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Morpheus posted:I just want to know what it was like for the first person who ventured into an unplayed wad thinking "Oh, okay yeah recreation of a house, I'll do the guy a solid and play it to pay tribute to his friend, got half an hour to spare." and just fell down the rabbit hole, returning to the thread ragged and with a 5-o'clock shadow to post "Hey guys it's, uh" the only unfortunate thing about releasing a mod like that into the wild for a 30 year old game is that the first people downloading it are going to see the long initial load time and immediately know something's up
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Mar 12, 2024 19:02
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Just beat Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragonspear and on my way to Baldur's Gate 2. I still love to this day being able to take the same character across multiple games. Blew my mind when I was a kid.
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Mar 12, 2024 19:43
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Related, I didn't know anything about MyHouse beyond "it's weird and spooky!" before playing, and I'd never played Doom 2 (despite playing the original on release and across a dozen platforms since). The first time I tried MyHouse, I ran the actual MyHouse.wad instead of .pk3, which is just the normal house and punts you into the regular campaign when you exit the level. I played through to about e1m5, thinking "I mean this is fun but it just feels like Doom levels???" before I realized what was happening.Vermain posted:i think a big part of its success is that it builds a bridge between generations in a way that makes it highly approachable: older folks who played doom growing up in the era where custom WADs were all the rage can marvel at the technical complexity that's built on top of a familiar framework (which includes the whole "making your house/school/etc. in doom" trend), while zoomers who're intimately familiar with kane pixels and who otherwise know nothing about classic doom get to see a genuinely great digital representation of liminal spaces that puts its own unique spin on the whole thing instead of just copying mr. pixel's homework. i don't think power pak's video on it getting 10m views is a coincidence, but rather a confluence of two very different communities - ancient doom diehards and a new generation of horror hounds primarily raised on FNaF LPs - coming together I can attest to this. My son is firmly in the FNaF generation, loves what I'll call the YouTube Horror Universe, and thinks MyHouse is pretty neat. It definitely feels like modern online horror in conversation with The Olds™.
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Mar 12, 2024 20:01
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Rounded out my MGS master collection playthrough with MGS3, and it was a great time overall. Just like going from 1 to 2, the switch to a full 3D camera felt like a big leap forward for the series, even though the central mechanics are largely similar. I only learned this time around that the original release's overhead camera was still an option; after playing around with it occasionally, it doesn't fit nearly as well as it did in 1 & 2 because of the more open and outdoor-centric level design. The game really needed that 3D update to shine. Stylistically, I think the game's my favorite. Switching to a 1960s cinematic aesthetic was a big swing, but it worked. The story's great fun, and the Cobra group is the best iteration of weirdo boss outfits in the series. My main gripe is that it tends to stretch out a bit too much heading into the end. The motorcycle chase and But that's minor stuff, I still loved it overall. Now my dilemma is that I'm in the mood for more Metal Gear, but I'm out of easily playable ones aside from MGSV. That one's still my favorite on the gameplay end, but I've also put a few hundred hours into it already because of that. Guess I'll let things rest for a bit and see if I feel like more if that one.
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Mar 12, 2024 21:28
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Captain Hygiene posted:Rounded out my MGS master collection playthrough with MGS3, and it was a great time overall. Just like going from 1 to 2, the switch to a full 3D camera felt like a big leap forward for the series, even though the central mechanics are largely similar. I only learned this time around that the original release's overhead camera was still an option; after playing around with it occasionally, it doesn't fit nearly as well as it did in 1 & 2 because of the more open and outdoor-centric level design. The game really needed that 3D update to shine. Be like me in 98 and just keep playing mgs over and over
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Mar 12, 2024 22:06
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Finished Super Mario RPG a while ago and it still holds up. I built my party with only magic level ups since you can block physical attacks. Also abused Jumps so clearing battles was a breeze with all the syrups. The early part was oddly difficult with enemies hitting for half your health at times, so someone was at risk of dying in one round. Buying stuff was cheap and I didn't know pickmeups were full heals and you can still use your turn. I ended up using only revives to heal midway. There were lots of hidden stuff and references to other games, some of them not mentioned in guides. The worst design in the game is having to jump on moving blocks or judging the depth of objects. You are not really that precise and a sort of auto-aim for jumps would have fixed it. The jumps can't just be a running jump or regular jump with those rotating blocks. Found a way to beat Culex before you fight Dodo, with saving five Red Essence's (three over the game and 2 from Nimbus Land Toad dreams) and getting enough Rock Candy from Mushroom Kid cannibalism to defeat the crystals. The Fat Yoshi might give you reds, but I didn't get any after 300 cookies and scumming saves. You certainly can fight Culex the instant he is available in that case. No need for super armor and new game minus friendly. I hate how searching for the SNES version information is impossible now that the remake is out.
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Mar 13, 2024 00:21
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Captain Hygiene posted:Rounded out my MGS master collection playthrough with MGS3, and it was a great time overall. Just like going from 1 to 2, the switch to a full 3D camera felt like a big leap forward for the series, even though the central mechanics are largely similar. I only learned this time around that the original release's overhead camera was still an option; after playing around with it occasionally, it doesn't fit nearly as well as it did in 1 & 2 because of the more open and outdoor-centric level design. The game really needed that 3D update to shine.  If you have a recentish PC (as in a six core CPU from the last five years?) and a moderate tolerance for tinkering MGS4 is no longer the nightmare it once was to emulate.
