I appreciate a game that's not afraid to be silly(assuming it's not trying to be dead serious the rest of the time).
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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Cruis'n Blast knows how to have fun and just be 100%, 90s goofy, arcade racer. Please play this game; it's on Switch only.
Well, Elden Ring platinum obtained. Would’ve been a couple sessions earlier if I knew how helpful Divine Lord’s Protection and Beastial Vitality were on the bloopy beast. I had to level faith a bit more for the former, but seeing as it only took two tries thereafter it was well worth it. Was using the Blasphemous Blade at first but went back to my trusty mainstay of the heavy Claymore FTW.
Elden Beast is still a shithead boss but it leads into the topic of difficulty, and how now more than ever with this game it can kinda be flipped like a light switch. Sure, it’s Dark Souls 4 on the surface, but try and play it that way and it could end up by far the most difficult of these games IMO. It’s clearly tuned (using that term loosely) around stuff like spirit summons, weapon ashes, and the various buffs more than ever, and a lot of my time was spent messing around with the various combinations of things.
Also finished Fia’s and D’s Twin Brother’s quest lines to get the extra ending, which to me felt the most Soulslike. A NG+ run would mostly be for other quests I missed. As a trophy run it’s easily the most pleasant of all FROM’s unique IPs since Demons for me, so it barely felt like going out of my way for much. I played probably about 80% of the game blind and in exploration & experimentation mode so wound up mere minutes shy of two hundred hours over five months or so. Even with the repeated stuff it’s been the most enjoyable open world since RDR2 for me.
I could see getting the craving for NG+ eventually and look forward to the possibility of DLC, but even if not I’d be content and ready to move on to my backlog. Now it’s probably back to Forbidden West or The Witcher 3. Yeah the latter since it’s been sitting far too much longer.
Elden Beast is still a shithead boss but it leads into the topic of difficulty, and how now more than ever with this game it can kinda be flipped like a light switch. Sure, it’s Dark Souls 4 on the surface, but try and play it that way and it could end up by far the most difficult of these games IMO. It’s clearly tuned (using that term loosely) around stuff like spirit summons, weapon ashes, and the various buffs more than ever, and a lot of my time was spent messing around with the various combinations of things.
Also finished Fia’s and D’s Twin Brother’s quest lines to get the extra ending, which to me felt the most Soulslike. A NG+ run would mostly be for other quests I missed. As a trophy run it’s easily the most pleasant of all FROM’s unique IPs since Demons for me, so it barely felt like going out of my way for much. I played probably about 80% of the game blind and in exploration & experimentation mode so wound up mere minutes shy of two hundred hours over five months or so. Even with the repeated stuff it’s been the most enjoyable open world since RDR2 for me.
I could see getting the craving for NG+ eventually and look forward to the possibility of DLC, but even if not I’d be content and ready to move on to my backlog. Now it’s probably back to Forbidden West or The Witcher 3. Yeah the latter since it’s been sitting far too much longer.
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Keep in mind that the sequel has a very different feel to it from the first game. The gameplay of the first is slanted more towards immersion while the sequel leans towards it's mechanics more. I don't mean to say it's a bad game, just that you should expect differences. If I remember correctly, the second game is made by a different studio too.
Plus it’s visual style is very different too. Almost reminded me more of something like Dishonored.
Hard West 2 came out last week. I really enjoyed the first game so I picked up the sequel and played it a little over the weekend. Coming on the heels of Weird West; the sequel to Hard West really delivers that same Deadlands flavor. Just without the at times-awkward isometric/action gameplay. Hard West 2 is like its predecessor, turn-based isometric classic. And I like it. It is a decent update to its predecessor, and so far I'm liking it. If there is a drawback, the combat system is a little simplistic. There are only 4 different percentage chances to hit or miss. Literally a 25, 50, 75, or 100% based on ability, weapon, range, elevation, and % of cover someone is in. All those factors... and somehow its all 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or 4/4. It is just a little weird. Otherwise, it is pretty fun so far. The only other complaint is I have 5 available characters, but there still seems to be a 4-person party size limit... but I'm not far into it. Maybe it will get bigger later. Oh, and the load times and optimization are ass... but so is every game on release these days. They will patch fixes for that fairly soon I'm guessing.
