is something that could've easily fallen into the Don't Nod pit of cringe (and heck, maybe for some people it still might), but it presents its New England teen rebelion shtick with enough self awareness to actually make it charming. For example, the main character talks like she's in a Bill 'n Ted movie, and they have that genuine dumb teen way of acting like they're the coolest and the smartest.
This is something that could've easily fallen into the Don't Nod pit of cringe (and heck, maybe for some people it still might), but it presents its New England teen rebelion shtick with enough self awareness to actually make it charming. For example, the main character talks like she's in a Bill 'n Ted movie, and they have that genuine dumb teen way of acting like they're the coolest and the smartest.
FEAR 2 is a much worse game. What's the third game own being marginally better in some areas, and terrible in others.
After some preparation, I went through Margit in one go. And then Godrick in about eight. Also the Tree Sentinel, because I got tired of hearing the clip-clop of his horse every time I went to the anvil in the church. Statting up to use Bloodhound's Fang was a bit of a pain, but definitely proved worthwhile.
...yeah, FEAR 2 wasn't all that good, but it did have its moments.
...yeah, FEAR 2 wasn't all that good, but it did have its moments.
I ebay-fu'd a Switch 2 a few weeks ago, just in time before any price hikes.
Well it seems to have come with the latest Mario Kart? It's a re-furbished/open box item so *shrug.* But I guess that is/was some retail package bundle or something. I dunno, something that looks like that is downloading, haha.
I have no give-a-shits about Mario Kart, I only played a bit with people here and there at house parties, would lose horribly, then stop caring and go drink. But now that I have the darn thing I guess I'll check it out!
Will be curious to see what happens without the subscription service- no way in hell I'm ever paying for another subscription to play games online. So we'll see if there's a single player mode. Ideally, this would be my nothing-else-to-play and/or something-to-do-while-listening-to-podcast game.
The other Switch game I'm considering is Super Mario Wonder. I could go for a classic colorful platformer and I doubt anyone does it better than Nintendo, even after all this time.
Well it seems to have come with the latest Mario Kart? It's a re-furbished/open box item so *shrug.* But I guess that is/was some retail package bundle or something. I dunno, something that looks like that is downloading, haha.
I have no give-a-shits about Mario Kart, I only played a bit with people here and there at house parties, would lose horribly, then stop caring and go drink. But now that I have the darn thing I guess I'll check it out!
Will be curious to see what happens without the subscription service- no way in hell I'm ever paying for another subscription to play games online. So we'll see if there's a single player mode. Ideally, this would be my nothing-else-to-play and/or something-to-do-while-listening-to-podcast game.
The other Switch game I'm considering is Super Mario Wonder. I could go for a classic colorful platformer and I doubt anyone does it better than Nintendo, even after all this time.
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Still playing Shadowman remaster, getting close to the end, its much larger then I remember, like I think I beat it back in the day, but only through renting it. Gameplay really holds up with the quality of life improvements that Nightdive added, story is interesting too, but feeling like I have to run around levels looking for collectables is annoying, but that's more the style of the game kinda thing then a real problem, plus one of the quality of life improvements is that the game tells you what area has something to do or to collect and if you can currently do or collect them.
If you beat Tree Sentinel this early on, especially not really playing this type of game much, then you’re doing pretty damn good.After some preparation, I went through Margit in one go. And then Godrick in about eight. Also the Tree Sentinel, because I got tired of hearing the clip-clop of his horse every time I went to the anvil in the church. Statting up to use Bloodhound's Fang was a bit of a pain, but definitely proved worthwhile.
...yeah, FEAR 2 wasn't all that good, but it did have its moments.
Also with FEAR 2 I only played a demo way back when it released, but can say at least the setting was an improvement over the original.
I'm finding that it's not too difficult to read the attacks of many enemies. Margit was giving me fits because he'd either delay his swings to try to catch me out, or pull out that dagger faster than I could react.
I'll give Tree Sentinel some credit; he dismounted me when he was at 40%, and I had emptied my flask and was at about 20% health while he had me pinned against the wall of the church, but I managed to get free and get the last couple of hits that I needed.
I've been playing Elden Ring for 103 hours and only just learned, entirely by accident, that you can kill skeleton enemies by smacking their bones as they reform.
I thought it would be like a Dark Souls thing and you'd only be able to kill them for good with a holy weapon (which I never bothered to try out) so I spent the whole game just running past them.
The more you know.