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Mar 13, 2024 01:15
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Party Boat posted:
I don't normally feel like dealing with emulation, but that sounds like a good idea to try out. I've played a chunk of Peace Walker, so 4 is the last big one I have very little experience with, and I know it's another big step forward in getting to the mechanics I love in V. It'll be a good test for my computer, it's at the older end of that range. I got it to be ready for VR with Half Life Alyx and it still works pretty well with new releases, but I'm always surprised when I think about how long ago I actually got it. Like three weeks before pandemic lockdowns, but that was four years ago now  e: I was just looking back in the Metal Gear thread since I knew somebody had just finished up an emulated run, and I see you posted a guide to getting it running, that'll save me some research time 
Captain Hygiene fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 02:17
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Captain Hygiene posted:Just like going from 1 to 2, the switch to a full 3D camera felt like a big leap forward for the series, even though the central mechanics are largely similar. I only learned this time around that the original release's overhead camera was still an option; after playing around with it occasionally, it doesn't fit nearly as well as it did in 1 & 2 because of the more open and outdoor-centric level design. The game really needed that 3D update to shine. this is exactly why i'm holding off playing the whole game until i have subsistence. the overhead camera was a poor choice for the jungle areas and i remain surprised that they didn't realize that sooner.
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Mar 13, 2024 03:12
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Captain Hygiene posted:I don't normally feel like dealing with emulation, but that sounds like a good idea to try out. I've played a chunk of Peace Walker, so 4 is the last big one I have very little experience with, and I know it's another big step forward in getting to the mechanics I love in V. Good luck! I upgraded my PC a few months before you to a Ryzen 5 3600 if that's any reassurance.
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Mar 13, 2024 08:56
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Captain Hygiene posted:...Now my dilemma is that I'm in the mood for more Metal Gear, but I'm out of easily playable ones aside from MGSV... There are two(3) obscure metal gear solid titles that I highly recommend. Check out Ghost Babel on the game boy color if you want something a little more old school, and check out metal gear acid or metal gear solid peacewalker both on the PSP. Ghost Babel was really incredible, fantastic sneaking and gameplay; whereas metal gear acid is a big departure from what you're used to and could be just the thing to round out your experience. If you want more of the same, peacewalker has a bit of a grind to it, but it only feels grindy if you dislike metal gear, which given how much praise you have for it, I think that won't be a problem for you.
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Mar 13, 2024 21:58
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oxyrosis posted:There are two(3) obscure metal gear solid titles that I highly recommend. I actually played a decent chunk of Peace Walker a few years ago in the Xbox 360 collection. I liked it up until doing the vehicle boss battles in single player drove me insane. So I think I'm probably done with that one, I'd be back in a second if I could get over those fights. The other two I haven't tried. I'm partway through trying to get emulation set up for 4, but I'll check those out next. I imagine they're easier to get working via emulation, the GBC one especially.
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Mar 13, 2024 22:11
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Captain Hygiene posted:...So I think I'm probably done with that one, I'd be back in a second if I could get over those fights. I can understand that, it took a significant shift in my game play to figure out what Kojima was asking of me to beat some of them. However, the helicopter battle in the jungle (near the waterfall?) is the highlight of that game for me, 2nd being the 1st tank battle, but as you continue to face it, your gear changes and each battle became an intricate MGS puzzle and "puzzle mode" on MGS VR missions was my jam. I'm trying to get MGS4 to run like I see on Youtube and I know it has something to do with this (removed) video, but I have never messed with RPCS3 builds so implementing it is beyond me for the moment. oxyrosis fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 00:36
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That video is two years old and it's unlikely you need a special build of RPCS3 to run it any more. I linked a more recent guide in the MGS thread if that helps. I feel like I should sit down and figure out how Metal Gear Ac!d works at some point - I played the first few screens and the second the tutorial training wheels came off I immediately got completely lost about what I was supposed to do and how to do it.
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Mar 14, 2024 00:48
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I feel the same way about Ac!d but drat it I'm so invested in the series I need to just do it. Also, the story gets weird and I like it. I hear Ac!d 2 is better so I gotta beat 1 first I guess.
