What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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- Nov 27, 2009
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I have no idea why, but I've been buying lots of old cult PS2 games, but of everything what I'm actually playing is Midnight Club 3, which is weird because it's not a bad game but it's just a racing game that I don't really like the soundtrack of, but IDK, maybe it's because my brain is mush since I'm pretty overworked lately and a racing game doesn't really ask that much of me, specially not one as easy as this one (At least it's really easy up to where I am), but you know I went out of my way to get Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 3 & Clock Tower 3, so it seems weird that of all 26 PS2 & PS1 games I've acquired the only one I'm playing is a racing game that the guy that sells the second hand games threw in for free because I mentioned I kinda wanted a racing game because, well I've bought over 20 games from him.
As for the game, I mean it's a pretty decent arcade street racing game with pretty good car customization for a PS2 game, it controls fine and it does the job, like all of the street racers from the era, once you modify your cars a bit it's like stupidly easy and it's a pretty decent time killer, I mean I'm pretty sure that if I wasn't playing it like a completionist my progression wouldn't be as high and the game would be a bit more challenging and as such more fun, but IDK, it's something I can pop in for an hour or two after work and before going to sleep and make enough progress, once I have more free time I'll give all those other games a chance, though I'll admit some of them I actually didn't like at all and probably won't be playing like Star Ocean or Kingdom Hearts, those games aren't my jam like at all.
As for the game, I mean it's a pretty decent arcade street racing game with pretty good car customization for a PS2 game, it controls fine and it does the job, like all of the street racers from the era, once you modify your cars a bit it's like stupidly easy and it's a pretty decent time killer, I mean I'm pretty sure that if I wasn't playing it like a completionist my progression wouldn't be as high and the game would be a bit more challenging and as such more fun, but IDK, it's something I can pop in for an hour or two after work and before going to sleep and make enough progress, once I have more free time I'll give all those other games a chance, though I'll admit some of them I actually didn't like at all and probably won't be playing like Star Ocean or Kingdom Hearts, those games aren't my jam like at all.
Destiny 2. As someone who initially liked Destiny 1, but eventually succumbed to its mindlessly repetitive gameplay loop and lack of any narrative depth, I was surprised to find myself downloading Destiny 2 this weekend. It’s free with my Xbox GamePass, so I figured, what the hell; haven’t played an FPS in years and supposedly they improved this time around. I was further surprised to find it started off exactly like Destiny 1, a shameless point-for-point rehash of D1’s opening sequence. I initially thought maybe it was a tongue-in-cheek nod to its predecessor, y’know, owning the failings of yesteryear before showcasing the stark differences and improvements, but so far… no. Granted, I only played for about 10 minutes, so I’m going to continue giving it a shot, but if a couple hours in I don’t feel it to be little more than “more of D1,” I’m deleting it.
What Dalisclock said, and also don’t waste money buying guns or items because if you’re exploring and looting you’ll find pretty much everything you’ll need. You get perks from Legendary animals (a mission early in Chapter 2 with Hosea will introduce you to hunting them), but you’ll need to play a slightly later mission to be introduced to the fencer that can craft items from them. Also, the game doesn’t really explain much of anything in its world, but be encouraged to take advantage of it a bit. For example, you’ll see a bounty hunting mission soon where you will ultimately be free to commandeer the target’s horse. It’s worth keeping as it’s one of the better all around horses in the game, and basically handed to you. Using your horse will grow its bond which in turn increases its stats and eventually special maneuvers.
Which leads me to another big point: if you care about convenience you might want to turn off auto-save and just get into the habit of saving regularly after doing anything special, or before hairy looking situations. It sounds counterintuitive, but the game auto saves after anything significant; like say, your horse dying. So unless you wish to just wing it with everything and throw caution to the wind, you might prefer being in control of your destiny more. Legendary animal pelts are automatically sent to the trapper if you die though, and crafting items gained from them stay in inventory AFAIK.
Don’t waste time selling anything yet, and instead aim for donating any duplicates of looted valuables to camp funds, as camp upgrades are more beneficial than your own. The fence (when available) should be the first person you see after a Legendary kill whenever you want to invest in yourself, as he gives to highest return in both cash and buffs via crafting. The trapper would be second, as completing challenges yields gear upgrades, and fancier duds if it suits you.
