What are you Playing Now? Games = Life

[Keyrock]

Speaking of aesthetics, I don't feel it's a straight line. For a while the look of games got better and better as processing power increased, then in the mid to late 90s it went backwards, then it started moving again. I feel like the late-era sprite games from the mid-90s hold up really well, especially if you use a halfway decent scaler whrn blowing them up to today's resolutions. There were a few games during the early days of the Sega Saturn and Playstation, when everybody started making 3D polygon games, because it was the new hotness, that were still sprite-based, and those games look terrific, even today. Meanwhile, that first generation of polygon games has aged horribly, really I'd say the first 2 generations. There are, of course, exceptions where developers used a strong aesthetic with low polygon count that still holds up fairly well, but most polygon games from the mid-90s until mid-00s look pretty awful today. I feel polygon games from roughly 2006 onward hold up relatively well, but the decade preceding it... *shudders*

Edited October 29, 2021 by Keyrock

[bugarup]

Fable 3. It is a very silly game, but in a good way (Unlike, say, Divinity series that are silly in a bad way). I dunno why, maybe you need authentic British devs to pull that authentic British silly humor (or maybe that's my inner teaboo manifesting). Well anyway, the butler is awesome and I keep zooming in and out of Santuary just to hear him comment on my life and fashion choices

[Mamoulian War]

- [sounds of fanfares in the background] -

After pretty long journey, I've finally finished main story-line of Rebel Galaxy from GOG. When I started it, I've really not expected, that I ever finish this game, but my long lost love for space simcades has successfully engulfed me and I moved slowly through all of the sectors pursuing the main story-line and missions to become neutral with local pirates . I was able to get all but one achievement. To shoot 500 torpedoes, which will be the most boring thing, if I ever decide to get it. Despite a lot of grinding for the Red Devils Pirates, I pretty much had a lot of fun with this game, and I am very sad, that almost no one is making these type of games . Thankfully Double Damage Games have released a prequel to this game, which I will be getting soon.

 

 

[Guard Dog]

Franchise Hockey Manager 8. So far it's a solid update to the brand. A little buggy on the 2-D game play but after the first patch it's a little better. 

[Keyrock]

I defeated Golzuna in Metroid Dread and acquired cross bombs. I've also been doing more shinespark puzzles to collect items (mostly missile packs). The hardest thing for me is doing mid-air shinesparks. I understand how to do it, but it requires several precise and quick button presses during the 5 seconds that you can store a shinespark. I can do it, but not consistently. Still, I've managed to get one item that requires a mid-air shinespark and I'm committed to getting 100%, so I will have to perform a couple more.

 

[213374U]

Taking a bit of a break from SWTOR until the expansion drops in a few weeks, came back to BG2(EE). Apparently my favorite mod of all time, Stratagems, slowly went from being a pure AI upgrade to some -fairly untested from the looks of it- hArDcOrE challenge bundle aimed at making every trash pack a total chore to deal with. "Mildly upgrades physical damage of mind flayer abilities", says the readme -- applies a 500% increase. "Smarter" apparently now means that flayers can teleport at will and appear on top of party members on the other side of the map. And so on. Bleh. I'm almost spending more time manually excising nonsense components than playing the game. The fine-tuning menu is nifty, though.

Never been easier to install a metric ton of mods, as well. Two independent tools to manage components, load orders, and even downloads. And once configured it's basically fire and forget. Amazing that the mod scene is still so active.

[kanisatha]

Don't know if anyone here likes old school wargames, but I'm playing a lot of The Operational Art of War 4 these days. As with previous editions the AI cheats a lot, which is to be expected I guess given the game is entirely about using numbers and formulas and algorithms to set up, run, and resolve everything. But I'm enjoying it tremendously.

[Keyrock]

I solved a couple more shinespark puzzles in Metroid Dread, including one I managed to do much quicker than I anticipated. If you hit a wall while shinesparking the shinespark immediately ends, but if you hit a slope then you go back into running with speed booster and you have a small window of time with which to set your shinespark again before the speed booster charge expires. This gives you another 5 seconds to get into position to shinespark again. This sounds simple enough, but it requires executing a series of quick and precise button presses and for harder puzzles you have just barely enough time to get into position before the 5 seconds run out.

