What are you currently playing?

[NerfedFalcon]

A game I never thought I would actually manage to get into has suddenly come across my path, by virtue of my parents using the TV to play it by hooking up a Windows VM on my dad's Apple laptop to the Apple TV: Riven, which he bought on GOG. He has a physical copy from 1997, but that's more trouble than it's worth now.

I tried playing it a few times, but I never managed to really figure out anything; after wandering around for about an hour, I just quit the game and never picked it up again. My parents beat it together back when it came out, but don't remember enough to spoil it, so they're going for a nostalgia trip. I've actually been joining in starting from the second evening they booted it up, and seeing the interconnected world and continuity between screens, the actual logic behind the world and the mechanisms, and having someone who can read low-res cursive to understand the journals and therefore the world-building, has been really interesting.

Haven't actually contributed much to the run, since my dad runs the mouse and my mum takes notes, and I just sit there throwing out stupid suggestions, but I'm interested to see the parts of the game I could never get to on my own.

 

[Dalisclock]

Dark Souls 3: Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.

So after some hesitation(and real life getting in the way), I threw myself at the endgame bosses, one by one. Champ Teapot ended up being a lot easier than I expected him to be(though I expected him to be awful, so I guess anything was an improvement from there). The spoopy Firelink Shrine was an interesting place to explore, though finding Black Knights and weird old handmaiden make it feel really weird and disturbing.

The princes were next and that fight was also easier then I expected. Honestly, the whole thing felt tragic, knowing their story and seeing the room Lothric apparently spent his entire life in. I don't think I can blame him for the choice he made and I kinda hate that I had to kill him.(and his brother). The fact they aren't doing shit but sitting out the end of the world, wanting to be left alone, makes it even more awkward.

From there, it was a fast forward to the end of all things in the Kiln, and man, if firelink seemed spoopy before, it felt positively abandoned and decrepit here(and weirdly, perhaps one of the last buildings to survive to the end of time intact). If any part of the game thus far has been timey-whimey, it's this place. And of course, the Soul of Cinder who lives up to his final boss status. Even bringing some fellow sunbros to the party made that fight a challenge not to be taken lightly, but I did it and got the Usurpation of Fire ending, which feels, well, lets face it, really fucking dark. I mean, none of the endings are exactly happy but yeah, this one feels particularly grim.

With nothing else to do, it's on to the Ariandel DLC which was....I mean, it's a big snowy murderthon. Saying that the whole thing felt like I walked into the wrong neighborhood would be selling it short, but there's the added bonus of the rot, the diseased looking corvians and those nasty ass pest problem in the dark basement that feels like someone watched "The Fly" a few too many times. Oh, and I took a swing at the murder nun fight before calling it quits for the night, because I feel like I've had enough for one session. So I know the game in general isn't exactly high on justification for why you do things, but the painted world feels like I'm more or less just wandering around until I trigger a way to get into Ariandel's room, which pisses off the murder nun enough to come after me(also, I swear the game likes doing the "Ashen one looks at thing, hears something, sees boss coming up behind him" opener, because this is at least the 2nd time I've seen it). And granted, she did very kindly tell me to fuck off(though she did acknowledge the ending I selected, not that it made a difference), but apparently there's no way to say "Sorry, lady, didn't mean to bother you".

 

[Dalisclock]

A game I never thought I would actually manage to get into has suddenly come across my path, by virtue of my parents using the TV to play it by hooking up a Windows VM on my dad's Apple laptop to the Apple TV: Riven, which he bought on GOG. He has a physical copy from 1997, but that's more trouble than it's worth now.

I tried playing it a few times, but I never managed to really figure out anything; after wandering around for about an hour, I just quit the game and never picked it up again. My parents beat it together back when it came out, but don't remember enough to spoil it, so they're going for a nostalgia trip. I've actually been joining in starting from the second evening they booted it up, and seeing the interconnected world and continuity between screens, the actual logic behind the world and the mechanisms, and having someone who can read low-res cursive to understand the journals and therefore the world-building, has been really interesting.

