What are you currently playing?

[happyninja42]

So I finished Farcry 5 yesterday, and I has thoughts. I've described my thoughts to some degree in these previous posts, so I'll just link to them, as I canna' esplain, no...there is too much. Lemme sum up. Spoilers and hot topics of religion/politics abound below. Hard to not talk about them when discussing FC 5.

What are you currently playing?

But that's also the problem. There's so much interesting stuff in norse mythology but games just tread the same ground over and over again because the average person just knows about Ragnarok, and they want that "brand recognition." well yeah, of course they are. They're not teaching a norse...

forums.escapistmagazine.com

What are you currently playing?

Actually started playing GoW NG+ the other day, after all my recent discussions about the game and Atreus in other threads. Damn I forgot how much fun it was to punch people in that game. Like yeah, ice axe, swingy swingy chop chop, throwy throwy chop chop, and blades of chaos, twirly twirly...

forums.escapistmagazine.com

Ok so, final thoughts. The game is pretty decent, but all over the fucking place. As stated before, it's tone whiplashes from serious, religious apocalypse, peppered with abuse, forced conditioning, drug addiction, mind control, murder, etc. And then, you have guys talking about going down a zipline nekked so they can feel the wind on their taint (direct line from one of them). It's really annoying.

More religious talk below, and my final final thoughts on how they present it in game.

Spoiler

The core game loop is also somewhat frustrating, in that you have zero way to avoid being captured by each of the lieutenants at the 25%/50%/75%/100% intervals of territory control. No matter what you do, even going down into a bunker so there is literally only one way to get at you, you will still be magically hit by a tranq dart, and dragged away to listen to them prattle about faith and god and humanity. It gets really old after a while, especially if you are like me, and take significant personal issue with the rhetoric of the religious wackos in the world. This movie, is the kind of thing that would end up on like the R-rated version of Pureflix, and Joseph Seed and his family would be the protagonists. I've actually heard movies with plots similar to this, from a podcast I listen to, that riffs religious movies, and highlights their idiocy and hypocrisy of morals. And whoooo boy does Joseph and his fucked up "family" have a Doctorate in hypocrisy. They forcibly abduct people, and take away their ability to make a choice, and then force them to "choose" their path of salvation. They literally hold you at gunpoint, or someone innocent at gunpoint, and then do the cliche "You made me do this, you horrible person! It's YOUR fault that I flayed this person alive! Not me!! If only you had done what I ORDERED you to CHOOSE TO DO! "

The thing that is most galling, is that this isn't at all fictional, in regards to the kind of shit various fundamentalists believe. I recall, when this game came out, people calling him Hipster Jesus, but, aside from some fashion choices, that really call back more to religious dress from the past instead of hipster, they are so far from hipster culture as to make the comparison laughable. Hipsters are traditionally, pretty liberal and modern. Joseph and his ilk are old testament, southern baptist apocalypsers through and through. The kind that howl for the end of the world, and get off on deciding THEY are the ones chosen to survive it. The hymns they play over the speakers sound no different than a lot of the real hymns they often listen to. Lots of talking about the sinners crying at the end of the world, realizing too late they are gonna burn, because they didn't kiss god's ass like we did. And he's a good and merciful god...who none the less will set in motion actions that will kill all of the planet but us. Yay god! Love him in his kindness and mercy! It's just, bleh. I hated that I had to just sit through hearing the most cliche religious prattle and talking points, without the ability to counter them by point out the painfully obvious logical fallacies they are founded on.

It also kind of derailed my sense of believability at the final sequence. You spend the entire game dismantling his infrastructure, killing his lieutenants, liberating their prisoners and slaves, destroying their mechanisms for control and destruction....and then....at the end, Joseph has, somehow, BY HIMSELF, run all over the map to the various locations where your network is, mind controlled them all, and brought them back to the church for the final test? I mean....ok what the fuck man, HOW?! They have the smoky green clouds around their heads that indicate they are under effects of the Bliss gas but, there are literally TWELVE of them, and they would be scattered around the entirety of Hope Montana. How the fuck did this one shirtless dude get to them, subdue all of them, completely mind control them, and THEN send them out to grab the 3 "friends" of mine that are the sacrificial offering? I mean prior to that, Joseph gives you a cutscene where he talks about how I've taken everything from him, yet he's still able to do this? Sorry it just felt so forced. Granted, the game does this from start to finish, but it felt extra frustrating at the end.

