What are you currently playing?

[NerfedFalcon]

Finally got around to booting up Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which my friend who's been a CoD player since forever (and still is) says has one of the best campaigns in the series. Getting a lot of Black Ops 2 vibes from the presentation of the story so far, the idea of branching paths depending on what you do or don't pick up or decide on, and etc. Though apparently getting the "best" ending requires you to solve a randomized puzzle using the evidence you pick up, which means that I - who used a flowchart for BlOps 2 - am probably going to nuke the United States by accident.

It's Call of Duty. You know what it's about by now. Kinda dumb stories with (generally) high production values and tight gunplay. Only done a couple of missions so far, so I don't have much to evaluate. Though another thing like Black Ops 2 is perks in the campaign; unlike in that game though you have to choose your perks permanently at the start instead of customizing them per mission. I went with "Reliable" (max ammo for all guns increased by 1 full magazine) and "Calm Under Pressure" (flinch when damaged massively reduced) because I felt like "Violent Tendencies" (bullet damage increased) and "Survivor" (more health) would make the game too easy.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Omg ok wtf is this majesty lol?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Was in the mood for some God of War, so went back to Ragnarok but once getting to Iron Wood and knowing the tedium that was in store for me I opted out. Instead I jumped into the Valhalla DLC just to get some more brawling out of my system, and I was surprised by how much more joy I'm getting from this than from the main game. I said Iron Wood was tedious, but the entire game is tedious really, and the DLC filters all of that out. There's no 20+ characters, no constant talking, no levels seemingly designed to facilitate the constant talking. Even the RPG elements are reduced to chunky buffs per run, without the need to choose between dozens of armor sets and charms and whatnot. Valhalla also makes the bits of story you get feel special since you really have to fight your way to get to it, you're not just walking through rather easy fights because the developer was scared the player otherwise wouldn't get to see the story. Even on Give Me God of War difficulty the main game isn't too hard at all.

People like to say that Sony's problem is that they only make cinematic games, but that's not the issue. It's that every game they make needs to be the 'everything' game. There can't be "simple" cinematic action adventure games like Uncharted, no, every game now needs to be the big expensive, cinematic, open-world, content bloated, RPG, emotional rollercoaster extravaganza. The small shit can be intense and emotionally rewarding too, usually more so.

 

[Chimpzy]

I've been playing the Tomb Raider I-III remaster. There's stuff in there I quite like, but even with the modern control scheme, you can really feel the 'early 3d game' jank. Bad camera, weird collision glitches, stuff like that. One time I bumped into a wall, and it didn't seem to like that, and decided the best solution was teleporting me outside the map.AI pathing is pretty shit, beat the T-Rex super easy (barely an inconvenience) when it got stuck on a tree stump.

On the other hand, I like that it's hands-off and just lets you explore the levels, and that a lot of time when you see a place that looks like you should be able to climb to it somehow, you can, eventually. Makes for fun secret hunting. And you have quite a big move set to experiment with.

 

[Chimpzy]

Quick question.

Inscryption worth it for €6?

 

[Xprimentyl]

I beat Ravenous Devils. It was somewhere between entertaining and fun but very short and very simple.

It's a management sim with a 2D doll's house view in which you control a married couple running a combined tailor shop/delicatessen based on murdering part of the clientele. Husband murders customers while taking their measurements upstairs, strips them in order to retool their clothes for sale and then drops the bodies down a chute to the wife's kitchen, where she throws them into a mincer or chops them up to bake burgers and meat pies.

It has a darkly funny and eerily cute approach to married/workaday life and it's very detailed and filled with personality (mostly cribbed from Grand Guignol). But once you get used to the character switching the gameplay itself is too simplistic, and there's little in the way of downsides or tactical tradeoffs to anything that you do. You quickly max out the efficiency of cooking and murdering and everything after that - setting tables, starting a veggie garden (the fertilizer is of course corpses), adding new recipes - just seems like ways of complicating your life in needless ways.