Haven't actually contributed much to the run, since my dad runs the mouse and my mum takes notes, and I just sit there throwing out stupid suggestions, but I'm interested to see the parts of the game I could never get to on my own.

I remember playing Riven way back in the day. While it wasn't my favorite game in the series, the wierd puzzle box feel to the whole thing is interesting if that's something you're enjoy. I do remember some of the puzzles were really obtuse though(as Myst games tended to be).

 

[Worgen]

How does it compare to the Ace Combat series, considering it was apparently started as an unlicensed Ace Combat game before AC7 was announced? I've played AC4 and AC7 so far and enjoyed both of them, so how does Project Wingman stack up? Or is that the wrong comparison to make?

Its totally an Ace Combat game. It's story is setup like Ace Combat Shattered Skies, which was my favorite story in the series and the gameplay is 100% Ace Combat, which I love so it works great for me since I found 7 really disappointing. The gameplay in AC7 was fine but the story was full of tropes that I just hate, to the point that I never beat it.

Every time I see someone mention this game, I think it's a dating simulator, where the objective is to help your dorky, awkward friend get laid.

hhmmm...actually that could be kind of fun, like, have it where you have to juggle between propping your friend up to the person they are into, while simultaneously trying to prevent the friend from saying stupid shit that will torpedo their chance at getting laid. You could even have stats, like skills that focus on making the love interest like your friend more, and a skill tree that focuses on reducing your friends idiotic comments that make you facepalm.

I think that would be funny as hell. Have the framework be, this friend of yours, your life long pal, with you through thick and thin! Has had your back on countless occasions! Just completely fucking DUMB when it comes to trying to attract a mate. So you make a vow to them. "We WILL get you laid this weekend!" And have 3 separate nights, with multiple locations you could try. Like do you hit up night clubs? Or do you try and find other venues that might suit your friend's personality more? Or maybe places likely to have the kind of lover they are into. They could have randomly chosen preferences on different playthroughs. "Likes red heads, dislikes sporty types, but is into theater geeks." next time around "likes blondes, is into dominant lovers, wants an older lover" etc. So you have to gauge the friend's kinks through conversations and clues, say in their room or something, and then plan accordingly.

Shit I wish I could code, I'd actually like to make that game now for lulz.

It is a rather unfortunate name, they actually name drop it as a boss you fight later in the game for some reason.

That actually sounds like it could be pretty cool.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Well the friendships have been around since..what MK 2? It's not the fact that the kills are gruesome, I mean it's not me going 'eeew! gross! guts!" though I admit I'm not a huge fan of gratuitous violence for violence sake. It's that I can't help but think, every time one of those shots come up, that "a real human, had to sit and watch hours of real people, being dismembered, in order to render this sequence. to the point that they had nervous breakdowns, and the company they work for doesn't give a shit." THAT is what bothers me more now than the actual violence itself. I am having an empathic reaction to the violence, but not for the digital person being mutilated, instead for the real human who might, right now, be having a panic attack, nightmares, be taking medication to handle mental issues, simply to bring me a slightly more "realistic" image of a dude having his head cut off and impaled on a spike. And frankly, I don't find that trade worth it.

Frankly I just came to the realization years ago, that I've grown out of the brawler genre. It's just not my jam anymore, based on my personality. Just like racing games aren't my jam, or sports games. I don't fault the genre for existing, though that whole "we've traumatized our programmers with real imagery" does make it abhorrent for me, it's just not something that I want to spend hours playing. I don't feel compelled to play just to unlock stuff, and the 2 minute story beat at the end of the Towers for each character, isn't enough motivation to replay those with each person. Since the majority of the roster are people I don't really care about, aside from like half a dozen.

Those Kronika skins for the various champions were slick as fuck though, I'll give them that. Every variant of that outfit that I saw was like "ooh, that looks sweet. Wish my character looked like that, and not a fucking undead, glowy eyed demon. oh well."

