What are you currently playing?

[NerfedFalcon]

He has a grappling hook...?

I'm not sure I understand the criticism. If a game isn't designed around jumping why would it need a jump button?

Even if a control scheme is "bad" on paper, the important thing is that the controls and challenges are designed to suit one another. See also: Metal Gear Solid's D-pad movement (and conversely Twin Snakes's MGS2 controls making the game too easy), Resident Evil 4 (original) making you stand still to aim and shoot, Mirror's Edge's first-person platforming (admittedly debatable but I think it works), the first Castlevania's stiff jumps and slow movement, and Metroid Prime (on the Gamecube) making you turn instead of strafing after the two-stick FPS controls were codified, as well as having first-person platforming in an entirely different way to Mirror's Edge.

 

[thebobmaster]

Was going to buy a copy of Expedition 33 to play over the holidays, but with the revelations that they used Gen AI during the development of the game I'm suddenly a lot less excited about it, despite the critical acclaim that the game is excellent. Maybe I'll pick it up on a steep steam sale in a year.

I'll probably pick up Dispatch instead.

If it makes things any better, the Generative AI element was removed in patching, and was apparently a result of the devs using an asset from the Unreal Store that was created with generative AI as a placeholder, and then forgetting to remove it before launch.

 

[Ezekiel]

I'm not sure I understand the criticism. If a game isn't designed around jumping why would it need a jump button?

It's designed around jumping. Here, I combined Mario and Arkham for you (unlisted).



They just made the jumping automatic, like everything else.

He has a grappling hook...?

The way the grapple gun is used in these games is pretty lame too. He can swing between platforms even with only sky above and defies gravity when the grapple point is far ahead of him. The grapple points should be much more specific, with the player having to aim at the flag pole or railing or whatever it is. Their aim might be assisted by slow motion as they fall or swing through the air. I also wouldn't be apposed to complete exclusion of the gun if there's a good roping and lasso system. I am reading The Dark Knight Returns and have read many of the early comics, in which all this was much more manual for him without that gun. In one early comic he kept the rope tied outside so that he could escape through the high window when they started shooting at him. Swinging through the air, so high above the ground, should be dangerous and exhilarating. There should be a powerful sense of speed and gravity. The lack of fall damage in these games completely misrepresents the character and only makes the world blander.



The claw is like quick-glue in the games, stupid as hell. Just attaches to anything.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've beaten GigaSword and after spending an afternoon looking for collectibles I've decided I just don't care. No map pins, no fast travel (it was patched in but it doesn't work) and the map is only sparsely interconnected, so it's like a star stretching out into a bunch of dead ends moreso than a forking web. TL;DR a pain to navigate.

I went back to Silksong thinking about getting the Platinum. It's a sub 5 hour speedrun any% for one trophy and then a sub 30 hour speedrun 100% for the other, which thankfully doesn't require you to beat Lost Lace. I guess you basically take it from whatever ending you got during the initial speedrun and fill in whatever % you're missing, half of which is apparently tools and upgrades (bosses themselves don't count towards completion). Seems doable enough.

Tested it out and can get to Bone Bottom in under 5 minutes. It's a start.

 

[BrawlMan]

Shinobi: AoV - I beat Neon City. It's a throwback level to Revenge of Shinobi, and the arcade original where you have to rescue hostages. There are three zones where you can pick them in any order, and each zone has one hostage each. You get the grappling hook for rescuing all three boys. I don't like chase sections, because they're one hit and you're dead, and had trouble with the grappling hook mechanics. They're directional based, and you have to be within a certain range to activate them. Another thing I am noticing, is this game has long checkpoints. Something I really don't like, but I can bare it enough for now. Though is something that's always been a problem with Shinobi games. At least there is a cool boss at the end. I am stopping for tonight, because fuck that helicopter chase sequence, even though I did pass it after the 5th try.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

It's designed around jumping. Here, I combined Mario and Arkham for you (unlisted).



They just made the jumping automatic, like everything else.

Fair enough.

