What are you currently playing?

[Kyrian007]

Just finished Oxenfree 2. Interesting. It wasn't bad, but I kind of preferred the first one. It works best when knowing nothing about the setting or game going into it. Having played through the first, some of the things that were supposed to trigger a scare or a shock or a WTF... didn't. For about half of the first game I was mostly motivated by "what the hell is going on? Why is that freaky thing happening? Time travel, possessions, portals... WHY." It creates a lot of motivation to move forward. But having most of those questions answered in the first game, strange events and reveals lose some oomph in the sequel. That being said, there's enough unresolved left over from the first that I can't recommend starting with Oxenfree 2. But is the series right for you? To describe without spoiling anything I'll compare it to a mixture of a well received sci fi movie and an obscure old thriller. Oxenfree is a mixture of plot elements of Arrival with a story cribbed from the old 70' Disney thriller Watcher in the Woods. With maybe a little Frequency thrown in.

Moving on, picked up the Mana series collection on Switch on sale. Started on Final Fantasy Adventure, but the Game Boy gameplay is starting to wear thin. Thinking about just moving on to Secret of Mana as a refresher before moving on to Trials, which I have never played and am looking forward to. Still really disappointed that the Baten Kaitos remaster ditched the english dub. That terrible dubbing was about half the charm of the original game.

 

[laggyteabag]

Pacing is a very important, but often ignored concept in a lot of games. Many games artificially pad out their runtime with nebulous "content", just for the sake of saying that their game is >X hours long, instead of <X hours long, without necessarily paying much attention to whether or not that stuff is fun or engaging.

And like many games before it, Gears Tactics has run afoul of this as well.

In Gears Tactics, the side-missions are the issue. In this game, these side-missions manifest as combat missions, with recycled objectives, on recycled maps. They are useful for leveling up your troops and collecting gear, but they do not themselves advance the main story, or present any side narratives. What is so bad about these? They are mandatory progress gates. After competing certain story missions, you are forced to complete one, two, or three side-missions (depending on overall story progress) before the next story mission becomes available. These were certainly helpful during the early game, but I feel like I am powerful enough already, I really don't need any extra gear or levels, and now I need to complete three more side missions before I can begin the final level.

Gears Tactics is a fun game, and its combat is definitely enjoyable, but the game basically has no other mechanics to rely on or space things out, and it isn't incredibly deep to boot. Its worn thin, and needing to do more missions, for mission's sake, is a pretty exhausting finale, to what has otherwise been a pretty enjoyable TRPG.

 

[BrawlMan]

More Gungrave GORE. For those playing, you're going to want the upgrade the damage on bullets too Max Level. Which is Lv.5. I really wish Iggymob never bothered with the stats upgrades and removed them. The stats are something that either should've been given to you from the start, or just be scripted upgrades when completing certain missions by getting further into the game. I am still having fun, thanks to all the upgrades, but if they ever make another one. Don't bring the Stats Upgrade System back.

 

[BrawlMan]

After competing certain story missions, you are forced to complete one, two, or three side-missions (depending on overall story progress) before the next story mission becomes available. These were certainly helpful during the early game, but I feel like I am powerful enough already, I really don't need any extra gear or levels, and now I need to complete three more side missions before I can begin the final level.

It's why I stopped playing Speed Brawl. They're labeled "side missions", but you're forced to do them, and they don't progress the story at all. They might as well be labeled mandatory missions and move on.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I unironically love these games

 

[Worgen]

Gears Tactics is a fun game, and its combat is definitely enjoyable, but the game basically has no other mechanics to rely on or space things out, and it isn't incredibly deep to boot. Its worn thin, and needing to do more missions, for mission's sake, is a pretty exhausting finale, to what has otherwise been a pretty enjoyable TRPG.

Its combat is fun, but its also missing a meta layer like Xcom has with the world map and base building. The closest it has is armor and weapons for your troops, but since most of your guys are named and have preferred weapons, it kinda takes away from that.

 

[Worgen]

I've really been getting into Midnight Suns. Initially I was put off by the snark but the gameplay kept me going. The snark has been hugely lessened and I'm even getting into the story, gameplay is still killer. Really the worst thing I can say about the story aspect is that everyone does seem to be a bit in awe of your player character, it works but its still a bit weird when you also have Iron Man, Blade, Captain America and Dr Strange hanging around. But, it still works well in making your oc a big part of the story and the glue holding the Avengers/Midnight Suns together. Even my SO who hates comic book things and marvel especially has gotten into it.