Most of these just get me missile packs or ammo for something I don't have yet, presumably power bombs. If I was just trying to finish the game then I wouldn't bother, since I already have about 200 missiles, way more than I need to kill anything. I'm dead set on 100%, so I need to do every last one of these puzzles.

I also had anothe boss fight with twin chozo robots. This fight gave me tons of trouble the first time I faced them, it was laughably easy this time around. Having a couple more E tanks helped, but the difference was definitely screw attack. Screw attack makes that battle so much easier; screw attack makes a lot of things so much easier.

[ComradeYellow]

The Evil Within 2

It's OK but honestly why do they keep making survival horror games more abstract and ethereal like Silent Hill these days?  I mean sure, the premise is based off of science fiction but they seem to believe that science and the supernatural go hand in hand.  There's only one game I played where that kind of formula works, and that's Parasite Eve.  Why is Parasite Eve an exception to the norm?  Because the factors of science and weapon customization are predominant in the game, along with good character arcs, whilst the supernatural ethereal Eve character is complimentary to that, and it's done quite well, sort of like the FPS game F.E.A.R., but with much more depth.

I kinda digress though, despite that bad flaw TEW2 does narrative and character building quite well, the monsters are a bit repetitive but finding clever ammo saving new ways to bring them down is fun in its own right.  The world, despite it's bad supernatural moments, does have a certain degree of openness to it, but jumps back to linearity soon after and vice versa, keeping it both open and claustrophobic at the same time.  You really have to go out of your way to look for supplies or you risk running completely dry on ammo or health.

Plot is almost a carbon copy of Silent Hill "man looking for his very young daughter" but its interlaced with psychological elements like psychopathy and sociopathy, which white collar law enforcement enthusiasts seem to love.  "Let's understand the POS before we blow his brains out" seems in line with federal law enforcement types, and this certainly contains those kinds of elements.

So far not bad, but I kinda miss survival horror of yore, where it was all about science fiction, weapons, and simple but colorful and memorable characters that keep it interesting and far less nuance.

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

The Evil Within 2

It's OK but honestly why do they keep making survival horror games more abstract and ethereal like Silent Hill these days?  I mean sure, the premise is based off of science fiction but they seem to believe that science and the supernatural go hand in hand.  There's only one game I played where that kind of formula works, and that's Parasite Eve.  Why is Parasite Eve an exception to the norm?  Because the factors of science and weapon customization are predominant in the game, along with good character arcs, whilst the supernatural ethereal Eve character is complimentary to that, and it's done quite well, sort of like the FPS game F.E.A.R., but with much more depth.

I kinda digress though, despite that bad flaw TEW2 does narrative and character building quite well, the monsters are a bit repetitive but finding clever ammo saving new ways to bring them down is fun in its own right.  The world, despite it's bad supernatural moments, does have a certain degree of openness to it, but jumps back to linearity soon after and vice versa, keeping it both open and claustrophobic at the same time.  You really have to go out of your way to look for supplies or you risk running completely dry on ammo or health.

Plot is almost a carbon copy of Silent Hill "man looking for his very young daughter" but its interlaced with psychological elements like psychopathy and sociopathy, which white collar law enforcement enthusiasts seem to love.  "Let's understand the POS before we blow his brains out" seems in line with federal law enforcement types, and this certainly contains those kinds of elements.

So far not bad, but I kinda miss survival horror of yore, where it was all about science fiction, weapons, and simple but colorful and memorable characters that keep it interesting and far less nuance.

Nice review, I have this game on Steam and the last time I played  it was 25 March 2019 and I got as far as exploring the house and quit for some reason. I think the controls werent working as expected but I must give  it another go because its rated as a true horror and the Japanese developer is famous so it is a good game for horror 

And I played other games like it since then and I enjoyed them

[ComradeYellow]

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

because its rated as a true horror and the Japanese developer is famous so it is a good game for horror 

Yes Shinji Mikami is known as the founder/father/creator of Resident Evil.  The reality is a bit more complex behind the development of the original RE1, I've read an entire book on it, but people like a face for things they really like and Mikami would be the closest thing to that so....

