What are you currently playing?

[BrawlMan]

The Thing Remastered by Nightdive Studios just shadowdropped.

That is all.
had no idea it was a squad shooter/survival game. Huh.

Already shot own team by accident making them all hate me cos put controller with sensitive triggers down too fast before pausing lol. Ah well.

It's a good game but get ready to fix a lot of fuse boxes.

I might pick up Vengeance Hunters tonight. I don't know if I want playstation or steam version. The game does have online play, so I might just stick with Steam.

I've been playing Mad Stalker (PS1) and it shares a lot of design similarities with Panzer Bandit. The only difference beings is that you can't shift planes and are on a single plane. There are not as many moves, but you still get a lot. The game is a challenge though.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Have fun with both!

I was a bit skeptical with Stanley Parable's reputation, given that video game humor is rarely satisfying, but I had a good time with it.
City builders are absolutely not my thing personally but Manor Lords is one of those games whose reception has impressed me so much that in listed as a top 5 game of the year in another thread even though I will never play it myself. Let us know how your experience goes.

So I finally had about an hour to check out TSP last night, and color me intrigued to play more even though I technically “beat” it lol. My first “run” was a case of curiosity killing the cat, which reveals what I’m guessing is the main them of the game regarding free will/consequences thereof/etc.. Fool me once…fine I’ll follow your lead to check the *intended* permutation off the list. I like how it plays with the 4th wall and seems to basically say, “Just be obedient stupid, and life will be easy, see‽ (exit revealed in an almost too-good-to-be-true kind of way)”

Oh well. I have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes, but there’s at least a half dozen or so cues for deviancy that I plan on exploring tonight. As long as they stay interesting, I’ll continue on. Will probably need to keep a checklist or screenshots to avoid repeating choices. Ehh…or maybe I’ll just go with the flow and not take it too seriously.


I never picked up Major Lords on the sale, but will keep it in my wishlist. It looks fun but just can’t currently justify the steep time investment needed to make the most of it.

 

[Worgen]

Been playing more Doom+Doom2. Beat Sigil and the first episode of Legacy of Rust. Sigil was pretty awesome, John Romero really is a master of the doom level, he utilizes enemy placement, darkness and light really well and makes very visually interesting levels with tricky but fair enemy placement and doesn't rely on slaughter map bs for difficulty, also the sound track is killer. The first episode of Legacy of Rust is quite good too, they have some really spectacular level layouts that I still can't believe work in vanilla Doom. It does rely a bit more on slaughteryness for difficulty then Sigil, but its well designed and there isn't much of it and nothing that comes close to a real slaughter map. It adds a few new weapons that are fun and situational. They take the place of the plasma gun and BFG and are both pretty worthy of those slots. New enemies don't quite match the Doom aesthetic but they are fine to fight and and used well. I think Sigil is a bit better but both are really good. Second episode of Legacy of Rust starts much harder, with lots of enemies that you just have to run from since you don't have the weapons or ammo to deal with them, but its designed well enough to make you feel like, "oh shit, lets run" instead of trying to fight.

 

[meiam]

Played a bit of vandal heart 2, PS1 tactics. Fun story, but one of the key moment hinge on the main character not bothering to say like one sentence when he had plenty of time to do so.

Also, combat is annoying and slow, its a tactics where every turn both one of your character and enemy character get to move and act simultaneously. It makes it really easy cause its not hard to figure who the ai will attack, so you can just move them and they avoid all damage, but it makes everything drag like crazy. There's also not much interesting way to develop character, no class system or anything.

Cool little game, but no surprise it got forgotten.

 

[Worgen]

Played a bit of vandal heart 2, PS1 tactics. Fun story, but one of the key moment hinge on the main character not bothering to say like one sentence when he had plenty of time to do so.

Also, combat is annoying and slow, its a tactics where every turn both one of your character and enemy character get to move and act simultaneously. It makes it really easy cause its not hard to figure who the ai will attack, so you can just move them and they avoid all damage, but it makes everything drag like crazy. There's also not much interesting way to develop character, no class system or anything.

Cool little game, but no surprise it got forgotten.

They made a 2? I really liked the first game.

 

[meiam]

They made a 2? I really liked the first game.

They made a 3, sorta

Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Worgen]

They made a 3, sorta

Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Those are indeed some graphics.

 

[Ezekiel]

Did this a few days ago.



I still don't think Sonic Robo Blast's movement and obstacles are great. Again, the later levels become so weird that it's impossible to anticipate things, slowing the game too much. Also too easy to accidentally dash forward while a ball in the air; might have been better mapped to another button. But this is more what I wanted from Sega's 3D Sonic, comes closer to the dream. They have always made the mistake of thinking the game needs to be so automated, that you need to be funneled into the loops or along the half-pipes with control limited. Would the games sell well without holding the player's hand so much? I'm not sure. But plenty of modern hits aren't automated and easy.