Mechanics are pretty typical for Farcry 3+. If you like those controls, you will probably enjoy this one. It does things different from FC 3 and Blood Dragon, but it's close enough to their FC standard that you can quickly adapt. It also wasn't anything really amazing? The only really neat thing was you could unlock a wingsuit, and airdrops during fast travel, which let you quickly navigate the map, by just FTing to the nearest point you have, and wingsuiting it from the sky into a new area. You could get really far. So it was a good way to leapfrog your fog of war on the map, and find new areas to explore. The silent protagonist was...well....they left zero imprint on me, for obvious reasons.

Overall, it was mostly fun, with personal anger at the religious stuff, and the forced framework for the narrative. But if that doesn't bother you, and you like FC in general, you will probably enjoy it.

 

[Worgen]

Yes, it will suck. Sucks even more after the patch update. There some changes that were not needed.

Ended up being not that bad, I had a rougher time with a couple of the earlier levels. Only had to restart the final one once.

 

[laggyteabag]

Still chugging along with Mass Effect 2. Playing on Hardcore as an Infiltrator, and yeah, this class is strong.

Im really enjoying ME2 coming from ME1. The game feels much tighter, and definitely more alive. In ME1, a lot of characters felt really static, and never really had much to say - in 2, there is tons of ambient dialogue from random NPCs just going about their lives, and your crew has a lot to say about everything. Its great!

I also forgot how much I liked the loyalty missions, and im really surprised that BioWare hasn't attempted anything similar, since (to my knowledge). A mission specific to a certain character and their arc? More of this, please.

I also notice how much of the galaxy you end up exploring in this game. ME1 gets a lot of credit for being the one where you can go to uncharted planets, etc, but here, you are visiting loads of different unique locations, and not a single one is just an empty mountainous space. Sure, you don't spend anywhere near as long in somewhere like Horzion as you do on Feros, and you can't just land on Haestrom until the game tells you to, but I much prefer this game's levels, as opposed to ME1's hubs and uncharted planets.

I think ME2 may just be better in every way.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I did it! Got the final fog anchor needed to close the last realm tear. Felt like I cleared that last set in record time personally too which made the victory much sweeter. Now I might make another run through to grab one more haze weave for the upgraded Mistbourne axe pommel. If anyone’s curious or could use some pointers on running Niflheim as efficiently as possible, I found this (after clearing it, go figure) -

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I've spent the last week basically playing nothing but Genshin Impact. I'm surprised just how good the game is. I've played gacha games before, and they inevitably got to the point of auto-clicking through encounters while hoping for the top tiers, because the low-star characters are so limited. With Genshin, I basically had none of that experience; while dealing with ascensions and gear upgrades were a little difficult at first, the base mechanics of the game are rock-solid, the story's actually starting to get pretty interesting (I just cleared Prologue-3 tonight), the characters are great and even the free ones feel strong and capable, and the aesthetics and music are so good it's easy to completely forget the game's origins and just get lost in it.

I haven't played an MMO I've liked since Runescape 2 (OSRS), and I've never played a mobile RPG that I liked, but this mobile MMO is drawing me in, and I'm even taking time off of other stuff to play it. Ultimately, I don't know if I can give it an easy recommendation due to the gacha system and other stuff like Resin, but if you've looked at it and thought you might enjoy it, take the plunge. And even if the mobile game stuff repels you, at least give the soundtrack a listen on Youtube. 'Rapid as Wildfires' is seriously up there for one of the best tracks I've ever heard in a game.

 

[Kyrian007]

I can answer one question.

Spoiler

It also kind of derailed my sense of believability at the final sequence. You spend the entire game dismantling his infrastructure, killing his lieutenants, liberating their prisoners and slaves, destroying their mechanisms for control and destruction....and then....at the end, Joseph has, somehow, BY HIMSELF, run all over the map to the various locations where your network is, mind controlled them all, and brought them back to the church for the final test? I mean....ok what the fuck man, HOW?! They have the smoky green clouds around their heads that indicate they are under effects of the Bliss gas but, there are literally TWELVE of them, and they would be scattered around the entirety of Hope Montana. How the fuck did this one shirtless dude get to them, subdue all of them, completely mind control them, and THEN send them out to grab the 3 "friends" of mine that are the sacrificial offering? I mean prior to that, Joseph gives you a cutscene where he talks about how I've taken everything from him, yet he's still able to do this? Sorry it just felt so forced. Granted, the game does this from start to finish, but it felt extra frustrating at the end.

