Reading review, a lot of people say its like a immersive sim (bioshock, etc.), that color me curious.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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How can you not love Steve? The VA got the perfect read on him and played him appropriately. He realized that Steve is a whiny, egotistical, doofus and played him that way.
I think the game is a perfectly decent open world sandbox that's so fucking massive in size and busy with activities that it's either thrilling or disheartening, depending on your state of mind, or mine anyway. The game is 90% optional missions, and the main missions aren't that different in goals or gameplay from the optional ones, so it always feels like you're wasting your time even when you are technically having fun.
The cartoony art style works fine on the monsters and landscapes and I get a lot of mileage out of photo mode, but it looks jarring on the characters, who look like they're straight out of Thunderbirds or Team America.
FC5 was Ubisoft's attempt at destructuring the AC/FC formula and making it more "organic" - it's basically all optional missions, and whenever you do X amount per region that triggers the critical path. In practice it's as repetitive as you say. I'm a sucker for liberating outposts though so at least Far Cry has that over Fenyx Rising.
For micro-stories I still think Rockstar/RDR2 is the undefeated champion.
I've been playing Centipede Recharged, Breakout Recharged, and Missile Command Recharged from the Steam Sale. They are all very fun and very addicting arcade games with creative challenge modes. I traded in Slave Zero X, Shadows of the Damned (360 copy), and Space Marine for Sonic Forces and Strange Brigade.
Strange Brigade I find really good and addicting. It's made by Rebellion, so it shares a lot of the DNA from their Zombie Army series. I actually find it more fun than Zombie Army right now. It's a straight up 3rd person arcade style shooter with some light puzzle solving every now and then. I am still early into the first chapter, and it is surprisingly long. You can activate traps, upgrade your weapons, find hidden treasures. It's like playing a over-the-shoulder version of Serious Sam. The game even has an Egyptian setting too. Why didn't I pick up this game sooner back in 2018? Rebellion are the masters of straight forward 3rd person shooters, and you got to love them for sticking around this long.
Strange Brigade I find really good and addicting. It's made by Rebellion, so it shares a lot of the DNA from their Zombie Army series. I actually find it more fun than Zombie Army right now. It's a straight up 3rd person arcade style shooter with some light puzzle solving every now and then. I am still early into the first chapter, and it is surprisingly long. You can activate traps, upgrade your weapons, find hidden treasures. It's like playing a over-the-shoulder version of Serious Sam. The game even has an Egyptian setting too. Why didn't I pick up this game sooner back in 2018? Rebellion are the masters of straight forward 3rd person shooters, and you got to love them for sticking around this long.
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Right.... and it was fair to compare it to AC for the open world sandbox busy with same-y activities structure. But it's just the fact that its demise was lamented while "omg another AC" is easy internet points that I'm making fun of.
Especially connected to your excellent point about the art style's reception on characters vs the rest makes me realize how important that is to me, probably more so than many other players. It's why I have such a hard time playing a lot of "anime" style games. Almost all of my favorite games- at least the ones with an actual story- are the ones where I'm playing as a "realistic" looking character, including the AC's. Aloy, Geralt, Lara Croft, Nathan Drake, Joel/Elly/Abbey, heck even Kratos counts in my reckoning.
Not posted here for a while cause I'm still on kingdom come deliverance 2. Something like 160 hours or so. It feels like I'm getting to the third act of the main story, but there's still some sidequests to do. Also nearly reached max level too. This game just sucks so much time and you don't notice it but at the end of the session you've been playing for 8 hours.
The main city of Kuttenberg is probably the single best gaming city ever made. It's huge, the city itself has like 6 fast travel points, it has a million little nooks and crannies that aren't all instantly explorable but you slowly uncover as you do sidequests and some main story stuff. It has an underground tunnel system too cause it''s a silver mining town. I still notice new things all the time and I feel I lived there for a good 80 hours by now, and the city is only about 1/10th of the full second map you play at.
At this stage, I can clear basically every skill check, I can buy the most expensive horse 4 times over and survive 10 v 1 fights. But only one of my weapon skills is maxed so it gets harder if I try using some of the other types of weapons. Especially my polearm skill is pretty low. So you can kinda manage the game's difficulty by your equipment choice.
