What are ya playin' in 2025?

[Yakoob]

@Thirith - I'm surprised how much I enjoyed Far Cry 4. I actually beat it all to completion. The combination of checking off towers/settlements, the quirky villain, and beautiful vistas really sucked me in.



Meantime, continuing my unintended shortform walking sim spree, I just completed What Remains of Edith Finch, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I was suprised with all the gameplay diversity in the segments, particularly the kite thing and the day-dreaming-fish-cannery worked extremely well (and kind of highlights what makes games unique from other art forms). And found the ending a lot more touching than I expected with the final twist.

The only weird thing was the animal flying/swimming sections which broke. my. brain. For some bizarre reason, my mind thought "we are piloting a vehicle so the Y axis is inverted" and I could just not snap out of it. Like swimming as a shark, I would keep pressing up to go down, and struggle real hard. Just couldn't snap out of it. utterly bizarre lol

Thinking of picking up Wanderstop next. It just released and it's a cozy game with-probably-a-big-twist from the creators of Stanley Parable

[Jason Moyer]

I tried to play Legend Of Grimrock II. And I found it boring for some reason. It seems like it's really well-designed, and I thought the first game was amazing, but I'm not sure I really needed a bigger version of the first one.

In the meantime I finally managed to finish the TurboGrafx port of Gradius using one save state at the start of each level, so now I'm working on 1CC'ing it and then the NES and arcade versions. It's one of my favorite games of all time and I decided I was sick of being really bad at it. Beating it level by level felt good, tbh, it's a damn hard game. Konami's shmups are my favorite and I really wish they'd have M2 or Hamster port and bundle all of them for modern consoles/Switch/PC.

On PC after shelving LOG2 I'm trying the Dark Forces remaster. It looks and plays great, but I'm not sure how much patience I have for the Hexen-y level design. People say the sewer level (which I finished last night) is the worst thing in the game so I'll push on more, but having to do that entire thing without a guide or being able to save and take a break was annoying as hell. Shooting imperial bastards is super fun, I just wish it was in a better game (like Jedi Outcast).

[Thirith]

One thing that I definitely mind about Far Cry 4, but that's pretty much the usual Ubisoft thing, is its phony ambiguity. It's probably meant to be nuanced, with no single position being entirely right or wrong, but really it's facile bothsides-ism: sure, he eats babies for breakfast, but she slaughters grannies for dinner! It never feels anything else but constructed, and the result is the laziest of centrism, combined with a forced "Ah, but you have to take sides!"

[nicked]

That was something which Far Cry 2, whether intentionally or not, managed to subvert - in that both factions you could choose to side with were essentially interchangeable. It really got across that the whole conflict was pointless and added nuance to the morality of the Jackal's actions. Now it might have been that they ran out of time and money to distinguish the factions further so they just copy-pasted, but whatever the reason, it totally worked in the narrative's favour.

[Tomi]

Meantime, continuing my unintended shortform walking sim spree, I just completed What Remains of Edith Finch, and enjoyed it quite a bit.

What Remains of Edith Finch is one of those annoying games that I always mix up with some other title... in this case, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. I've played the latter and it's pretty good and short, and from what I've read the two games are quite similar, so you may want to check it out. And I should probably check out WRoEF...

I tried to play Legend Of Grimrock II. And I found it boring for some reason. It seems like it's really well-designed, and I thought the first game was amazing, but I'm not sure I really needed a bigger version of the first one.

That sums up my thoughts about Grimrock II quite perfectly. I really wanted to like it, but it just felt somehow dull compared to Grimrock 1 and I don't even know why that is. The sequel got such great reviews that I've often thought about giving it another chance, but that day hasn't come yet.

[Starker]

I had the opposite reaction to Grimrock 2. I basically felt 1 was a bit too simple and basic and that 2 was more like what 1 should have been. I think I especially appreciated the maps being more sprawling and the puzzles being a bit more complex and varied.

[Malf]

I wanted to like both Grimrock games, but they were both pale imitations of Dungeon Master for me.
Apart from graphics and save system, DM did everything else better.
But that's true of any game treading the same path; unfortunately for them, DM is one of my favourite games of all time, and still plays incredibly well today thanks to the free versions hosted over on http://dmweb.free.fr/

[Pyrian]

Legend of Grimrock II is easily my favorite of the form. Great game, IMO.

[henke]

Star Wars Bounty Hunter - it's a good looking remaster but the gameplay is lacklustre. Exploring the levels via jetpack is kinda fun, but the shooting and bounty hunting is boring. Never played the original, but I think the remaster might've modernized the controls a bit. They could've taken the modernizing further imo. One annoying bit of clunkiness is constantly switching between items using the D-pad. Ya gotta switch to the visor to identify bounties, then to the cord to capture then, then to blasters when a shootout happens. This would've played much better if enabling the visor was a dedicated button. Clicking in the left thumbstick, for instance. Anyway, played 2.1 hours of it, so too late to refund, but I dunno if I wanna keep playing it either. Does it pick up later on?

Exo Cross - racing game by iRacing devs. Lots of negative Steam reviews due to little content and lag issues on certain systems. It's on a steep sale so little content doesn't bother me, but this thing sure does lag like hell on my computer. Tried turning down all the graphics settings and resolution but that made it lag even more! It ran fine on the office Steam Deck tho, so I'll play it on that. It's ok.

Corpus Edax - yeah this indie immsim sure is janky! Stealth barely works. Looks like an uglier version of Invisible War. Amateurish storytelling and writing. Hand to hand combat is kinda fun tho. I'm 2.8 hours in, and think I'll keep going. Despite EVERYTHING it's kinda fun.