Also don’t worry about the honor system too much. You have to really be dedicated to break bad so to speak, as the game heavily accommodates remedying negative honor and a bounty status if desired. It’s designed to be more difficult with a bounty, but it shouldn’t ever be an issue paying off minor scrapes with the law, or sleeping it off in jail (only surrender if you’re low on cash though because they’ll take it). The latter might also lead to some interesting random occurrences if you have good standing in the gang.
The crafting system is unfortunately one of the more tedious aspects, but can be used sparingly. It’s worth picking herbs like thyme, mint and oregano, as combining them with say, the meat from a good/perfect elk or gator every now and then will net you all you’ll need for keeping your cores in prime shape. Just study animals to learn what weapon works best and use deadeye to target vitals for clean kills.
Having said that, most important tip would be to...take your time and not even worry about the above, as it’ll all happen in due time. It’s designed to be a slow burn and relishes in minutiae, as you probably gathered from the prologue, so if you play it like a checklist where the goal is simply beating another game, you’ll just end up frustrated and disappointed. The main story won’t pester you if you want to go off exploring for a few days. Just save the yellow icons for last, because they advance the main narrative. Also don’t feel like you have to talk to everyone all the time, as the game will subtly nudge you towards incidental interactions that might be interesting at any given point, like when you’re overhearing something. Feel free to greet (or antagonize) as you wish though.
There’s no shortage of other general quality of life tips online, but this one in particular might be specifically interesting -
Red Dead Redemption 2: Hidden Controls and Tricks - RockstarINTEL
Here is a compiled list of some hidden tricks and controls for Red Dead Redemption 2 for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. This list was compiled by a lovely Reddit user of the name u/Cloud_Motion and some other reddit users! Hats off to them. Holding start brings up the map straight away...
rockstarintel.com
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Still fiddling around with The Surge. I'm finding I enjoy it a decent amount so far. Again, it could be my personal preference for scifi vs fantasy, so my mileage for enjoyment is much better, but I also like a lot of the little things they did with the systems.
For example, the way you get equipment, is to literally rip it off your enemies, piece by piece. You want that nice new, shiny armor on that enemy in front of you, well I hope you can survive to kill him and several of his friends, and take the parts off him, because that's the only way to get it. You want the new head armor? Rip his head off. Want that nice new weapon he's wielding? Pry it from his cold dead hand....by ripping off his arm in a finishing move. The trick is, hitting them in the armored spots, is how you get those pieces...but it's also a tougher attack because...well, that part is armored. You can often find enemies that don't have a full rig, and you can attack their weak points for massive damage, and a quick win....but you won't get the armor pieces. So it's a fun bit of risk/reward, as you also have to salvage those pieces over and over to have enough scrap to upgrade the armor pieces after you make them. And the scrap is also the stuff you use to level up your character. So you have to ask if you want to go farm for resources and scrap to make new gear, or maybe instead just go for kills to wrack up the multiplier, and farm scrap for leveling. So it's a fun bit of case by case planning. It's also fun because you might have to forgo trying to take out a tough enemy with gear you want, because he's got friends, and the fight will probably kill you if you draw it out. Also, in order to try and upgrade a set you really like, you have to fight enemies with tougher gear to find the scrap types you need. For example, you can't upgrade to Mk 3 of an armor piece, without killing people wearing Mk 3 level armor to get the scrap needed. So that forces you to go fight tougher enemies, with Mk 2 gear on yourself, to try and get what you need to improve.
The "our megacorporation is TOTALLY not evil and the cause of all these problems! honest!" video feeds you run across as you explore the facility, feel a little too on the nose in my opinion. It's nothing but "CREO is the best! Here's how!" videos played on big screens, and the stuff they are discussing, is usually something that you would go "ok yeah that's nightmare fuel, and probably why this stuff is going wrong." You don't know that for certain yet, not where I am in the story, but the amount of oversaturation of the Good CREO content makes it hard to assume it's not the case. I would actually like it if they didn't do the obvious "Corporation Bad" trope, despite having it set up to clearly be that. And have it be some other kind of event that cause the calamity, and have CREO genuinely be, at least innocent of intentional maliciousness. But, given some of the audiologs you find lying about, it's pretty clear that "management" has been letting profit supersede safety and the goal.
Still, it's fun, though seriously, game, PLEASE have more than one fucking song in the OPs bays!! If I catch myself muttering "I was born! In a priiiisoooon!' one more fucking time I might cry.
