What are you currently playing?

[FakeSympathy]

Decided to take a break from Eiyudence Chorinicles, and check out FO4 next-gen update.

And after finally getting it to run on my pc after hours of removing mods, clearing cache, and reinstalling, I can safely say this is one of the WORST next-gen update patch I've ever seen. I actually feel my time was wasted trying to make it run. I'm not gonna get into every single thing wrong with this update, but highlights are (if you are on PC)

• Barely any graphical changes, other than the option to push the game to run at 4k 60fps
• No real way to revert back to previous version
• Broken mods, oh so many of them
• Ultrawide screen support simply means stretching things out without proper scaling
• All the free stuff that comes with the patch you can find better versions on nexus
• Even at base game, there are missing textures; You know, those big exclamation marks

I really wish this was FO4 SE instead with proper upgrades. Because that way people can play the original version that works with the mods, and mod creators can take their time to develop their contents for SE. For console players it definitely might be an upgrade, but pc players are getting the real short end of the stick here.

But I guess that's Bethesda for you. Going back to EC now

 

[BrawlMan]

I've been swapping back between Panzer Bandit and Final Fight 3. I did an expert run of FFi3 with Lucia and the second player AI. The AI okay enough, but they have some dumb moments. I like the combat mechanics, but it sucks the game does that SNES brawler thing most of them suffered from where you can only fight three enemies on the screen at once. There are some exceptions, but only if they're the exact same enemy type. It's good game and better than Final Fight 2 (which is average and playing the hacked version makes the SNES/SF cart obsolete). I'm doing another expert run, but this time with Haggar. The game gets a lot more fun when you're using him. The game is fine, but it's underwhelming that there were so many other better brawlers that came out before during and after this game's release.

Panzer Bandit I am halfway done and playing with Kou this time. Once I beat it with him, I will have completed the game with all of the default four characters.

 

[BrawlMan]

Panzer Bandit - I finally beat the game with all four characters and unlocked all the boss characters. Kou I actually managed to get a million points on. He's the character with my highest score. Believe it or not, he's actually the toughest character to use because his long range attacks have the shortest range compared to all the default characters. I'm not going to play the game with all the bosses, but I do enjoy playing as the cat girl boss. Considering how game breaking she already is, I bet all the bosses are overpowered.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Still on Alwa's Awakening. Difficulty ramps the hell up in the final dungeon.

Apparently all those orbs you collect that supposedly keep raising your power level every set amount, what they really do is shorten boss health bars. Literally, you see HP being reduced whenever a fight is about to start. Weird way of implementing it.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Completed Sentinel Prime and the second major boss fight in Doom Eternal. Still think this game has pretty great boss fights, though the Gladiator did kick my ass a fair bit. The BFG 9000 is stupid fun to use, just like it was in the previous game. Last third of the story to go, and then since I don't have The Ancient Gods, I'll probably pick up something else rather than moving on to that.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

So the crab game. Pinched it. Peered under the shell. Scuttled...sideways around it? And.

Is.

Fckin adorable!



could just be madness but is giving off some Conker's Bad Fur Day vibes from contrast between cutesie characters/aesthetic, mature-ish themes and various British accents doing maybe colourful Brit [style comedies/ISPOILER]

 

[Bedinsis]

Playing Higurashi: when they cry. Found out what I think the main plot is gonna be. Have a feeling "the shit is gonna hit the fan" so to speak in the next chapter.

Spoiler: The plot so far and speculation

The overall plot is two parallell structures: slice of life everyday life where our protagonist Keichii interacts with 4 girls (that are his friends), activities that tend to evolve into a competition of sort no matter what. You get to know the small town and the people. The other is the activities that happen at the end of the day, where you get a bit of backstory of the town. Some years in the past there was a discussion about flooding the town to make a dam, to which its residents protested, and the negotiations fell down after a guy was murdered, his body dismembered and hidden by 6 people, one of which has not been brought to justice yet.

This chapter I just played through was set during a local festival, where it was revealed that the guy was also murdered on the day of the festival, and someone has died every year on that same festival day since.

I have a feeling next chapter someone's gonna be revealed to have been killed. I wonder whether it's gonna be someone unrelated to the core cast, and the game will turn into a detective game with the main cast at a safe distance from proceedings. Or if a character close to the core cast or a member of the core cast itself be dead. If the former, I suspect the protagonist's parents are prime candidates, since one of the people killed previously did not participate in the festival and neither did the parents. If the latter, I suspect the girly-girl Rena. She kissed the protagonist in this chapter and has been the closest to him so far; it would be appropriate if his shot at joy would be shanked out from him as an upset to the status quo. Either way, if someone in the core cast dies I suspect one of the photographs the photographer took will be key to solving the mystery. We've not seen any images but it'd be strange if that detail does not pop up, how something we didn't think of at the time as strange suddenly becomes relevant.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Tales of Kenzera: Zau

Complete, all side stuff except one final platforming challenge done.

Woo boy, some mixed feelings on this one..

Well overall pretty good, I had fun, it's a nice game, glad I played it.

