What ARE you playing in 2020?

[Aja]

Finished Gato Roboto this morning. Cute game, fun, doesn't outstay its welcome - but the ending did surprise me, or at least it felt like there'd be alternative endings and I didn't get the preferred one. For all I know that's exactly what happened, though a quick Google search suggests that the ending I got is the one and only ending.

If you reload your last save file you get a small epilogue.

[Tomi]

I'm getting close to the end of Blasphemous, but for the last two days I've been banging my cone-shaped head against Crisanta at the Rooftops. All the boss fights before this have been rather easy-peasy, the scary baby with the centipede was the hardest one so far and it took me about ten attempts. This Crisanta conehead, however, oh man... I must have tried to beat her at least fifty times by now. I even tried to look for some tips and watched a video where someone beat her easily without taking any damage, and some people claimed that it's the easiest boss fight in the game. Only then I found out that they've made her much harder to beat in a recent patch, so perhaps I don't suck that much after all. My last three attempts have all been pretty good, in the latest one I got agonisingly close but totally screwed up when I noticed that I was only one strike away from winning.

Prepare to die, Crisanta.

[Thirith]

If you reload your last save file you get a small epilogue.

Yeah, I saw that one. It's cute, but on the whole I still came away feeling that the ending was a bit too rushed and Huh?

[TerryHiggins]

Currently playing LEGO DC Super Villains on Switch. I'm absolutely infatuated with this game, it's so much fun and I feel like the pacing is much better in this game than in LEGO Batman 2. In LB2 you solve puzzles most of the time while I feel like that's more toned down in this game. It's also really cool playing as the villains and fighting the superheroes such as Nightwing and Batgirl. I always prefer proper gaming accessories to get true gaming experience. More importantly i need a gaming chair to get myself fit for the gaming environment. I have Gaming chair of Kinsal and it is indeed perfect though there are other good names but i prefer this one due to my own experience. Get more info about the gaming chair from kinsal and its feature

[henke]

Alrighty, finished A Plague Tale: Innocence. The game starts off good and just gets better and better until about the half-way point, the arrival at the Château d'Ombrage. At this point you've acumulated more followers and it feels like you're a kid on an epic adventure with your friends. It feels like Dark Age Goonies. Like the cool, chill parts of The Last Of Us. After that the game kinda looses the magic and gets gradually worse as it goes on. You get a new skill towards the end (controlling rats) that's supposed to feel powerful and cool but is so clunky to wield it's just annoying. The AI of your enemies, companions and even the rats start showing their weakness. And there's plenty of frustrating sections you'll have to replay several times because the game blindsides you with some scripted event and it's impossible to react quickly enough due to the clunky controls. However, the storytelling/characters are pretty good and the finale is downright epic. So, eh, overall it's fine I guess. Might be worth picking up in a sale.

[qolelis]

I'm starting to really like The Occupation. I just finished the first non-intro mission. You're supposed to have an interview with someone in their office, so you arrive one hour early to "prepare" -- which means snooping around and gathering information in various ways (crawling through vents, playing with electricity, bypassing locks etc...). You have exactly one hour (in real time) to find out as much as possible. How your interview goes depends on what you find. There's no fail-state, nor any manual saving, so you have to go with whatever happens.

Saving is done automatically after each finished mission/chapter. Not being able to save at will means you need to dedicate some time before starting (or restart if you get interrupted). I generally prefer no timeout, because I like to thoroughly explore, but it does add a bit of tension (or resource management, depending on how you see it) and makes replaying more interesting; next time I will be more daring, so I can find more information before the interview. I'm still learning the game (mechanics, NPC reactions, layouts, how much I can stretch the rules etc) and so far I'd say the game definitely focuses on player skill.