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

Yes Shinji Mikami is known as the founder/father/creator of Resident Evil.  The reality is a bit more complex behind the development of the original RE1, I've read an entire book on it, but people like a face for things they really like and Mikami would be the closest thing to that so....

He is more famous than I realised , I think I played one RE game so I am not someone who has deep experience in that gaming world but I do know how influential that series was in the  horror, action genre

Then Evil 2 should be an incredible game ....I assume you use controller ?

[Bartimaeus]

On 10/31/2021 at 5:01 AM, 213374U said:

Taking a bit of a break from SWTOR until the expansion drops in a few weeks, came back to BG2(EE). Apparently my favorite mod of all time, Stratagems, slowly went from being a pure AI upgrade to some -fairly untested from the looks of it- hArDcOrE challenge bundle aimed at making every trash pack a total chore to deal with. "Mildly upgrades physical damage of mind flayer abilities", says the readme -- applies a 500% increase. "Smarter" apparently now means that flayers can teleport at will and appear on top of party members on the other side of the map. And so on. Bleh. I'm almost spending more time manually excising nonsense components than playing the game. The fine-tuning menu is nifty, though.

Never been easier to install a metric ton of mods, as well. Two independent tools to manage components, load orders, and even downloads. And once configured it's basically fire and forget. Amazing that the mod scene is still so active.

IIRC (because I categorically refuse to play the EEs and will only play on the original engine), SCS hijacks the difficulty menu in the EE games and you can use a preset to get close to what you want out of the mod while using the fine-tuning thingy to correct whatever small points of interest you want. The actual Stratagems installer puts its components into a few different categories, and it sounds like you would be best off ignoring the "tactical challenges" category of components and only installing the "AI enhancement" components.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

Whispers of a Machine was short, beat it in 5.5 hours and that's with leaving it running to do some small chores.  The aspect system doesn't seem like it'll really add much more.  Story was ok, the world seems interesting yet they didn't explain much - why the town is on an elevated platform, for example.

[213374U]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

IIRC (because I categorically refuse to play the EEs and will only play on the original engine), SCS hijacks the difficulty menu in the EE games and you can use a preset to get close to what you want out of the mod while using the fine-tuning thingy to correct whatever small points of interest you want. The actual Stratagems installer puts its components into a few different categories, and it sounds like you would be best off ignoring the "tactical challenges" category of components and only installing the "AI enhancement" components.

Yeah, I ended up making a clean install and doing pretty much that. In principle I don't mind encounters getting level-appropriate abilities, but the way SCS goes about it sometimes is... tiresome. Like the spammable, no-save 5d12 Ballistic Attack that can one-shot even Clerics (because mind flayers normally come in packs), or making summoned elementals unaffected by Banishment, because that would be too easy. I played around with the menu a bit but eventually realized I'd save myself the aggravation and just go without "improved" anything.

I'll admit it has been years since I last played with this mod but some of these "challenges" are exactly the kind of thing that drove me off Tactics and into SCS. I suppose it's inevitable that as people clock in hundreds to thousands of hours in a game they'll find more and more ways to trivialize content and mod makers may feel the need to "balance" and keep things interesting. Just not my cup of tea.

[ComradeYellow]

12 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I assume you use controller ?

Yes.  Am a growing a thing for laptops and discrete GPU's nowawdays and a controller is a must for a portable device.  These micro pieces of hardware are getting better with each iteration, and now with Intel in the game for discrete GPU's expect them to get even better and more efficient, plus I can cart it around to my local wifi center now that I have a VPN and really good browser security and do literally anything I want on the net, within reason and caution of course

Am flipping around between World of Assassination trilogy, Evil Within 2, and Grim Dawn however something tells me a new game of Real Life may be in the star charts in the near future.

[Chilloutman]

BTW Grim Dawn just got huge patch 5 years after release:

https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/grim-dawn-version-1-1-9-2/111702

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Chilloutman said:

BTW Grim Dawn just got huge patch 5 years after release:

https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/grim-dawn-version-1-1-9-2/111702

Its so interesting because games I want to play still get patches and updates years later ....its almost like the game is saying " look Im supported and active ...play me " 

Do you think its possible, do games have sentience ?