I know Friendships have been around, but are just the antithesis of the gratuitous violence is all I meant. Though, for anyone getting a job at NetherRealm Studios, they had to have known they’d be working on a game with such criteria. Out of the hundreds of people working on the game, one had developed symptoms of PTSD. Is it disturbing to have to view violent content for reference day in day out? Sure, but it goes with the territory. American cultures seems to have been designed to desensitize people to violence considering how prolific it is. The whole, shoot someone’s face off on cable = no big deal, but boobs are a no-no because it might harm the children.

IIRC, there is a mix of both human and revenant skins for each character by default, but they need to be selected from the characters menu to actually use. Story mode might be different; been so long since I played it.

 

[happyninja42]

. Is it disturbing to have to view violent content for reference day in day out? Sure, but it goes with the territory.

that's a very fucked up, unhealthy territory man. It's just a fucking video game. I dunno, maybe because I work with people every day at work, who do suffer PTSD, often from seeing actual dead bodies, and I see how much it fucks them up for LIFE, I don't find it something to just so casually dismiss for the reason of "eh, comes with the job." The violence wasn't that realistic in MK 1, and that game exploded into popularity. And frankly, if a games quality is being measured by the amount of gore in it, as one of the primary things, like "uh, the Fatalities were nowhere near as gorey as last game!" then honestly, that's a fucked up setup entirely. I'd rather not have a franchise, where the player base, is perfectly ok with the idea of psychologically scarring people, just to bring them gorey pixels. You're right, in the bit below that I quoted about the desensitization, but I think it's also eroding our concept of empathy apparently. As evidenced by the defense of "comes with the job" when the "job" is a luxury item, with no practical benefit, yet it's actually causing harm to living humans. To me, that makes it a detriment. Not in the "it's going to make kids go out and try and decapitate people" kind of way. But the apparently already very real "I'm not really going to worry that the game I'm playing, required people to be traumatized, to bring it to me in it's current state."

American cultures seems to have been designed to desensitize people to violence considering how prolific it is.

That doesn't make it a GOOD thing though.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

that's a very fucked up, unhealthy territory man. It's just a fucking video game. I dunno, maybe because I work with people every day at work, who do suffer PTSD, often from seeing actual dead bodies, and I see how much it fucks them up for LIFE, I don't find it something to just so casually dismiss for the reason of "eh, comes with the job." The violence wasn't that realistic in MK 1, and that game exploded into popularity. And frankly, if a games quality is being measured by the amount of gore in it, as one of the primary things, like "uh, the Fatalities were nowhere near as gorey as last game!" then honestly, that's a fucked up setup entirely. I'd rather not have a franchise, where the player base, is perfectly ok with the idea of psychologically scarring people, just to bring them gorey pixels. You're right, in the bit below that I quoted about the desensitization, but I think it's also eroding our concept of empathy apparently. As evidenced by the defense of "comes with the job" when the "job" is a luxury item, with no practical benefit, yet it's actually causing harm to living humans. To me, that makes it a detriment. Not in the "it's going to make kids go out and try and decapitate people" kind of way. But the apparently already very real "I'm not really going to worry that the game I'm playing, required people to be traumatized, to bring it to me in it's current state."


That doesn't make it a GOOD thing though.

Well it’s been a staple of the series from the beginning, so I doubt they’ll get rid of it any time soon. Who knows what the future holds though. It sounds like the series will be going in a new direction whenever they decide to go back to it.

The point is, less than 1% of the team seems to have such adverse effects from it. Should we ban all violent entertainment since a small amount of people might find it too psychologically troubling? I don’t see that happening either, and honestly don’t think it would be realistic or practical (or healthy, ironically) to expect it. Next would be censoring anything that’s unpleasant or offensive, which has slowly been happening with PC culture. It’s a slippery slope that winds up making people unable to deal with life in general. Because let’s face it: it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows for even the privileged.

But like you say, it’s just entertainment. Which on the other hand, shouldn’t make it that big a deal either.

 

[happyninja42]

I was going to say more on this, but I'm not going to derail this thread anymore. Let me just end on, yes, it is just entertainment, and the game itself and it's violence, isn't a big deal. The harm it is causing to actual humans is, and should be actually considered, not disregarded.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think it will be considered more going forward based on the heat they got for that one story coupled with crunch, and will be interesting to see how things change for the next game and its development. Same with Naughty Dog, which to me...regarding the gore at least, some of those deaths were more gruesomely depicted because the tone felt far more grounded in reality.