(I'm going around the world looking for unexplored tombs and catacombs cause I can't even with the final boss right now)
I thought it would be like a Dark Souls thing and you'd only be able to kill them for good with a holy weapon (which I never bothered to try out) so I spent the whole game just running past them.
The more you know.
(I'm going around the world looking for unexplored tombs and catacombs cause I can't even with the final boss right now)
I feel like you could do that in the Dark Souls trilogy as well, though it's been years since the last time I played them, so I may be misremembering.
Google says it's either kill them with a Divine weapon or kill whatever necromancer keeps resurrecting them from a million postcodes away.
Been a bit since I posted here.
Currently playing Once Upon A Katamari. I love Katamari Damacy. I put it in my 25 favorite games of all time for a reason. It is imo one of the quintessential examples of the quirky Japanese gameplay experiment. And above all, it is just so uplifting and joyful, helped massively by its wonderfully eclectic soundtrack. If rolling stuff up to the tune of Katamari on the Rocks or Lonely Rolling Star doesn't produce even the slightest grin on your face, I genuinely question your humanity.
But, I fully acknowledge its limitations, those being that that first game already got basically everything out of its central mechanic that there is, none of the sequels meaningfully evolved it. And neither does Once Upon A Katamari. It introduces power-ups which add a little extra strategy in optimally timing them for maximum effect, and a couple extra things to collect during stages, but the time travel theme is only a backdrop. It is more Katamari. And only that. Which I don't begrudge it, I'm always down for more Katamari, but it doesn't have the same impact. It can't. And that's a little sad.
I've also started playing The Saboteur, a 6/10-ass PS360 title that in recent years has gotten a bit of a reevaluation as a hidden gem. And it was only two bucks on Steam. Being a shitty 00s pc port, it took some doing to get running properly, but some config file edits later I was driving through black & white Paris and punching Nazis. Well, actually no, the first thing that greeted me when starting a new game were a pair of tits with pasties, promptly reminding me what era this game was from. The Nazi killing came after. There's also climbing buildings Asscreed style, and blowing shit up, and car racing. Feels a sort of slightly janky hodgepodge of disparate popular trends of the time, tho haven't yet finished the prologue, so won't pass judgment on whether or not it all congeals or not.
Currently playing Once Upon A Katamari. I love Katamari Damacy. I put it in my 25 favorite games of all time for a reason. It is imo one of the quintessential examples of the quirky Japanese gameplay experiment. And above all, it is just so uplifting and joyful, helped massively by its wonderfully eclectic soundtrack. If rolling stuff up to the tune of Katamari on the Rocks or Lonely Rolling Star doesn't produce even the slightest grin on your face, I genuinely question your humanity.
But, I fully acknowledge its limitations, those being that that first game already got basically everything out of its central mechanic that there is, none of the sequels meaningfully evolved it. And neither does Once Upon A Katamari. It introduces power-ups which add a little extra strategy in optimally timing them for maximum effect, and a couple extra things to collect during stages, but the time travel theme is only a backdrop. It is more Katamari. And only that. Which I don't begrudge it, I'm always down for more Katamari, but it doesn't have the same impact. It can't. And that's a little sad.
I've also started playing The Saboteur, a 6/10-ass PS360 title that in recent years has gotten a bit of a reevaluation as a hidden gem. And it was only two bucks on Steam. Being a shitty 00s pc port, it took some doing to get running properly, but some config file edits later I was driving through black & white Paris and punching Nazis. Well, actually no, the first thing that greeted me when starting a new game were a pair of tits with pasties, promptly reminding me what era this game was from. The Nazi killing came after. There's also climbing buildings Asscreed style, and blowing shit up, and car racing. Feels a sort of slightly janky hodgepodge of disparate popular trends of the time, tho haven't yet finished the prologue, so won't pass judgment on whether or not it all congeals or not.
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Dabbling with my sort-of-free copy of Mario Kart World simply Confirmed that racing games are boring when playing alone.
Ok so I guess I dunnow what to play next. I think I'll finally check out that mod called Brothers in Arms for the Witcher 3, which restores a bunch of cut content to the game, which of course means yet another playthrough. It'll be a long slow one, a couple of quests every few days, while playing other things as they come across my interest.
Ok so I guess I dunnow what to play next. I think I'll finally check out that mod called Brothers in Arms for the Witcher 3, which restores a bunch of cut content to the game, which of course means yet another playthrough. It'll be a long slow one, a couple of quests every few days, while playing other things as they come across my interest.