What are you currently playing?

[Old_Hunter_77]

I started the Artful Escape this morning. Man, Yahtzee was right- it's a game that forgot to put gameplay in it, lol.

 

[Dalisclock]

I started the Artful Escape this morning. Man, Yahtzee was right- it's a game that forgot to put gameplay in it, lol.

And yet he'll still probably put that on his top 5 despite the lack of gameplay, or at least that's what he's been implying in his streams/podcasts. It wasn't really a banner year for new and innovative games

 

[Gergar12]

Far Cry 6, it's okay.

 

[Dalisclock]

Far Cry 6, it's okay.

That sums up like 90% of Ubisoft games

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Bought Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice on PC after seeing several streamers play it. I hadn't played it in over a year and I still had no PS5, so it was an easy purchase with 50% off. And yeah, it's very good. It has some of the best atmosphere out of any Fromsoft game. Hirata Estate especially is so oppressive and grim I love it.

The game has some serious balance issues though. Not necessarily in the sense that there's some super overpowered techniques that trivialize the game, but more in the sense that a ton of the stuff in the game feels like chaff that really struggles to justify its existence in the game. I've only played it twice through before, and even then I can completely ignore what feels like 90% of all the stuff the game hands out to me. The core systems are so good that you can get by perfectly fine using just them, and there's so little variety from playthrough to playthrough that the game isn't really forcing you to mix things up.

For example, Fistfuls of Ash. Yeah, you can use them to get a couple of cheap hits in, but it breaks the flow and rhythm of combat and the animation takes long enough that it can be a significant risk if used at the wrong moment. You can also never carry enough of them to make them a genuinely significant part of your combat tactics. Or ceramic shards: once you're familiar with the level design and enemy placement (ie. basically after a single playthrough), these become all but pointless, since you can always just lose your pursuers and retry the stealth. The game's level design is so linear that enemies pretty much never group up or mobilize in unexpected ways that would call for more creative tactics.

Or you can just not bother stealthing at all! The player character's mobility and speed outmatch that of 90% the enemies in the game so massively that it's often preferable to just sprint past every encounter. The game really doesn't provide enough incentive to fight a lot of the enemies. Money is pretty much always best used for buying coin purses, and the enemies drop enough consumables by default that you pretty much never run out, provided you even use them in the first place.

Money for me was best spent upgrading prosthetics. There is some great stuff on the far end of the tree that pretty much stomps even mini bosses. I’ll really enjoy another playthrough on NG++ whenever I get through most of my other backlog.



On topic, getting through chapter 9 in Wolfenstein: TNO. The story is really tough to care about because it’s so derivative with this series, like many other FPS games. I find myself wanting to skip cutscenes the first time playing. I hate being so directly taken out of the gameplay just to be spoon-fed a bunch of predictable exposition and NPC posturing. It kinda makes me just want to play DOOM 2016 because it’s such a blast. The do like the general feel of combat and shooting mechanics in TNO though when it lets you get to it.

 

[Dalisclock]

The most distracting thing about the faces was that you can see their molars as they are talking to you and it took me a long to figure out the reason that it was so weird: they don't have tongues, or it doesn't look like they do.

Oh god, I can't unsee that now.

The game was decent on the whole, but the writing is very definitely 'Skyrim mod' quality. There were some exceptionally stupid sections like where you find the doctor woman who locked herself in the palace and she's talking about how she peeled the statue and it caused them horrific pain and made them go insane with rage so she did it, like, a hundred more times with no variation and it still did the same thing and she's upset by that.

I figured she's gone completely round the bend, honestly. Though I was also annoyed that it was basically a zombie shooter for that 10-15 min, and even worse, you run into the same "zombies" in other places they have no reason to show up(like the Egyption Underworld).

Really, there was no reason to have combat sections in the game at all. I've yet to see a review that feels they add anything to the experience so apparently it's not just me.

The final reasoning for the golden rule was kind of silly as well. So the ancient alien needs to prove that humans can live without sin for a year but doesn't realize that turning everybody to gold after one mistake is completely counterproductive to his goals. What part of the wager said that he couldn't tell anybody what counted as a sin, or that he couldn't use the same group of people again and just reset the one year counter?