 

[BrawlMan]

Marvel vs. Capcom EX (PS1). This is the final Capcom/Marvel crossover game released for the PlayStation. It to suffers from the lack of two on two tag mechanics, outside of one specific mode. That said: Capcom did an admirable job and the game is still fun in it's own right. Delayed Hyper Combos started here. One neat feature here is that CHOC (Change of Color) Ryu can stay in whatever stances he changes in for the next match. So if you turned into Akuma mode for the first match. Ryu will be in Akuma mode for the rest of the game, unless the player uses a super to turn him back into standard Ryu. Or they can change him into Ken mode.

 

[Drathnoxis]

So I finally had about an hour to check out TSP last night, and color me intrigued to play more even though I technically “beat” it lol. My first “run” was a case of curiosity killing the cat, which reveals what I’m guessing is the main them of the game regarding free will/consequences thereof/etc.. Fool me once…fine I’ll follow your lead to check the *intended* permutation off the list. I like how it plays with the 4th wall and seems to basically say, “Just be obedient stupid, and life will be easy, see‽ (exit revealed in an almost too-good-to-be-true kind of way)”

Oh well. I have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes, but there’s at least a half dozen or so cues for deviancy that I plan on exploring tonight. As long as they stay interesting, I’ll continue on. Will probably need to keep a checklist or screenshots to avoid repeating choices. Ehh…or maybe I’ll just go with the flow and not take it too seriously.

I love the Stanley Parable. I never get sick of listening to The Narrator narrate. Maybe because I've never worked in an office, but the nightmare office holds a wonderful fascination for me.

 

[Bedinsis]

Finished Whispers of a Machine. It was alright. I'd call it a very very very very low budget version of Detroit: Become Human since it is also a game in a sci-fi setting with multiple ways to solve the problems presented to you where your choices decide how the plot progresses... with the caveat that the choices you make are mostly whether to be emphatic, assertive or analytical, and at key moments the dominant trait determines what super-cop ability you unlock, and this determines how you can solve the puzzles. They justify this in the plot by the fact that you are a cop with augmented abilities (like one of the leads from Heavy Rain) which develops by its wearer's actions. Though the abilities are really contextual; at several points I thought I could use one of them only for the lead to go "No, I can't do that".

As usual in point-and-click-adventure games I ended up at several points where I wondered "What the heck am I supposed to do now?" so I consulted a guide frequently. I wish there had been some in-game hint system. The problem I think was that since the way to progress depends on your unlocked abilities they must allow for several ways to solve the problem at hand, which means they introduce the ingredients to all solutions even if most of them are red herrings for the build you have.

They called it a Nordic Noir in game form. A claim I initially wanted to dismiss on the grounds that Nordic Noir is characterized by realistic characters exploring real settings and engaging in societal criticism by the topics the crimes concern, all in a Scandinavian setting. The setting here is not a real place and it is very much exploring its sci-fi premises, so there is no societal criticism. The Scandinavian setting expresses itself by every character having Swedish names, some signs being in Swedish and there being a Norse mythology to the sci fi concepts and the place names, which is incredibly thin. The lead character felt real though, with prior experiences that plagues her and guides her. The ending was also... not the happiest, which is how I remember most Beck films I've seen ending.

 

[Worgen]

Path of Exile 2, its pretty cool. It plays well, the combat is satisfying, when you get a new skill you immediately want to go play with it and you get these skill augments that change up how skills can work. Like the merc has a grenade skill, you can use a multi projectile augment to make it instead of 1 grenade, firing 3 in a cone arc. The story... exists, its one of those were you have characters talking about things but it mostly feels like its just there to give some context to why you are going places. I think really my biggest issue with it is that I built it up so much in my head, that nothing it did could compete. So its fun, but a bit disappointing since I got too hyped for it.

 

[Bartholen]

I've been playing a bit of Ruined King: A League of Legends story after watching Arcane's second season. It's a turn-based RPG set in the LoL world. I'm not too far into it, but so far it's pretty good. It's got a very solid combat system and the world and aesthetics are interesting. The RPG elements so far are pretty light: the dialogue plays out more like a visual novel than anything with choices, and I haven't gotten that much new gear or abilities to try out. The story isn't anything to write home about (yet), but it's got some pretty strong characterization to carry it.

The foremost problems with it are its production values. Not that it's badly made at all, but amidst an otherwise solid package you can really tell where they cut some corners: inter-character dialogues are literally just static images with speech bubbles and voiceover, and cutscenes are more like a motion comic. Its visual style (reminiscient of games like WoW and Torchlight), while well executed, makes it look most of the time like the game could have been released like 15 years ago. Also thanks to Critical Role, I will never be able to play anything involving Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey and Liam O'Brien in prominent roles without imagining them playing DnD ever again. Mercer's voice in particular has become downright distracting, since I've heard him use the same villain voices for dozens and dozens of hours at this point.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Path of Exile 2, its pretty cool. It plays well, the combat is satisfying, when you get a new skill you immediately want to go play with it and you get these skill augments that change up how skills can work. Like the merc has a grenade skill, you can use a multi projectile augment to make it instead of 1 grenade, firing 3 in a cone arc. The story... exists, its one of those were you have characters talking about things but it mostly feels like its just there to give some context to why you are going places. I think really my biggest issue with it is that I built it up so much in my head, that nothing it did could compete. So its fun, but a bit disappointing since I got too hyped for it.

