What are you currently playing?

[FakeSympathy]

@Old_Hunter_77, @CriticalGaming, @FakeSympathy, @The Rogue Wolf, @gorfias, and @laggyteabag, I completed Dead Space Remake just now, and I love it! Game was completed in 14 hours, and I only had about 4 deaths. Completed it on Normal mode, but I didn't do all the side quests. It didn't bother me much, but I know DSR's side quests are better than RE4R's side quests. I finished the final boss with the near upgraded Plasma Cutter. NG+ I'll do later.

Like RE1R, RE2R, and RE4R , this is what all remakes should strive for, and Dead Space Remake delivered heavily. It pays so much respect to the original, but improves upon it in multiple ways, and adds a better overall story. I find it hard to go back to the original now.

The Plasma Cutter-only run was suprisingly easy. I guess taking one weapon to the maximum instead of spreading the upgrade nodes everywhere helped, but this was seriously a daunting task for me back in 360 days. Tense situation and the crappy aiming with the controller didn't help. Mouse aiming made things so much easy!

 

[sXeth]

Stasis is a lot of fun to use, so is strand with Lightfall. Beyond Light also has a pretty great antagonist.

I am perpetually amused by every Destiny expansion starting off with "Run, they're too powerful".... and the level of casually laying waste to said enemies on the way out has only increased, lol

 

[mirbrownbread]

Death's Door, love it so far!
Intriguing setting, unique art style, bosses complex enough to force me into alternating my approach ever so often - I got nothing to complain about for now

 

[Worgen]

I am perpetually amused by every Destiny expansion starting off with "Run, they're too powerful".... and the level of casually laying waste to said enemies on the way out has only increased, lol

Bungie really wants to be able to build up drama, but its super hard to do with a fps game, especially one that gives you as many options as Destiny 2.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

So I just got to the point in Hi-Fi Rush where they teach you how to parry... what the fuck. I LOVE parrying in games, why did they leave it for almost last??? Actually I have no idea how long I've actually been playing, so completely possible that I'm just ridiculously slow at this game.

 

[BrawlMan]

So I just got to the point in Hi-Fi Rush where they teach you how to parry... what the fuck. I LOVE parrying in games, why did they leave it for almost last??? Actually I have no idea how long I've actually been playing, so completely possible that I'm just ridiculously slow at this game.

They introduced parrying by the second half of chapter 2. I don't know why they did this either. I guess they just wanted to ease new players in, but that's no excuse. They should have had it in, no further than halfway into the first chapter. If Metal Gear Rising, Ninja Gaiden, DmC '13, and DMC 5 can introduce their parry mechanics early enough, then so can this game too.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

On the Hidden Gems streams, Jesse Galina has been playing this game called Infinite Guitars which they're comparing its art style to Hi-Fi Rush. It's like sorta-guitar-hero with lite RPG-ish cute graphics and they really like it. It's also on Gamepass so worth checking out perhaps (not on PlayStation tho).

 

[Bob_McMillan]

They introduced parrying by the second half of chapter 2. I don't know why they did this either. I guess they just wanted to ease news players and, but that's no excuse. They should have had it in no further than halfway into the first chapter. If Metal Gear Rising, Ninja Gaiden, DmC '13, and DMC 5 can introduce their parry mechanics early enough, then so can this game too.

I found myself pressing the parry button before it was introduced because that was just muscle memory from other games. Although normally I'd expect it to be the dodge button, but I think the switch up actually works really well. But yeah, definitely should have introduced it earlier.

On the Hidden Gems streams, Jesse Galina has been playing this game called Infinite Guitars which they're comparing its art style to Hi-Fi Rush. It's like sorta-guitar-hero with lite RPG-ish cute graphics and they really like it. It's also on Gamepass so worth checking out perhaps (not on PlayStation tho).

It looks cute, but man an actual rhythm game is just not for me.

 

[Baffle]

The Crew 2. I don't really understand who this game is for and I didn't enjoy it.

 

[BrawlMan]

I don't really understand who this game is for

Suckers and idiots who think they're getting a good racing game. Which is somewhat sad, because the first game is actually decent. You want any good racing games? Ask me anytime. Due note that most of them are arcade style racers I am recommending.

 

[Bartholen]

I'm 5 hours into Total War: Warhammer 2. When is this supposed to get fun? I don't think I've ever played a game that felt this frustrating in a way that reminds of a nagging mom telling me to do my homework. The game constantly hassles you with notifications about what you need to do when you have no resources to do any of it. The game's essentially screaming "DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS". And getting anything feels like accounting: to do X you need Y, but to get Y you need Z, but to get Z you need M, and to get M you need N and so on. And you need to be doing this and this and this and this. Fucking hell, I just wanted to see some armies fight! And even that's not fun: the battles are so large and the units so teeny weeny, and there's so little feedback or visual indication of what's happening or how things are going I feel like I'm only half in control. Sometimes my troops will just stop obeying orders and I'm not sure if it's even because their morale is broken, because the game doesn't tell me.