Yeah, that's where the game took a bit of a hit for me. I can see what they were going for, because it's really obvious, but it just breaks the immersion pretty hard especially since then it opens up a bunch more questions and feels like it over explains a lot. I would have just preferred they left it a bit more ambiguous if Pluto was a god or something else entirely. I already got the Ancient Astronaut trope in spades from my time as an Assassins Creed Vet but AC is pretty Sci-fi schlocky half the time and I can kind of forgive them for doing it.

Especially since It's established everyone(including you) is dead but can somehow be brought back to life in Charon takes you in her boat? And in the 4th ending, everyone is brought back but in the modern era? And while I'd gotten used to the idea of the Underworld being a metaphysical rather then actual place, but then it's a giant holodeck on a spaceship but charon can get you out on her holo-boat? I just.....I want some consistency or something here.

And personally I felt the time travel was poorly used. It never felt very effective thematically to me, it was just kind of there. There is next to no NPC scheduling, like in Majora's Mask, where you need to do things at specific times in order to change events, you can do almost anything whenever you want and everybody else's complete lack of knowledge of who you are is completely glossed over. Especially egregious in the true ending where everybody is so effusive with thanks and friendship towards you despite never actually having seen you before in their life. The game wants desperately for these characters to have a bond with you despite it not actually being possible. The game would have been better without time travel in my opinion.

Well, presumably Galarious(?) tells everyone this "Oracle" showed up, went to the temple and suddenly everyone was freed from the city and if you had him run off the help the people beforehand, you're seen as a benign entity who freed and saved some of them. Maybe Everyone remembered the previous time loops in the process of being ported forward? I do agree the ending feels like it was more meant to give everyone closure then make a ton of sense. I noticed that none of them seemed to be particularly put off by the fact their pagan roman beliefs are effectively dead in the 21st century, and the christians in the group don't seem to have much commentary on everything that's happened over the last 2000 years as far as the church is concerned and it feels weird to see such optimism about the 21st century considering everything that's going on, especially as you can allude to the Pandemic in conversation, so this is supposed to be OUR timeline

 

[Gergar12]

That sums up like 90% of Ubisoft games

Other than the tanks, and trigger being harder to push, it's your standard Far Cry 3-5 like game.

It's like they changed very little, and took very few risks. If you have played Far Cry 5, this will be a bigger version of it.

 

[Dalisclock]

Other than the tanks, and trigger being harder to push, it's your standard Far Cry 3-5 like game.

It's like they changed very little, and took very few risks. If you have played Far Cry 5, this will be a bigger version of it.

I stopped at 3 but I know enough about 4 and 5 and seen footage of 6 to know the games really don't look that different.

And having played enough Ubi games to know all of their properties converge towards the singularity of all generally being the same kind of game.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Well, presumably Galarious(?) tells everyone this "Oracle" showed up, went to the temple and suddenly everyone was freed from the city and if you had him run off the help the people beforehand, you're seen as a benign entity who freed and saved some of them. Maybe Everyone remembered the previous time loops in the process of being ported forward? I do agree the ending feels like it was more meant to give everyone closure then make a ton of sense. I noticed that none of them seemed to be particularly put off by the fact their pagan roman beliefs are effectively dead in the 21st century, and the christians in the group don't seem to have much commentary on everything that's happened over the last 2000 years as far as the church is concerned and it feels weird to see such optimism about the 21st century considering everything that's going on, especially as you can allude to the Pandemic in conversation, so this is supposed to be OUR timeline

You know, even with the pandemic it's still probably a hundred times better to live in the modern day than in Roman times. It's like if you got suddenly beamed into the 24th century of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yes there's Borg attacks and wars with Romulans and Klingons and whatever to worry about, but I think replicators and holodecks go a long way to make up for that.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

You know, even with the pandemic it's still probably a hundred times better to live in the modern day than in Roman times. It's like if you got suddenly beamed into the 24th century of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yes there's Borg attacks and wars with Romulans and Klingons and whatever to worry about, but I think replicators and holodecks go a long way to make up for that.