It's been so long since I played these games that I literally did not remember jumping between rooftops. I only remembered using the grappling hook and gliding to get around.

 

[thebobmaster]

Fair enough.

It's been so long since I played these games that I literally did not remember jumping between rooftops. I only remembered using the grappling hook and gliding to get around.

That's because those are the main modes to get around Arkham City. If you are literally jumping from rooftop to rooftop the whole time, you are actively moving in the most inefficient way possible besides walking on the ground.

 

[Ezekiel]

That's because those are the main modes to get around Arkham City. If you are literally jumping from rooftop to rooftop the whole time, you are actively moving in the most inefficient way possible besides walking on the ground.

The endless flying too is a complete misunderstanding of the character. Rocksteady failed, objectively. But what could we expect from the makers of Urban Chaos: Riot Response?

 

[thebobmaster]

The endless flying too is a complete misunderstanding of the character. Rocksteady failed, objectively. But what could we expect from the makers of Urban Chaos: Riot Response?

 

[BrawlMan]

View attachment 14082

It's all he ever does along with the constant nagging. He does not know how to have fun with almost anything new, and only blind nostalgia for the very old.

 

[Kyrian007]

So you built a whole new PC that only minimally upgraded motherboard and CPU? Or if you kept the same GPU and memory than it's not a new build right?
Sorry if this seems nitpicky but it's just a confusing paragraph...

If you can play BG3 and Borderlands 4 then I think you can play anything else, even if on medium settings, so I dunno why you feel hampered.

No it was a pretty substantial upgrade. the Win 11 thing was just kind of a catalyst for something I needed to do anyway. And I thought that was the giveaway that it was a pretty substantial upgrade, it needed to be older than 8th gen Ix cpu to not be supported. And I didn't keep the same GPU. All I was saying, was that I generally had a specific game that I was getting an upgrade for. And nothing coming out now or early in 2026 has interested me enough to be THE reason I got an upgrade. Maybe this should have been in the "game of the year" thread, because if no game release was prompting me to upgrade such an old machine... 2025 must have been a pretty poor year. I guess that's what's hampering me, lack of interest in anything that my old pc (even as old as it was) couldn't handle.

 

[BrawlMan]

Finally got a chance to play Dancin' Divas. I've only completed two stages so far, but the game does save on the last stage you started on. I am playing on Normal and playing as Bahti. This game is pretty much Ninja Baseball Batman, but with Tex Avery animation, an all female roster, and I love it! You have your standard attacks, running/dashing, a super meter that activates at the press of one button, and a health draining attack. You can choose different pathways a la Guardian Heroes. The combat is much more simple compared to the game that inspired it, but that's okay. Your attacks land as they should and the enemies aren't too cheap. There is a shop system and other bonus modes, but many of them clearly have to be unlocked by beating the game (on various difficulty modes) from what I guess. I am stopping for now, as I've got to get something to eat, but I am beating this tonight.

​

 

[Ezekiel]

Finished Colossus again. I guess it's been over ten years since I played the original. I can't remember if I ever emulated it before. If I didn't emulate it, then it's more like fifteen years. Seven years since I played the remake.

I didn't care about the story this time, since I'm playing at a fucking desk with a computer monitor, so I did little wandering, only grabbed a few white lizard tails in case I decided to climb the center shrine later and skipped most cutscenes. I only wanted to unlock Hard mode again, for a later playthrough, although I will at some point do the time trials on Normal for special items. I've collected them all before. I wish it had been easier to convert PS2 save files to a format emulators can read. We bought that official PS2 to PS3 save adapter when we got the PS3, and I still have those saves on my computer.

It's a pretty short game. I don't feel like I was rushing. I did a ton of exploration when I first played the remake seven years ago and still got the "ultra rare" Speed Demon trophy.

 

[Worgen]

Been playing more First Berserker Khazan and it really is damn good. Just beat the bandit boss who has a mace/crossbow/flamethrower thing. The itemization system does annoy me since you find so much of the same stuff with different stats and there are a lot of full sets so you want to try getting as much of a set as you can, even if the defense is worse since some of those bonuses are really nice. But the combat is really good and knowing that you want to setup skill point builds for each main weapon type is very handy.