Congrats @hanselthecaretaker
This weekend was about checking out a couple of indy games on Game Pass:
Boyfriend Dungeon
Exactly the kind of breezy summer game fun I was looking for. It is both charming and extremely stupid, and I beat it in day. It's just a very simple (maybe even too simple) dungeon crawler where leveling up is achieved via repeated trips through very easy dungeons and visual novel dating sim style narratives. Applying archetypal romantic comedy tropes to classic video game mechanics is exactly the kind of thing I like starting and stopping playing, making this game the perfect lenght: about 10 hours and that included a bit of extra stuff. You only have to fully level up one of the boyfriend weapons but you can do as many as you want.
Plus it's all very modern gender identify neutral stuff so while most of the weapons are men, there's also a non-binary, a girl, and a cat (not bestiality it's just a cat you befriend). So "romance" and "dating" in this game is just your standard friend mechanics.
Inside
Probably everyone already knows about it but it's Limbo 2 but with a way freakier ending. But, you know, walk to the right, solve puzzles. I actually quit playing half-way through because the color scheme clashed with my environment- everything is literally shades of grey and I was in a sunlit area. Plus I got annoyed and bored with the mechanics so half-way through I just quit and watched it on youtube.
I am just realizing how much I dislike "playing" games that aren't games. I just get so freaking bored. I've been meaning to play Little Nightmares 2 but I think I'll just watch that on youtube, too.
My next thing will be Maneater. It looks so silly.
This weekend was about checking out a couple of indy games on Game Pass:
Boyfriend Dungeon
Exactly the kind of breezy summer game fun I was looking for. It is both charming and extremely stupid, and I beat it in day. It's just a very simple (maybe even too simple) dungeon crawler where leveling up is achieved via repeated trips through very easy dungeons and visual novel dating sim style narratives. Applying archetypal romantic comedy tropes to classic video game mechanics is exactly the kind of thing I like starting and stopping playing, making this game the perfect lenght: about 10 hours and that included a bit of extra stuff. You only have to fully level up one of the boyfriend weapons but you can do as many as you want.
Plus it's all very modern gender identify neutral stuff so while most of the weapons are men, there's also a non-binary, a girl, and a cat (not bestiality it's just a cat you befriend). So "romance" and "dating" in this game is just your standard friend mechanics.
Inside
Probably everyone already knows about it but it's Limbo 2 but with a way freakier ending. But, you know, walk to the right, solve puzzles. I actually quit playing half-way through because the color scheme clashed with my environment- everything is literally shades of grey and I was in a sunlit area. Plus I got annoyed and bored with the mechanics so half-way through I just quit and watched it on youtube.
I am just realizing how much I dislike "playing" games that aren't games. I just get so freaking bored. I've been meaning to play Little Nightmares 2 but I think I'll just watch that on youtube, too.
My next thing will be Maneater. It looks so silly.
I keep reading/hearing about Inside being really good, so am curious to check it out. I think it’s one of those games that pays off in the end for sticking with it, but mileage may vary.
It is very very short so if you're interested at all it's a no-brainer. Especially if you have Game Pass but I can't imagine it's not cheap since it's a small game and came out a while ago already.
For me I appreciate the art style and the implicit story telling I just don't really get much enjoyment from fiddling with the puzzles, I think I like watching someone else do like it's parallel universe Pixar.
I've really gotten back into Hearthstone, recently.
I stopped playing around the time that Knights of the Frozen Throne came out, which was in August 2017, and I haven't touched the game, since. Since then, i've missed 14 expansions, 10 of which have since rotated out of the standard format - ie, they are now irrelevant.