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Mar 14, 2024 01:19
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Ghostwire: Tokyo, done. Another open-world FPS but set in an abandoned, haunted Shibuya under a red moon. Lots of fun running around, climbing the buildings and magically grappling-hooking tengu to pull myself up to high spots. Stealing cursed treasures for cats, finding hidden tanuki, and
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Mar 15, 2024 04:56
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Just finished Atomic Heart! For the most part, I quite enjoyed myself with this 'Russian Bioshock' experience despite some issues here and there, which was a bit of a surprise considering that I had a rough first impression and a lot of the reviewers that I watch and my roommate didn't enjoy themselves (not trying to be negative, but it does feel like a lot of reviewers just refuse to be critical of anything ambitious, especially if it's very pretty, from a small team, so to see it here was shocking). PROS Gorgeous, highly-detailed and fascinating world Story is kinda goofy and dumb in a fun way at times, with a lot of twists Cool combat where you juggle guns in one hand and glove abilities in another like Bioshock 2, and fight loads of interesting enemies and bosses Allows you to respec weapons and abilities at any time, so it's fun to experiment Fun to vacuum up items Large variety keeps things interesting: starts out survival horror, eventually becomes doom eternal, there's combat, puzzles, exploration, lore, big open-world segments with driving and bonus dungeons Lots of crazy spectacle and cool music CONS Bad first impression from initial gameplay forcing you to use a very slow and awkward melee weapon, no gun or plentiful bullets until later Dumb story that ends with an unsatisfying cliffhanger ending, with the actual ending being held hostage in paid DLC (c'mon, what is this, Asura's Wrath?) Dumb main character with goofy English voice acting and horny fridge (I mostly avoided this by playing in Russian) Game feels unpolished in some aspects despite looking so beautiful: janky movement, awkward collisions, confusing navigation, weird glitches, desynced/mistimed events, etc (reminds me of Jedi Fallen Order) Game is overwrought and unfocused with so many systems which feel unnecessary: open-world, crafting, upgrades, etc Open-world segments can feel annoying with the way enemies constantly respawn Most of the challenging puzzles and interesting weapon upgrades are only within the open world bonus dungeons Combat feels like it only starts to be challenging and requiring to use all of your tools in the very late game Feels like it could get very repetitive: I mostly dodged it by mainly sticking to the story instead of side activities FutureCop fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 07:08
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I was expecting Rime to be a puzzle platformer collectathon thing that took place on a nice island, and it was that for an hour or so. But it gradually morphed into something else, something I found much less interesting. I only ended up finishing it because it ended a lot sooner than I expected it to. The first half of the game seems to setup the idea that you're chasing after your father's ghost, but it turns out, plot twist, the child you're playing as died at the start and your whole journey is a fantasy thought up by their grieving father. As you complete each chapter the environments get more abstract and miserable, I suppose to reflect the father getting closer to accepting the truth about his son's death. I didn't care very much so I don't really have anything else to say. It's an okay game. I wouldn't recommend it but I wouldn't be surprised if people liked it either.
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Mar 15, 2024 21:52
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Thanks for the headsup, I thought it was going to be a straightforward puzzle game. Now it's off my backlog.
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Mar 15, 2024 22:16
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MyHouse.wad reminded me that, hey, Doom is fun, so I played through all of Doom (which I'm not sure I'd ever actually finished) and Doom 2 (which I'd never played). After spending about a dozen hours going through all the main episodes and a handful of .wads, I'm coming to the realization that maybe Doom is good, actually? The level design can sometimes be a little awkward, especially in Doom 2, but mechanically the game is pure, airtight, and drat near flawless. The monsters and weapons are iconic and the game just has a Nintendo-style timelessness to it, especially playing on a modern source port like GZDoom (I know vertical look can be a little contentious in the Doom community but the lack of it is the only thing that really dates the experience for me). I'm continuing to dive down the rabbit hole of mods and map packs; "Doom rules actually" is not exactly a hot take, but it's very much the correct one. Doom rules, actually.
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Mar 15, 2024 23:17
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i actually played doom 1 and 2 for the first time recently since i grew up in one of them "playing the demon killing game will make you worship satan" households and they unequivocally hold up so many years later. it's one of the most primal FPS gameplay loops you can have, but the combination of the highly diverse enemy cast and the labyrinthine layouts adds a lot of meat to the bone and gives it genuine timelessness what i liked the most about doom 2 was how much personality there is infused in each level. it's kind of the perfect creative environment: a bunch of young dudes who tasted pioneering success are all now trying to one-up the other ones with their map designs, each of them trying to make something bigger and more clever than their contemporaries. it's something you don't really see in modern FPSes anymore, given the huge teams of people tasked with stitching everything together, and there's something to be said for that loss of auteur energy in a lot of modern productions
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Mar 15, 2024 23:37
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I wish I could play it for more than five minutes without getting violently motion sick. I used to be able to endure it longer in the nineties.
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Mar 15, 2024 23:49
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SchwarzeKrieg posted:I'm continuing to dive down the rabbit hole of mods and map packs; "Doom rules actually" is not exactly a hot take, but it's very much the correct one. Doom rules, actually. I take a very dim view of nostalgia, especially around games Doom is not that, at all
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Mar 16, 2024 01:44
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Vermain posted:i actually played doom 1 and 2 for the first time recently since i grew up in one of them "playing the demon killing game will make you worship satan" households and they unequivocally hold up so many years later. it's one of the most primal FPS gameplay loops you can have, but the combination of the highly diverse enemy cast and the labyrinthine layouts adds a lot of meat to the bone and gives it genuine timelessness play Doom 64 next you won't be too lost if you don't play Dooms 3 through 63 first
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Mar 16, 2024 04:19
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I just beat Outer Worlds. After all the scathing criticism, I was pleasantly surprised by what I've seen. It did not change my life, but I did not expect it to.
