Reply With QuoteBeen playing Shattered Pixel Dungeon at Demagogue's recommendation. It's the most fun I've had on my phone. (Low bar, but hey.) Good little Roguelike that plays well on the tiny screen.
If you follow the restock accounts on Twitter or Discord and set your phone to notify you, you can get one if you’re quick. Once I set my mind to buying a PS5, it only took a couple weeks of waiting (and then a few more to order the replacement when the original got lost in the mail).
Been playing Shattered Pixel Dungeon at Demagogue's recommendation. It's the most fun I've had on my phone. (Low bar, but hey.) Good little Roguelike that plays well on the tiny screen.
Oooh neat. I've been looking for games I could play on my tablet lying in bed, so will check it out.Originally Posted by Pyrian
Anyway, I've been playing My Time at Portia and my highlight so far is failing to provide a gift for the Celebration Day, then still showing up for the Celebration Day, stealing like 20 gifts from other people, and, finally, selling those gifts back to the people.
That's capitalism, baby
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Ugh. Yeah, I'll start checking regularly. I had hoped that the end of Christmas season would bring the end of PS5 shortages, but no such luck.
I've got Dante's Inferno, Visceral's other game, going on PS3. Probably wind up finishing it today.
My god this game is dumb, dumb, dumb. It is durmb. Just mind-blowingly insipid. I think if the real Dante saw this game he would be vaporized immediately.
Gameplay's fun though. Ish.
I'm playing Bloodborne on Playstation 1.
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This version of the game is a little more my speed.
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Finished my first playthrough of Dishonored 2 this week, long overdue! Played as Empress Emily, with powers, on a Ghost/Clean hands approach (low chaos), which had its share of challenges, but was pretty fun. I did have to look up where to find Delilah in the last level though (the part where she has a whole bunch of body doubles) and honestly I don't think I would have found her real location any time soon if I hadn't...
It will be interesting what changes when playing as Corvo and with other more lethal styles.
Ok, at the moment, I have the following games on a pretty even rotation:
Dark Souls 3 (though less so while the servers are down)
XCOM 2: Long War of the Chosen: very good way to add extra life to an already great game.
Sekiro (which I am trying my best to stick with, despite it kicking my ass very much)
Jedi Souls: Fallen Order (perfect antidote for Sekiro, though possibly counter-productive for muscle-memory - more of a power fantasy vs FromSoft fare, but less interesting for it. Amazing visuals mind.)
Far Cry 6 (it's a Far Cry game)
Dying Light 2: Stay Human (good enough so far, but VERY gamey, including the baffling decision to have the main healing item require 1 honey and 2 chamomile to craft, then just clustering bee's nests and chamomile everywhere, which to me is just medkits with extra steps. Parkour is good, if a bit floaty and easy to over / undershoot. Fighting seems solid, lots of conspicuous exposition like strategically placed photos, and a slew of butler and maid dialogue. Could be good, but I'll need more time with it).
I've been playing Slay the Spire after more than a year, and I'm really enjoying it again. For those who don't know, it's sort of a roguelike card game (perhaps there's a better word for that genre?) with fairly simple game mechanics, but it's still full of surprises and things to explore. Great fun, even though after a couple of long games it's starting to feel a bit repetitive again, so I'm probably putting this aside for a year again.
Speaking of Rougelike card games, I just beat Inscryption last night. And overall it was quite excellent for the first third, although the RNG really started to get to me. There were multiple sections (especially last act) where I'd replay the same battles over and over because I got dealt a shit hand. I'm not a pro card player, so I felt my first hand draw had more impact on my chances of success than my skill alone. A good first hand is the difference between winning in literally 1 turn, vs. crushing defeat.
And I definitely fell in the category of people who did not enjoy the big twists, sadly. Act 2 was just too far away stylistically for me. I wanted spooky moody card rougelike - chiptune pixelart just really wasn't scratching the itch. It also bothered me how many new ideas and mechanics this part introduced and how many cards it threw at you, only to throw it away after like 2hrs. I didn't even get a chance to experiment or learn the new mechanics fully, because it was over so quickly. Not that I felt I needed to - due to the RNG, I just cheesed thru on my started deck with just a few minor changes along the way.