The good:
Art, characters, story, settings. It's been compared to Prince of Persia: Lost Crown because it's a 2D metroidvania and has colors and non-western style and themes. Similar also is that the gameplay is smooth, crips, easy to understand, and responsive. It's is just fun to zip around the world, running and jumping and bopping some baddies up on the head.

The game's length is good- just four "acts," so short, but I was also ready to be done with it at the end so the pacing was pretty perfect, a true rarity.

The bad:
As an actual metroidvania, it's actually pretty shit. You really do just from area to area so that the actual experience of playing the game is like a bunch of levels. Which would be fine if they didn't bill it and present it as a metroidvania. It's like when action games have "rpg elements" and I want to scream.

As usual I will analogize to The Witcher 3- that game is ostensibly an RPG, but it is quite a garbage RPG, but it is my favorte game of all time. Meaning- "rpg" to me is leveling up, building a character by choosing strengths and weaknesses, fiddling with loot and gear and skill points or whatever and that stuff really making a different, and W3 has all that but it's useless. But everything else about it is great so I love it.

Kind of similar here- the true metroidvania heads should just not bother because there is no interesting doubling-back with new things to make it interesting. All you get is that now you can go down a locked pathway to do a bonus platforming challenging to get a mostly useless gear item. Blech.

I've seen some complaints about the boss fights but I don't have that complaint, I thought they were fine. But I don't really want or need big scary Dark Souls boss fights, frankly I think too many games lean on that as a crutch. These were fine.

Oh- and it has a couple of parts where you have to run away and you die in one hit, like Ori and the Blind Forest. I hate that. And it effects difficulty and I will post about that in the hot takes thread.


Now I'm not gonna play anything next, nothing currently is capturing my interest.

 

[BrawlMan]

Now I'm not gonna play anything next, nothing currently is capturing my interest.

​

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

​

*nods*

That's not a bad thing or a complaining thing at all, btw- last year taught me that I am just extremely particular about my gaming tastes and how I wish to spend my recreational time, and that I enjoy gaming more when I'm really eager for it. It takes a lot more patience and effort for me to get into game these days and that's ok. Me saying I'm not interested in anything right now is NOT the same thing as every other post in some reddit about "modern gaming sucks!"

Especially some of these new games I'm not really interested in playing means I'm not interested in playing now. Lies of P, Stellar Blade, Rise of Ronin- someday, maybe, with a nice discount. $20 right now is my line where I'm ok paying for that if I think the experience might be less than stellar but still interesting (Tales of Kenzara is that price).

And with the retro games, the brawlers and the Double Dragons and whatnot, I enjoy reading your posts and watching the clips and whatever but I ain't feeling in the mood to actually play them. Same with the rpgs- it's been interesting to hear folks talking about Unicorn Overlord but I'm not gonna play that. I'm glad all these games are around though.

But I'm ok not having a game to play, I could do stuff like.. well, heck, listen to Yes (the song in the clip).

And yeah, this stuff can change at any moment, too, maybe tomorrow I'll start getting into emulators or some crap who knows lol.

Oh.. I did abandon my recent attempt to get back into Elden Ring. Just... ugh, life's too short.

 

[BrawlMan]

$20 right now is my line where I'm ok paying

That's me in general. $20-$30 is usually my go to price. I gotten more and better experiences out of most games with that price than the standard $60-$70 most "large" AAA games go for today.

I'll start getting into emulators or some crap who knows lol.

If you're interested, then I reccomend getting the Myoo Mini+. Cost $79.99 and you get over 3000+ games you can add or removed at your own leisure.

​

Just... ugh, life's too short.

Indeed. Which is why I play games that I know are going to be worth my time.

 

[meiam]

Fun little platformer (clock in at 6 hours), inspired by N64 era. Sorta metroidvenia in 3D with little combat and story to speak of. But its very non linear so you get some interesting platforming section since you might not have the power you're supposed to have to clear it but you can still do it by using other traversal mechanic.

 

[BrawlMan]

Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold (PS1) and Street Fighter Alpha 3 (PS1) - Fun and vintage Capcom Arcade Classics

Gekido (PS1) - A fun 3d brawler that is better than Fighting Force, but tough. There's some jank too. This game has licensed music by Fatboy Slim, making this game clearly from the year 2000. I didn't know this game was developed by an Italian studio. It explains some of the jank.

Golden Axe II I did a run with Tyris and managed to get an SA Rank. The highest rank you can get.

 

[BrawlMan]

I finally finished Crisis Beat. Fun game, but the final boss is cheap as fuck when he grabs. There is no tell on when he's going to grab you. I am trying Kenneth, and man is he a bad ass. Dude fights with his hands in his pockets. Ken's got long range, but is the slowest of the four.

 

[Dalisclock]

Finished Mafia: Definitive Edition.