There is en ecology of different subsystems all working together, allowing the player to go about things in different ways, so, in that way, you have the freedom of choice and also have to suffer the consequences -- or reap the benefits -- of those choices (and with no fail-state or reloading you just have to commit or replay later if you want to go about things a different way (I think there will be a chapter select available once I have finished the game the first time)). There are restrictions too, though -- which make the game less of an immersive sim than it could have been: climbing and leaning is context dependent and both are even done with the same button (I haven't yet figured out when or where leaning is allowed (might not only be about being in the right spot, but also about the guards being nearby(?) and in a certain state(?))). Falling off edges is not allowed at all (except in predetermined spots), and jumping is never allowed. These restrictions aren't dealbreakers, but do take away a few points.

[henke]

Decided to give this PS Now thingy a spin, with the 7-day trial. There's a lot of good stuff on there, only problem is I've played almost all of it already. I stream-played a bit of DOOM 2016 and post-apoc-arcade-racing-PS3-games Armageddon Riders and Motorsport:Apocalypse. Probably because I played it early in the day when the net was better Armageddon Riders played quite well over streaming, while the other two, which I played later, were a big too laggy to be enjoyable. Thankfully you can also play some of the newer titles locally, so I'm downloading Mordorgame 2: Shadow of War right now.

[Thirith]

Just finished the final "Patient Zero" mission, thanks to the help Malf provided. I decided not to let the mission play out as is, because I think I wouldn't have enjoyed its break from how the series functions otherwise, even if in theory I love the idea.

Which means that I can now get back to my replay of Dishonored 2, where I think I might pay the new Duke a visit.

[Malf]

I picked up The Surge 2 for cheap this weekend, and realised I'd not got around to playing the first game, even though I've had it in my library for a while.

I'd been hesitant, as I burned out on the Souls formula after Dark Souls (even bouncing off of Bloodborne, where I got to the swamp before giving up, partly in frustration, partly because I felt the formula had nothing new to show me).

But it's different enough to be enjoyable!
And unlike the Souls games, it isn't all grey.

So in all likelihood, I'll polish this off between bouts of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne.
Which is in itself pretty damned good. Still loving the hammer in this, and the sense of mastering a weapon is fantastic in MHW.
On paper, hammer is one of the simpler weapons to use, but to use it effectively, you have to pay attention to the terrain, probably more so than any other weapon in the game. Hammer's best when you're taking advantage of terrain that either lets you slide down it, finishing by barrelling through the air, or by running up the wall to spin off of it.
Or taking advantage of every little ledge for that extra bit of height necessary for a jumping attack, which can subsequently chain in to a massive upswing.

I discovered last night that during a fight with Iceborne's main Elder Dragon, Velkhana, there's a certain part of the stage where doing a jumping attack and smashing my hammer in to the ground fires crystal shards splintering out and damaging the monster. I can now take this information and use it in other fights.

Sure, it's grindy. But I always feel I'm getting a bit better, and it's not just my equipment.

[scottrick]

I might be late to the party, but I started PREY the other day and its fantastic! Really fun so far, can't wait to see where it goes...

[PigLick]

Put all your combat points into the wrench, you can take out anything with it, even that big arse monster that keeps hunting you.

[Yakoob]

I am 17 hours into Final Fantasy 15 and it stopped making sense like five hours ago. Can someone please explain to me wtf is going on?


So Evil Empire invaded my homeland and then Evil Empire Dude shows up to... take me on a road trip. But then bails on me and almost gets me killed by a god. But then shows up last minute and announces he works for Evil Empire, but decides to rescue me. Except he also steals my car.

Then 5 days pass by for no reason and Mysterious Woman shows up and tells me to touch 3 thunder stones. I touch 3 thunder stones. I now go break into the Evil Empire base to get my car back, but Random Evil General shows up and almost kills me but Evil Empire Dude shows up too and decides to save me (again). He lets me take back my car he stole from me.

Now I am back to the hotel where Random Childhood Friend I went on semi-date with is crying because Random Old Man With 3 Dialogue Lines was killed. So we're going to Previously Unknown But Seemingly Important Location with the Random Childhood Friend because... reasons.

Also, puppers died in my dream.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on.

[Sulphur]

Seriously, what the fuck is going on.

Frankly, considering the game plays like a bunch of oddly-paced battles strung together by never-ending automatic car driving, I thought you'd have given up on it by now.