Its simple. They were all at the 8-Bit Pizza Bar.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Oh Mass effect 2, why are you so dark?
You didn't provide any brightness options now it's all so bloody stark.
I also tried the TV brightness with the adjacent options too.
But all the blacks just turn to grey still crushed like trodden poo.
Oh Mass Effect 2, why are you so dark?
The first game didn't aim for aging moles in their LARP.
Yet here I sit in blackness eagerly squinting with nary a clue.
Cause QA testing for EA is just too expensive to do.

 

[happyninja42]

I can answer one question.



Its simple. They were all at the 8-Bit Pizza Bar.

Yeah I remembered bumping into a handful of them in that place. I didn't make the connection that they were in a pizza joint, and the whole qanon pizza/pedophile thing. I guess that's a joke but, I mean the people in that game, NOT the cultists, but the "good guys" ARE the qanon people. So...I guess they are at the pizza joint to make sure no pedos attack it? *shrugs*

On a related topic

Started playing a lot of Farcry New Dawn a few days ago. And, I think I've finally been able to put Farcry 5 into it's proper perspective. Farcry 5, is the transitional species, between Farcry's more serious/dark FC 3/4 tone, with just a slight dusting of silly, into Farcry New Dawn's full embrace of silly camp. It's, from the start, WAY more...well I don't want to say silly, but it feels like I'm in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, from start to finish. I haven't had the tonal whiplash I had with FC 5, when moving between main story missions, and side missions. They all have a very strong flavor of over the topness to them. The villains feel comical, and I mean that literally, as if they are comic book villains. The good guys are equally comical and cliche, but not in a bad way. It might be that I haven't encountered Joseph Seed and his Edeners yet, maybe it will dip back into tonal dissonance for me. But right now, it's just crazy post-apocalypse, ala Fallout, and Borderlands 2 (though nowhere near that silly. )

You have a companion that is an insane old lady that is a crack sniper, but she's just completely batty. So it's like you dragged someone out of a nursing home with dimentia, and gave her a sniper rifle, and she chatters to you, saying things like "some bad hoodlums over there! " or "Oh boy georgie! We're gonna have a shoot out with this whippersnappers now!"

So yeah, it's from the ground up, not taking itself nearly as seriously as the previous installments. It's not Monty Python, but it's definitely not Schindler's List either.

Gameplay wise, I'm enjoying it. It's pretty much the same system as FC 5, though they did introduce a difficulty system and "levels" to your gear and enemies. It's a simple 1-3 ranking, but it does make it more clear that you are out of your league as you are wandering around. If you are using nothing but lvl 1 weapons, and fighting lvl 2-3 enemies. You CAN win, but it's going to be super tough, you'll probably use up a ton of ammo and healing items, and probably should've just fought something more your speed, and come back later. If you have lvl 2 weapons, going up against lvl 2 enemies, they are still tough, but they are way more on par with being an even fight. For example, trying to snipe lvl 3 dudes with a lvl 1 sniper rifle, just isn't going to 1shot them, so trying to do stealth attacks is really unlikely. But lvl 2-3 sniper rifles, puts them on par with being able to 1shot, so it's doable.

It's still using the "you don't level up with XP" system that FC 5 used, and instead are banking on their perk system. You do challenges (kill 20 people with a shotgun, get 3 perk points), and use those points to unlock perks, that make you more effective. They are mostly utility perks. The only one that directly impacts damage, is the stealth line, that lets you do the Takedown stealth kill on higher ranked enemies. Otherwise you just can't do it at all on tougher people. Everything else is either carrying capacity for ammo, travel related perks, or letting you gain access to areas via lockpicking that you couldn't do before. Also, it's a really short perk list. I'm barely into the game at all, as far as I can tell, and I'm already maxed out on all the perks, except for one that is locked behind making my basecamp level 3 first. It feels really anemic considering the amount of game, and ways you can gain perks, that I've already completely filled it out. Maybe more will be added but I doubt it. Just, feels strange.

It's fine as a system I guess, but it does have some issues. For example, the combat challenges, are tiered, just like your equipment. So the Shotgun challenge has ranks 1-3, specifically Beginner, Amateur, and Expert. There is at least one more rank beyond that, but they don't show up until you have a weapon that could do them. My issue with these challenges, is that they aren't retroactive. For example, if I don't bother using a Rank 1 Rocket Launcher, and instead pick a Rank 2 one up for the first time, I can't do both the Beginner and Amateur challenges at once. I HAVE to equip a rank 1 launcher, to get the rank 1 challenge. I'd even be fine with them being consecutive, forcing me to clear the Rank 1 version, before I could work the Rank 2. That would be fine, but just let me use the same weapon damnit! It's really tedious running around, changing out weapons just to do these challenges.

