What are you currently playing?

[Worgen]

Beat Spyro 2, the original, not the pointless remake. Liked it, but less than the first because of all the cute characters who interrupted and provided mini-missions that were a mixed bag, some of them good, some lame. Looking forward to the third game, but might wait until next year, since I beat Spyro 1 last year.

I was about to ask how that awesome remake was pointless then I noticed who the poster was, it would be weirder if you didn't whine about something.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I wish I'd been recording this: I managed to complete Shadow's Radical Train bike segment by falling into a bottomless pit. That's the difference between a bad game and a legendary bad game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I bought Hades 2 a few days ago, but I think I'm already kinda done with it. It's fun enough, but character and even set-up wise it's not really up to par. Melinoe is fine, Hecate is fine, Nemesis is fine, but none of them have the spark that Zagreus, Hades, Nyx, and Megara have. Also, the rogue-like mechanic fit much better in the realm of Hades; realm of the dead, you're not supposed to escape it, you get sent back when you die. In Hades 2 Melinoe doesn't even die I think, she just teleports herself back home before she dies. Not a huge negative, but it just sticks out in comparison.

Add to that that rogue-likes/lites eventually tire me out anyway (I never finished the first Hades either), and I quickly found myself losing enthusiasm to continue the sequel.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I bought Hades 2 a few days ago, but I think I'm already kinda done with it. It's fun enough, but character and even set-up wise it's not really up to par. Melinoe is fine, Hecate is fine, Nemesis is fine, but none of them have the spark that Zagreus, Hades, Nyx, and Megara have. Also, the rogue-like mechanic fit much better in the realm of Hades; realm of the dead, you're not supposed to escape it, you get sent back when you die. In Hades 2 Melinoe doesn't even die I think, she just teleports herself back home before she dies. Not a huge negative, but it just sticks out in comparison.

Add to that that rogue-likes/lites eventually tire me out anyway (I never finished the first Hades either), and I quickly found myself losing enthusiasm to continue the sequel.

I can see the criticism that the characters aren't as fun as the original. Mel is a child soldier, so being as charismatic as Zagreus was immediately would be kind odd. I got fairly far into the game during the early access period, and I would say that the game gets you to warm up to Mel over time. She becomes less serious, more adorable in a "sheltered child thrown into the real world" kinda way.

Although I would agree that Hecate and Nemesis and basically all the Crossroads people were not very interesting. That might have been because their plotlines were not fully written/developed yet though.

 

[laggyteabag]

Also playing Hades 2, and i've sunk a decent amount of time into it. I've already beat Chronus once on the Tartarus run, and i've been bashing my head against Prometheus on the Olympus run.

This is very much an itterative change on Hades, rather than an innovative one, which makes the game often feel like Hades, too rather than Hades 2.

Which is fine, because I love Hades 1, and I love Hades 2 a lot as well, but I do have to pace myself on how much I play it in one sitting, lest I burn myself out. My biggest problem with Hades 1 was the constant feeling of retreading the exact same ground, going through the same levels, in the same order, with (mostly) the same bosses. This is somewhat elleviated in Hades 2 with the addition of a whole second path, but im not sure if it is enough to really cure the repetivieness, because then you just have two different lists of the same levels, in the same order, with the same bosses - you just now have the choice of which one you want to do.

Otherwise, i've been playing a lot of Overwatch 2, as this is my partner's new obsession. Fortnite is old news now, apparently.

 

[Worgen]

This is very much an itterative change on Hades, rather than an innovative one, which makes the game often feel like Hades, too rather than Hades 2.

So your saying its more like Doom and Doom 2 rather then Doom and Doom 3.

 

[laggyteabag]

So your saying its more like Doom and Doom 2 rather then Doom and Doom 3.

I guess so? I've never played the classic Doom games, but from what I understand of them - sure.

This is definitely a game that is built on the bones of Hades 1; not just in terms of style and structure, but even to the point where there I've come across more than a few reused art assets.

This isn't necessarily a complaint, mind you. Again, I really do like Hades 1, and I am glad to have more of it, but I suppose if you were going into Hades 2 expecting any kind of evolution from what came before, you probably aren't going to find it here.

 

[Worgen]

I guess so? I've never played the classic Doom games, but from what I understand of them - sure.

This is definitely a game that is built on the bones of Hades 1; not just in terms of style and structure, but even to the point where there I've come across more than a few reused art assets.