The big bad isn't actually part of the evil empire. You'll find out what he is in the end. Mysterious Woman also reveals who she is in the end. It all actually makes sense, even if it is massively confusing the way the game presents it. Part of the problem is you're expected to have seen the movie and the anime before playing the game, because essential story bits are strewn throughout, and they all happen before the game begins. Yes, the game expects you to know what's going on. And yes, this is very dumb. I liked the game because it's got a lot of heart going for it anyway - kinda hearkens back to old FFs being about friends on a journey, physically and emotionally, which works on a broadly thematic level even if it was a clusterfuck as a, y'know, game.

As for Love Interest Girl, she's probably the most thinly-written character in the game even with all the cross-media backstory. Not that that would have made the fragmented story easier to digest.

[froghawk]

Just finished the final "Patient Zero" mission, thanks to the help Malf provided. I decided not to let the mission play out as is, because I think I wouldn't have enjoyed its break from how the series functions otherwise, even if in theory I love the idea.

It's too bad the bonus missions for season 2 didn't get the same amount of effort put into them as s1's bonus missions and patient zero. Sure, the experiment in the PZ mission isn't the best, but at least they still bothered to come up with a new conceit and change the time of day, unlike the Atlantide missions.

[Yakoob]

Frankly, considering the game plays like a bunch of oddly-paced battles strung together by never-ending automatic car driving, I thought you'd have given up on it by now.

I actually quite enjoyed the first 10hrs. The game does an excellent job of setting the "roadtrip with a few buds" mood and has been making me really pine to go out and travel. It's only around the time the "real story" kicks in and you realize how vapid all the side-quests actually are that the magic dwindles a bit.

I actually checked the old FF15 thread and see most of my greivences have been already noted. But I saw you (IIRC) revised your thoughts after beating it, so I am sticking to it for the time being. Hopefully the charm alone can keep me going.

But oh yea the writing is also fucking dreadful:

-----------
Pronto: What are you doing?
Noct: Just chillin'
Pronto: Hmm. Cool.
-------------
Gladius: *pointing at root beer* This looks good.
Noct: You should have it later.
Gladius: Yeah.
------------
Random Woman 1: "Wow I like this drink!"
Random Woman 2: "Whatever makes you happy. I will have..."
--------------
Noct: It's getting hot...
Gladius: Then lose the jacket.
(this dialogue repeated every half hour)
--------------
Guy 1: "Wanna grab a bite?"
Guy 2: "I don't know, gets pretty rowdy at this time, with all the women ending their shift."

Spoken at 1pm

[Yakoob]

Also, I am so over the combat. It feels like they took a decently thought out and almost-fun action combat system and stuck it into a clusterfuck of animations and too-many-enemies. Things are so hectic there's little you can do except spamming "attack" and "dodge" when the prompt tells you to.

Case in point: parrying by pressing X just as the enemy strikes. Would be a really cool feature, except a) you don't which of the fucking 10 enemies is actually attacking you so you don't know who to watch out for, and b) all the attack animations are so random / nonexistent that you have no idea when to actually press it.

[Sulphur]

You're better off spamming everyone's special moves when you get the option, and dodging out to hang from a high ledge and choosing your attacks if available. There's very little strategy that I could discern from the combat. It's pretty great when you get to do a summon, because that at least ends things (most of the time) once the animation's done.

The random NPC dialogue is really poor, innit? The banter doesn't fare much better, and yeah, at the point you're at, you would have heard everything they have to say during a car ride and then some. Thankfully, there's fast-travel for the places you've been to.

edit: oh yeah, if you're up for spending time with the boys, you should do the 'tour' quests they each come up with at camp. Those span the gamut from 'unnecessary' to 'unnecessary, but kinda fun'.

[Tomi]

So I'm done with Blasphemous at last. After having a lot of trouble with Crisanta (who wasn't really that difficult in the end - I guess I just sucked after all), the end boss was a piece of cake after that. It's quite an interesting game that started off well, but ended up being not that special after all. I'm not really a fan of this sort of game design where the "normal" enemies are only there to slow down your progress between boss fights, rather than being an actual challenge. There's so much backtracking in this game, especially if you like to explore and collect stuff, so having to kill the same enemies over and over again (or trying to run past them, more like) becomes a bit of a chore at some point. The enemies that were sort of scary and cool in the beginning just become annoying. That's not how it should be. Of course this applies to a lot of games, not just Blasphemous.