So, I logged in with 4 expansions to catch up on, with Castle Nathria (the most recent) having just launched a couple of days ago. Thankfully, I was greeted by a few "Welcome back" quests, to the tune of a few thousand gold, and also around 12000 arcane dust, to craft whatever I wanted.
I first dove into the (relatively) new roguelike Mercenaries mode, which is reasonably fun, though from my experience, it isn't particularly deep. Its a decent distraction, though. Definitely a bit of a grind.
I then played more than a few Tavern Brawl matches, which were, and continue to be, a lot of fun. Its just goofy spins on the normal rulesets, that change every week - last week's gave you a deck full of random murlocs, and this week's, instead of drawing a card from your deck each turn, you instead choose one of three randomly picked ones. Nothing serious, but definitely enjoyable.
I have now since decided to spend all of my gold and dust, and I crafted a couple of meta decks using some guides online. One that I have gotten a lot of mileage out of so far, is a Mech Mage deck, which focuses on Mech cards, and their various synergies - which is effectively amounts to a lot of card draw, and a hilarious amount of random damage.
Its fun, and im really glad that there is a mobile version, so I can play it just about anywhere.
I stopped playing around the time that Knights of the Frozen Throne came out, which was in August 2017, and I haven't touched the game, since. Since then, i've missed 14 expansions, 10 of which have since rotated out of the standard format - ie, they are now irrelevant.
So, I logged in with 4 expansions to catch up on, with Castle Nathria (the most recent) having just launched a couple of days ago. Thankfully, I was greeted by a few "Welcome back" quests, to the tune of a few thousand gold, and also around 12000 arcane dust, to craft whatever I wanted.
I first dove into the (relatively) new roguelike Mercenaries mode, which is reasonably fun, though from my experience, it isn't particularly deep. Its a decent distraction, though. Definitely a bit of a grind.
I then played more than a few Tavern Brawl matches, which were, and continue to be, a lot of fun. Its just goofy spins on the normal rulesets, that change every week - last week's gave you a deck full of random murlocs, and this week's, instead of drawing a card from your deck each turn, you instead choose one of three randomly picked ones. Nothing serious, but definitely enjoyable.
I have now since decided to spend all of my gold and dust, and I crafted a couple of meta decks using some guides online. One that I have gotten a lot of mileage out of so far, is a Mech Mage deck, which focuses on Mech cards, and their various synergies - which is effectively amounts to a lot of card draw, and a hilarious amount of random damage.
Its fun, and im really glad that there is a mobile version, so I can play it just about anywhere.
It's a mood piece, very much like Journey. It has a particular dystopian atmosphere, and if it hits you just right you'll probably like it.
So last month I got a PS5. I wasn't going to, but I had the money from the sale of my parents house burning a hole in my pocket (they've both passed away, I've not sold it out from under them). And I wanted to blow some of it on something fun and pointless. I saw that Shopto.net was selling them as a bundle with Horizon: Aloy Goes West while I was at work. I decided that if they were still in stock when I got home, I'd buy one. And they were, so I got one.
So, Astro's Playroom. This game shouldn't be so well made and so much fun considering its free. But its cute, its fun and it is as you can imagine a tribute to everything Playstation. You could call this glorified controller tutorial you could call it as it shows off all the neat little tricks the controller can do and yet no one else will utilizes. The game looks great, it has a soundtrack is both brilliant and annoying at the same time. Its good fun and an easy platinum to boot.
which leads us to Horizon: Go West, Life is Peaceful there. It is basically more of the same from the first game, which is great as I loved the first game. Not a lot has changed but you do have a glider that makes a cool sci fi whirring noise as you glide around. The game looks amazing and has a cool soundtrack. But I do have some complaints. It has a few glitches that I've noticed such as textures popping in, Aloys hair going crazy for no reason. And machines getting stuck in scenery and then "jumping" to get free. I don't remember the first game having so many bugs. I'm guessing because it was a smaller game. Also, and this bugged me in the first game. But as soon as you clear out an area of machines, you look away for 30 seconds and they're back again. Maybe its because I've played a fair bit of Eldin Ring and the enemies don't respawn until you visit a Site of Grace, my patience for this sort of thing has run a little short. But still, its a fun enough game that I'm sure I'll love playing until the end.