On topic, I reinstalled Hitman 2016 and found out my old saves don’t work. My completed challenges still show up, but I’m thinking because the game is live service and probably updated since August 2019 when last I played they are incompatible or something. Steam cloud saving doesn’t seem to matter.

So I got back into DOOM 2016 instead for a change of pace. Seem to be nearing the end of Kadinger Sanctum, and it’s been a tough but fair challenge on Ultra Violence. It still amazes and pleases me that this game was the result of a development hell that originally saw the series aping the CoD bandwagon not even a decade ago. Perhaps the fact its thematically relevant helped it in this case.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

How does it compare to the Ace Combat series, considering it was apparently started as an unlicensed Ace Combat game before AC7 was announced? I've played AC4 and AC7 so far and enjoyed both of them, so how does Project Wingman stack up? Or is that the wrong comparison to make?

I've also been playing Project Wingman (I had been playing a lot of the Conquest mode, but I finally went back and finished up the last few missions in the campaign yesterday). It is an amazing game in my opinion, one where I find myself leaning around in my chair as I roll the planes around. It is an apt comparison to make between them, it pretty shamelessly wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve (in a good way though), and plays a lot like AC7, with a few differences. The main ones being that your planes are a little bit more weightier in PW than AC, and the best one being that you can carry multiple special weapons on you planes. Different aircraft being able to have one to three different hardpoints, allowing you to carry either different specials or stack up to have more ammo and available shots between reloads. Another difference is that you get way more ammo (about 180, though you can carry additional ammo on some planes by having more standard missiles in place of special weapons), and the guns are pretty effective in combat. Also, as much as I like to listen to my own music while playing conquest, the game's OST is pretty fantastic too. Three people in total made this game; a writer, a composer, and one guy to do everything else, and it punches way above it's weight class, even if a little bit buggy and lacking some features (I don't believe that they were able to get any sort of workable aircraft launching systems for carriers, no animated landing gears, CIWS systems just act as AA, just little nitpicks really). Can't wait to see what they do next.

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

 

[happyninja42]

Started playing Hades for the first time today. It's pretty fun. Got spoiled really early by getting the...i think it was the cursed blade? The ability where you get +2HP on hit, but sacrifice 60% health. That was a super easy trade as you can get max health like crazy. Farthest run was with that upgrade. Got to Theseus and the Minotaur. Been just running around doing stuff now, getting upgrades and the like. Fun game, wife enjoys watching it, and the totally not homoerotic/anime banter between all the characters. which is a blast to listen to.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I caved and bought Sunless Skies.

As someone who loved Sunless Sea, I sort of knew what to expect but the execution is really good. It fixes basically all my problems with the first game in terms of pacing and repetition. Combat is much more engaging, and the writing is great as ever. Also one of the few games which embraces how genuinely fucking insufferable British people are.

It's so good that I'd recommend it even if you're not familiar with the setting. You'll have a weird experience, but that's pretty much guaranteed regardless.

Also, I came up with the tagline in space, noone can hear you steam and I'm excessively pleased with myself.

 

[meiam]

Started playing Hades for the first time today. It's pretty fun. Got spoiled really early by getting the...i think it was the cursed blade? The ability where you get +2HP on hit, but sacrifice 60% health. That was a super easy trade as you can get max health like crazy. Farthest run was with that upgrade. Got to Theseus and the Minotaur. Been just running around doing stuff now, getting upgrades and the like. Fun game, wife enjoys watching it, and the totally not homoerotic/anime banter between all the characters. which is a blast to listen to.

Cursed blade is really good, got lucky on one of my first run and got cursed blade with the ability that increase the attack speed, I could face tank anything by just attacking. Made it to last boss for first time and would have easily won if I knew the boss. I'd say the blade is the weakest weapon though, so even when you get really lucky with the upgrade it's still not quite as good as some of the other weapons, so don't feel too spoiled.