But yeah basically I can do anything I want and even talk my way out of being criminally prosecuted cause I have fancy noble clothes that are worth more silver than people will see in a lifetime so I can pass off as a noble. Also the story is really getting good. Those story missions remind me of the way dragon age inquisition story missions were like big ass events and not just another slightly more important sidequest. Each one has something unique going on that you don't get to do in the main game and it builds up. In my last fight I had to literally help people escape a pogrom. And since I used my fancy sword I saved everyone you can ever save. Let me tell you, being a bit overleveled when the game throws that kinda shit at you feels just right lmao.
Oh also I helped some hoes by sabotaging their competition (legit had to ask beggars for fleas to spread over the other bathhouse, which resulted in more than a few funnily insulted beggars) so now I get free bathhouse privileges. Hurray for hoes.
The main city of Kuttenberg is probably the single best gaming city ever made. It's huge, the city itself has like 6 fast travel points, it has a million little nooks and crannies that aren't all instantly explorable but you slowly uncover as you do sidequests and some main story stuff. It has an underground tunnel system too cause it''s a silver mining town. I still notice new things all the time and I feel I lived there for a good 80 hours by now, and the city is only about 1/10th of the full second map you play at.
At this stage, I can clear basically every skill check, I can buy the most expensive horse 4 times over and survive 10 v 1 fights. But only one of my weapon skills is maxed so it gets harder if I try using some of the other types of weapons. Especially my polearm skill is pretty low. So you can kinda manage the game's difficulty by your equipment choice.
But yeah basically I can do anything I want and even talk my way out of being criminally prosecuted cause I have fancy noble clothes that are worth more silver than people will see in a lifetime so I can pass off as a noble. Also the story is really getting good. Those story missions remind me of the way dragon age inquisition story missions were like big ass events and not just another slightly more important sidequest. Each one has something unique going on that you don't get to do in the main game and it builds up. In my last fight I had to literally help people escape a pogrom. And since I used my fancy sword I saved everyone you can ever save. Let me tell you, being a bit overleveled when the game throws that kinda shit at you feels just right lmao.
Oh also I helped some hoes by sabotaging their competition (legit had to ask beggars for fleas to spread over the other bathhouse, which resulted in more than a few funnily insulted beggars) so now I get free bathhouse privileges. Hurray for hoes.
Trying to download some dxvk files for screen-tearing Crysis.
Love the impassioned responses. I can't remember either!
"see? that is the problem. we dont even know what a terminal is. we just want the software."
"might as well have said 'hack into the mainframe'. speak english for once."
"Every. Single. Fucking. Time.
"For decades, I've been on GitHub thousands of times. It doesn't help. You simply do not find the fucking download button. And I'm even (sort of) a programmer myself."
Love the impassioned responses. I can't remember either!
"see? that is the problem. we dont even know what a terminal is. we just want the software."
"might as well have said 'hack into the mainframe'. speak english for once."
"Every. Single. Fucking. Time.
"For decades, I've been on GitHub thousands of times. It doesn't help. You simply do not find the fucking download button. And I'm even (sort of) a programmer myself."
I just finished Talos Principle 2. All in all, pretty good. They toned down the difficulty of some of the late game puzzles, which did git a little out of control in the first one. It is kind of weird, I had complained about the total install size being so much larger than TTP1. Expecting the difference to be just an imperceptible resolution or framerate increase and a game roughly with the same amount of content. What I did not expect is a game roughly with the same amount of content, that is noticeably less visually appealing than its predecessor. I have less idea why the game is so much a bigger download than its predecessor, than I did before I started it. But all that is window dressing. Story continues and it works as well, actually better than I thought it could. Adding in other humans to interact with, works pretty well too.
Next up for me is something kind of similar. Yars Rising. The original was probably my favorite 2600 title, I'm looking forward to what they will do with it.
Been spending most of the month playing games most of y'all might not even have heard of. Like Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom, Gravity Circuit and Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk.
Anyway, just wrapped up Blue Fire
How to explain it. Easiest is probably calling it a metroidvania 3D platformer, because of the interconnected world and progress being locked behind obtaining new movement abilities. But there are also heavy influences from other stuff. There's Soullike-y stuff, like a bonfire equivalent, an estus flask equivalent, a souls equivalent you drop upon death but can pick up again that is also used as a currency and for leveling up (tho in more limited fashion), you need to defeat what amounts to 3 fallen gods before you can go to the final area and beat the chief god, and, you know, that sort of general bleakness in the world design. But there's also a lot of Zelda dna, like Zelda style hearts, using what is basically Z-targeting from Ocarina for the combat and the overal structure of the game's dungeons. Some Hollow Knight in that you something similar to charms to expand or modify your abilities, and a mana bar you fill by hitting enemies and can then expend on magic attacks or a shield to defend. Maybe also a dash of PoP Sands of Time as the late game challenges involve a lot of stringing together wall runs and other abilities.