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Mar 16, 2024 14:59
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I finished Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. My second time playing 1 and 2 but first seeing it through with 3. 120 hours, 30/40/50 respectively. Stuck with an Infiltrator through the whole thing and it never stopped being fun, especially since you can sorta Vanguard-it-up a bit for variety by cloaking and melee'ing enemies. It was a good time and I'm sad it's over. The series as a whole has some obvious flaws and each game individually does as well. 2 is probably the best, being the most focused, but I did miss the planet exploration even if all those remote research facilities were copy and pasted. And the Hammerhead blows compared to the Mako. 3 was interesting. I thought the beginning was absolutely terrible. After palling around the galaxy with my crew in 2 I'm suddenly stuck on Earth with a bunch of boring military-type humans? There's some lovely dream sequence that feels entirely out of place for this series, barebones dialogue trees, and just a weird lack of atmosphere/vibes in general. The first time you get on the Normandy you don't even have the option to catch up with Joker. The whole thing felt super rushed and made me worried for the rest of the game, but fortunately it settles down afterwards and finds its groove again. The ending sequence was also pretty bad, though. Gameplay-wise it has nothing on 2 despite the stakes being higher. From a narrative perspective the actual endings are fine but the way the choice was presented was very unclear - I accidentally triggered the wrong (for me) ending at first which after reading around seems a common experience. Between that and the hidden timer that I'm sure lots of players fell victim to, plus the fact that you can't manually save at that moment so going for a do-over means re-playing 30 minutes, I can understand why the ending rankled so many people back in the day. Especially since the requirements for the better endings were stricter at the time. But everything in-between the beginning and end was pretty drat great. 3 feels like the most expansive and unwieldy of the bunch, especially in the DLCs. Some of it's a mess, but it's usually a charming mess. I went and did some reading on the wiki on how different missions/plotlines shake out depending on your choices and there's some interesting stuff there (one that struck me in particular is a deadly confrontation with Wrex if you sabotage the genophage cure). I suppose one criticism of the series is that if you're thorough it's too easy to ace everything. My first time playing 2 I lost two party members at the end but I made better choices this time around and feel like I got very good outcomes for all of the conflicts in the game. (One exception is Mordin dying on Tuchanka; apparently he can survive but only if Wrex died on Virmire in 1 and you don't cure the genophage... so his sacrifice is still the better outcome I think.) Also found out that you can get murdered by Morinth in 2 which is hilarious. But genuinely why would anyone pick Morinth over Samara? The game doesn't give you any reason to do so, either narratively or from a gameplay perspective (you don't even know what her powers are at that moment). Anyway, great games. Maybe I'll do a failShep run some time where I deliberately gently caress up as much as possible.
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Mar 16, 2024 16:48
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Have you played the Citadel DLC for 3? A lot of people correctly ignore the references it makes to the war and just treat the party at the end like the final wrap-up of the game post-ending (just ignore the bullshit about Shepard, EDI and the Geth dying when you choose the correct Destroy ending) and while yes to some degree it is pandering, it's overall a sweet, pleasant goodbye to characters that you've spend 3 games and potentially hundreds of hours with. The final scene/words of the game being Shepard reflecting on how she's had the best days of her life on the Normandy is really lovely.
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Mar 17, 2024 00:30
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Sway Grunt posted:Also found out that you can get murdered by Morinth in 2 which is hilarious. But genuinely why would anyone pick Morinth over Samara? The game doesn't give you any reason to do so, either narratively or from a gameplay perspective (you don't even know what her powers are at that moment). some people are too horny for their own good
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Mar 17, 2024 01:12
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Sway Grunt posted:Also found out that you can get murdered by Morinth in 2 which is hilarious. But genuinely why would anyone pick Morinth over Samara? The game doesn't give you any reason to do so, either narratively or from a gameplay perspective (you don't even know what her powers are at that moment). Doesn't she basically say she's rebelling against being put in a space cloister for people with the murder gene, so a certain type of gullible Shep might buy it. But really: Megazver posted:some people are too horny for their own good
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Mar 17, 2024 02:07
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I've finally "beaten" Palworld with about ~144 hours played in it and I'd say, overall, Game Good! It's obviously still very early access in places; the dungeon design is barebones as gently caress, the base raid AI is straight up broken, certain interactions like ragdolling things with explosion attacks frequently lead to pals(or you!) getting clipped through terrain and falling out of world, but the majority of the gameplay and interactions work seamlessly. And they've done a great job since release to fix serious bugs, like the infamous "pals get stuck on top of buildings and starve" bug. At the rate they've been fixing stuff I fully expect them to continue improving the game(a lot of people have expected them to cash out and run), and hope the statement of "it was 60% complete at release" is accurate, because that would mean quite a lot of new stuff is on the horizon. It was mostly a very chill experience, put-on-a-podcast/livestream/whatever-and-play sort of game for me. I've beaten all the bosses, completely mapped out all the landmasses, caught all the legendary pals, and defeated or captured every alpha pal on the world map, and my paldeck is at like 99% completion. I took it extremely slowly, completing each island before moving on to the next, so