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[XsjadoBlayde]

Exoprimal fear
Shameful nobody said this was good, the legacy press has failed us yet again. Or nobody loud enough I guess. Tbf is live-service online requirement type, so own preconceptions maybe insulated self from looking further. Vaguely recall Steph Sterling had some positives ages ago bout it though probably didn't fancy chances at time cos tastes sporadically scattershot across vast smorgasbord of odd curiosities oscillating between emotional extremities make it a coin flip on whether outcome ends with buyer's bitter remorse or spiritual reverence.

Was convinced after finding a 30 minute trial I suspect was at some point longer and memory-holed or accidentally left on start screen while distracted by life obligations. Story dialogue appear to follow a subsect ofJapanese/English localisation efforts like Ni No Kuni where more natural sounding delivery and texture to vocal tone and context feels more endearing. Includes, daresay, even familiar comedic timing? Hollup was that a wank joke you snuck in as a brief retort?? I could be losing my mind.however

Dinos. Mechs, Dinos shooting mechs. Mechs eating dinos. Whatever ails ye, this mighty fine product will lure, cure and restore your demure benevolent demeanor ready to return to the workplace. And honestly, isn't that what life's all about?

It also features the spoken line "I am not dying sober!" So....what else needs to be said?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Exoprimal fear
Shameful nobody said this was good, the legacy press has failed us yet again. Or nobody loud enough I guess. Tbf is live-service online requirement type, so own preconceptions maybe insulated self from looking further. Vaguely recall Steph Sterling had some positives ages ago bout it though probably didn't fancy chances at time cos tastes sporadically scattershot across vast smorgasbord of odd curiosities oscillating between emotional extremities make it a coin flip on whether outcome ends with buyer's bitter remorse or spiritual reverence.

Was convinced after finding a 30 minute trial I suspect was at some point longer and memory-holed or accidentally left on start screen while distracted by life obligations. Story dialogue appear to follow a subsect ofJapanese/English localisation efforts like Ni No Kuni where more natural sounding delivery and texture to vocal tone and context feels more endearing. Includes, daresay, even familiar comedic timing? Hollup was that a wank joke you snuck in as a brief retort?? I could be losing my mind.however

Dinos. Mechs, Dinos shooting mechs. Mechs eating dinos. Whatever ails ye, this mighty fine product will lure, cure and restore your demure benevolent demeanor ready to return to the workplace. And honestly, isn't that what life's all about?

It also features the spoken line "I am not dying sober!" So....what else needs to be said?

I feel like Exoprimal would've stood at least a decent chance if Capcom hadn't dropped it like a live grenade which had parted ways with Mr. Pin. Sure, it's weird, but it's a fun kind of weird, and the sight of a veritable waterfall of velociraptors cascading down a building is something we've never seen the likes of before.

 

[Bartholen]

Got back into Baldur's Gate 3, played a fair bit on my Ranger playthrough, and started an evil drow Paladin playthrough as well, to finally see the Minthara side of things. Maybe I'm a big softie, but playing the evil way just makes me feel uncomfortable in a lot of situations, which I suppose is the intention. Things like watching a child get murked by a snake, slaughtering Halsin in a blatantly unfair fashion, or the upcoming murder of Karlach just make me feel dirty. But that's why we experience any art, to feel things. The evil playthrough goes by a lot faster when I'm consistently ignoring most good-flagged things and just picking the most arrogant, evil options in the dialogue. It's fun in its own way, and it's satisfying to see just the amount of dialogue and detail the devs included to account for drow player characters. It's been some time since I've played it, and it seems a lot more party banter has been added in the updates, both in dialogue and outside of it. Which is good, when I originally played it the party members felt rather insulated from one another.

