What are you currently playing?

[Old_Hunter_77]

I've not had much of an opportunity to post much recently, because my computer has spent an extended amount of time behind my TV, since Hogwarts Legacy came out. My girlfriend's interest in that game has (thankfully) come and gone, but I have just really enjoyed playing games, whilst sat on my sofa.

Most of my time has been spent playing Dragon Age Inquisition, which has surprisingly intuitive controls. Or at least, I don't feel handicapped by using one, because the game limits you to 8 active abilities, regardless of whether or not you are using a keyboard, or a controller.

This is the first time that I have touched the game, since the Tresspasser DLC came out (September 2015).

I think what is the most surprising thing about this game, is just how vast this game is. I have so far spent about 60 hours (according to my Save data), and I feel like I have done relatively little. This is one of those games where, should you choose to do so, you can just wander off, into one of the game's many side-zones, and disappear for hours, collecting things, and doing little side quests. Unfortunately for me, I feel compelled to do a lot of this stuff.

I feel like I have barely even touched the main story, there are a few zones where I haven't even set foot in, and there are still three DLCs that I need to get to.

This feels like such a massive overcorrection from Dragon Age 2, which was repetitive, but pretty dense. This is definitely massive, but pretty empty of much meaningful content.

Im going to be here for a while.

The thing is though, I feel quite conflicted on how I feel about this game. Im having a good time, but Im not having a great time, and every now and again, I kind of feel like my time could be better spent playing many other games.

But im still enjoying myself. It is just a vast ocean of "pretty good".

Otherwise, I have played a couple of smaller games on my Steam Deck. I finally ticked off Thomas Was Alone from my backlog. This was a cute little puzzle game, but maybe it was a little too long.

I also played a tiny game called Florence from my girlfriend's recommendation (who is trying to play more games this year), and that was a really adorable little puzzle game, with basically zero dialogue, but it does a really really great job at communicating how these characters feel, just through imagery, and game mechanics. Really impressed with this one. Though the game just kind of ends.

Otherwise, back to the Dragon Age grindstone. I hope to come up for air again, soon.

I remember feeling much the same with that game, and it was my first in the series (not counting a quick aborted attempt at Origins. which I then came back to after Inquisition. And I never bothered with DA2).
Ultimately I did get tired of the side stuff and just focused on main story and whichever side quests involved the party characters and enjoyed it very much. While I recognize that Origins has the best story, Inquisition is just more fun for a player like me who likes using a controller not a kb+m.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

So I was complaining about the indie Walk Right for Depression type of game earlier with FAR: Lone Sails, and now I'm playing TITLE not knowing it's another Walk Right for Depression, but this is by the guy who made Deadly Premonition so the weirdness of everything from the story to the gameplay mechanics carries it.

TITLE is about a young lesbian high schooler looking for her bae after she disappears while camping in a Maine island. A lightning bolt strikes her and she gains the ability to dismember herself and regenerate at will. This is super lucky because the island is a 2D puzzle platformer that requires her to throw body parts to dislodge platforms, or use body parts as counterweight while crawling as a torso, or even just roll around as a head to reach through nooks and crannies. J.J. can also walk into concussions to flip the screen around (reversing gravity for some reason) or set herself on fire to carry over flames. You're essentially self-harming to work around obstacles. I guess it's funny (to me) because the violence is being puppeted by me rather than a suicidal teen (so it's no more SELF-harm than say deliberately getting walloped by Novistadors through a laser grid as Leon in RE4R), the pain is comically over the top (you just explode into body parts at the touch of some forest bramble), the voice work is atrocious and doesn't sell any emotion and there never seems to be any lasting harm on J.J anyway.

You collect donuts for no adequately explained reason (like strawberries in Celeste). You have some downtime on your smartphone. Watch out for anybody named FK in a Swery game.

Two criticisms: regen animations take too long, and the crouch/stand up is cumbersome. J.J. can go on all fours at the press of a button, but instead of standing up when pressing it again she goes face down on the ground. All fours is useful for some sections, but face down so far serves no purpose. Press the button again and she goes on all fours. Press it a fourth time and you finally stand up. That's annoying! Every time I crouch I have to push Circle three more times to stand up, and each animation has to play in full too. Wish there was a way of circumventing this.