I hit level 50 long before I really tried to take on the fire, earth, or ice islands. but even at max level with significantly strong pals and weapons, it didn't trivialize the enemies in the endgame zones. Indeed I got owned many times by "trash mobs" because I thought I'd be cute and aggro a bunch at once for AOEing or whatever. and especially the endgame pals and bosses, those required actual strategy and a bit of grinding to get the high-ranked weaponry schematics and condensed pals to be able to take them on properly. the final opponents for me were the ice island tower boss and the two centaur legendaries in the desert. the first required actually getting legendary quality weaponry to be able to DPS him down within the time limit, and fast footwork to dodge his pal's absurd attack patterns, because 3-4 hits meant I died. and the centaurs, it was a pretty frustrating but intense and rewarding fight, in that they killed the poo poo out of me a dozen times before I managed to whittle them down and get a lucky capture of the dark one, which made taking down the light one much more manageable now that I didn't have to worry about being gibbed by a massive laser cannon from offscreen out of nowhere. I really hope they add more of these sorts of unique encounters with their future updates, fix things like base raid AI, and add variety and interactions to the dungeons and unique overworld stuff. I also hope they add more base stuff for pals to enjoy, I like having hot springs for my pals but let me give them like, workout areas and other stuff. wanna see every pal's interaction with a punching bag. the things that really changed the game for me was my first flying pal, a Nitewing with all the speed modifiers, and then after that was catching a Galeclaw. the Galeclaw as a glider is twice as fast as anything you can craft, turns on a dime, and lets you shoot while gliding. it made for incredible boss fight movement, dodging projectile barrages and lasers, outrunning attempts to melee me, etc. I never really interacted with the breeding aspect of the game, but I absolutely LOVED going egg hunting in each zone and then seeing what I could hatch when I returned to base. overall, I'm super happy and surprised with how much I enjoyed Palworld. I believe my exact words on these forums when the final trailer showed up before release was "if this game is anything but an unmitigated trash fire I will be loving shocked". I'm glad I was proven wrong and look forward to any new stuff they add in the future. I hear there's an update coming soon, too, though I'm not sure of the specifics. probably my favorite Pals, not because of utility or because they were my primarily used ones, but because of design and feel ingame, are Mossanda and Cawgnito. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j82jLkMtL5Y&hd=1 I love Cawgnito's movement and attack pattern, also that it's an evil-looking pal but is entirely non-hostile until attacked. it loving goosesteps around and looks ridiculous and hilarious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdU6PtegEkA&hd=1 some screenshots I took while playing: finishing building the first of the endgame production buildings, Assembly Line 2, with a wide variety of pals  I loving adore all the little touches for each of the pals, the different animations each one has, etc. it adds so much for me. like how Reptyro is too big to fit in the sauna, so he just puts his front feeties in. or how Mossanda bows and then punches trees to harvest wood.  I encountered apparently one of the rarest things in the game, a Herd of Grizzbolts in the desert. It is a modifier of a modifier of a modifier of a rare spawn, first having to be a Herd spawn, then having to choose to be a rare type herd spawn, then having to choose the rarest possible type from that selection list, Grizzbolts. Notable because Grizzbolts are not otherwise catchable outside of a rare spawn on one of the wildlife sanctuaries. When the first person to find a herd of them posted about it, people ripped into him for "faking it" because nobody else had seen it before. I caught most of them but accidentally killed a couple in the chaos and this was the best screenshot I got because I forgot to take one before aggroing them  my awesome Anubis base guards, keeping the road up to my original base safe. in reality they glitched themselves outside my base by falling off the cliff there and are just stuck where they're standing and I had to despawn them to fix it but it does look cool tho  I saw a spot of green in the otherwise greenless desert island, investigated, and found a rare spawn of a Dinossum and Dinossum Lux pair hanging out. very cute  I reiterate, I love mossanda(and thus mossanda lux) so much, they're so cute and all their animations are wonderful 
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Mar 17, 2024 06:14
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Finished King's Field III and Early Access of Beyond Sunset. King's Field games are slow 3D dungeon crawlers where everything looks kinda crappy, but they do have that secrety Souls atmosphere and the same feeling of danger that you've come to expect from From titles. Weird items, game lying to you, cryptic NPCs, missable secrets - it's all here! Granted, you have to put up with this game's battle system to enjoy what it offers. Your movement is slow, your magic is slow, your swings with most weapons are slow, and most of the time in battle you'll just be approaching the enemy, swinging your weapon and pressing back as soon as possible (sometimes strafing a bit with enemies that have ranged attacks). It's not a good system, but I've never had issues with it. Thankfully, the monsters in the world seem to suffer from the same issues player does. This game is the biggest KF game on PS1 and also adds some necessary features in the form of actually telling you what items do and a conversation log so you can browse what people have said to you at any time, so it's probably the best starting point out of PS1 games unless you'd like to guess what Blood Stone does and use it in every situation before you figure out its effect. The game is as funny as the Souls games with how mean it can be: the first area has three illusionary walls one of which is going to kill an unsuspecting player. There's also a chest that's required for progression that's effectively a Mimic who's also going to one-shot you on early levels. And of course there are a poisonoius swamp, ledges too narrow for walking on them, really weird platforming (for a game with no jump button of any kind) and other Souls staples. It's also fairly witty with its dialogue. While it