I also started a new playthrough of Hollow Knight after watching some youtube videos of it. And I'm probably in the overwhelming minority of people who just don't like this game that much. Sure the gameplay mechanics are tight as a drum, and have that Batman Arkham quality where you just sort of fall into a trance of traversing the world. But the player direction is so minimal, the storytelling so incredibly cryptic and the lore so deliberately obtuse that I just find it hard to get engaged or immersed in it much. I played for 5 hours, and in that time I probably got further than in the first 15 hours of my original playthrough, because I now knew where all the important traversal powers are. But the lack of any kind of narrative drive beyond "you're a mysterious stranger, go see what's out there" leaves a lot of it feeling pretty aimless. I'm just going through the world and fighting things because this is a videogame and they're there. There's no lore character or item descriptions to give larger context to much of anything. Because the game is so open-ended I don't get much of a sense of pacing: I just stumble upon locations and then go through them, with nary an idea of what I'm working towards or what's waiting on the other side. I'm still gonna keep playing, because I'm pretty sure I'll finish it in like half the total playtime this time around.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Finished Silent Hill 2 (remake). It's a brilliant game, but now I'm depressed. Probably going to do another run of Resident Evil 4 (also remake) to feel better.

 

[BrawlMan]

I bought and played Rastan III. The best in the franchise and the only game I like in the franchise. Both prequels are overly difficult platformers with the second game being unplayable and way too cheap on difficulty.

I played some more Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter EX (PS1). I did the hero mode battle for both times, and it's just a unique survival mode where you play as all SF characters vs. MSH characters, and vice versa with different final bosses. SF characters fight Apocalypse, and Marvel characters fight Cyber Akuma as the final boss. Apocalypse is easy as fuck, due to being turned into a sub-boss, and that there's an exploit only in this version you can go to the far right of the screen, get behind is massive hand, and fuck him up. He will almost never hit you, aside from one of his drones.

I am digging this new game I got used called Severed Steel. It's like a cross between FEAR1, Vanquish, and Ghostrunner. Difficult game too. This game came out in 2021 on PC, and 2022 on consoles. I got the Switch version.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Playing Transiruby, a small and perfectly serviceable game that's hard to recommend due to the several truckloads of other equally fine B+ Metroidvanias.

It has the look of a mid-range SNES game. You play a witless cyborg girl with a maneki-neko cracking jokes in your earpiece, but despite the mild waft of anime bullshit and do-not-steal art it's a well-designed, fairly robust game.

It's a puzzle-platforming collectathon built around freezing enemies with your gun and using them as platforms. There's a nifty trade-off involved. You kill enemies to charge your gun, which you can then use to freeze enemies, and if you kill them while frozen there's a 30% chance of regaining health. It's not terribly complex because enemies respawn almost immediately but having a basic tradeoff mechanic play out moment to moment makes the whole thing slightly more involving.

Progress is gated by the typical abilities like double jump or turning yourself into a freaking motorbike, as well as actual gates that only open every 50 coins collected (meaning you pretty much have to 100% every area before moving on, I think). That's fine by me. There's a push and pull among genre fans over just how guided or liberal these games should be regarding exploration and this is somewhat linear yet countered by how labyrinthine and densely packed the level design is. It's linear the way an intestine is linear.

 

[Ezekiel]

This is how bad I am. Shouldn't take anyone this long to get inside the compound in Nevada.

"She don't look much like one of them. Maybe she's an eco terrorist or somethin'."

"And they wear hotpants, huh?

She's not wearing hot pants, she's wearing pants in this level. So lively in the cutscenes, but in the game they're, funnily, like evil AI. Silent, still, always staring.

Nevada was my first of the three choices. I dropped the game in London eight years ago, one of the two other choices. Was stuck. Don't remember what the roadblock was, but feel more in the zone now.

Edit:

Yeah, IPS is just too crappy. She has no flares, no tools at all, after being arrested. I couldn't see this barbed wire at all. Went right into it and died. Looked at very long high speed HDMI cables, so that I might use my OLED TV. Too expensive for this temporary living situation.