It's kind of a mish mash of disparate ideas, but it mostly works. My biggest gripe is that it doesn't have a map. None at all. Which, ok the area aren't actually all that big, but especially in the beginning it can be kind of annoying keeping track of how they all connect or where the npcs are. Movement generally feels good and smooth, but there are platforming sequences where you have to be really precise in your timing and positioning and still only barely make it. Would probably feel even better if was tuned just a smidge more lenient. Not much tho, just like 5% more jump height and distance, and wall run time.
Anyway, just wrapped up Blue Fire
How to explain it. Easiest is probably calling it a metroidvania 3D platformer, because of the interconnected world and progress being locked behind obtaining new movement abilities. But there are also heavy influences from other stuff. There's Soullike-y stuff, like a bonfire equivalent, an estus flask equivalent, a souls equivalent you drop upon death but can pick up again that is also used as a currency and for leveling up (tho in more limited fashion), you need to defeat what amounts to 3 fallen gods before you can go to the final area and beat the chief god, and, you know, that sort of general bleakness in the world design. But there's also a lot of Zelda dna, like Zelda style hearts, using what is basically Z-targeting from Ocarina for the combat and the overal structure of the game's dungeons. Some Hollow Knight in that you something similar to charms to expand or modify your abilities, and a mana bar you fill by hitting enemies and can then expend on magic attacks or a shield to defend. Maybe also a dash of PoP Sands of Time as the late game challenges involve a lot of stringing together wall runs and other abilities.
It's kind of a mish mash of disparate ideas, but it mostly works. My biggest gripe is that it doesn't have a map. None at all. Which, ok the area aren't actually all that big, but especially in the beginning it can be kind of annoying keeping track of how they all connect or where the npcs are. Movement generally feels good and smooth, but there are platforming sequences where you have to be really precise in your timing and positioning and still only barely make it. Would probably feel even better if was tuned just a smidge more lenient. Not much tho, just like 5% more jump height and distance, and wall run time.
I actually have that one. I got it on a deep Steam sale, and I have not played it yet.
I played and beat Fighting Street [Street Fighter I] (T-16/PC-Engine). You read that right. The music is kick ass, but the game plays actually worse than the arcade version.
I did an arcade run as Sakura in Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold a few weeks ago. I got a high score of 2, 048, 200.
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I've continued Code Veronica up to a point where I'm totally stuck. I got to the Private Residence and picked up the Silver Key in Alexia's room, but neither of the rooms that it opened back in the Palace had any other key items; the Navy Proof isn't useful anywhere I can get to; and the Biohazard Card only gets me into rooms I've already cleaned out. I'm probably going to have to look at a walkthrough to see where to go from here.
Also, I'm fairly certain that those yellow guys with the stretchy arms can't be consistently dodged when they attack, which is maybe fine for a one-off boss fight, but having to get past multiple of them in the same room with only either praying you're facing the right way, or face-tanking their attacks while snorting green herbs and spamming arrows? That's not fun.
ETA: Looked at the walkthrough. Apparently I have to grab an item that's not clearly visible (or marked on the map like every other key item) on the floor in the conference room where the two yellow guys are. Fun fun fun.
Also, I'm fairly certain that those yellow guys with the stretchy arms can't be consistently dodged when they attack, which is maybe fine for a one-off boss fight, but having to get past multiple of them in the same room with only either praying you're facing the right way, or face-tanking their attacks while snorting green herbs and spamming arrows? That's not fun.
ETA: Looked at the walkthrough. Apparently I have to grab an item that's not clearly visible (or marked on the map like every other key item) on the floor in the conference room where the two yellow guys are. Fun fun fun.
Pretty much why I don't like the game and find it too much of a hassle to play.
I'm still chipping away at Far Cry 5, but there is remarkably little to it.
The world is large, and nice to look at, and packed with wildlife to hunt, outposts to clear, quests to complete, random events to tackle, and secrets to uncover, but even so, it is still remarkably shallow.
The main problem is just that the combat is very easy, and it rarely threatens to be challenging.