 

[BrawlMan]

Dancin Divas has been completed. I can already see myself replaying this for the other choices, and unlocking all of the other extras. I managed to 1CC the game and got the best ending. The next to last (mini) boss has a 55 second time limit. So you have to beat her before the main villain escapes in order to face him in the final stage. It's doable, but recommended you keep her in the middle of the screen as much as often. I am good for tonight and will do another playthrough later.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

If it makes things any better, the Generative AI element was removed in patching, and was apparently a result of the devs using an asset from the Unreal Store that was created with generative AI as a placeholder, and then forgetting to remove it before launch.

Previously they stated they didn't use Gen AI, then AI assets were found in the game and patched out. Now they're claiming they only use a little bit of AI assets as a placeholder, but they're really anti-AI pinky promise.

They've already been caught in a lie, which makes me not believe them regarding the amount of AI used. They've already lost the benefit of the doubt.

You can't claim to be anti-AI and still use gen AI in your game development, it's disingenuous even if none of it had made it into the final game, which it did.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Playstation holiday sale is going on right now. I grabbed myself a copy of Astro Bot. It's very cute.

 

[Chimpzy]

Playing Haste

Self-described as a high-speed third person running game, it's a game all about building speed while dodging obstacles as the world collapses behind you. It's sort of a blend of the boost sections of modern Sonic but with the momentum-based gameplay of classic Sonic. You run automatically, leaving you to focus on steering around obstacles (including in the air), launching off hills and hitting your landings. And you want your landing angle to be as shallow as possible, preferably on a downslope, because that increases your speed. Hit something or land on an upslope, your lose speed. The goal of course to reach the end fast and smoothly without hitting anything and collecting as much of the ingame currency as possible.

The game is structured in a pseudo-roguelite way of 10 shards/worlds where you have to choose your path through a number of randomly generated stages of various types: regular running stages, rest spots where you can meet the various characters, stores where you can buy temporary upgrades and consumables, and extra hard challenge stages to earn temp upgrades, ending in a boss battle. Beating a world earns you a second currency you can spend on permanent upgrades. Overall, the basic gameplay is enjoyable. Blazing trough a level at breakneck speed while narrowly avoiding lazers and pits is quite satisfying, thanks to smooth controls and liberal air control. To bring it back to the Sonic comparison, at its peak it plays like what Sonic fans have been saying they want for a long time.

The problem is that its bag of tricks is pretty small. There's really only one terrain type and like a dozen obstacles, the temporary items only provide small increases to stats unless you get lucky enough to be able to stack multiple of them, and I've only encountered two boss types. The randomly generated nature of the levels also means there's no real difficulty curve, and certain combinations of obstacles can make some stages much harder than others which come way later. It means that despite there being 10 worlds, you'll have probably seen most what the game has to offer by the second one.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Knightling

The good folks at SecondWiind have been pushing a fun looking new game that kicked me out of my gaming break sooner than I expected. Now, I just bought it and haven't had a chance to get into it yet but it looks super cute:

 

[Casual Shinji]

Previously they stated they didn't use Gen AI, then AI assets were found in the game and patched out. Now they're claiming they only use a little bit of AI assets as a placeholder, but they're really anti-AI pinky promise.

They've already been caught in a lie, which makes me not believe them regarding the amount of AI used. They've already lost the benefit of the doubt.

You can't claim to be anti-AI and still use gen AI in your game development, it's disingenuous even if none of it had made it into the final game, which it did.

I love how when a studio is caught using A.I. they give the same exuse; 'It was only a little you guys. So little you won't even notice it.' Then what was the point in using it at all? Either you used it so little there was no practical reason for it, or you used a significant amount but lied about it. In either case, fuck you.

Also, the placeholder defense... *sigh* As if you can't just ask a couple of interns to do that shit.