is dark fantasy, quite a few NPCs can be fairly humorous which stands at odds with the atmosphere and only adds to the weird vibe of this game. The game isn't as hard as the Souls titles and even playing normally you'll get pretty strong in the backhalf with tons of magic at your disposal and an array of weird weapons some of which might have secondary effects, so a few mean tricks feel more like friendly jabs rather than something out of I Wanna Be The Guy. I loved my time with it, and while Souls games have effectively made its formula obsolete, I wouldn't mind seeing a King's Field V eventually. Beyond Sunset seems like a promising boomer shooter that mixes in some RPG elements, and I was fully on-board at first. The game starts out VERY strong. The first episode is an open city of a few interconnected maps where your mission is to defeat a few minibosses to collect keykards. Simple enough, but the presentation, sheer size, secrets, and side-quests make it really impressive. Each map feels unique, from the skyscraper-filled residential area to the quarantined slums that have a constant stream of respawning zombies. Your reason for exploring is also quite good, as the game has currency and upgrades for your guns and health, which make secret hunting much more desireable than any sort of super armor would. Quite a few secrets are marked on the map, but upon finishing Episode 1 I was delighted to learn that the game has quite a few unmarked ones, as I missed maybe 10 of them. That's, unfortunately, where my fun stopped. Episode 1 provides a very interesting experience interweaving shooting with exploration and some light RPG elements, and Episode 2 drops it entirely. The halls of a cyberpunk megacorp are menacing and larger-than-life, the architecture and art design are stellar, but the gameplay takes a nosedive. For whatever reason the game almost completely shifts its focus into being an arena shooter in the vein of Serious Sam or Painkiller. Travel for a few feet, destroy like a hundred enemies, do this a few times to clean out one of three sectors. Not to worry though, you'll be back here soon enough. Even if there was no backtracking, all three sectors are fairly similar compared to city's enviroments and are comprised of an outer ring where you have to dispatch enemies 4 times, and then 3 rooms where you have to do the same. I have no idea what happened here. It's not unfun, you still shoot things and it's satisfying, but there's a feeling of "are we done?" for the whole episode. The only pace-breaker are little "hacking" puzzle sections which, granted, I've enjoyed a lot. The game pulls the rug from under you and feels like it just wants to be tons of arenas where you shoot guys with a fairly limited weapon selection. At least Serious Sam had weird secrets and a fairly sizeable arsenal... Beyond Sunset promises 5 episodes and Episode 3 is a complete dud. Featuring around 15 minutes of tower defence-like gameplay where you run around and fix turrets with material dropped by enemies. There are no secrets left, no exploration to speak of, and the difficulty which was already fairly low on Normal becomes a complete cakewalk which only means Episode 3 is grueling. I try not to be hard on indie games and I was willing to overlook some issues with Episode 1 which consisted of graphical glitches and weirdly overly demanding performance in some maps that made my alright PC chug (on a game that uses GZDoom, no less!), but the complete shift in Episodes 2 and 3 and realizing I've beaten more than half the game of which I've enjoyed the first 1.5 hours at most make this game hard to recommend.
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Mar 17, 2024 08:50
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Jerusalem posted:Have you played the Citadel DLC for 3? A lot of people correctly ignore the references it makes to the war and just treat the party at the end like the final wrap-up of the game post-ending (just ignore the bullshit about Shepard, EDI and the Geth dying when you choose the correct Destroy ending) and while yes to some degree it is pandering, it's overall a sweet, pleasant goodbye to characters that you've spend 3 games and potentially hundreds of hours with. The final scene/words of the game being Shepard reflecting on how she's had the best days of her life on the Normandy is really lovely. Yeah, I did Citadel basically as soon as it became available (sort of accidentally as I wasn't aware I was going into the DLC). It's basically the charming mess I was referring to, I didn't like the action parts of it much (the plot especially) but the Strip and all the character moments were great (Thane's video message was extra  since he was my romance in 2). I can see why people prefer it as a coda, it definitely feels like one, but I thought it worked well enough as an interlude too, especially since you get multiple events with characters so it's natural to stagger them and do one whenever you go back to the Citadel. After the party I definitely felt like it was time to get back to work though.In hindsight doing it early meant I missed out on some possible guests but oh well. edit: Just to refine these thoughts a bit, I think the action bits work well as a coda but the party and social bits work well as an interlude, which is why the DLC as a whole came off a bit messy/confused to me since I did it all in one go (other than the scenes with characters I only met afterwards). Capfalcon posted:Doesn't she basically say she's rebelling against being put in a space cloister for people with the murder gene, so a certain type of gullible Shep might buy it. Yeah though that point you've already investigated her latest murder and volunteered as her next victim so as a player I think you kinda have to deliberately make a bad decision there. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Mar 17, 2024 |
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Mar 17, 2024 11:41