EDIT: Alright, you can 'jump' to stand up from crouching. I'm still not sure why bother with two levels of crouching (being face down does nothing?) or why not just let me stand up by 'crouching' again but this is all nitpicking at this point. Swery will Swery. X to pull up a ledge, X to let go off a ledge, disregarding Circle as the universal "let go/back out" of PS. Sure dude, whatever you say.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Last night I finished Ghostwire Tokyo after getting fed up with some of the jank in the side quests and growing weary of the combat. But I still played a lot more of the side quests than I had expected and I enjoyed the whole campaign including the final boss fights. And yes the story itself is bland but the visuals used to tell it were gorgeous so overall I really liked this game.

Then I uninstalled it and went to the GamePass app to see what was what and found Quantum Break dropped on it. I remember the title and the trailer had a bunch of famous actors so I started it. It is a wild one.
So this is from Remedy, the company that made the first two Max Paynes and Alan Wake, so they are all about video games as an interactive action movie. Now I vaguely playing and liking one or more of the Max Paynes ages ago but I don't remember which. And I tried to play Alan Wake on my laptop but it didn't really worked so I watched it on youtube and loved what it was trying to do.

Quantum Break is the ultimate extreme realization of this type of game that is less a game and more a movie that is interrupted with you having to press buttons. Presentation is the be all and end all here and that presentation is great. It's some time travel quantum physics B.S. So not only does this game which came out in 2016 represent that full realization of this type of game, but it also feels like a final gasp of that type of TV show that was 100% based on sci-fi plot gimmick like Lost or Fringe, where executives would sit in rooms and say "what if like tomorrow was today and that was a show?!" and then it was a show. Well now it's a video game.

But the video game is a show, because at the end of each section of the game, there is like a whole episode of a TV show. As in- the actors that are mo-capped and voicing the characters are now fully acting in a filmed story that you just sit and watch while the controller sits idly and shuts off to preserve battery power. It's so silly lol.

The big draw is the cast which is a bunch of known actors in movies and TV shows, and it's a decent cast. A problem however is that when this game was made, the pressure to consider more diversity hadn't quite hit the fever pitch it has now (to be clear, I support this fever pitch). The resulting complaint isn't political, it is visual- since the cast are almost exclusively scruffy faced bland white dudes, I don't know who is who half the time.
The protagonist is Iceman from the X-men movies. His brother is the Rings hobbit that was also in Lost. Mo-capped, they look the same and I didn't know if they're supposed to be twins (they're not... but also, iceman has a twin IRL but he is not in this). Littlefinger is the antagonist. Some really handsome dude is a security guy that is important, and there is an IT guy. And when represented by 2016 video game versions, all these dudes look and sound the same!
Only exception is Lance Reddick who stands out for obvious reasons and is really Lance Reddicking it up in here which is great. Oh, I guess there are a couple of women but they're so typically boring that who cares.

I should say I only finished Ac 1 of 5 but with these kinds of characters you know what you're gonna get.

What I'm hoping to see as I progress is set pieces. Act 1 is at a university campus which is bland but fine because it had to focus on setting up the story. I'm hoping that with the high-end visual presentation and time wankery being the premise and mechanics, there are some interesting areas to explore.

Because you know what's not gonna make this game stand out? Combat. Guns guns guns, every f***g game, guns guns guns. It's the problem I have with Uncharted and Tomb Raider- when you have a game about world-building and story and exploration but you need to have violence, just have lame shoot outs. QB lets you slaughter waves of security guards just doing their job by letting you pause time quickly. It also uses the Uncharted trick of letting you get shot but you sort of heal by not getting shot for a while? It's really dumb and I'll probably just drop difficulty to get past these parts.

I know I'm kind of shitting on this because it definitely feels like a very bad game but the spectacle and attempt to do something different with the TV show thing is intriguing, and also I don't think it's very long. So far it's the video game equivalent of an entertaining enough movie that you can have a certain fondness for but not really go to bat for. LIke, I dunno... Heat?

 

[BrawlMan]

Last night I finished Ghostwire Tokyo after getting fed up with some of the jank in the side quests and growing weary of the combat. But I still played a lot more of the side quests than I had expected and I enjoyed the whole campaign including the final boss fights. And yes the story itself is bland but the visuals used to tell it were gorgeous so overall I really liked this game.