This sounds interesting. Might give it a try after I finishing my GUN-through of Another Crab's Treasure.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Quick question.

Inscryption worth it for €6?

If you've played Pony Island, Inscryption is by the same developer, so you should already know the answer to that question.

If not, I'll say no more than 'yes, it is'.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

This sounds interesting. Might give it a try after I finishing my GUN-through of Another Crab's Treasure.

It's an alright management sim that gets most of its mileage out of its macabre sense of humor and pulpy Victorian setting. But it's a little too easy and once you're done with the story there's not a whole lot of incentive to keep playing. You'll unlock everything pretty quick, money will become useless and the game will stop escalating in difficulty or variety.

The most peculiar thing about it is that half the "upgrades" complicate the gameplay by creating a new problem rather than meeting a need. Where in something like SteamWorld Dig there's a perfect gameplay loop of mining stuff to get more efficient at mining stuff, here you're just adding complications (ie. factors) to a system that already works fine, in my opinion.

It's worth the $5, or $2.5 if you can get it on sale.

Yahtzee reviewed it a couple of years ago:

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Thought it'd be worth seeing San Andreas (of the GTA kind) out before it's removed from some list of shit I might've impulsively subscribed to this month. And it's a whole different experience from the vignettes of fuckabout funsies round mates houses after putting in the many cheat codes. Does anyone remember the game straight out killing you if you don't eat regularly? Yes, ok alright, I may have left it unpaused while seeing to distracting life stuff only to come back to a starving protagonist on their last unit of HP. Twice. You got me. Not pausing is a learnt habit am sure can confidently blame on the influence of Dark Souls there, but not for now, gonna pocket that scapegoat for future use if someone tries calling me out on it later.

Still holds up nonetheless.

Did all videogame voice audio sound that low quality back then? Wow. (Not the actor delivery, just the technical audio quality)

 

[BrawlMan]

Did all videogame voice audio sound that low quality back then? Wow. (Not the actor delivery, just the technical audio quality)

Yes. There are at times where it was either too low or the sound on the music was too high. There was a lot of sound mixing issues. Especially in those Dreamcast and early PS2 days.

I'm doing some arcade runs of X men vs. Street Fighter.

 

[Bartholen]

I finally got the "Requiem for a Killer" achievement in Batman: Arkham Knight. It's one of the hardest and most frustrating ones in the game. You have to get to 1,050,000 points in the Iceberg Lounge challenge (basically a horde mode). What makes it so frustrating is it feels dependent on RNG. Past a certain point the game simply stops functioning properly, because the game's systems weren't designed with such a mode in mind. The camera will fuck you over again and again and again as it zips completely randomly to supposedly prioritize threats, throwing off your aim. Maintaining a high combo is paramount in the challenge, and the auto-targeting and camera become completely unreliable, so after a point you're forced to play a very specific way.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Finished Another Crab's Treasure, but I'm going to qualify that by saying, I didn't "really" play it. I used the gun the whole time, and I had a blast doing it. The gun never got old because unlike the other items and weapons in the game that are cartoonishly fantastical, the gun looks like a straight 9mm pistol, and the sound effect is very realistic, so with all the whimsical “BOING!” and “PEW!” you hear around all you, the pop of a 9mm, it’s jarringly and hilariously dissonant from the game’s tone. I enjoyed the story for what it was, and the platforming was solid, so I overall enjoyed my casual “playthrough.” Might give it a honest go some day, but with Elden Ring still sitting in the middle seat taking up both armrests, not sure if I want to pile on the frustration right now.

It's an alright management sim that gets most of its mileage out of its macabre sense of humor and pulpy Victorian setting. But it's a little too easy and once you're done with the story there's not a whole lot of incentive to keep playing. You'll unlock everything pretty quick, money will become useless and the game will stop escalating in difficulty or variety.