Edit: The background noise with heartbeat in the alien structure in Tomb Raider original is too distinct to use again inside the high security compound.

 

[Chimpzy]

Finished Hi-Fi Rush. Only took me a year. Well, I actually started playing, then got distracted by something else, and only got back to it recently. Since it had been a while, I just restarted the whole thing.

You know, you'd think being a rhythm section musician irl would give me an advantage in this game, but it doesn't. In fact, it often works against me. Because while my brain has no problem counting the beat, my fingers kept trying to play the rhythm. So I usually only got A ranks because while I consistently snagged S rank on score and time, my just timing only hovered around 70%, because again, I kept pressing buttons to the rhythm, not the beat. Improved a little towards then end of the game. I did S rank level 10, because that was mostly to The Prodigy's Invaders Must Die, which, being Big Beat, obviously emphasizes the beat a lot. Also my favorite level, cuz that song is very fun to play very aggressively to.

Speaking of licensed songs tho, I was kinda surprised there's not that many in this game. About 10 out of the 80 something tracks, and some of them are actually covers rather than the originals. Granted, licensing 80 songs would be kinda insane.


Also played 9 Years of Shadow. Was free, so why not.

Metroidvania*. Nice pixel art. Nice soundtrack. Meh story and gameplay. Like, they show of a bunch of elements in the intro, like bringing color back to the world, some kind of rival, and elemental armors. But none of these really matter. Color is basically restored by the end of the tutorial. The rival shows up twice and dies. There's a theme of music throughout the game in the form a sidequest where you have to find musicians throughout the world, then do their particular subquest, but this doesn't seem to have any relevance to the main plot.

And the elemental armors are kinda like "what if Samus varia & gravity suit, but the benefits don't stack, and you have to switch between 4 of them to access their particular ability, but they really all kinda do the same thing". Which is to activate buttons of their respective color, do a little more damage to enemies outlined in that respective color, and use their respective movement ability. But often only in areas keyed to that particular armor, which automatically forces you into it, and that also locks you out of the other 3.

It's really linear. You do return to previous areas, but only to go through the single path you couldn't before because you didn't have right armor yet. There's no upgrades you couldn't get before, you can get them all on your first pass, and it's hard not to, because you usually find the full map for an area (including secret rooms) early on. Lots of bosses, most actually optional as part of that sidequest system, but most can be stomped in under a minute, while a few are frustrating difficulty spikes.

It's pretty tho. Other than that, skip it, even for free.

 

[Ezekiel]

Inspired me. Turned on Hi Fi Rush for the first time since June and finished level 3, the one where parry is introduced, finally. Got a D. Combat is weak.

You do a decent job designing a character (aside from lame modern anime face) and then shave off the side of her head, as per modern cringe.

Speaking of licensed songs tho, I was kinda surprised there's not that many in this game. About 10 out of the 80 something tracks, and some of them are actually covers rather than the originals. Granted, licensing 80 songs would be kinda insane.

Kind of necessary, though. Because the regular fighting music is too lame for him to be beating to it. If Jet Set Radio could do it...

 

[BrawlMan]

Inspired me. Turned on Hi Fi Rush for the first time since June and finished level 3, the one where parry is introduced, finally. Got a D. Combat is weak.

Combat is not weak. You just have skill issues and haven't played enough of it. It's called getting better with time. Don't blame the game for your lack of skill.

You do a decent job designing a character (aside from lame modern anime face) and then shave off the side of her head, as per modern cringe.

We call them the Gwen Stacy haircut. Settle down, We all know that haircut was a thing before her, but a lot of people ended up copying her design after Spider-Verse. Peppermint design is fine, but it does get derivative at this point, when at least two other video game characters already did this. At least Diva (the first voss from the streets of rage 4) has the excuse of her game being in development since 2017. Though for what I heard HFR had been in development since 2019, before the Microsoft buy out.