Then I uninstalled it and went to the GamePass app to see what was what and found Quantum Break dropped on it. I remember the title and the trailer had a bunch of famous actors so I started it. It is a wild one.
So this is from Remedy, the company that made the first two Max Paynes and Alan Wake, so they are all about video games as an interactive action movie. Now I vaguely playing and liking one or more of the Max Paynes ages ago but I don't remember which. And I tried to play Alan Wake on my laptop but it didn't really worked so I watched it on youtube and loved what it was trying to do.

Quantum Break is the ultimate extreme realization of this type of game that is less a game and more a movie that is interrupted with you having to press buttons. Presentation is the be all and end all here and that presentation is great. It's some time travel quantum physics B.S. So not only does this game which came out in 2016 represent that full realization of this type of game, but it also feels like a final gasp of that type of TV show that was 100% based on sci-fi plot gimmick like Lost or Fringe, where executives would sit in rooms and say "what if like tomorrow was today and that was a show?!" and then it was a show. Well now it's a video game.

But the video game is a show, because at the end of each section of the game, there is like a whole episode of a TV show. As in- the actors that are mo-capped and voicing the characters are now fully acting in a filmed story that you just sit and watch while the controller sits idly and shuts off to preserve battery power. It's so silly lol.

The big draw is the cast which is a bunch of known actors in movies and TV shows, and it's a decent cast. A problem however is that when this game was made, the pressure to consider more diversity hadn't quite hit the fever pitch it has now (to be clear, I support this fever pitch). The resulting complaint isn't political, it is visual- since the cast are almost exclusively scruffy faced bland white dudes, I don't know who is who half the time.
The protagonist is Iceman from the X-men movies. His brother is the Rings hobbit that was also in Lost. Mo-capped, they look the same and I didn't know if they're supposed to be twins (they're not... but also, iceman has a twin IRL but he is not in this). Littlefinger is the antagonist. Some really handsome dude is a security guy that is important, and there is an IT guy. And when represented by 2016 video game versions, all these dudes look and sound the same!
Only exception is Lance Reddick who stands out for obvious reasons and is really Lance Reddicking it up in here which is great. Oh, I guess there are a couple of women but they're so typically boring that who cares.

I should say I only finished Ac 1 of 5 but with these kinds of characters you know what you're gonna get.

What I'm hoping to see as I progress is set pieces. Act 1 is at a university campus which is bland but fine because it had to focus on setting up the story. I'm hoping that with the high-end visual presentation and time wankery being the premise and mechanics, there are some interesting areas to explore.

Because you know what's not gonna make this game stand out? Combat. Guns guns guns, every f***g game, guns guns guns. It's the problem I have with Uncharted and Tomb Raider- when you have a game about world-building and story and exploration but you need to have violence, just have lame shoot outs. QB lets you slaughter waves of security guards just doing their job by letting you pause time quickly. It also uses the Uncharted trick of letting you get shot but you sort of heal by not getting shot for a while? It's really dumb and I'll probably just drop difficulty to get past these parts.

I know I'm kind of shitting on this because it definitely feels like a very bad game but the spectacle and attempt to do something different with the TV show thing is intriguing, and also I don't think it's very long. So far it's the video game equivalent of an entertaining enough movie that you can have a certain fondness for but not really go to bat for. LIke, I dunno... Heat?

The problem with Quantum Break, is that it was one of the last games to fully follow the trend of: let's make a cover shooter and stop at that. It's a game about manipulating time, and there was so much waste of potential in it. I got the game for two bucks last year during the summer at a Disc Replay. It's definitely a one and done game. Quantum Break it's literally a worst version of the Vanquish. Also, QB is literally Fringe: The Game. Good old Lance Reddick is in it too. This is also during that weird. Where Microsoft was trying to weirdly integrate TV and movies with games, and try to sell their console as an all-in-one device for the consumers and frat boys. It's exactly why I did not get a One X, until I bought one for my brother last year at a heavy discount.

Timestamped to QB
​

 

[sXeth]

Warframe Duviri Paradox.