It also feels like I'm already stuck in a death spiral despite playing the tutorial campaign (at least I assume) on Easy difficulty, because the game seems to basically mislead you. It absolutely bombards you with tutorials, objectives, a fuckton of different mechanics, and simply pointless information (the fuck do I care about some diplomacy dispute on the other side of the planet?), but never tells you things like "hey, sometimes you just need to wait a few turns to gather some resources" or "hey, focus on just a few settlements first". Everything gets vomited at you all at once with zero grace or pacing, and it's one of the worst information overloads I've ever experienced.

Total War? More like Total Accounting.

 

[meiam]

I'm 5 hours into Total War: Warhammer 2. When is this supposed to get fun? I don't think I've ever played a game that felt this frustrating in a way that reminds of a nagging mom telling me to do my homework. The game constantly hassles you with notifications about what you need to do when you have no resources to do any of it. The game's essentially screaming "DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS". And getting anything feels like accounting: to do X you need Y, but to get Y you need Z, but to get Z you need M, and to get M you need N and so on. And you need to be doing this and this and this and this. Fucking hell, I just wanted to see some armies fight! And even that's not fun: the battles are so large and the units so teeny weeny, and there's so little feedback or visual indication of what's happening or how things are going I feel like I'm only half in control. Sometimes my troops will just stop obeying orders and I'm not sure if it's even because their morale is broken, because the game doesn't tell me.

It also feels like I'm already stuck in a death spiral despite playing the tutorial campaign (at least I assume) on Easy difficulty, because the game seems to basically mislead you. It absolutely bombards you with tutorials, objectives, a fuckton of different mechanics, and simply pointless information (the fuck do I care about some diplomacy dispute on the other side of the planet?), but never tells you things like "hey, sometimes you just need to wait a few turns to gather some resources" or "hey, focus on just a few settlements first". Everything gets vomited at you all at once with zero grace or pacing, and it's one of the worst information overloads I've ever experienced.

Total War? More like Total Accounting.

What notifications? There's very little to do in the game compared to a traditional 4x, most of the notification are about what happened, ie "you had a fight and won item X". Same for resource, there's only gold and settlement growth, growth accumulate over time and gold is mainly won trough winning fight. Some of the empire have race specific resource, but that's maybe one more.

For battle, unless you turned off some of the UI element, there's a 2 bar above every units, one is overall health and the other is moral. If their moral is broken there's a white flag or a skull above their head.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Almost finished with Pikmin 4. Excellent game. Like 3 is an improved version of 1, 4 is an improved version of 2. It really feels like a "Pikmin's greatest hits" kind of game with all the aspects of it. It's really good.

Does it have the randomized cave system again?

 

[Absent]

I'm 5 hours into Total War: Warhammer 2. When is this supposed to get fun? I don't think I've ever played a game that felt this frustrating in a way that reminds of a nagging mom telling me to do my homework. The game constantly hassles you with notifications about what you need to do when you have no resources to do any of it. The game's essentially screaming "DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS". And getting anything feels like accounting: to do X you need Y, but to get Y you need Z, but to get Z you need M, and to get M you need N and so on. And you need to be doing this and this and this and this. Fucking hell, I just wanted to see some armies fight! And even that's not fun: the battles are so large and the units so teeny weeny, and there's so little feedback or visual indication of what's happening or how things are going I feel like I'm only half in control. Sometimes my troops will just stop obeying orders and I'm not sure if it's even because their morale is broken, because the game doesn't tell me.

It also feels like I'm already stuck in a death spiral despite playing the tutorial campaign (at least I assume) on Easy difficulty, because the game seems to basically mislead you. It absolutely bombards you with tutorials, objectives, a fuckton of different mechanics, and simply pointless information (the fuck do I care about some diplomacy dispute on the other side of the planet?), but never tells you things like "hey, sometimes you just need to wait a few turns to gather some resources" or "hey, focus on just a few settlements first". Everything gets vomited at you all at once with zero grace or pacing, and it's one of the worst information overloads I've ever experienced.

Total War? More like Total Accounting.

Have you played other TW games ?

They are one of my absolute favorite franchise, but I haven't played them all (not all settings interest me, plus DLC hell keeps me away from new titles) and in particular haven't tried the fantasy settings.

So I don't know if I should take your review as "Bartholen doesn't like the Total War gameplay" or as "TW:WH2 is a bad version".

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Does it have the randomized cave system again?

It does have caves again, yes. I don't know if they're randomized though since I only went through each, one time.

 

[Bartholen]

Have you played other TW games ?

They are one of my absolute favorite franchise, but I haven't played them all (not all settings interest me, plus DLC hell keeps me away from new titles) and in particular haven't tried the fantasy settings.

So I don't know if I should take your review as "Bartholen doesn't like the Total War gameplay" or as "TW:WH2 is a bad version".