 

[BrawlMan]

GG Gore - They got rid of the horrible platforming in Stage 17! Thank God! Rose Quartz's section in Stage 19 still sucks and is completely pointless. They added bridges to skip the platforming, but they shouldn't have even bother with this level to begin with. I am actually past the halfway point. There are 31 stages, and I am on Stage 20 currently.

Edit: On stage 24. The casino levels in Singapore are the best parts of the game. 76% done with the game, and will finish when I get home from work.

 

[laggyteabag]

I've decided to replay Gears of War 4. I played it for the first time in 2019, and haven't touched it since. I would have replayed the whole franchise from the start, but I can't be bothered to drag out my Xbox.

The prologue is definitely a strong introduction, serving as one of those "Previously on... [franchise]" reels, but delivered exclusively through gameplay.

But the first few levels of the first Act don't really carry that same momentum. Gears 4 takes place during a time of peace after the Locust War ended, and to justify giving you something to shoot at, Gears of War 4 decided to introduce a new faction of enemies: robots! And lets face it, robots are just never as fun to fight as organic enemies. Halo 4 faced a similar problem, and here is Gears trying to do the same thing. It just gives the combat a very PG feeling.

Otherwise, the game still looks and plays great. I know cover-based shooters are kind of out of fashion at the moment, but they're still pretty fun.

 

[BrawlMan]

And lets face it, robots are just never as fun to fight as organic enemies.

Vanquish says hiya doing! Though that is the exception.

I know cover-based shooters are kind of out of fashion at the moment, but they're still pretty fun.

Let's make sure they stay that way. Most of them are boring slogs or are not fun. Gears of War is one of the very few that it do well, because you're doing more than cover shooting at times, good to great set pieces that break the mold, and running through dynamics environments. There's a good reason why most cover shooters never made it past the 7th generation consoles they debuted.

I'll try and finish up Gungrave GORE tonight.

 

[BrawlMan]

Gungrave GORE completed on Normal! Not a bad playthrough! I beat the game within 6 hours and only died 3 times. The final stage does that thing where it kinda drags. The final boss is decent, but not my favorite. I don't understand how they expect you to get S-Ranks, when it's hard keeping the beat count, because there's not a lot of the environment to destroy, the camera is in bad spot, or enemies spawn sometimes a bit late. My levels I dislike the most are the ones in Vietnam. It feels really out of place for Grave to be there in the middle of the jungle or caves in his default outfit. I don't like the level designs of them either. Any levels with water usually has those giant, man sized toxic worms from the 3rd stage. I really wish they got rid of them or kept them for that one stage.

The best levels in the game are the ones where you're either in Malaysia or Singapore. More so the former, because you're tearing a mob boss's casino and the music be bopping. I'll do my hard run later. I do now recommend this game. The story is nothing special, but I find it better than Overdose's. GORE does have worse English voice acting than OD though (that game's voice acting is good), but works in a so bad, it's good kind of way. That said, I like parts where Grave and Mika interact.

Boss battles are mixed bag, but they're fun overall. It's mainly the human sized bosses that are most fun to fight, and each the four mob bosses are much better fights than the giant mutated monster bosses that appear in middle parts of the game. Those guys might as well be giant mooks with big ass health meters. Though one of the human bosses does grow large, but you're actually in arena large enough to fight him and maneuver easily, and he is a great fight.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Got the good ending in Persona 5 Royale, but apparently that's wrong so I need to keep playing and make everyone miserable.

 

[Worgen]

They put out a new demo for Tempest Rising. Played it with both sides, gotta say, the game is feeling great, really puts me in mind of C&C, which is what they are going for. Graphics are really nice and watching things blow up is satisfying. The balance is a little weird, but not bad. Seems like the Dynasty at least early game has a lot of anti tank but no vehicle anti-inf, although it seems like troops in their missile buggies can shoot out. But those kinda points are for someone who does multi in RTS games. I am a campaign player.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I only have one quest left to complete in Old School Runescape before I get the reward for completing all of the quests, which is actually fairly significant.

...Just one problem. The last quest is 'Desert Treasure 2', and that is by a long, looooooong way the longest quest in the game, and it has a lot of tough bosses. I'll probably need to use the wiki and spend a lot of money on reclaim fees to get through it, but it'll be worth it when I'm done.

cope

 

[laggyteabag]

Most of the way through Gears of War 4. I've been playing on Hard (but not Insane) and i've so far found it to be pretty smooth sailing.

Its actually pretty amazing how nice a less than 10 hour game can feel after playing games that are much longer. The pacing is so breezy, and Im absolutely flying through the campaign.

I will say though, that the actual plot doesn't seem to actually doing much. The writing is pretty sharp, but the actual content is pretty light so far. Nothing of too much significance has actually happened, and if I recall correctly, that isn't going to change until the finale.