And finally, I played the demo for Fuga: Melodies of Steel, a game I'd been interested in since I heard about it at the beginning of the year. And it starts slowly and is not helped by some terrible voice acting which grated on my nerves right away. If I can't change the voices to English in the full version, I'll turn it off. Because I really liked this demo. The story is about a bunch of kids who flee when their village gets raided during Furry World War 2. The love the fact that the opposing faction are known as the Bermans which shows that at least one of the makers watched the Valkyria Chronicles Zero Punctuation.
Anyway, the kids find a hidden tank in a cave, as you do. And go on a mission to save everyone from their village. And like I say, it starts slow but quickly picks up explaining the turn-based battle system which basically boils comes down to red, blue and yellow. And if you attack the enemy with that colour, you can delay the enemy attack and becomes quite tactical in whether you deal damage or stagger the enemy. You then quickly get introduced the games "Fuck You" button which is called The Soul Cannon which decimates everything in front of you. The catch being that should you use that option, it costs the life of one of your kids. And let me tell you this, using that option suuuuuuuuucks.
Because I'm an arsehole, I chucked the kid that was moaning that no one would miss him if he was gone into the cannon. And after the deed was done, I felt like a total git. But it was fine, and it was just a tutorial and then time rewinds and you get to upgrade your tank a bit and the fight is winnable without using the Soul Cannon. I found a little loophole in this Soul Cannon conundrum, why can't the kids take some prisoners and then when things get dire, commit a couple of war crimes and then none of them have to die.
Anyway, the game looks great with a nice water colour look that does remind me of Valkyria Chronicles and yet all the tanks and what have you are animated like they've escaped from a Metal Slug game. But yeah, the game is on offer so I think I'll pick it up too.
So, Astro's Playroom. This game shouldn't be so well made and so much fun considering its free. But its cute, its fun and it is as you can imagine a tribute to everything Playstation. You could call this glorified controller tutorial you could call it as it shows off all the neat little tricks the controller can do and yet no one else will utilizes. The game looks great, it has a soundtrack is both brilliant and annoying at the same time. Its good fun and an easy platinum to boot.
which leads us to Horizon: Go West, Life is Peaceful there. It is basically more of the same from the first game, which is great as I loved the first game. Not a lot has changed but you do have a glider that makes a cool sci fi whirring noise as you glide around. The game looks amazing and has a cool soundtrack. But I do have some complaints. It has a few glitches that I've noticed such as textures popping in, Aloys hair going crazy for no reason. And machines getting stuck in scenery and then "jumping" to get free. I don't remember the first game having so many bugs. I'm guessing because it was a smaller game. Also, and this bugged me in the first game. But as soon as you clear out an area of machines, you look away for 30 seconds and they're back again. Maybe its because I've played a fair bit of Eldin Ring and the enemies don't respawn until you visit a Site of Grace, my patience for this sort of thing has run a little short. But still, its a fun enough game that I'm sure I'll love playing until the end.
And finally, I played the demo for Fuga: Melodies of Steel, a game I'd been interested in since I heard about it at the beginning of the year. And it starts slowly and is not helped by some terrible voice acting which grated on my nerves right away. If I can't change the voices to English in the full version, I'll turn it off. Because I really liked this demo. The story is about a bunch of kids who flee when their village gets raided during Furry World War 2. The love the fact that the opposing faction are known as the Bermans which shows that at least one of the makers watched the Valkyria Chronicles Zero Punctuation.