For example, the way you get equipment, is to literally rip it off your enemies, piece by piece. You want that nice new, shiny armor on that enemy in front of you, well I hope you can survive to kill him and several of his friends, and take the parts off him, because that's the only way to get it. You want the new head armor? Rip his head off. Want that nice new weapon he's wielding? Pry it from his cold dead hand....by ripping off his arm in a finishing move. The trick is, hitting them in the armored spots, is how you get those pieces...but it's also a tougher attack because...well, that part is armored. You can often find enemies that don't have a full rig, and you can attack their weak points for massive damage, and a quick win....but you won't get the armor pieces. So it's a fun bit of risk/reward, as you also have to salvage those pieces over and over to have enough scrap to upgrade the armor pieces after you make them. And the scrap is also the stuff you use to level up your character. So you have to ask if you want to go farm for resources and scrap to make new gear, or maybe instead just go for kills to wrack up the multiplier, and farm scrap for leveling. So it's a fun bit of case by case planning. It's also fun because you might have to forgo trying to take out a tough enemy with gear you want, because he's got friends, and the fight will probably kill you if you draw it out. Also, in order to try and upgrade a set you really like, you have to fight enemies with tougher gear to find the scrap types you need. For example, you can't upgrade to Mk 3 of an armor piece, without killing people wearing Mk 3 level armor to get the scrap needed. So that forces you to go fight tougher enemies, with Mk 2 gear on yourself, to try and get what you need to improve.
The "our megacorporation is TOTALLY not evil and the cause of all these problems! honest!" video feeds you run across as you explore the facility, feel a little too on the nose in my opinion. It's nothing but "CREO is the best! Here's how!" videos played on big screens, and the stuff they are discussing, is usually something that you would go "ok yeah that's nightmare fuel, and probably why this stuff is going wrong." You don't know that for certain yet, not where I am in the story, but the amount of oversaturation of the Good CREO content makes it hard to assume it's not the case. I would actually like it if they didn't do the obvious "Corporation Bad" trope, despite having it set up to clearly be that. And have it be some other kind of event that cause the calamity, and have CREO genuinely be, at least innocent of intentional maliciousness. But, given some of the audiologs you find lying about, it's pretty clear that "management" has been letting profit supersede safety and the goal.
Still, it's fun, though seriously, game, PLEASE have more than one fucking song in the OPs bays!! If I catch myself muttering "I was born! In a priiiisoooon!' one more fucking time I might cry.
Oh yeah the save room song drove me absolutely banana in surge 1. It's an okay game, but it really suffer from repetition, the enemy are essentially all the same and the part cutting aspect never evolve from the start. It also suffer from very repetitive environment, you've seen one industrial plant you've seen them all. Also I hated how you level up weapon type by using them, it makes it really hard to switch weapon type later on (not that there's much reason to switch every weapon of one category behave the same).
The surge 2 fixed most of those issues (no more song in the save room).
The surge 2 fixed most of those issues (no more song in the save room).
I haven't really had a problem with weapon swapping so far. I think I've unlocked every category at this point, so it's mostly just playing with which one I enjoy the most, and possibly changing it out a bit due to enemy weaknesses. But if I'm actually trying to level up a new weapon type, it's pretty easy to just slap on the implant that improves your proficiency increase rate, and go run around farming dudes. I usually slap that on, along with some scrap boosting mods, and just do a farm run. Very quickly I find my weapon is on par with my primary one, so it's not a big issue.
The biggest hurdle I've run into so far, is not finding any source for the Mk 4 resources for upgrading my Mk 3 gear. So far, I've gone through 2 zones with the same level of gear, and I assumed in the new zone, I would start seeing Mk 4 materials, as that has been the general pattern. New zone, new level of materials/gear. But that's not the case so far. Which is fine really, I don't feel like I'm undergeared that much, it's just irksome to be harvesting so many components that I don't really have any use for anymore. I wish I could convert old level components into scrap that I could use for other stuff. Having 300+ Mk 1 tungsten for example, doesn't do me any favors at all at this point.
And yeah, the environments are samey, but again, for me, I don't mind. I find it less annoying than the same type of samey environments I see in fantasy games all the time. Like their previous title Lords of the Fallen.