Because the regular fighting music is too lame for him to be beating to it.

No, your ears just have corn in them, and can't appreciate good dynamic fight music. Spoiled as usual.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I should probably play through Hi-Fi Rush as well. I haven't actually gotten to starting the RE4R replay yet, so it's a good time while I'm between games. I honestly don't even really remember why I stopped at the point I did (Track 8), I guess I just got distracted by... something. That happens a lot to me.

Kind of necessary, though. Because the regular fighting music is too lame for him to be beating to it. If Jet Set Radio could do it...

Are the Berenstain Bears also spelled with no A in the parallel universe you came from where Jet Set Radio has all licensed music?

 

[Ezekiel]

I should probably play through Hi-Fi Rush as well. I haven't actually gotten to starting the RE4R replay yet, so it's a good time while I'm between games. I honestly don't even really remember why I stopped at the point I did (Track 8), I guess I just got distracted by... something. That happens a lot to me.


Are the Berenstain Bears also spelled with no A in the parallel universe you came from where Jet Set Radio has all licensed music?

List of songs in Jet Set Radio

This page goes over a list of songs in Jet Set Radio. Starting with the 18 that were included in the soundtrack, the 17 licensed songs, and 10 songs that are connected to the game but do not appear in any version of it. Songs that are included on the album release for the game's soundtrack...

jetsetradio.fandom.com

Then I have to criticize the composer, because Jet Set Radio had a better soundtrack. Hi-Fi Rush is bland. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

 

[BrawlMan]

List of songs in Jet Set Radio

This page goes over a list of songs in Jet Set Radio. Starting with the 18 that were included in the soundtrack, the 17 licensed songs, and 10 songs that are connected to the game but do not appear in any version of it. Songs that are included on the album release for the game's soundtrack...

jetsetradio.fandom.com

Then I have to criticize the composer, because Jet Set Radio had a better soundtrack. Hi-Fi Rush is bland. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

They're both awesome and go for different vibes. Your "truth" is nothing more than old man yelling at cloud bullshit.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

List of songs in Jet Set Radio

This page goes over a list of songs in Jet Set Radio. Starting with the 18 that were included in the soundtrack, the 17 licensed songs, and 10 songs that are connected to the game but do not appear in any version of it. Songs that are included on the album release for the game's soundtrack...

jetsetradio.fandom.com

Hi-Fi Rush is bland. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Your entire argument is a dead meme. So here's another one for you:

ok boomer

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Still going strong on Exoprimal, surprised it's held interest this long for a live-service, even Helldivers 2 hit the "well it's this forever now I guess" wall much earlier. The story ball (or "analysis map" if you wanna take their wordin:: 'story ball' less effort and more accurate tho) presents a carrot-on-stick visual dripfeed of narrative where plot is laundered through whimsical bickering between the small cast of weirdos. Motivations read like HZD first script notes where cast is tasked with having to ask fractally escalating variants of "oh goodness, why are we suddenly in a simulation with loads of.fckin awesome dinosaurs and robots?" Impressively finding every answer outside of "cos it's kinda cool and funsie you idiot!"

Lobbies appear populated on console to this day too, so can't be the only freak here lol. Losses don't feel like precious time thrown to wind. Class roles are intuitive yet quickly changeable on the fly. Seen Bots assigned at one point, ah remember bots? Is nice to know thing bought can be enjoyed even after other people lose interest. And it hasn't logged account out for spending too long having go piss or calming down housemates/pets, unlike the popular boys who seem a little too eager to abandon me whenever I look away for more than a few seconds.

 

[BrawlMan]

Still going strong on Exoprimal, surprised it's held interest this long for a live-service, even Helldivers 2 hit the "well it's this forever now I guess" wall much earlier. The story ball (or "analysis map" if you wanna take their wordin:: 'story ball' less effort and more accurate tho) presents a carrot-on-stick visual dripfeed of narrative where plot is laundered through whimsical bickering between the small cast of weirdos. Motivations read like HZD first script notes where cast is tasked with having to ask fractally escalating variants of "oh goodness, why are we suddenly in a simulation with loads of.fckin awesome dinosaurs and robots?" Impressively finding every answer outside of "cos it's kinda cool and funsie you idiot!"