How do you think it would go for someone like me who's not usually into aRPG's? I dabbled with Diablo but the PoE skill tree was always intimidating and I didn't want to get into something knowing a newer version was about to come out.
My understanding is it will be free to play so I'll give it a go at some point- not right away, I'm gonna want to wait until major server issues are resolved and there are some patches.

My big fear with these kinds of games is doing a "wrong" build and getting up to a point where I'm stuck.

 

[Worgen]

How do you think it would go for someone like me who's not usually into aRPG's? I dabbled with Diablo but the PoE skill tree was always intimidating and I didn't want to get into something knowing a newer version was about to come out.
My understanding is it will be free to play so I'll give it a go at some point- not right away, I'm gonna want to wait until major server issues are resolved and there are some patches.

My big fear with these kinds of games is doing a "wrong" build and getting up to a point where I'm stuck.

The passive skill tree is still daunting. But you can use gold (dropped money) to respect it, it does seem like point by point, but so far its only like 100 gold per point. Your skill build seems a bit more permanent at least temporarily, skill orbs will just drop from chests or normal enemies, on top of being quest rewards so even if you choose the wrong skill (grenade as first skill for merc is kinda rough) You won't be stuck only having it for long. As to if you will like it... hmm, well, you can play it as a normal arpg with the mouse click move and such, but you can also do wasd and play it more like a twin stick shooter. The bosses are like dark souls bosses, you have to dodge and weave and dodge to avoid damage cause they will kill you. But I'm enjoying it, I would watch some streams of it to get a better idea if you think its for you.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

But you can use gold (dropped money) to respect it

They're going with an actual currency this time? Huh. One of the novel things about PoE1 is that there's no actual money, and dropped items form the backbone of a barter economy.

 

[Worgen]

They're going with an actual currency this time? Huh. One of the novel things about PoE1 is that there's no actual money, and dropped items form the backbone of a barter economy.

You can use it to buy items from venders or respec and thats pretty much it, so far but I haven't beaten act 1 quite yet. There is even a vender who sells random magic items, for the gamblinman.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I'm kind of getting sick of UFO 50 so I'm taking a break at 21 cherries to start playing Factorio: Space Age, the big 2.0 update of Factorio. So far it's pretty much the same as I remember it, but I'm still very early, only green science. It's been probably 8 years since I last played the game so it doesn't really bother me to do it over again, it's still a good game and I'm having fun.

 

[Agema]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Shadow of Chornobyl

There's a lot to like about this. It feels a little bit like what they probably wanted to do with the originals, except the hardware wasn't up to their vision back then. It is in ways quite a retro experience, in the sense it picks up much where they left off in just about every way - same stuff there. Massive open-world, loads to visit and do. Core mechanics work mostly okay. I do object to a lot of the vegetation, which comprehensively blocks your view but not, apparently, your opponents'.

On the downside, it's buggy as f***, although patches are gradually squashing them. Traversing is also a pain: it has an auto-journey between certain bases (for an annoying fee), but you spend ages hoofing it over the terrain anyway, and given the size of the game it gets old. Especially if you're trying to cart some stuff back to sell for an upgrade, and moving at a fractional speed. It also regularly chucks some mean opponents at you (hell, there's one in the tutorial / prologue, just to emphasise the misery) so expect to die a lot. Although, honestly, I think the single biggest cause of death I've had is falling too far, because it's less tolerant of falling distance than many games.

 

[BrawlMan]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Shadow of Chornobyl

There's a lot to like about this. It feels a little bit like what they probably wanted to do with the originals, except the hardware wasn't up to their vision back then. It is in ways quite a retro experience, in the sense it picks up much where they left off in just about every way - same stuff there. Massive open-world, loads to visit and do. Core mechanics work mostly okay. I do object to a lot of the vegetation, which comprehensively blocks your view but not, apparently, your opponents'.

On the downside, it's buggy as f***, although patches are gradually squashing them. Traversing is also a pain: it has an auto-journey between certain bases (for an annoying fee), but you spend ages hoofing it over the terrain anyway, and given the size of the game it gets old. Especially if you're trying to cart some stuff back to sell for an upgrade, and moving at a fractional speed. It also regularly chucks some mean opponents at you (hell, there's one in the tutorial / prologue, just to emphasise the misery) so expect to die a lot. Although, honestly, I think the single biggest cause of death I've had is falling too far, because it's less tolerant of falling distance than many games.

Sounds like it's one of those games where it is best to wait for a bunch of patches.

I am almost finished with my NG+ on Legion Hunter for Shadows of the Damned.