[Chilloutman]

you are weird

[Wormerine]

My library of installed titles is growing larged, so I am trying to trim some titles I am close to completion.

First on the menu is Dark Souls3 from which I took a break once I started DLCs and realized it will be the most demanding part of the playthrough. After some weeks off I have been pushing through them, and it's been some excellent content. Honestly, this is first DS content IMO that reaches quality level of DS1 DLC. Maps have been intertwined and tricky, bosses ranged from good to excellent. 

I am not nearing of end of DLC2 - just dragon Midir and final boss are left. Managed to trigger 2nd phase of Midir so I hope I am getting near beating him - 2nd phase doesn't seem that harder then phase1 - unless of course, there is surprise phase3 which those DLCs rather liked to surprise with. 

I installed through Game Pass Doom Eternal, as a first on "free" games that I want to give a go but don't want to pay for. I didn't like Doom 2016 at all - I think I am not into shooters in general but it felt to me slow, repetitive and I found collectibles annoying. I am only 2nd mission into DE so we will see how it will go, but so far.... loving it. Mobility is far better then in D1, and I think enemy design is better as well - far more aggressive, but with weak points to exploit. It has energy and excitement that just wasn't present in D1. I also like that they seemed to embrace slapstick - glory kills seem both briefer, and have some hilarious animations. Collectibles are far easier to find on the first run, even without pricey upgrades - which I appreciate. Upgrade system now feels more like Devil May Cry - gradual unlocking of toys to play with tutorialising the game, rather then something tedious to grind for. 

EDIT: Yup, one dragon down. He didn't trigger his super, duper instant kill if hit beam attack this time. Didn't manage to learn how to survive reliably that one.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Wormerine

[Keyrock]

I finished Metroid Dread with 100% item collection. Great game, it's definitely in the running for GotY. If you like metroidvanias you will probably love it, as it's one of the finest examples of the genre. If you don't like metroidvanias this probably won't change your mind.

The final boss fight was really badass. There are 3 phases, 4 if you count the short bit at the beginning, but it's basically just part of the first phase. Phase 1 is easy once you learn all the different attacks because there are plenty of opportunities to replenish health & ammo, so mistakes can be corrected. Phase 2 is the hard part as there is no way to replenish. Everything can be dodged, you just gotta execute. Phase 3 is like phase 1 but with some newly added attacks. There are opportunities to replenish, though. Phase 1 took me 3 tries, phase 2 took 7 or 8 tries, and phase 3 I did on my second try.

[Bartimaeus]

18 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Dark Souls 3 DLC

I made the mistake of not playing the DLC on my first normal game, so then I was going to play it on my SL1 run instead. Well...I completed everything but the DLC on my SL1 run again, and by that time, I was pretty exhausted with the game and had zero desire to try to master the insane DLC bosses without having even played them before...so I still haven't done the DLC, .

11 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Metroid Dread

I don't think I've ever been able to enjoy a metroidvania game that uses ranged weapons instead of melee...or a metroidvania that's longer than like 4, maybe 5 hours. All the Metroid games will thus forever be unplayed by me.

[Wormerine]

It is complete. Dark Souls continuing fine tradition of the final boss being a complete pushover. 

[Keyrock]

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I don't think I've ever been able to enjoy a metroidvania game that uses ranged weapons instead of melee...or a metroidvania that's longer than like 4, maybe 5 hours. All the Metroid games will thus forever be unplayed by me.

Those rules lock you out of nearly all of the games I would put in my own highest tier of metroidvanias: Super Metroid, Metroid Dread, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, La-Mulana 1 & 2.

There's so much gaming content out there that there's no point in playing anything that isn't your cup of tea, so play what you like. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I don't think I've ever been able to enjoy a metroidvania game that uses ranged weapons instead of melee...or a metroidvania that's longer than like 4, maybe 5 hours. All the Metroid games will thus forever be unplayed by me.

That's one very specific qualifier.