Its an interesting idea at least. I can see some obvious pitfalls if you chose it as the starting point as a new player (mostly that it has you using a full built (to a degree anyways) Warframe from the roguelike aspect and you don't even get Modding acknowledged as a thing, so the inevitable exit to the game proper is gonna be this random inexplicably massive power down.

The base version of the roguelike endless mode is pretty solid minus an occasional bug or two. The prestige version is hot mess because the "rental" builds aren't solid enough for many of the weaker weapon options to keep up. And builds at that level often are full loadout based so if you take one component randomly out then the whole thing starts teetering (particularly my main, Atlas requires a fairly specifically modded melee weapon to work to full effect)

The story/lore was alright, more or less. Its another thing where the concept and design of the world might be more appealing then any deep dive in the lore. And if someone was a new player it might have some interesting introductions, but a lot of the exposition was literally explaining what Tenno are for the most part.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The problem with Quantum Break, is that it was one of the last games to fully follow the trend of: let's make a cover shooter and stop at that. It's a game about manipulating time, and there was so much waste of potential in it. I got the game for two bucks last year during the summer at a Disc Replay. It's definitely a one and done game. Quantum Break it's literally a worst version of the Vanquish. Also, QB is literally Fringe: The Game. Good old Lance Reddick is in it too. This is also during that weird. Where Microsoft was trying to weirdly integrate TV and movies with games, and try to sell their console as an all-in-one device for the consumers and frat boys. It's exactly why I did not get a One X, until I bought one for my brother last year at a heavy discount.

Timestamped to QB
​

Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and agree with all of that. I never liked cover shooting anyway- I tend to sleep through those sections in Uncharted and Tomb Raider games on easy mode so I can get to the fun parts of exploring and story- and yet it's so common and seemingly popular. At least I'm not the only one who thinks that.

Anyway, I got bored with Quantum Break, not just for its over-reliance on cover shooting for action but it also does that thing that Red Dead Redemption 2 does where controlling the character feels like ass because they want it to be "realistic" and walking around in real life is boring so it's boring in a game. The story wasn't compelling enough to keep me invested so, I'm glad Gamepass let me check it out for a bit but I'm even more glad Remedy decided to move on to make an actual game with Control, which I adored.

So it'll be really interesting to see what Alan Wake 2 is. Nick Colandra has started a play-through on his streams and that is a game I watched on youtube because when I tried to play it on my laptop it was a janky mess and anyway I don't like squinting through dark games. But I loved the setting, story, etc. There are a lot of games I like the idea of more than actually playing it. If the sequel is just another slog of walking through dark areas then I'll watch someone else play it but if they learn from Control and actually make the combat and movement engaging, and integrate story and gameplay like that game, it could be great.

Today I'm gonna check out The Last Case of Benedict Fox, which seems to have some buzz around but I'm not sure why other than the simple appeal of "metroidvania" and "Lovecraftian."

 

[BrawlMan]

So it'll be really interesting to see what Alan Wake 2 is. Nick Colandra has started a play-through on his streams and that is a game I watched on youtube because when I tried to play it on my laptop it was a janky mess and anyway I don't like squinting through dark games. But I loved the setting, story, etc. There are a lot of games I like the idea of more than actually playing it. If the sequel is just another slog of walking through dark areas then I'll watch someone else play it but if they learn from Control and actually make the combat and movement engaging, and integrate story and gameplay like that game, it could be great.

I like the first Alan Wake, but my problem with it is that I don't care much for the harder difficulty settings. Also the lack of enemy variety is noticeable. That game did have a rough production history and it shows. Even with the definitive edition. Aw is still a unique and fun game, that's better than most of the third person shooters that came out during the 7th generation. Though for a 3rd person shooter game with light and darkness theme, I actually like Shadows of a Damned more, even though it has slightly even more jank (but a high polished jank). Plus, the game has way more enemy variety and it does more things with the darkness than Alan Wake does.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Also the lack of enemy variety is noticeable.

What do you mean?! There were the shadowy dudes with melee weapons, and...

...and....

...wasn't there farm equipment at one point?

Anyway, my primary complaint with Alan Wake was always the controls. They felt like they were fighting the player more often than not, which maybe fits thematically with the story, but doesn't exactly make for great gameplay.