Lobbies appear populated on console to this day too, so can't be the only freak here lol. Losses don't feel like precious time thrown to wind. Class roles are intuitive yet quickly changeable on the fly. Seen Bots assigned at one point, ah remember bots? Is nice to know thing bought can be enjoyed even after other people lose interest. And it hasn't logged account out for spending too long having go piss or calming down housemates/pets, unlike the popular boys who seem a little too eager to abandon me whenever I look away for more than a few seconds.

I'm glad you're having fun, and there are people having fun as well. With a big player population. The reason why I'll never get invested into this game is because everything is tied to the servers. That includes the single player. If Capcom ever decides to shut down the servers for this game; that's it, no more Exo. Any physical coffee would just be glorified paperweight. I pray that day never comes.

Astro Bot is great. I completed the first world a few nights ago. The game ain't overly difficult, but that's not the entire point. It's just make a fun game but make you earn those hidden collectibles and bots. I'll do the second world when I get home later tonight.

 

[Bartholen]

Yeeeah, I'm not sure I'll even finish Hollow Knight this time. I just find it too nebulous and hard to grasp onto. Every character speaks in cryptic riddles and vague allusions, there's no any kind of codex or in-universe wiki to try to glean anything for myself, and the larger picture of what's going on basically never comes into focus. I don't know who I am, what I'm supposed to be doing, where, how and why, and what's at stake. Well, obviously I do, I've played the game, but you know what I mean. There is a place for cryptic, between the lines storytelling, but this game pushes it well past the breaking point for my tastes. Hallownest as a setting feels far too vaguely defined: it's presented as a once mighty kingdom now fallen into ruin, but many parts of the map seem pretty damn thriving to me. Because the game world is such an alien place I have no real reference point for what it's supposed to have been like in its heyday, it's not like Dark Souls where general human knowledge can intuit those things.

There's only so many ways one can rephrase calling something too cryptic, so I'll just give the foremost example: upon entering Kingdom's Edge you encounter Hornet, who gives you a cryptic warning, and tells you to seek "the grave in ash". I was like "b!tch, I don't know what that means! What is it? Where is it? How do i get there? Someone please explain something!" This overall lack of explanation and player guidance leaves my play experience very checked out and mindless, and I just haphazardly stumble from one place to the next.

 

[Trunkage]

So I got around to Dragonage Veilguard. I did not seek any info about beforehand but, so per normal nowadays, I automatically get flooded with news as soon as you purchase something. This has led me to find out how some people saw Veilguard, particularly its writing. Usually, its seen as bad

Before we start - Dragonage is the most consistently inconsistent franchise ever. The style of game it is now could not have been predicted from the first or second. Same with the story. I don't see this as a negative as things like Far Cry being the exact same game every times is not a positive for me. The combat is now like Mass Effect 2/3. and simialr to the move from ME1 to 2, it lost something in the combat (replacing with something else). It is sad but If me/you wanted DA:O2.... just play the first again.

Anyway, the first complaint was the assumption that it didnt draw a person into the world. The best person to explain this was by comparing how Tolkien wrote, in an ancient English syntax that pretended it was like the style of talking at the time. Vielguard definitely is written more like we speak. This is true and they stated that it did draw them into a fantasy world. I specifically don't read Tolkien because of this exact issue, and it immediately sucks me out of the fantasy world. It's like reading a different language and I have to translate it. I understand their complaint but I do not think this equates to bad writing. If you don't think this matches the style for fantasy, that's fine but I would disagree