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Rolled credits on A Plague Tale: Requiem, which was quite good. It's similar to Innocence in a lot of ways — in fact, I'd say that the first half is a bit too similar to the first game in terms of gameplay and story beats — but it does manage to distinguish itself with more varied gameplay, better graphics and art direction, and a story that really picks up in the second half. In terms of gameplay, there's a couple of new weapons and mechanics, but the biggest change is the size of the encounters. Innocence was very linear in its encounter design for most of the game, to the point where most encounters were essentially puzzles with one correct solution. By contrast, Requiem has far larger and more free-form arenas right from the start, and the additional weapons and mechanics offer more freedom in how to approach these encounters. It's a good change on the whole, although the increase in scope also tends to expose flaws in the enemy AI. It's not the worst stealth sandbox I've ever played, but it's still a bit too janky and restrictive to stand out. The rat-based puzzles, meanwhile, feel like they haven't really progressed in complexity since the first game, and quickly end up feeling repetitive. As mentioned, the story starts out feeling very similar to Innocence, with the same kind of gradual escalation of horror and despair, but it does manage to put a new spin on things in the second half. Some reviewers were critical of this new direction, and while I do get it — the second half feels more like Uncharted than A Plague Tale at times — I think it was for the better, as the oppressive bleakness of the first couple of chapters started to wear thin for me personally. The more varied locales not only look amazing (shout-out to the art direction, for a double-A game it punches well above its weight graphics-wise), but also help pace the story, and while the big mythology-based plot points that dominate the latter chapters didn't quite manage to keep me engaged all the way through, the addition of interesting and well-written companions did a lot to compensate. One other thing I'll mention is the voice acting. The English lead actress got a lot of praise on release, including a Game Awards nomination, and... I just don't hear it. Charlotte McBurney's performance sounds too strained to me, too forced and theatrical, and the supporting cast didn't do much for me either. Just like in Innocence, I ended up switching the game audio to French after an hour or so. This came with its own set of challenges — I only speak un petit peu of high school French, and keeping up with subtitles in the middle of battle wasn't always easy — but I genuinely think the French cast is better in every regard. French Amicia (Léopoldine Serre) sounds far more natural, especially during the more lighthearted scenes, and is a better fit for the character overall. The supporting cast is also better, with Hugo in particular changing from a whiny brat to an adorable little cherub the moment I switched languages. Plus, it's a game set in France created by a French team, so for a subs-not-dubs snob like myself this was arguably the only correct way to play it. The game has some of most extensive subtitle customization options I've ever seen as well, so if like me you aren't really feeling the English cast, pourquoi ne pas essayer le français ah? Bonne chance, hon hon hon. On the whole, a solid 8 out of 10, I hope they get to make the present-day Plague Tale hinted at in the post-credit scene. cave emperor fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Mar 17, 2024 |
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Mar 17, 2024 17:39
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Sway Grunt posted:I finished Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. My second time playing 1 and 2 but first seeing it through with 3. 120 hours, 30/40/50 respectively. Stuck with an Infiltrator through the whole thing and it never stopped being fun, especially since you can sorta Vanguard-it-up a bit for variety by cloaking and melee'ing enemies. It was a good time and I'm sad it's over. I also played through those a couple months ago and had pretty similar thoughts. Aside from a couple false starts with ME1 forever ago, it was my first exposure to the series and it gave me big "why didn't I play this sooner??" feels. 3 definitely felt a little disjointed at times (I also played the Citadel DLC as soon as it was available, having no idea it was DLC until after the fact) and was probably my least favorite overall, but I was surprised by how well it stuck the landing on a lot of the plot threads.
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Mar 18, 2024 02:30
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cave emperor posted:Rolled credits on A Plague Tale: Requiem, which was quite good. Oh hey, what a coincidence, I just finished Requiem today too. I found myself nodding along to your review. The only thing I'd really add that Requiem felt a bit more forgiving with crafting resources - maybe because of being more open to experimentation, as you said. I appreciated that they gave you the choice to go fully kill-'em-all-with-a-crossbow if you want, or a more traditional sneaky route. I killed 'em all with a crossbow.
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Mar 18, 2024 04:46
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I just beat Dungeon Munchies This is an odd one. I thought it was a metroidvania when I bought it, but it’s actually a linear platformer with a heavy story emphasis. The controls are floaty, slippery, and overall imprecise. It took a while to get used to but the game never requires precision so it works out. You’re a zombie reanimated by a necromancer so that she can teach you to cook. By teach you to cook, she means slaughter everything in your path so you can use their pieces to make dishes and weapons. Both work as a loadout. You’re allowed a limited amount of food buffs as well as one primary and one secondary weapon. So you might kill a crab and use their claw as an axe, their shell as a shield, and cook food that improves axes and blocking. I spent most of the game with daggers that caused bleed or poison and buffed DoT damage. You swing/shoot your weapon in the direction you’re holding the left stick, making this a one stick shooter? So far what I’ve written is pretty negative, but the game actually works. At first, I’m like, what the hell is this slippery movement, why does this game have a 10/10 on steam? But then I eventually ended up zooming along not giving a poo poo, making everything explode, and laughing at the item descriptions. The story is funny and charming too, taking on the question of why go on living in an extremely lovely world. The game was released in early access and at least on consoles, the third act is extremely unfinished and buggy. Some of the last boss’s attacks were insta-killing me and others were doing 0 damage. It was also the only spot in the game where I couldn’t go back and adjust my loadout. I barely made it through.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:51
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Scalding Coffee posted:I hate how searching for the SNES version information is impossible now that the remake is out. I feel the same way about Dune 2!