It's a solidly done game. Nothing really new or amazing about it. It's a Farcry game. If you like the FC system, then this is more of the same.

I admit I'm a bit partial to post-apocalypse games, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt there. But, I'm enjoying playing it way more than I did FC 5. That one was more of a case study in compelling someone to play something they find frustrating, because they are curious about the story you have set up. FC: ND is just enjoyable for me. We'll see if that lasts once I go and talk to the remnants of the cult, which is my next story mission so....*shrugs*.

 

[Dalisclock]

Finished Castlevania(the first one) in the Castlevania Anniversary collection. Like a lot of First games of a series, it feels very dated by today's standards in addition to being fucking "Getting punched in the dick" levels of hard. And most of the reason it is hard is because the enemies pretty much don't play fair(the little jumping imp dudes can JUMP THROUGH WALLS) and because of the Janky mechanics. While you can kill most enemies in 1 hit, many of them can also kill you in one hit by knocking you off a ledge(and boy do they LOVE to do that). Not to mention you can be easily killed trying to use the stairs because simon occasionally mistakes "Descend staircase" as "Plummet to death". The fact you lose all your upgrades upon death feels like the cherry on the shit sundae because the upgrades make a lot of difference in boss fights.

And really, its a short linear game that makes up for basically being one long corridor by finding so many ways to murder you. What's so frustrating is that it feels like the game would be maybe half as difficult if Simon could attack in more then two directions, or could run, or could move while crouching, or jump a little higher or something. Not even joking when Dark Souls feels downright charitable compared to this game because Dark Souls actually gives you some freedom to dodge and block, as well as letting you keep your shit upon death.

Also, yeah, there's really no plot to speak of in this one. It's basically "Invade Castlevania, kill Dracula" so while there's the foundation for the later games to build off of, it's more a piece of gaming history then a particularly enjoyable game. Unless you like hard games because they're hard, but it feels like it's hard for the wrong reasons.

Anyway, with that out of the way, onto Castlevania 2: Simon's back for more suffering.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Anyway, with that out of the way, onto Castlevania 2: Simon's back for more suffering.

Hooboy…get ready for some hardcore redundancy for no other reason than to pad game length. At least from my most recalled memories about it. Which is too bad, because it was a unique direction to take (well, in the world of Castlevania at least, but maybe not once drawing the conclusion they were trying to ape Zelda 2 a bit).

 

[Dalisclock]

Hooboy…get ready for some hardcore redundancy for no other reason than to pad game length. At least from my most recalled memories about it. Which is too bad, because it was a unique direction to take (well, in the world of Castlevania at least, but maybe not once drawing the conclusion they were trying to ape Zelda 2 a bit).

Yeah, I kinda remember it was like Zelda 2 when I played it as a kid but it was also more like a Metroidvania(a genre which really didn't exist at the time) then a lot of the other games until SotN. I'll see soon enough how well that actually works. I remember apparently like half the townspeople flat out lie to you but the English manual didn't bother to tell you that. The other half of the people are just fucking Cryptic, but at least they don't do that awkward chuckling all the time "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha" like another game series....

 

[meiam]

Yeah, I kinda remember it was like Zelda 2 when I played it as a kid but it was also more like a Metroidvania(a genre which really didn't exist at the time) then a lot of the other games until SotN. I'll see soon enough how well that actually works. I remember apparently like half the townspeople flat out lie to you but the English manual didn't bother to tell you that. The other half of the people are just fucking Cryptic, but at least they don't do that awkward chuckling all the time "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha" like another game series....

There's some very good mod for the emulator floating around that fixes a lot of the jank, but at I would guess most people play those old game more as a form of archeology than for the sake of playing them so that probably defeat the point.

Egociraptor has a nice video on both the first castlevenia (can't believe its been 10 years!)

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I made good progress in GoW the other night. Got all the Muspelheim challenges done (at least what’s required for the trophy; the others are additional “Impossible” level challenges beyond the three needed for keys to unlock the final arena trials. I rather enjoyed Sutr’s Hidden Trials. This and the Niflheim diamond are where materials for the best gear in the game are acquired, and with some experience in each they can accumulate pretty quickly. Also got the remaining artifacts I’d missed initially and placed all the Valkyrie helms in the court. Then I received a rather rude introduction to the queen.