Eliminating 99% of enemies is as easy as just clicking a single time on their head. The same can be said for a lot of other contemporary shooters, but unlike something like Call of Duty, which often floods you with enemies, and wraps everything up in some bombastic setpiece, Far Cry often only pits you against enemies numbered in the single digits, huddled around some static cabin in the middle of the woods, who are often blissfully (pun not intended) unaware of your presence, so you can easily pick them off one-by-one with your silenced rifle before they can raise the alarm.
So really, the only way to elicit some kind of challenge, is by artificially limiting the weapons that you can use, or purposely triggering combat, but this isn't really much of a solution, because the game is still very easy, even in open combat.
I know Far Cry New Dawn and Far Cry 6 were criticised for adding in some light RPG elements to the combat - and I haven't really seen or tried these myself - but I feel like that is probably a good step in the right direction to make this game more engaging.
As it stands, i've played the game for approximately 10 hours, and cleared the first of three regions. The idea of needing to clear two more, where I already feel like I have seen all that this game has to offer, honestly sounds really unappealing. I might drop this one.
The world is large, and nice to look at, and packed with wildlife to hunt, outposts to clear, quests to complete, random events to tackle, and secrets to uncover, but even so, it is still remarkably shallow.
The main problem is just that the combat is very easy, and it rarely threatens to be challenging.
Eliminating 99% of enemies is as easy as just clicking a single time on their head. The same can be said for a lot of other contemporary shooters, but unlike something like Call of Duty, which often floods you with enemies, and wraps everything up in some bombastic setpiece, Far Cry often only pits you against enemies numbered in the single digits, huddled around some static cabin in the middle of the woods, who are often blissfully (pun not intended) unaware of your presence, so you can easily pick them off one-by-one with your silenced rifle before they can raise the alarm.
So really, the only way to elicit some kind of challenge, is by artificially limiting the weapons that you can use, or purposely triggering combat, but this isn't really much of a solution, because the game is still very easy, even in open combat.
I know Far Cry New Dawn and Far Cry 6 were criticised for adding in some light RPG elements to the combat - and I haven't really seen or tried these myself - but I feel like that is probably a good step in the right direction to make this game more engaging.
As it stands, i've played the game for approximately 10 hours, and cleared the first of three regions. The idea of needing to clear two more, where I already feel like I have seen all that this game has to offer, honestly sounds really unappealing. I might drop this one.
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Finally got myself a 4K TV with the works, and I'm dipping into some games again just to see what's what. Started up The Last of Us Part 1... shit looks real fucking pretty. I mean, it already did in 1080p, but now it's like when you see a burger in the commercial compared to when it's in front of you. I also played some of Spider-Man 2 at 120fps, but that is way too loose for me.
I'm on my vacation, so I thought why not download some Nintendo gba games using "alternative" methods?
So I played Metroid Zero Mission, and while this is my nth time playing this game, it was my first attempt at 100%.
And holy cow, for a game developed for a handheld device, it offered much content, clocking in nearly 6 hours.
It was fun back then, and it was still fun to play. But this time I was determined to get all the items. Some of them were right there in the open to grab, others were cleverly hidden, and few required a very challenging platforming stunts. The challenging ones made me question how tf people in 2000s got this? I mean I used save states to save time, but they had to start the puzzles from scratch!
It's also one of the earliest games that I recall that features environmental storytelling, where every part of the planet always had something going on. The dialog is kept to very minimum, and I think it worked well for this remake.
So I played Metroid Zero Mission, and while this is my nth time playing this game, it was my first attempt at 100%.
And holy cow, for a game developed for a handheld device, it offered much content, clocking in nearly 6 hours.
It was fun back then, and it was still fun to play. But this time I was determined to get all the items. Some of them were right there in the open to grab, others were cleverly hidden, and few required a very challenging platforming stunts. The challenging ones made me question how tf people in 2000s got this? I mean I used save states to save time, but they had to start the puzzles from scratch!
It's also one of the earliest games that I recall that features environmental storytelling, where every part of the planet always had something going on. The dialog is kept to very minimum, and I think it worked well for this remake.
Did you use a portable emulating device?
I got a new high score on Chapter 2 of Ninja Gaiden II Black, Mentor Difficulty. I did die once though.
Did an arcade of Chun-Li in Alpha 2 Gold (PS1). Then I did a Dramatic Battle on the arcade version with Ken and Sakura as my CPU partner. Managed to do a no death run. I did another controlling Adon and Birdie being my partner
I played some Gungrave GORE and Sonic Forces (I kept my save file and have not played the game since 2019)