 

[happyninja42]

Cursed blade is really good, got lucky on one of my first run and got cursed blade with the ability that increase the attack speed, I could face tank anything by just attacking. Made it to last boss for first time and would have easily won if I knew the boss. I'd say the blade is the weakest weapon though, so even when you get really lucky with the upgrade it's still not quite as good as some of the other weapons, so don't feel too spoiled.

Yeah I got the cursed blade on like, attempt 4? really early. And I dunno, I mean the second time i got that blade, i got outside. didn't beat Hades because I was really doing more of a resource run, but, even without really gearing for offense, the simple fact of having health regen, was enough to get me to the surface . so for me at least, I'd say it's pretty damn powerful. other runs, where I don't have health regen as readily, I tend to die a lot easier. granted i just unlocked the starting max HP perk in the mirror, so things might change on subsequent runs. but yeah, I still always want health restoration under my control, and not random/situational healing. too unreliable for my tastes.

I did have a question though. So, I'm playing on the switch, and when you pull up your list of current boons, you can hightlight them, and then press the action button, and a little icon appears on the top left of the boon's icon. What...what the hell does that do? It doesn't say anything anywhere about if I'm disabling the ability or not, but it persists, I can toggle it. I have no clue what it's supposed to be indicating and it's bugging the shit out of me. xD

 

[meiam]

Yeah I got the cursed blade on like, attempt 4? really early. And I dunno, I mean the second time i got that blade, i got outside. didn't beat Hades because I was really doing more of a resource run, but, even without really gearing for offense, the simple fact of having health regen, was enough to get me to the surface . so for me at least, I'd say it's pretty damn powerful. other runs, where I don't have health regen as readily, I tend to die a lot easier. granted i just unlocked the starting max HP perk in the mirror, so things might change on subsequent runs. but yeah, I still always want health restoration under my control, and not random/situational healing. too unreliable for my tastes.

I did have a question though. So, I'm playing on the switch, and when you pull up your list of current boons, you can hightlight them, and then press the action button, and a little icon appears on the top left of the boon's icon. What...what the hell does that do? It doesn't say anything anywhere about if I'm disabling the ability or not, but it persists, I can toggle it. I have no clue what it's supposed to be indicating and it's bugging the shit out of me. xD

Never played on switch but my best guest would be it let you re order your boons, I don't think you can disable them and you can't remove them, so that's all I can think of. Or it might be related to the endgame screen, when you finish a run you get a scorescreen along with a few boon being highlighted, so you can share the screenshot with the boon that you consider the most useful.

 

[Chupathingy]

Finished playing the English patch of Hakaiou - King of Crusher, for the PS1. Developed by...some company, and published by "Fab Communications Co., Ltd".

The game's about an average everyday salaryman who is one day bitten by a an alien bug that infects him and tells him unleash his pent up anger and destroy everything. At which point you start playing and...destroy everything. You start as a regular dude who punches, kicks and headbutts everything to fill out a 'destruction meter' while your health meter slowly depletes whenever you're not attacking something or being attacked by an enemy. As the game progresses you evolve into larger and more powerful creatures to destroy things while travelling around the world, culminating in an "epic" final showdown against the Statue of Liberty, complete with a saucy French voice.

The controls aren't great, graphics are crap, camera is almost nonexistent, it's incredibly short (like 2 hours or so) and your character (whether human or monster) constantly looks like he's slipping on ice when moving. Overall a bad game that I certainly wouldn't recommend unless you're like me and sometimes enjoy playing weird, obscure, janky yet oddly interesting games that people and time have forgotten (sometimes for good reason). Often I play old games with bad reputations or that are simply never talked about anymore and end up enjoying them way more than I expect (like Rule of Rose or Shadow Hearts) but this sadly wasn't one of them.

 

[Dreiko]

After approximately 175 hours I finally beat Trails of Cold Steel 4 with the true ending and everything doable in a single playthrough achieved. Incredible experience and a befitting end to the saga. Easily my game of the year for 2020.