This is my first Total War. I suppose it took an adjustment period and going against a lot of what the game seemed to want me to do, but I've found myself enjoying it a lot more after the initial bumps. Some few things would have been nice to know before that though, like:

• You can just fail quests, it's no biggie
• Don't occupy settlements aside from the ones in your first province until the midgame lest you enter a death spiral
• You can spend turns just waiting for buildings to finish and resources to accumulate

The problem is that the game throws a zillion objectives at you at the very start and makes them all seem important and urgent, when they're anything but. Like recruiting a hero. It comes up in like turn 5, but it can easily take like 20 more before you even have the means to do it. So the objective is just sitting there, taunting me and making me feel like a dumbass because I haven't completed it yet. Or how the game urges you to fight both the Skaven clan and Ghrond, when fighting on multiple fronts is something specifically to be avoided in the early game.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

This is my first Total War. I suppose it took an adjustment period and going against a lot of what the game seemed to want me to do, but I've found myself enjoying it a lot more after the initial bumps. Some few things would have been nice to know before that though, like:

• You can just fail quests, it's no biggie
• Don't occupy settlements aside from the ones in your first province until the midgame lest you enter a death spiral
• You can spend turns just waiting for buildings to finish and resources to accumulate

The problem is that the game throws a zillion objectives at you at the very start and makes them all seem important and urgent, when they're anything but. Like recruiting a hero. It comes up in like turn 5, but it can easily take like 20 more before you even have the means to do it. So the objective is just sitting there, taunting me and making me feel like a dumbass because I haven't completed it yet. Or how the game urges you to fight both the Skaven clan and Ghrond, when fighting on multiple fronts is something specifically to be avoided in the early game.

Ah... if you've not played a total war game before it's probably a lot to take in.

Oh yeah, ignore all those extra objectives, they don't mean shit.
Take over your province. Then try to take full provinces rather than bits all over the place. Finish off one faction before you start a war with another.

Sounds like you're playing a dark elf faction? Are you playing mortal empires or the campaign? Because honestly the campaign isn't why it's so popular, Mortal Empires is the way to go.

PS, if you need any advice just watch Legend of Total War's channel on YouTube.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Ah... if you've not played a total war game before it's probably a lot to take in.

Oh yeah, ignore all those extra objectives, they don't mean shit.
Take over your province. Then try to take full provinces rather than bits all over the place. Finish off one faction before you start a war with another.

Sounds like you're playing a dark elf faction? Are you playing mortal empires or the campaign? Because honestly the campaign isn't why it's so popular, Mortal Empires is the way to go.

PS, if you need any advice just watch Legend of Total War's channel on YouTube.

Alternatively, get your Grumpy Old Man hat on and ***** that Total War hasn't been worth a pinch of shit after Shogun II.

 

[BrawlMan]

I did a few more playthroughs of DD Gaiden earlier tonight and last night. I tried playing with the difficulty sliders and setting some of them to max. I tell ya, going in with low health, max enemy aggression, and max enemy stats (which I did tonight for the first time) was not the best ideas during the latter half of the game. Last night wasn't so bad, but tonight...yeah....I hate the Anubis boss when you're not facing his final form. Turning on the aggression high just makes him spam the most damaging moves over and over again.

@Worgen, @NerfedFalcon, and @Summerstorm, I do recommend this game, but it does some frustrating moments. You're not invincible doing supers/special attacks unlike SOR4. Enemies can throw weapons from off-screen and there is no way to know, other than sometimes a sound cue. The true final boss sucks and is way overpowered. There are SNK bosses fairer than this. It's still one of my favorite Double Dragon games, but it can use a patch update for there flaws.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Alternatively, get your Grumpy Old Man hat on and ***** that Total War hasn't been worth a pinch of shit after Shogun II.

Well, I'll get my sometimes grumpy middle aged man hat on and say never played Shogun (Total Weeb more like, amirite?!?) but after playing Total Warhammer 1&2 I couldn't really go back to Medieval 2, which I still think stands up very well as a game.

I think part of the problem for someone jumping in now is that Total Warhammer is just so huge and although it's technically 3 games it's basically one long development of one game and they've added so many factions with their own mechanics and play styles both at the strategic and tactical battlefield level as well as all the different lords and units etc, with many of those having a very varied level of challenge especially at the start and being Warhammer there are plenty of units primarily there for shits and giggles because fans wanted to see them.

So although it's technically stand alone, jumping in at TW2 (which has itself changed majorly since first released) is learning to swim by jumping in at the deep and and although I haven't played the tutorial I imagine from Bartholen's post it's basically a very leaky pair of water wings.

He's probably playing campaign, but in Mortal Empires the 4 starting factions: High Elves = easy mode but with a weird inter high elf courtly intrigue mechanic. Skaven = how the fuck does this economy work? Dark elves (Malekith) = seems easy until you get ganked by a huge unannounced chaos invasion coming in from the edge of the map, which is your northern border that up to this point you haven't had much reason to defend. Dark Elves (Morathi) = Everyone hates you and dammit it's awkward geographically. Lizard men = Never played, no idea.
As a long time player you'd probably find that all quite interesting, but a new player will probably find anything but the High Elves kind of bullshit.