Then Act 3 definitely goes back to the right tone and mood I wanted, but I found the world exploration super tedious without a full map and needing to re-play the same battles when you die. God, I re-played the exact same 3 battle section like 5 times at one point because I kept getting shitty draws. This is where I felt the RNG was at its worst. A lot of times if you don't "contain" the opponent in first 3 moves you will just get overwhelmed. When I realized I need to re-traverse the whoele world and re-beat all 4 bosses again like in act 2, I groaned really hard...
Some thoughts on the ending: jesus the game just wouldn't end. Just when I thought "this is it" there would be another fakeout, another section, and it definitely felt very self-indulgent. Can someone explain the murder at end? So the dude just got shot by the original Inscryption developers? I'm not sure what conclusion or emotion I am supposed to feel about that.
Although in it's defense: I felt genuine sadness when the antagonists were slowly dying, just trying to play a tad bit longer. "Just one more game" and "We don't need to keep score" felt really powerful after everything they put you through before. And the woman suddenly stopping the boss battle to say "I thought we had more time..." hit me really hard in a weird existential way. So that part was worth going thru the ending alone.
So yeah I guess TL;DR: fantastic start, middling middle, and mixed ending with some powerful lines as well as overcoming its stay. Definitely highly polished and worth a play, though.
Last edited by Yakoob; 7th Feb 2022 at 17:21.
I think the expression is overstaying its welcome, but your version has a kind of ring to it too. XD
English is not my first language, waaahhhh!
Meanwhile...
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4/5) - After several false starts for the past few years, it finally clicked with me, and now I am tearing ass. Returned to Ashina Castle to fight daddy dearest.
- Mighty Goose (PC) - Almost done with this indie run'n gun ala Metal Slug. It's a goose, and it's MIGHTY. Also, the bad guys seem to be...rabbits. Fun!
- Carrion (PC) - Ewwwwwww, tentacleeeessss and mouths with faaaangs! I'm digging it. :3
Probably drowning in game pass titles.
I have had a go at Greedfall a couple of evenings - it seems to be starting off with quests that feel a bit like uninteresting chores, and I'm getting past the weird looking facial animations (realising how expensive it is to make them good). I will see if it draws me in more once I get out of the starting area.
I also tried the Gears of War remaster as I never played this at the time (2006) - feeling like it's a bit dated at this point even if it was successful at the time. It feels designed to look impressive - but the characters are such cliches of American military types they seem to have been dropped into an incongruous setting in a space opera.
Middle Earth - Shadow of War feels like assassin's creed in middle earth, but I'm interested to see what the nemesis system does to that feel over time, should I pick it up again.
The trouble with game pass is having so many possible games on top of a backlog it's a bit tricky to focus on one of them. Or I'm finding it hard to get into something that's not more casual at the moment.
It took me a while to get into it, but I'm enjoying the Outer Wilds expansion Echoes of the Eye a hell of a lot. The additional location is quite stunning and the story and puzzles are intriguing. In a medium where puzzles usually means variations on Mastermind and Towers of Hanoi, both the main game and the expansion have me figure things out in more organic, interesting ways.
I'm now at a point where I've figured out a key aspect of how this world works, which in turn has given me a number of new locations and mysteries to explore, and I'm very much looking forward to that exploration. As with the main game, Echoes of the Eye does require some patience and tolerance for repetition, but those are amply rewarded by fascinating new discoveries. I'm definitely curious to see what these devs come up with next!