This isn't necessarily a complaint, mind you. Again, I really do like Hades 1, and I am glad to have more of it, but I suppose if you were going into Hades 2 expecting any kind of evolution from what came before, you probably aren't going to find it here.

Doom 2 added a couple new enemies, bunch of new levels and a new weapon. Doom 3 was almost a different genre, still fps but much more of a horror kinda game, with the darkness and such.

 

[Ezekiel]

Uploaded my last hour of Spyro 2 and got two nonsensical copyright strikes. I don't care that the video can't be viewed in Belarus and Russia and I don't monetize anyway, but it reminds how crappy YouTube is.

First this person:

Also this person (only the beginning of the music), who turned the comments off:


Another copyright strike for "Sony Boogie," the sweet track that plays when you start up the PlayStation.


Edit: "Sony Boogie" claim is from this guy, not Sony. So three nonsensical copyright strikes. Comments turned off.

 

[Bartholen]

After E33 I tried Space Marine 2 for a bit, and maybe I'll get back to it after a while. In the meantime I've settled back into one of my old comfort games, Dark Souls 2. And I think it's finally time I said it: this has the best gameplay of the entire Souls series, meaning Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1-3, and is my favorite of all of those overall. It has the biggest variety of available and viable playstyles, massive amounts of replayability due to the "spokes on a wheel" structure, and the best balancing. Sure the combat's incredibly floaty and the ADP tax is stupid design, but just in terms of how many different builds I can picture going through this game with, and have fun doing so, this has all the others beat. It's not as clunky as DeS or DS1, and lacks the anime shenanigans of DS3 where you just roll everywhere. It has just the right balance between freedom of movement and having to still be deliberate about your every action. Oh, and the best NG+ of any Fromsoft game to this day. It's also probably the easiest one to just start and get going: there's no Asylum to clear or High Wall to trudge through. You can just slam the gas from the get go.

 

[meiam]

I can see the criticism that the characters aren't as fun as the original. Mel is a child soldier, so being as charismatic as Zagreus was immediately would be kind odd. I got fairly far into the game during the early access period, and I would say that the game gets you to warm up to Mel over time. She becomes less serious, more adorable in a "sheltered child thrown into the real world" kinda way.

Although I would agree that Hecate and Nemesis and basically all the Crossroads people were not very interesting. That might have been because their plotlines were not fully written/developed yet though.

The problem is the crossroad people are basically just the same people that were in the Hades 1 hub, they put very little effort into making new character and just sorta copy pasted the old one and applied a blur filter on there personality.

 

[Worgen]

The problem is the crossroad people are basically just the same people that were in the Hades 1 hub, they put very little effort into making new character and just sorta copy pasted the old one and applied a blur filter on there personality.

Sounds like someone is just looking for a reason to hate.

 

[meiam]

Sounds like someone is just looking for a reason to hate.

I mean...

Thanatos = Moros: Calm, sorta gloomy male but very supportive, potential love interest
Nyx = Hecates: Supportive mother figure
Megaera = Nemesis: Female rival, throw shit at the character but obviously on their side, love interest
Achilles = Odysseus: Legendary male hero, supportive and give war lesson
Dusa = Dora: Cute supportive female mystical creature
Hypnos = Hypnos: I mean...
Skely = Skely: Some repeat is okay, but if the rest is so similar...

You also have Orpheus/Eurydice and Narcissus/Echo: Lover level specific NPC

Even Zagreus and Meli are pretty similar, gregarious young prodigy, get along with everyone and very polite. It's a bit strange cause Meli should really have a hard time dealing with people since she grew up sheltered and essentially a child soldier.

I like the game, but it definitely feel like defrosted Hades 1 with a bit of water to run the soup.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I replayed Hades for a while. I successfully completed a run on my 10th attempt. I thought I was playing on Hell mode, since I was sure I checked the box, but I guess somehow it didn't take when starting my new game. It's still a really good game, and I love talking to the characters after every run. I don't think I'm going to continue, though, because runs take a while and you need to do a ton to finish the story and get all the dialogue with everybody and I don't really feel like putting that kind of time commitment in the game again for now.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Completed Shadow's story in Sonic 06. While I do like Shadow as a character and think he's the best written he's ever been in 06 (go figure), his gameplay segments are pretty annoying even compared to Sonic's, between the badly-controlling vehicles, frequent lack of clear direction in stages, and having to deal with Omega, who somehow is an even worse version of Tails and Eggman in Adventure 2 (who were already a worse version of Gamma). Shadow also has the most time travel plot trouble, which I suspect is either the result of too many rewrites or too few rewrites. Anyway, that's all handled, so it's time for Silver.