And the fact they're a bunch of space commies.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Genesis Noir

I decided I'm not really in the mood to launch myself at some big or difficult game because Elden Ring will come out and dominate my life. So until then I am scrolling through Gamepass and trying out any small or indy game that got positive attention from The Escapist. I am a sucker for film noir and this is a short little point 'n' click so I'm firing it up today.

 

[09philj]

Bravely Default II

It's another Bravely Default game! Which is fine. I liked Bravely Default and Bravely Second very much, so I'm fine with more of the same. A few things have been tweaked but if you played the first two this will be very, very familiar.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Playing through Horizon: Zero Dawn again in anticipation for Forbidden West, and I actually discovered a quest I've never come across before in all my playthroughs. It's this dude who's gotten a bit cuckoo from drinking oil and he's constantly requesting you to bring him more oil from specific machines.

Also playing through FF7R again and hopefully I'll finish it and get to the DLC, which will be difficult due to the awful meta nonsense really grinding my gears. The closer you get to the end the harder this game becomes to stomach.

 

[Dalisclock]

Genesis Noir

I decided I'm not really in the mood to launch myself at some big or difficult game because Elden Ring will come out and dominate my life. So until then I am scrolling through Gamepass and trying out any small or indy game that got positive attention from The Escapist. I am a sucker for film noir and this is a short little point 'n' click so I'm firing it up today.

Its an interesting little game with a nice style. As long as you don't hate Jazz it's worth checking out.

I kinda forgot about it until someone reminded me of it. Not because it was bad at all but I played it way back at the beginning of the year

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

It wasn't really a banner year for games

Fixed!

 

[Hawki]

Playing Batman: The Telltale Series.

Weak gameplay, good storytelling. Which as far as I can tell, is pretty universal for Telltale.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Its an interesting little game with a nice style. As long as you don't hate Jazz it's worth checking out.

I kinda forgot about it until someone reminded me of it. Not because it was bad at all but I played it way back at the beginning of the year

I love jazz

I got up to the end and then it wouldn't let me move to the last part because of a glitch or something, so I watched the rest on youtube. It is interesting and pretty cool, though buggy and kind of bullshit at times. Highly recommended for Gamepass subscribers looking for a nice buffer between bigger games or a way to kill a rainy afternoon.

 

[Ezekiel]

Wow... I just figured out why I couldn't save anymore in Fusion. I had to correct a save path. I didn't even remember changing the folders. When I loaded the game again, I discovered a save file that I thought was long gone.

Haven't seen this in probably over a decade.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

This weekend I will try The Forgotten City, purely based on Yahtzee's impressions. I don't like first-person games, it looks ugly and "it has a great story and dialogue choices" is rarely enough of a draw. Oh, and also I'm not crazy about time loops (so, yeah, a lot of big new releases this year flew over my head).
But it's on Gamepass so what the heck.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Demos. Brilliant inventions they are. A true public service for those of us trying not to run out of cash. Who doesn't love demos really? I'll tell you who! Sony! So here are some demos of games on the Switch which do not have demos on the Playstation, but bloody well should have cause I would've bought them ages ago if they did...

Children Of Morta.
A family. A rogueliiiiiite. A pleasant pixelated art style. A steady supply of unlocks and story progression. A satisfying combat. You've won yourself a sale, Kiddos of Morta! (When I have more money at least, anyway).

Moonlighter.
A village shop sim. A dungeon sim. A rogue...lik...lite? A head of fluffy white hair. You know, there's something quite addictive to having an actual rewarding gameplay loop which involves the slinging of all the pointless tat (loot) you pick up during adventures onto the simple townsfolk you be hustling. I truly believe a game like Nioh would benefit immensely from adding a shop management side-game to put those piles of worthless loot to good use. It would have to good though. And...deep? But mostly good will do.

The Forgotten City.
Holy hell this runs like shit on the Switch. Even though it's cloud streamed. Isn't cloud streaming supposed to circumvent pesky factors like hardware power, or did I just invent such techno blessings along the way somewhere? Despite that, will likely pick it up on playstation some point soon in future due to the non-performance related impressions.


The moral of this meandering story is that demos should be more commonplace in this putrid market if these publishers want to make extra monies, as they do help with sales. Well, unless you're Balan Wonderworld of course.