Anyway, the kids find a hidden tank in a cave, as you do. And go on a mission to save everyone from their village. And like I say, it starts slow but quickly picks up explaining the turn-based battle system which basically boils comes down to red, blue and yellow. And if you attack the enemy with that colour, you can delay the enemy attack and becomes quite tactical in whether you deal damage or stagger the enemy. You then quickly get introduced the games "Fuck You" button which is called The Soul Cannon which decimates everything in front of you. The catch being that should you use that option, it costs the life of one of your kids. And let me tell you this, using that option suuuuuuuuucks.
Because I'm an arsehole, I chucked the kid that was moaning that no one would miss him if he was gone into the cannon. And after the deed was done, I felt like a total git. But it was fine, and it was just a tutorial and then time rewinds and you get to upgrade your tank a bit and the fight is winnable without using the Soul Cannon. I found a little loophole in this Soul Cannon conundrum, why can't the kids take some prisoners and then when things get dire, commit a couple of war crimes and then none of them have to die.
Anyway, the game looks great with a nice water colour look that does remind me of Valkyria Chronicles and yet all the tanks and what have you are animated like they've escaped from a Metal Slug game. But yeah, the game is on offer so I think I'll pick it up too.
I do vaguely recall reactions to the sequel being somewhat divisive (particularly on the old Escapist). But I generally go into games looking for the good stuff anyway.
Oh, it wasn't just the Escapist. A lot of people on the internet felt very vocal about the sequel. Nowadays it's a bit more calm, back in the early to mid 2010s, you either like the sequel, or just straight up hated it, and consider it the worst thing in gaming. I never got around to playing the sequel, but from what I've seen, it's not that bad. I will say the focus on multiplayer that no one can really play anymore, is an understandable negative. You can still find a game cheap nowadays at second hand stores or Amazon. And if I remember correctly, it is backwards compatible on the modern Xbox consoles. It's still available on PC too
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Outriders.
My SO was playing it and ended up getting it for me and its really fun with a pretty interesting story that is told pretty well for an action game. It does have some issues, there are lots of little bugs and its weirdly easy to get stuck on terrain and when you are behind cover your character sticks too it like glue and the map is garbage. But its just fun with lots of neat looking guns and satisfying enemy kills.
My SO was playing it and ended up getting it for me and its really fun with a pretty interesting story that is told pretty well for an action game. It does have some issues, there are lots of little bugs and its weirdly easy to get stuck on terrain and when you are behind cover your character sticks too it like glue and the map is garbage. But its just fun with lots of neat looking guns and satisfying enemy kills.
40% off in the digital store, that's good enough for me! I got it but I'm gonna wait until I'm traveling again to play it.
Meanwhile...
Maneater
Tried it a bit yesterday but not going to continue simply due to the mechanics and frustrating way the map is organized
The game's problem for me is that it's all about swimming (duh, you're a shark), and swimming in games is always a struggle. And the map is designed like an open-world RPG where there are tons of obstacles, so you have to swim around to figure out where to go and it got annoying. The "combat" is charging things and biting and it's a lot of futzing with the camera.
That's too bad because I was all about everything else this game was offering. The tone, the art style, the premise, it is really cool. Even the leveling system seems a perfect blend of simple but useful. A friend absolutely loved it and his enthusiasm is why I tried it.
So despite my own feelings I would very much recommend it for someone with Game Pass looking for some light gaming entertainment. Probably most players won't have the same hang-ups with the mechanics that I do- I'm realizing how unbearably futzy I'm getting with game mechanics in my old age.
Excellent. Just make sure to be wearing headphones. Though it's nobody's business to be hyper focused on what you're playing, when you get on that plane or bus. You're usually air traveling, right?
The train will be the next round of traveling- holidays, and such. I always wear headphones of course, anybody that puts their entertainment on a loud speaker in public should be convicted of crimes against humanity.
Why.. are the noises particularly pornographic in this one or something?
I wouldn't go that that far most of the time, but I do dislike the ones that would do it obnoxiously and intentionally, just for the attention or trying to look cool.
Aside from a few seconds in one of the parts of the intro, no. Do expect a lot more cursing though.