She is no joke. I play with most hud info off but after a few tries made a point of toggling boss health in to see how much if any of her life bar was succumbing to my onslaught of runic attacks, meleeing, raging, etc. and was somewhat relieved to see it down to maybe 20% at one point, but barely budging from continuous pummeling.

The first instinct is to simply unleash everything you have on her like the other Valkyries, but she has oodles of health not unlike perhaps, idk…a neutron star? So as much as it pains me to draw out an already arduous battle I’ll probably have to pull some punches and only attack heavily when she cannot, because going tit for tat here makes Kratos go splat.

 

[happyninja42]

I made good progress in GoW the other night. Got all the Muspelheim challenges done (at least what’s required for the trophy; the others are additional “Impossible” level challenges beyond the three needed for keys to unlock the final arena trials. I rather enjoyed Sutr’s Hidden Trials. This and the Niflheim diamond are where materials for the best gear in the game are acquired, and with some experience in each they can accumulate pretty quickly. Also got the remaining artifacts I’d missed initially and placed all the Valkyrie helms in the court. Then I received a rather rude introduction to the queen.

She is no joke. I play with most hud info off but after a few tries made a point of toggling boss health in to see how much if any of her life bar was succumbing to my onslaught of runic attacks, meleeing, raging, etc. and was somewhat relieved to see it down to maybe 20% at one point, but barely budging from continuous pummeling.

The first instinct is to simply unleash everything you have on her like the other Valkyries, but she has oodles of health not unlike perhaps, idk…a neutron star? So as much as it pains me to draw out an already arduous battle I’ll probably have to pull some punches and only attack heavily when she cannot, because going tit for tat here makes Kratos go splat.

Yeah I'm playing GoW again too, though sporadically. I'm not trying to 100% it, just replaying it for the story, and to play around a bit with NG+, so I have all the fun combat attacks, and stuff. Still find myself more in love with hand to hand, instead of weapon combat. I find myself REALLY annoyed, that the runes you get most often, are almost exclusively designed around Runic Cooldown. Which...I just never use. I never see runes that are built for hand to hand, or just basic stat boosting stuff. It's always *random minor stat boost + some variant on Blessing of Runic Cooldown due to a conditional trigger, like parry or whatever* And..that's honestly entirely useless to me. So, yeah, runes are problematic. The new NG+ armor types are nice, but not different enough to really make a huge difference, stat wise. Still, I enjoy punching things. My favorite is to have Atreus, using the stunning arrows, just wail on a tough enemy as I rush at them, and finish off the Stagger meter with a shoulder tackle, and then just insta-kill them. It feels so satisfying to have the two of them just plow through enemies that way. In the killscene animation, Atreus has time to regen some arrows, so I can rinse/repeat super fast.

 

[Worgen]

Just beat Streets of Rage 4 on maniac.

 

[happyninja42]

Just beat Streets of Rage 4 on maniac.

This is MADNESS!!

 

[BrawlMan]

Just beat Streets of Rage 4 on maniac.

The correct word is Mania.

This is MADNESS!!

Madness?!

THIS! IS! WOOD! OAK!

Proceed to kick messenger into bottomless pit.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I finished Mass Effect 2 (again), and I think this might be my least favourite in the trilogy.

Too many characters who don't amount to anything other than a loyalty side-quest. Seriously, why are Jack, Samara, Grunt, and drell guy even in this game? What exactly do they add to the plot? Speaking of which, the plot adds nothing either. The entire plot is about stopping a bunch of aliens from mulching human colonists. You then succeed in stopping them, the end. Which wouldn't be so bad if this was a stand alone game, but as the second game in a trilogy it adds nothing to the overarching plot. The whole game feels like a detour, and then at the end it's like 'Oh yeah, the Reapers. I guess we'll return to them in the final installment.'

Also, regenerating health. Ugh!

I'm on ME3 now, and I'm already annoyed again by he fact that the Reapers being in full-on intergalactic invasion mode don't bother to instantly take control of the Citadel -- you know, that thing that they intensionally created to lure space faring species so that they could take out their governing power in one fell swoop. Instead they just walk around the surface of planets like a bunch of shmucks and go *smash smash roar*.

 

[BrawlMan]

Just beat Streets of Rage 4 on maniac.

I hope you're ready for your S rank runs on Mania!

Too many characters who don't amount to anything other than a loyalty side-quest. Seriously, why are Jack, Samara, Grunt, and drell guy even in this game? What exactly do they add to the plot?

Shipping. Waifus and husbandos for days.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Shipping. Waifus and husbandos for days.

Pretty much. Yet distinctly lacking in anything gay, otherwise Fox News would get mad again.