The weird and creepy theme was the main thing that carried the game for a long time and really held my interest, but after the first few (admittedly quite memorable) wtf moments there wasn't much that would shock me anymore. I think the story got a bit too weird to my liking too. And the ending... meh. :/ I got the same bad ending as icemann, and I don't think I can be bothered to try to get the "good" ending.

Anyway, I'm being overly negative now - Blasphemous is still a pretty good game and I actually enjoyed the ride while it lasted, but I have no intention to go back to it anymore. I don't think there's much replay value there anyway, I found all the collectibles that I could be bothered to find, and getting the alternative ending isn't worth the trouble. Apart from a fairly unique theme, the game doesn't really stand out from other metroidvanias that I've played. The controls and movement is more fluid in Hollow Knight, Steamworld Dig is more fun, Ori looks better and feels more magical (I gotta go back and finish that game one day), Dust: An Elysian Trail delivers a more entertaining (and naive) story, combat is better in Guacamelee, etc... Blasphemous is just kind of average in every way, and you know, that isn't really such a bad thing.

However, I'm still in the mood for some platforming action, so I've decided that I'm going to play Sundered next!

[wycha]

Done with Styx: Master of Shadows.
In general it is good stealth game, it lacks some gameplay mechanics but I had good time going through it. The story is okay-ish. I like the main theme and motivation of main characters, but I don't like how situations are written and lead one to another. Feels cheap.

The biggest isue I have are maps. Every map is used twice, leading to backtracking(every map you go through in different missions like from A-B and then B-A). I felt really annoyed by that. Also the maps feels bit empty and copy pasted with assets and how everything is placed.

Now I'm playing Styx: Shards of Darkness
I am at third level, I can only say everything is polished, the animations are less awkward, the maps are much more interesting. More mechanics, more secondary objectives, that encourages to explore the level, the AI is much better. I have a feeling the maps won't be copy pasted.

So far I don't like how the main character is too over-cool. Throwing pop-culture, or more likely other video games references, and talks about how amazing he is. I feel like I am playing a game in a world of Shrek, and drinking game made out of it would lead me drunk right after finishing the tutorial. But hey, there is also Thief reference!

[froghawk]

I just started Styx 1 yesterday. It feels like an odd pastiche of other stealth games. The reversed light gem tattoo is particularly odd... it glows more when you can't be seen? What?

[wycha]

The reversed light gem tattoo is particularly odd... it glows more when you can't be seen? What?

The reversed light tattoo it is supposed to be seen and be helpful for player, not for ai, so don't worry. I guess besides working as lightgem, it also should help player to have an idea where character is in great darkness to not feel lost.

[TrueMoods]

I recently bought Return of the Obra Dinn, really enjoyed Papers Please and have huge respect for solo game devs. So lots of hype!

[WingedKagouti]

Been playing a bunch of Morrowind lately. 2020 or 2002, same digits.

[demagogue]

I tried to get back into Morrowind a week or two ago and ... I got maybe 3 hours or so in and it wasn't really sticking this time. Felt like quite a bit of dead space, I wasn't really believing the areas as real world space, and the story or world wasn't really pulling me in in that first town you travel to. It's in a weird hybrid space, like the style of a top-down or 2.5D RPG in a 3D world that's not yet the style of a 3D RPG. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind though. I seem to have better memories from 10 or 15 years ago.

[Thirith]

I always liked Morrowind better as an idea than as an actual game. I'm hoping that the big total conversion project Skywind will be more to my liking.

Yesterday I played on in my replay of Dishonored 2. The Duke's Palace is such a great location: its scope, its aesthetic, what it says about Duke Abele and his cronies. It puts me in mind of Hitman (2016) and its missions, to such an extent that I wish I could play some of Dishonored's levels in Hitman and vice versa.