My biggest gripe though, is how bullet-spongey a lot of enemies are. Your average enemy will take a couple of dozen bullets which is fine, but it is the rarer enemies like the Pouncers, which can take whole magazines before going down, and a lot of them barely react to getting shot (other than just bleeding a lot), which makes them feel even spongier.

Graphically the game still holds up really well though, which isn't overly surprising considering that this is an Xbox One-era game. It does suffer from the same stutter that a lot of UE4 games face, and this was sadly before the time of shader precompilation, but it is luckily not too bad.

Though I would like to give a special shoutout to the Lancer assault rifle. I just have to think about the room where this thing was conceived: the developers must've just thought that guns were cool, and chainsaws were cool, and decided to slap them both together. It really is a wonderfully fun weapon to use, and Gears 4 puts it to good use.

But yeah, I expect this to be done by this evening, or within the next day. Then onto Gears 5!

 

[BrawlMan]

Its actually pretty amazing how nice a less than 10 hour game can feel after playing games that are much longer. The pacing is so breezy, and Im absolutely flying through the campaign.

The short or shorter games are usually the best kind of games.

I am playing GG GORE on Hard. I am trying to finish upgrading Brandon. I am not playing on GORE difficulty. You die on GORE, you have to start the level all over again. You get no checkpoints. Fuck that shit. I'll do a Bunji playthrough later, but I tested him on the first two levels.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Playing John Woo's Stranglehold. I remember this being... better. My biggest problem so far is that the mouse sensitivity is all weird, and there does not seem to be any option in game to adjust it. Thankfully my mouse has some built in DPI buttons so that helps, but I just feel so inaccurate.

I now have an itching to play Max Payne 3.

 

[BrawlMan]

Playing John Woo's Stranglehold. I remember this being... better. My biggest problem so far is that the mouse sensitivity is all weird, and there does not seem to be any option in game to adjust it. Thankfully my mouse has some built in DPI buttons so that helps, but I just feel so inaccurate.

I now have an itching to play Max Payne 3.

Yeah, the game suffers from mouse acceleration on the PC Version. The console versions are actually better in this case.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I played a bunch of different indies over the month.

First, finished Alwa's Legacy. While it's better than Awakening on just about every count I don't think I necessarily enjoyed it more. Maybe I burnt out from playing the two so close to each other. Both are great but most of the wonderment and joy of discovery came and went with the first game. The second one is technically better though, and playing them in reverse would probably be tortuous.

Next I played the profoundly disappointing (and horribly titled) Chronicles of 2 Heroes: Amaterasu's Wrath, which is like a buggier, clunkier version of The Messenger that lets you switch between two characters on the fly. One character can dash across gaps but cannot jump; the other can do a double jump. You combine them to get through puzzle-platforming rooms. Starts off alright but slowly kills the mood through punishing difficulty, unrewarding challenges, utter lack in variety, gimmicky bosses and the sheer girth of bugs and softlocks (anything from money glitches to mid-fight softlocks). Do not recommend.

Then was Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, which is easily one of my gaming highlights this year. The craft and artistry that goes into each vibrant new enviroment, as well as the cartoonish design and uber-detailed animation of the characters, makes the game a delight, not to mention the killer prog rock OST (Motoi Sakuraba from the Tales games!). The levels are creative and have a fun way of coming up with new ways to challenge you, and the sheer wealth of secrets in the game make exploration very rewarding. Some people complain the game changes "after the volcano" from the good old Wonder Boy platforming (the game is basically a fan sequel to the series, with the official blessing and backing of its creator) to something more in line with an adventure game/JRPG, but I liked the reinvention.

And lastly I played Omno. It's one of those short, cozy and breezy games that has you control a non-entity across the ruins of an ancient civ towards enlightment or transcendence or something, lighting stuff along the way and piecing cryptic collectibles together as a bonus. I'm by and large desensitized to the power of these "experiences" but I give Omno credit for the cutesy low poly surroundings (that remind me of the Grow Home games) and allowing for fun gameplay as you uncover new forms of traversal. The puzzles are easy to solve - it's always immediately obvious what you have to do, and then it's super easy to do it - but I enjoyed my time with it. And I liked the twist ending, which gave the thin story a personality beyond pushing New Age tripe about letting go and being one with everything and all that nonsense.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Managed to complete (for now) all of the quests in Old School Runescape. I'm probably going to scale back on it for a while so that I can get more progress in some other games now. God of War 4 is still on my list, and besides that I've gotten interested again in playing Metroid Dread, which I bought some time ago and didn't get that far into. I'm looking forward to seeing where they both end up going.