The second complaint was about how the story told you things, rather than implying. The common example was the sit-down team meetings. Here's the problem. You have a detective on your team. They are going to analyse what happened and possible motivations. The whole team starts doing this during those team meetings. So, in effect, this is true... but that's how at least one character would be engaging with the situation. In fact, a lot of the questions are showing what's important to the character. You know... IMPLYING something about the companions. These complainers just focused on one thing and ignored others. This, more than any other Bioware game, makes you feel like you are working as a team, even if you only take 2 characters with you. The companions analysing motives creates the team atmosphere that has been missing

The next complaint was around how choices are notified in Veilguard, and I specifically remember an ex-Bioware writer. Veilguard notes when a decision is made and then notifies you again when the decision has changed in the story. An innocuous example is remembering a favourite beverage of one of your companions. If you do, a prompt shows that you recall the decision. The ex-Bioware person stated that this is spoonfeding you, and not letting you think for yourself.... but I remember this moment. I remember this being important to the character before the prompt happened on the screen. I didnt need that prompt, and it came up a few seconds later. But I dont know why that would be offensive. If you couldnt figure it out in time, that's your problem. If its just the existence of it... get a life. This, to me, is like the Babyface whinging about pronouns. At best, I could say Bioware could make an option to turn it off, just because I know these types of people and their incessant whining. They clearly made a huge variety of concessions to similar complaints by having so many options.

There were also complaints about non-binary. Generally unfounded and not really worth anyone's time

The last one I saw was about the enemies being black and white and how the enemies in DA:O were more grey.... which makes me think that they didnt play DA:O. The darkspawn are the blackest of the black. They gave the example of the Circle and Templars.... but they are necessarily enemies. The darkspawn in this are given agency as there are leaders now. These leaders influenced other factions but one was pretty evil already from DA:O, being little better than darkspawn. They did NOT have any slave markets which has been a major focus for them since the first game. So that is weird

The other group is a fracturing of the Qunari and only one part is following the darkspawn leader. The rest are integrating with society, some even calling themselves for the country they are born in, rather than Qunari. That's interesting. I suppose if you just focus on the enemy faction, they are mostly evil. But these are definitely using the darkspawn leader for their own gain, and they are being used in turn. This is very clear. Then you have the story of the Butcher and Jakobus and they both went to place I never would have guessed and pretending the Butcher is black and white is ridiculous. It also makes me want to play for the other side of the major decision to see what would happen there. Perhaps something better would have happened with the Ventori

Anyway, this is not much about the game. Not the greatest game but I would say that about all the Dragonages. Still great.. Companions are generally likeable. While I do prefer the old style of combat, ME 2 is a good style. I dont have a huge SSD and this caused huge issues for me. Many things did not load in well. I still finished it so that tells you how much I can push through performance issues. But if you havent got a new computer, wait. Don't go for minimum performance because it's not great. And I really dislike how many games nowadays require me to get a totally different and expensive hard drive just to play. It's far more Metriodvania style of map. I'd probably give it a 7.5/10 even with the above stated performance issues

 

[Ezekiel]

Tomb Raider III, Area 51.

Spoiler

Woke up a little early today, which gave me time to find the orca whales and alien and enter the spaceship. Few moments had me pretty stumped, but still no guide used. Also a few cheap traps or not enough time to react the first time.

Looking at this pulpy weirdness makes the direction of the series under Crystal Dynamics even more bizarre. Really sad. Not even good as a separate thing. They have no vision.

Surprised also that Lara Croft has killed so many American soldiers.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Transiruby. This game was neat! Not especially challenging but very ingeniously designed and structured to make the most of a few unique gameplay conceits. Feels like everything I've played after Nine Sols has been chill, breezy and mostly undemanding, a few brainteasers aside: Creaks, flOw, Flower, Flynn: Son of Crimson and The Stanley Parable.

Ender Magnolia releases January 23, that should be a fun step up in difficulty. Ender Lilies had some tough bosses to it.