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Mar 18, 2024 23:44
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Sway Grunt posted:But everything in-between the beginning and end was pretty drat great. 3 feels like the most expansive and unwieldy of the bunch, especially in the DLCs. Some of it's a mess, but it's usually a charming mess. This is exactly how I felt and still feel about ME3. 95% solid gold game, sandwiched between two chunks of absolute shite. I replayed the series a couple of years ago and realized I might actually like the beginning less than the ending, everything feels so bizarrely contrived and out of place. Also, felt like if they'd actually included some of the tribunal they could have had a fantastic way to recap the previous games and, if you don't have save data, to determine which choices you made. Granted I understand not wanting to start the game with a big dialog section but even so... Anyway I still think ME1 is the best of the three.
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Mar 19, 2024 00:00
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Beaten Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition Feel like I just don't get open world games at all. Sleeping Dogs feels like Square Enix's attempt to get their own Yakuza: an asian criminal story with primarily brawler battles and a few side-activities. The game takes a lot from GTA and feels like what people thought Yakuza was back when that series wasn't popular. The story is really fun rags-to-riches triad tale which has a little twist by making you play as an undercover cop, which provides additional tension. There are a whole lot of missions in this game that feel different. It feels like your role as an undercover cop was conceived as a way for you to do both law enforcement missions of saving hostages and stopping drug deals, while also commiting crimes like illegal races, racketeering and extortion as if actual cops don't do that anyways. The game tries to switch up its gameplay often and has a lot of different changes to fairly simple missions. Chases, for example, can ask you to smash other vehicles, win the race, jump onto other car, shoot enemies, follow someone, etc. There are a LOT of gameplay variations and the game tries to keep you engaged at all times. The battle system is simple but effective, and the game switches it up with shootouts and races often enough that its simplicity never wears out. It's usually a little on the easy side, but there are a few additional challenges that will test your abilities. Unfortunately, if the game was inspired by Yakuza, it definitely took the wrong lessons from the franchise. Side activities that aren't tied to quests such as karaoke are dull and boring and many side quests are just repeating situations that see you complete a task with no flavor to them. Lesser quests such as cop jobs are less than a minute long, and drug busts see you perform the same three-step quest for more than a dozen times. It's unfortunate, because the game could've been great, but it drops the ball just a bit with making all missions so disconnected from everything. Racing, for example, is always fun and is the biggest and longest quest activity you can do in the game. There are around 15 races through different enviroments with different vehicles, but there's never a sense of progression to it despite the game introducing you to it with a story hook. Some rivals or 1 on 1 "boss" races would've felt much more like becoming the fastest as opposed to a repeating mini game that can sometimes give you a car. The world is too big for my taste and the exploration is fairly dire. As with many games of that nature, game will throw you a bone and mark all the collectibles on your map because actually exploring the enviroment isn't an option. I'd either want more stuff to collect, as there are entire eye-catching zones with nothing in them, or would prefer if a few districts were cut entirely. The best rewards actually come from random missions where you can get new clothing, cars, and very rarely, upgrades. The best things you can find in the world are basically a piece of heart and an unlock point for a new move, but mostly you'll just find a case with money in it, which you likely won't even need. No matter how much the game tries to vary stuff up, its built on a shaky foundation of by-the-numbers open world game. It's often fun, but exploration and side quests just feel like Content you do to clear the map, not much else. There are moments of brilliance which is why I kept doing said quests: assembling and upgrading a spy car was really fun and provided some of the most varied quests; dates, while a little awkward, had some much needed character moments; and there are a few random activities that were way more fun than the rest, such as Teng's Toy ones that ask you to drive through dense crowds. I really wish the game would go an extra step of having at least fun stories to go with its quests. Little character moments that would make your 4th "chase cars off the road" gameplay section at least somewhat distinct from the first three. This especially concerns cop activities which repeat more often than others and have no story to them at all. I recommend this game for its story and some quests, but don't try and complete it.
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Mar 19, 2024 09:43
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Vookatos posted:Beaten Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7AN1vAeUUI&t=31s I loved Sleeping Dogs, though I played it pre-Yakuza so I imagine replaying it would make me compare it to those games now. I was always sad they didn't make more, a series of continued adventures in Hong Kong would have been a blast, and I liked that the DLC didn't mind getting weird with things like straight up doing Enter the Dragon with a martial arts tournament on a crime lord's island, or the supernatural themed one which meshed with the base mechanics so you could handcuff and arrest hopping vampires  If I remember right, there was a "sequel" announced but it was some stupid loving multiplayer/moba thing? And it got canceled and they said,"WOW GUESS NOBODY WANTS ANY MORE SLEEPING DOGS HUH!?!?!" and that was that. I guess if the original game had come out only a few years ago the "sequel" would have been some gaas bullshit where you have to punch mobsters to unlock purple gear that adds 0.002% speed to cuffing animations or something.
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Mar 19, 2024 13:01
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