The way the ending bit brings everyone together from all 9 Trails of games into a harmonious crescendo that is heightened the more of those other games you have played is unmatched by any other gaming experience. Tying loose ends that have been there for over a decade if not more in some cases is a task that surpasses even metal gear. It's a really tall ask to cater your experience to the players who have already devoted a good 500~ hours in your franchise and have stuff only they can fully appreciate, but if you are one of those people, such an experience is uniquely incredible.

Also, as a positive surprise, I guess a lot of the fans of the trails series are seriously devoted like I am, since by the time I beat the true ending route I checked and something like 42% of people already had gotten the trophy corresponding to it, meaning that they had beat the game, and it's again a 170~ hour game (even if you don't do almost any optional content it's easily gonna take you 130~ hours, but you DO need to do everything to get the true ending, so that means a minimum 42% of the community are bona-fide completionists on top! and the number will only rise) that only came out like 2-3 months ago, so when you contrast this to the numbers of people who don't beat other, much shorter mainstream games, you start to see just how devoted this community really is.



Now I'm gonna jump on Brigandine. Classic Srpg goodness awaits.

 

[meiam]

Now I'm gonna jump on Brigandine. Classic Srpg goodness awaits.

Never could get into it, the overworld map aspect is like a really dumped down total war and the only way to play is slow grind as you just take all the territories. The review for the new one that came out aren't very favorable and it also like quite bad imo.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

A friend of mine got me to play Resident Evil 5 co-op with him; so far I've done the first two chapters and already they're pulling things out from the second half of Resident Evil 4. In the haste to escalate, they've almost totally given up on the horror and just gone for occasionally-scary action. Still, knowing that going in, and having someone to laugh about all the stupidity with, I feel like this is gonna be a good time.

Supposedly the input lag was even worse on his original Xbox, so that isn't even a game-breaker; I'm hosting, so I don't have to worry about it at all.

 

[Dreiko]

Never could get into it, the overworld map aspect is like a really dumped down total war and the only way to play is slow grind as you just take all the territories. The review for the new one that came out aren't very favorable and it also like quite bad imo.

So I played a good 7 hours and this game does the thing where you go "just one more phase" and then you look back and 4 hours have passed and you're starving but you can't put it down. Absolutely enthralling.

The overworld management stuff is just an oversized party menu where you just equip and assign team members to leaders and send parties to bases to defend or attack from, it's not really something like what you'd expect in sim games where you gotta harvest resources or create technology. You just get a mana revenue based on each land you conquer and add it all up, then pay the upkeep for every summoned monster you currently have, and use the rest to summon new monsters or save for later if you don't have any more space for them (you need leaders to use monsters, can use them by themselves, and they too have a limit of how many they can use, so you may wanna save your mana surplus until you recruit more leaders). The cool thing is that monsters are area based so even if you start out in the forest area of the Mononoke Hime style girls like I did you can eventually summon things beyond forest beasts by conquering their lands.


But yeah the main meat of the game is the feel of the world. The artwork is gorgeous and the voice acting is surprisingly solid too. Also the monster design is really epic, you can't beat going into battle with an army of dragons and golems and angels. The only bit where the game isn't that great is the 3D models for the humans, each monster is different (though their other classes are just pallete swaps with minor differences like extra horns and stuff) but there's enough different monster races to make it sufficient. The humans are all just generic base 3D models outside of the leaders of each nation, whom you don't wanna rely on too much cause you don't want em risking injury anyways.

This is an old school Srpg like final fantasy tactics or Utawarerumono. You get a bit of story, a bunch of colorful characters (I'm playing as a forest tribe of amazons who are forced to reconcile their unease with men with their need to prevent war from spreading out, the hero I'm using is a princess fighting for freedom, she's kinda hype and not all jaded like her elders so I have high hopes for her), and a lot of grid based turn based combat gameplay. Also the cool bit is that you can replay it with all of the 6 countries and see it from their perspective, so there's no outright "bad guys". (even though one country seems to be full of dark nights and devils and other monsters haha, it's kinda like the black color in magic)