Played through a couple of Silver's stages already. His fundamental gameplay mechanics actually have some potential, though like everything else in this game it's held back by bad implementation. His stages are really long and also kinda aimless sometimes, and the fact that he can grab projectiles again while throwing them makes it hard to hit anything quickly. Blaze, for some reason, feels like she controls like Sonic was supposed to, being faster and smoother than him; if she had his Homing Attack, it'd be essentially a better-than-original copy. And while the plot, as always, is a goddamn mess, Silver's a decent character with some interesting things going on.

Overall, out of the three hedgehogs, I think Silver probably has the potential to be better than Sonic or Shadow, though I haven't reached that part yet...

 

[Worgen]

Thanatos = Moros: Calm, sorta gloomy male but very supportive, potential love interest

Thanos was more broody, Moros has more broody thrust upon him and hes much friendlier.

Megaera = Nemesis: Female rival, throw shit at the character but obviously on their side, love interest

Nemesis is much more of a ***** then Megaera was and much more agressive.

Dusa = Dora: Cute supportive female mystical creature

Very different personalities

Even Zagreus and Meli are pretty similar, gregarious young prodigy, get along with everyone and very polite. It's a bit strange cause Meli should really have a hard time dealing with people since she grew up sheltered and essentially a child soldier.

You are really stuck on this child solder thing. Child solder does not equal being trained from a young age. Not to mention it still sounds like Mel had a decent number of people around her.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I've started playing Frogcomposband. Now you might be wondering "what kind of name is Frogcomposband?" and I can't really answer that other than to say that this is a variant of one of the early branches of the roguelike genre Angband and thus the 'band', I don't know what Frogcompos is supposed to mean. I've never played any version of Angband or Moria and so the game is quite new to me.

If there were a roguelike scale of tightness of design modern Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup would be on one end of the scale and Frogcomposband would be on the other, with Nethack somewhere in the middle. In DCSS you travel through a single dungeon in which neither monsters or items respawn and your path through the game is tightly restricted to the developers vision. However, in FCB every time you enter a dungeon, all the levels are regenerated and restocked with both items and monsters, and there are multiple stairs up and down on each floor that lead to different versions of the same dungeon floor. This means that grinding for loot and XP is very much encouraged. There is also an overworld consisting of a wilderness connecting many different dungeon entrances and towns. The game is also significantly easier than either Nethack or DCSS since I've been playing for 3 hours and haven't died once. I'm not sure how long I'll play since, from what I've heard, Angband games can be extremely long, as in over 100 hours, but I'm having fun for now.

 

[Ezekiel]

Forty orbs needed to beat Spyro 2, fifty-five orbs needed to see the last world, Dragon Shores. I got fifty-seven (and enjoyed that further collecting) and discovered that Dragon Shores is a gyp. A tiny amusement park with three mini-games, and if you get all ten tokens, you can enter the secret theater. But what is the secret theater? Just a cutscene viewer!

Actually, there is one final door.

Argh...

Fifteen hours played.

 

[Worgen]

Grabbed Drillcore and The King is Watching since I won't be getting Battlefield 6. Both are really interesting roguelikes Drill core has you drilling down with a mining rig and you have to send your workers out to get materials and such till you get enough coal or whatever to drill further, then each night you have to fend of hostile natives or something. There are a lot of strange blocks that can cause issues such as spawning enemies in the mine, being a black hole that can suck in your workers, or just moving and crushing your workers. So far its really enjoyable and there are lots of permanent upgrade to get but so far they aren't the usual boring ones.

The King is Watching is about setting up production buildings then building troops and fighting against enemy waves and building more complicated production to build more complicated troops and upgrade the amount of troops you can get and how much you can watch. The hook of the game is that your production only does stuff when you are watching it, you tend to start out with just a 2 by 2 grid and can expand it, but you need certain resources. Its all about managing resources and trying not to die to enemy waves. Fun and interesting, but make sure to use the speed up option cause a run can take awhile.

 

[bluegate]

Argh...

Fifteen hours played.

Come on, you can do it, just a few orbs more.