 

[BrawlMan]

wasn't there farm equipment at one point?

Yes. There are crows as well, but they were supposed to be more animals infected by the darkness. Due to budget constraints & time, Remedy had to drop them from development.

Anyway, my primary complaint with Alan Wake was always the controls. They felt like they were fighting the player more often than not, which maybe fits thematically with the story, but doesn't exactly make for great gameplay.

Really? The controls I actually didn't have a problem. Aside from the driving controls. They're not the worst, but you can tell that this was supposed to be an open world game at one point. The driving definitely has jank, and feels too loose. I also didn't care for the driving sections, and that one long one in one of the late chapters should have just been a cut scene. Biggest waste of time ever.

 

[bluegate]

Three years since last playing it I decided to boot Knack 2 up again and clean up some Trophies I missed in it.

Which pretty much meant just playing the game on Hard Mode or above.

Simple yet fun game.

 

[BrawlMan]

Three years since last playing it I decided to boot Knack 2 up again and clean up some Trophies I missed in it.

Which pretty much meant just playing the game on Hard Mode or above.

Simple yet fun game.

​

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Last Case of Benedict Fox
The epitome of a current big-ticket indy game:
- Highly anticipated
- mEtroiDVanIa
- Reviewers will get to say their 2nd favorite word: Lovecraftian
- Shit combat controls and kinda shit movement controls
- Beautiful style and soundtrack
- Potentially compelling story
- Confusing as all hell and after about an hour of playing, I'm stuck and lost and will wait for someone else to figure this shit out for me

 

[NerfedFalcon]

On the recommendation of a friend of mine who also plays Genshin Impact, I decided to install the latest game by the same developers, Honkai: Star Rail. Unlike Genshin it's a turn-based RPG, but it uses the same system of each character only having a few different active skills to use, and the combinations of different characters into a party combining and chaining their effects being where all the power and depth comes from. Unfortunately, I just don't think that in a turn-based system, such limited characters are interesting to use even as a party. With Genshin it feels different, since you have to swap between them and time your casts properly as well as actively avoiding enemies and controlling space. Star Rail just felt like a less interesting version of Final Fantasy 10's combat, and maybe it gets better once you sink more time into it and unlock more characters, but I just don't feel it enough right away to try to push on.

Ah, well, at least I didn't spend any money or more than a couple of hours to figure out that it wasn't for me.

 

[BrawlMan]

Tried doing a Mania+ Arcade run with Adam. Died halfway into the final stage. This difficulty favors overpowered spam moves, and it is harder from Adam to pull off. His moves are nowhere spammable as most of the other characters.

 

[Dalisclock]

Pathfinder: KingmeMaker

So after an arc where I get to play with a barbarian invasion and such, I finally reach a point where I get made Queen of the stolen lands, which is pretty cool honestly. I think it's mostly because my main is the dominant power in the area, so people figured might as well give me a crown.

With that out of the way. I reached the most obnoxious part of the game so far. Darven, Just fucking Darven. For people who haven't played this game, Darven is a pirate, killer and overall troublemaker who shows up in your kingdom. On his tail are a group of Hellknights, who claim they're only interested in bringing Darven to justice for his crimes but they make it clear very quickly they're going to beat up and harass your citizens in order to dig up leads on the guy. If you point out to the Hellknights that they're in your kingdom and are your guests and you probably didn't give them permission to beat up your people because they feel like it, they'll just say you're a weakling and they don't recognize your authority over them and keep doing it anyway because fuck you.

So you have an asshole being chased by a group of assholes and it's pretty much impossible to be rid of either of them until the end of the quest, while both of them cause problems in the kingdom. Trying to tell them to GTFO doesn't work because they both ignore you, trying to kill them will just have them engage plot armor and warp away or something, you have no option to have them arrested by the guards(of which you have many at this point). No, you have to just deal with the quest as presented, and NO, it's not optional. Also, Darven is the coolest and bestest rogue ever and you should be fucking grateful he's gracing your kingdom with his presence, or at least that's what the quest keeps trying to make you believe.