The most peculiar thing about it is that half the "upgrades" complicate the gameplay by creating a new problem rather than meeting a need. Where in something like SteamWorld Dig there's a perfect gameplay loop of mining stuff to get more efficient at mining stuff, here you're just adding complications (ie. factors) to a system that already works fine, in my opinion.

It's worth the $5, or $2.5 if you can get it on sale.

Yahtzee reviewed it a couple of years ago:

Bought it today, and so far, I'm enjoying it. It's way darker than I thought it'd be with the graphical depiction of the violence; wasn't expecting that. The "steaks" are particularly disturbing.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Another Crab's Treasure, but I'm going to qualify that by saying, I didn't "really" play it. I used the gun the whole time, and I had a blast doing it. The gun never got old because unlike the other items and weapons in the game that are cartoonishly fantastical, the gun looks like a straight 9mm pistol, and the sound effect is very realistic, so with all the whimsical “BOING!” and “PEW!” you hear around all you, the pop of a 9mm, it’s jarringly and hilariously dissonant from the game’s tone. I enjoyed the story for what it was, and the platforming was solid, so I overall enjoyed my casual “playthrough.” Might give it a honest go some day, but with Elden Ring still sitting in the middle seat taking up both armrests, not sure if I want to pile on the frustration right now.


Bought it today, and so far, I'm enjoying it. It's way darker than I thought it'd be with the graphical depiction of the violence; wasn't expecting that. The "steaks" are particularly disturbing.

It's pretty graphic but I found that just adds to the humor once it becomes part of the daily grind (no pun intended). It's an extra bloody take on Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors.

Pro tip, "fertilize" the pigeon house same as the veggie troughs or it won't produce eggs.

And you definitely want to unlock every workbench and oven and assistance possible before complicating things further with table service and extra recipes.

 

[Worgen]

Grabbed Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth since its on sale and I need more jrpg goodness. Still pretty early on but its great to be back with Ichiban and friends. It does have a rather slow start but so did the first game. I am a bit worried it might end up being too easy since it seems like hard mode might be gate kept behind dlc bullshit. Either way, things are going on and not looking good for our heroes.

 

[BrawlMan]

I got the Double Dragon Collection and have been playing Super Double Dragon. Thank God this versions lets you change the game speed, because the default is too slow. I put it on 1.3x speed to keep fast paced without being ludicrous speed. I'll be playing Sonic x Shadow tonight too. It's already installed.

 

[Xprimentyl]

It's pretty graphic but I found that just adds to the humor once it becomes part of the daily grind (no pun intended). It's an extra bloody take on Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors.

Pro tip, "fertilize" the pigeon house same as the veggie troughs or it won't produce eggs.

And you definitely want to unlock every workbench and oven and assistance possible before complicating things further with table service and extra recipes.

Thanks for the tips. Haven't made that much progress, but am definitely to continuing. Curious, did you 100% this one? Feels like it might doable thus far.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Thanks for the tips. Haven't made that much progress, but am definitely to continuing. Curious, did you 100% this one? Feels like it might doable thus far.

Yes, it's perfectly doable in a few hours. If anything I wish there was more to it. But nothing's missable, in terms of content or achievements.

 

[BrawlMan]

Loving the Shadows Generations game. You get a little hub world to explore and find extra goodies in between selecting stages. Sonic Team is taking what they learned from Frontiers and applying it better in these open zone segments. Shadow is so much fun to use, and he gets a ton of new moves and power ups.

 

[Silvanus]

Spooky games, of course. Played Resident Evil 2 Remake for the first time (bloody loved it), and replayed Night in the Woods twice (as well as playing it's supplemental games for the first time-- Lost Constellation was fantastic). And the yearly Halloween event in GW2. Next on the list is System Shock remake-- I only briefly played OG System Shock 2 and didn't get very far.

Oh, and Farcry 6, just because I couldn't decide what else to play at some point. It was fine. Not impressive.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Oh, and Farcry 6, just because I couldn't decide what else to play at some point. It was fine. Not impressive.

I've already played Far Cry 6, by dint of having played Far Cry 3.