Still, I am enjoying it for the most part. I like Warren WAY more than...whatever the protag's name was in Lords of the Fallen. Growly McGrowlface is usually how I think of him. I'm so sick of the indifferent, stoic protagonist. Seriously, game devs, if you go out of your way to make a character actively not give a fuck about why they are doing what they are doing....1. Then they in the fuck are they doing it?! 2. Why the fuck should *I* care about them doing it!?
Warren at least has a personality, and quirks that make him enjoyable.
Woah...so this is the big freebie for April? I’ve been waiting for it, even though the last thing I need in the backlog I’ve been slowly whittling away at this year is another open world game. I’ve heard good things though, so will definitely add it to the library.
On topic, continuing on with MGSV with some Wolfenstein: TNO for contrast. For the former I basically have clean up left in terms of capturing animals, finishing side ops and S ranks, but am over half way in each. The mission tasks might be what takes the most time, but they seem interesting enough overall and thankfully don’t all have to be done in one go.
The latter, I’m fairly early on stealthing into the prison/fortress. I generally love how this game plays, combining old school mechanics with some added modern improvements like three way leaning and shooting while sliding. The collectibles hunting is fun and stealth actually works pretty well. The alarm system is like an incentive to stealth, and then the dynamic changes completely if it’s set off, and you’re basically going between all out firefights trying to shut it down, or perhaps needing to hide if you’re low on health which creates tension.
It is an adjustment though, as I realize how unseasoned I’ve gotten with kb/m shooters. My left hand especially still feels like a spider alternating between traversal and defensive modes.
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I really enjoyed it. Most of the game mechanics are nothing new I'll admit, but it did one thing that I find very rare in a lot of games, and that's make a cast of characters that I actually like. That feel really fleshed out as actual people. To a degree you usually don't see in games. It had some interesting mechanics, like for the infected hordes, and how they would migrate between water and food, and allowed you to plan strategies on how to take them out as a result of that. Dealing with a multi-hundred horde could be really tense, but also fun, and I can't recall any games that ever tried to implement enemy groups to that size, and expect you to take them out by yourself. But you can totally do it, with strategy.
It's not perfect of course, but it was miles above most games of it's similar kin and design in my opinion. I fully consider it worth the price to buy it, though I did get it on sale. For free, it's definitely worth your money. You could do FAR worse in my opinion.
Definitely do. It's a good game and I'm enjoying it, it's just that it doesn't really do anything new I haven't already been through in a bunch of Far Cries/wilderness sandboxes. The first few hours feel very stop and start, in and out of cutscenes and tutorials, and speaking as someone who isn't especially burnt out of zombie apocalypses like 9 out of 10 people in the world right now I don't see the story moving anywhere interesting either.
That said I'm delighted it's a freebie. I came pretty close to buying it several times on sale and has been on my list for a while now.
I think the story might improve for you. I'm not burned out on zombie games, but I do think that, ok while the game doesn't really do anything NEW, I do think it presents a lot of the tropes in a more enjoyable way. The supporting cast really became the shining gem for me of the game. It does take a while to get to it yes, but eventually, for me, the various subplots of the cast, became very engaging. I absolutely fell in love with one character, but I don't think I did for the reasons that the devs intended. I like that the factor in sound into whether the zombies hear you, so doing things like killing the engine and coasting downhill is a good strategy, both for conserving fuel, and for letting you weave through zombie clusters unmolested.
It doesn't do anything really new, but I do think it does what we all expect, with more care to the overall tone and structure, than you normally get from this genre. That's just my take of course, but I just remember kind of chuckling to myself, and commenting to my wife while I was playing, that I was finding myself really enjoying the story and cast, way more than I expected to. And this happened throughout the game. It was a surprising gem in my opinion.
Finished FF3 the other day (after FF4 a week or 2 back).
The lack of save-points in dungeons is ridiculous, especially on a remake. Means the last dungeon involves beating 6 bosses, and if you die to the last one, everything has to be restarted, dungeon and all. I knew it was coming, though, so I ground out an extra 10 levels or so before heading in (at about level 58). Managed to beat the last dungeon & all 6 bosses first time with all that extra muscle.
I really enjoyed FF3 & FF4 both overall, and prefer both of 'em to FF5. The job system is nice and balanced pretty well. Team by the end was 1 Ninja, 1 Devout, 1 Knight & 1 Summoner.