Apparently the big problem is that during the kickstarter phase of development, some guy paid $4000 to put his own quest in and he wrote one where his self insert character Darven comes to your kingdom and all this shit happens. Thus the incredibly self serving writing for Darven, the lack of ability to just have everyone exiled or killed, or even any ability to just ignore it. All for the lack of "Quest subject to editorial review and revision" in the Kickstarter.

Update: Quest is finished and it turns out the optimal solution to the quest is "Put all of them to the Sword", something I never thought I'd be endorsing but I was so sick of both sides by the end I was glad to kill them all and be done with it. Strangely, the final mission invovled me fighting Darven's Mercs while allied(by default) with the hellknights, telling the hellknights I wasn't actually on their side and fought them with the aid of Darven, and then when Darven said "I knew you were my friend. Here's some money for helping me", I told him "You are mistaken. I'm here to kill ALL of you for making me waste me time with you". He seemed quite shocked by this and probably was still quite shocked when I put a fireball up his ass.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Pathfinder: KingmeMaker

So after an arc where I get to play with a barbarian invasion and such, I finally reach a point where I get made Queen of the stolen lands, which is pretty cool honestly. I think it's mostly because my main is the dominant power in the area, so people figured might as well give me a crown.

With that out of the way. I reached the most obnoxious part of the game so far. Darven, Just fucking Darven. For people who haven't played this game, Darven is a pirate, killer and overall troublemaker who shows up in your kingdom. On his tail are a group of Hellknights, who claim they're only interested in bringing Darven to justice for his crimes but they make it clear very quickly they're going to beat up and harass your citizens in order to dig up leads on the guy. If you point out to the Hellknights that they're in your kingdom and are your guests and you probably didn't give them permission to beat up your people because they feel like it, they'll just say you're a weakling and they don't recognize your authority over them and keep doing it anyway because fuck you.

So you have an asshole being chased by a group of assholes and it's pretty much impossible to be rid of either of them until the end of the quest, while both of them cause problems in the kingdom. Trying to tell them to GTFO doesn't work because they both ignore you, trying to kill them will just have them engage plot armor and warp away or something, you have no option to have them arrested by the guards(of which you have many at this point). No, you have to just deal with the quest as presented, and NO, it's not optional. Also, Darven is the coolest and bestest rogue ever and you should be fucking grateful he's gracing your kingdom with his presence, or at least that's what the quest keeps trying to make you believe.

Apparently the big problem is that during the kickstarter phase of development, some guy paid $4000 to put his own quest in and he wrote one where his self insert character Darven comes to your kingdom and all this shit happens. Thus the incredibly self serving writing for Darven, the lack of ability to just have everyone exiled or killed, or even any ability to just ignore it. All for the lack of "Quest subject to editorial review and revision" in the Kickstarter.

So is this the one game you're going to be playing for the rest of your life? Feels like you've been playing this forever at this point. What's your playtime? 400 hours?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories

Oooooooh ok. I think I suspected "it" on some unconscious level or I wouldn't have made that throwaway comparison to Celeste earlier. And looking back, yeah, Swery does seem obsessed about it in the Deadly Premonition games. He's sympathetic here, for once, but also kinda making crass jokes about it? There's a billboard the minute the twist is unveiled, casually but very clearly in the background, that seems to find the whole predicament very comical. No, that is 100% not a coincidence. In fact I'm willing to bet this even ties to J.J.'s donut obsession.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Played an hour or so of Jedi Survivor on PS5, and I know it's far more playable on consoles than it currently is on PC, but damn did it give me some PS3 nostalgia. I mean, wonky framerate AND screen tearing?! Oof. The fact that it requires 132 gigs of space probably speaks to how badly optimized this game is.

 

[Dalisclock]

So is this the one game you're going to be playing for the rest of your life? Feels like you've been playing this forever at this point. What's your playtime? 400 hours?

I'm at 100 hours at this point and man it feels like I've been playing this forever.

To be fair, I'm still enjoying it and I was aware how long it was gonna be going in.

But yeah, once I'm done going play a lot of shorter games. WOTR can wait till next year.

 

[BrawlMan]

Once I get back from the theater, I'm going to get back to playing Bayonetta Origins. I stopped at chapter 3, because I was having too much fun with Resident Evil 4 Remake. I've done eight playthroughs at this point, so I'm satisfied and want to move on to something else.