Overall pretty good. I rather enjoyed the rather grounded narrative even if the fact most missions have you gunning down like 50+ dudes sometimes in OOT setpiece missions, which is a little bit tonally inconsistent but it's fine. I do appreciate the fact that it leans on the fact that while being a mobster may be fun for the player, it's not particularly fun for Tommy, nor some of his co-workers. One of the other main characters, Paulie (because of course there's a Paulie in the Sicilian Mob) mentions occasionally gets flashbacks of being shot at and he's starting to feel paranoia, so essentially undiagnosed PTSD. Tommy himself also seems to have something similar because he occasionally will get a thousand yard stare for a moment when he thinks maybe he shouldn't kill someone. In particular, there's a mission where he plants a bomb in someone's care and if you've seen any mob movie you probably can guess what happens next. Yeah, the targets wife starts the car instead, blowing herself up, and Tommy feels fucking awful about it even years later. And I appreciate they work this into the story and characterization.

I think that's what I particular enjoyed about it, is that it takes the subject matter fairly seriously even if the set pieces can sometimes be a bit OOT. The narrative occasionally like to remind you that Tommy is one of the baddies, or at least, he's a criminal and the mob life really isn't that glamorous. Also the fact while games like GTA or Saints Row learn heavily into Camp and Satire/Parody, Mafia is paying deliberate homage to the crime genre, and I could see where certain scenes were very much influenced by famous mob movies. In particular, there's a scene where Tommy goes to lunch with his Mob Boss, Don Salieri, in an Italian restaurant. No mission given, just 'Hey, tommy, drive me across town to eat lunch" and it feels like if you've ever seen a mob movie you know something bad is gonna happen. Especially if you've seen The Godfather and know that eating in a public restaurant doesn't make you safe.

If I had any complaints, it's that the shooting relies heavily on cover shooting mechanics and for whatever reason during the late game, I couldn't get the "Stick to cover" button to work so I spent a lot of time trying to hide behind crates and walls and getting shot at. The other issue is that even on normal difficulty it felt like some of the enemies soak up a ton of ammo which can lead to running really short on ammo at times when multiple enemies are trying to kill you from different angles which is frustrating.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Death Stranding. I'm in the second area. I really hate this baby. I wish it would shut up and stop crying and laughing or whatever. The rest of the game is still incomprehensible from the story to the gameplay choices.

 

[Summerstorm]

Like everybody i bought "Manor Lords" this weekend.

Eh... mixed feelings about this. This is a pretty "hyped" early-access title. In my opinion: shouldn't have been released this way. It needed a bit more time. I fear with most such releases the updates will now slow to a crawl, but there are so many things unfinished and quite a few things bugged.

Good:
Looks nice
gives off vibes and feelings of my usual "Zen-Game" titles (Banished, Crusader Kings, Foundation, Mount& Blade)

You can pause the game, plan around, calculate

Bad:
This game will be a micromanaging hell the longer you play. You can not set farmers to work something else in the growing/field resting periods, you can also not set a limit or rotation of good with the artisans (So you have to remember where your Joiner lives, click his house, general, production and switch form large shield to small shield or wooden parts and let him do his thing for a while. And with the farmers: seasonally give them other jobs)

Some information is missing or hard to deduce/test (How many families do i need to work a morgan land, how much working time do i lose for walking how far? Why are there three slots in the church, if i need just one worker there? (Additional gravediggers after war i presume)

Bugs or weirdness:
Why is my retinue always tired, when i rally them out?
Why do the oxen move logs with highest priority from inactive woodcutters to active one and not from there to where the logs are needed?
After a while all values in the GUI went to zero (restart fixed it though)
I NEED to see my productions and timelines (Like in Banished) where i see what industry produced and took what amounts, how am i to plan if i don't have my sweetsweet boring excel sheets, hehe.
Production of fields seems to high (As many people said) and overall game too easy so far (Difficulty comes with raids and war though, unlike Banished where it only comes from you fucking up the planning and spiraling down in hunger and disease)
Market Stalls and delivery/fetching works weird

Overall: I hope the "Early Access" Money gets spent into QA/Content power soon. Would like to have this game working well

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

That's me in general. $20-$30 is usually my go to price. I gotten more and better experiences out of most games with that price than the standard $60-$70 most "large" AAA games go for today.

So right off the heels of this exchange I was doing some Playstation store scrolling while watching basketball last night and saw Monster Hunter: Rise on deep discount for 10 bucks.

I tried World once a while back and couldn't get into it at all but I love the idea of, well, you know, monster hunting, and I heard Rise is a bit more action-y than world so I bought it, since it falls under that price range of "it's ok if I don't get into it."

So I'll check that out later today, we'll see how that goes. I feel like Monster Hunter games are one of those gamer-niches that I should be able to get into if I wanted.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Death Stranding. I'm in the second area. I really hate this baby. I wish it would shut up and stop crying and laughing or whatever. The rest of the game is still incomprehensible from the story to the gameplay choices.

Is it as annoying as Yoshi’s Island?

 

[Drathnoxis]

Is it as annoying as Yoshi’s Island?

More, since it comes right from your controller and you have to rock it back and forth to calm it down... or shake it violently to make it cry more.