Also, as with most FF games, the status black magic spells seem utterly useless, much more likely to miss and waste your turn than to actually hit. And I didn't manage to get Odin's Zantetsuken to hit even once. It's much more reliable to just hammer away with physical attacks and regular elemental-dmg summons rather than doing fancy status shit, which is a bit of a shame.
Only FF1 & FF2 to go now, then I might start aiming for some of the periphery games & sequels... probably starting with X-2. But I need a rest from FF & its random encounter nonsense for a while.
The lack of save-points in dungeons is ridiculous, especially on a remake. Means the last dungeon involves beating 6 bosses, and if you die to the last one, everything has to be restarted, dungeon and all. I knew it was coming, though, so I ground out an extra 10 levels or so before heading in (at about level 58). Managed to beat the last dungeon & all 6 bosses first time with all that extra muscle.
I really enjoyed FF3 & FF4 both overall, and prefer both of 'em to FF5. The job system is nice and balanced pretty well. Team by the end was 1 Ninja, 1 Devout, 1 Knight & 1 Summoner.
Also, as with most FF games, the status black magic spells seem utterly useless, much more likely to miss and waste your turn than to actually hit. And I didn't manage to get Odin's Zantetsuken to hit even once. It's much more reliable to just hammer away with physical attacks and regular elemental-dmg summons rather than doing fancy status shit, which is a bit of a shame.
Only FF1 & FF2 to go now, then I might start aiming for some of the periphery games & sequels... probably starting with X-2. But I need a rest from FF & its random encounter nonsense for a while.
Avengers got put on PlayStation now so I switched over to that during for my hour of gaming a night. I can see what people mean when they say it’s a pretty generic beat em up, but since my math class is reaching its conclusion and absolutely ticking me off, it’s been a nice stress relief to slam robots on the ground like the hulk did with Loki.
If you have a switch, just play Ultimate Alliance 3. That game is way more fun; especially in comparison to Avengers
I started to come in here and b**** about how the game is not "like" Destiny 1, it IS Destiny 1. The opening mission is a shameless point-for-point "remaster" of Destiny 1's opening mission. I fucked around a bit, menus are an unintuitive and convoluted mess, couldn't figure out how to level up, etc., so I said fuck it and uninstalled the game. Turns out, Bungie "re-did" the opening sequence like this on purpose in an update, and the sequel proper starts after you finish the mission and instead of goin to D1's Tower as you'd expect, you're taken to D2's hub area. I might re-install it next time I have 8 hours lying around to download it again.
Wrapping up ng+ in DS1, I think I may start DS2 after this. I finally pumped my end enough to get fast rolls while wearing a full +5 tarkus armor set and the stamina shield and a greatsword. About to start the dlc content now. That hydra fight is so much fun haha, it seems much scarier than it ends up being though. I think they just put it there to scare newbs when they first run into it.
How much END did THAT take?? Fast rolling in some of the heaviest armors and toting a greatsword, you must weigh a metric fuck-ton.
And I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but if you've not played DS2, you can really skip it and go on to DS3. DS2 gets a quite a bit wrong trying too hard to be "harder than DS1 because DIFFICULTY!" via lots of cheap deaths, gank fests and some... questionable hit boxes. It also just feels floaty and cheaply made; it looks fine, but it plays like a plastic. DS3 took what few actual improvements DS2 added to the series and recouped what makes DS1 so great. Just saying, since there's really no important narrative throughlines making it necessary to play the games in order, if a Souls marathon is what you're going for, stick to the high notes and come back to the nigh-objectively weakest installment last.
I've never played Final Fantasy 2 in detail, since the levelling system put me off pretty hard after about ten minutes. I've finished FF1 once, and while a lot of its mechanics are still kinda clunky even in the re-releases, I think it's overall pretty well-designed, and the dungeons can still give modern dungeons a run for their money. Definitely worth playing through 1 at least once if you're at all interested. PS1 version recommended, but honestly anything's cool.
Well I'm doing a full souls series replay so I can't skip it lol. I know it's not the best in the series but it's still a good game.
And I think I pumped it up to 70something to get the fast rolls. Oh right forgot to mention I also have the gold ring and havel ring on to get fast rolls, in stuff I need a specific ring for like the lava areas or what have you I still am chonky cause I take the havel ring off.