I've mostly been replaying Driver: Parallel Lines (2006) this weekend, the oft-forgotten 4th Driver game. It smoothed out a lot of Driv3r's rough edges but is still kinda a mixed bag. Most importantly, the driving is good, a notch above the preceding GTA trilogy, but not quite on par with GTA IV, which came out 2 years later. The story is quite engaging as well. I think perhaps the game's biggest weakness is the gameworld, which is quite frankly TOO BIG. Driving anywhere takes too long, and considering the game is also set in 2 different eras of New York, 1978 and 2006, the environment artists really were stretched thin, and the result is very bland, samey scenery. The other big negative is the on-foot action which is completely devoid of any finesse or requirement of skill. You lock on and hitscan-shoot enemies while they lock on and hitscan-shoot you. The fact that you win at the end just comes down to your ability to pick up medkits and heal yourself every now and then, which is something they can't do.
I think my favourite thing about this game is the wanted system, which is still my favourite in any GTA-alike. There are 2 wanted-meters, one for you, and one for your car. If you pick up some heat you can simply get out of the cops line of sight, hop into another car, and you're scot free. However if they spot you outside a car you'll pick up heat, then getting into a new car unseen will shield you a bit, but if cops get close enough they might still identify you, which leads to scenes like in the opening chase from Drive, where you're sitting at the oposite end of an intersection from a cop car, waiting for a green light, wondering if they're gonna spot you and being ready to floor it if that happens. It's a wonderfully stealthy and refined system that I wish more games of this style would adopt.
Currently going through Prey now after the Dishonored/Dishonored 2 runs... I like it but I don't find it as compelling as I thought it would. The level design doesn't vibe well with the setting, everything is way to big and airy for a space station. The story's okay though and the gameplay is open enough that roaming around is fun but challenging. I do keep running out of ammo but stealth is great when that happens and switching styles works.
But yeah, level design is distractingly grandiose.
The further you get, the more you start to see the cramped tunnels, power stations, and laboratories, which feel more appropriately space-stationey. And once you get the ability to spacewalk between sections, it becomes clear how much of a coherent whole the station actually is.
The spacewalking/zero G aspect is indeed excellent, that's one aspect of the game I find bloody brilliant.
I've always wondered how a modern System Shock would tackle cyberspace and I think I got my answer here...
Finished Sekiro. Kicked Sword Saint Isshin Ashina's ass after less than fifteen tries. Finished Mighty Goose. Short and somewhat on the easy side, it was still fun and wore its MetalSlug influence on its sleeve.
Currently playing now:
- Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando (PS3) - Starting up this classic platformer. After several years, I am finally giving the series its proper due. Finished the 1st game in the series several months ago. Time to dig into their second adventure.
- Returnal (PS5) - Returning to this challenging 3rd-person, roguelike-meets-Soulslike Sci-Fi action game. I've already killed the first boss and gotten to the second biome. More pain awaits. Bring it.
- The Hex (PC) - Finally giving this little indie gem a try from the creator of Inscryption and Pony Island Express. Good times with meta-commentary and some freaky moments.
Mr Duck my great friend, I would love you to post more interactively, than just dumping a bunch of stuff and then running.
I miss you man.
hmm well to offset the pathos I am playing RDR2 a second time on the ps4 and I must say there is a fuckton of foreshadowing for RDR1 that I never picked up on the first playthrough.
Playing Weird West beta, under NDA.
Pro devs making an indie... It's interesting.
Dunno about you guys, but I've been playing some demos at the Steam Next Fest!
The Wandering Village - the big winner of the festival with most wishlists. It's a city builder but you're on top of a living, wandering creature. So aside from the building, you also need to take care of your creature and help feed/treat/steer it. I only played one run, where I got overwhelmed by poison spores and my creature abruptly died of hunger, lel. It's a neat concept with great artwork, just needs a bit more communication/UI tweaks (which will, undoubtedly, come)
Hell-Pie - a platformer where you play as a little demo with a cherub chained to you, that you can use to "swing" in mid-air. Very Conker Bad Fur Day vibes. The camera/controls take some getting used to, but it has great setting and art style.
Tinykin - a platformer meets pikmin where you're a little shrunk dude running around giant bedrooms and solving puzzles. Very charming and feels pretty good to control, with a really great attention to detail (feels like no part of the room is wasted).
Hero's Hour - Heros of Might and Magic meets auto-battler? Only did the tutorial so far so can't say much about it.
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