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Professor Beetus posted:I've heard people express a similar sentiment before but like, aren't they entirely different genres of game? Kinda yes, but kinda no. Star Control doesn't have any shooter elements. But do you spend a lot of time flying to different planets, collecting resources, talking to aliens and saving the galaxy from an ancient evil? Yes. There's a lot of Star Control in Mass Effect. To be honest, if I was going to do a totally cynical modern reboot of Star Control in a way which didn't really respect the original and expected absolutely nothing of my audience? I'd have the gameplay of Mass Effect.
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Dec 12, 2023 03:29
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LordAdakos posted:I finally 100 percent'd vampire survivors. Just in time to hear they are releasing a new DLC on the 18th. Congrats! Factorio's probably the bigger achievement, but I certainly think that VS is the more fun one. Just finished off Adventures here in prep for the upcoming DLC.
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Dec 12, 2023 03:34
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finished Lies of P. got it a few weeks ago, played a ton of it over the past week, final playtime 27 hours. apparently I got the best ending of three and 80% of the achievements, and the remainder don't seem too onerous, might get the rest. the way people describe it is correct: an extremely competent and downright good souls knockoff. combat's a pleasing mix of bloodborne and sekiro, and the twists like the blade/handle weapon assembly work well. generally I enjoyed the difficulty - I gather it's been made a little easier since release with a wider parry window and so on, and overall it felt appropriate. on the other hand, I one-shotted the final two bosses, but I was pretty kitted out by that point, so oh well. level design is pretty boring but perfectly functional. the linearity, slightly-too-frequent platforming, and obsession with rickety wooden scaffolding are a little disappointing, but not enough to drown out the pleasure of winding through a long level and finding yet another shortcut. I laughed out loud more than once upon seeing treasure and getting brutally owned by a gotcha enemy around a blind corner just before it. the aesthetics outside of the belle epoque cityscapes are also pretty boring, and it all feels like video game levels rather than lived-in locations, but that belle epoque stuff looks very good. the script's translation is grammatically fine, more or less, but extremely, extremely stiff, and it needs an editor not only for word choice but also some pretty heavy cleanup on structure and consistency in some details. but there's some good ideas and strong, coherent theming in there. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed several of the side stories as well. also the way the ending sets up a sequel hook is goddamn hilarious. good game. absolutely worth a go if souls games are your poison and you want something to fill the hole in your life before shadow of the erdtree
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Dec 12, 2023 05:57
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I just beat Like a Dragon Ishin. The first game I've ever beat that was a Yakuza, and I think the second without any English dialog whatsoever, which was Ghost of Tsushima. It was really great. I guess I'm only at 32% substory completion and the main plot doesn't count towards that? I think I've played enough at 30 hours but I might go back and see what's up before my gamepass expires next month. They also gave me 200 ryo and I like money. I'll probably also start Yakuza 0 again and keep going at that one since now I understand the formula a lot better. I really hope they remake their Sengoku period game.
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Dec 12, 2023 06:48
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Just beat SPRAWL: pretty decent movement-focused cyberpunk boomer shooter. PROS Pretty cool cyberpunk world with some gorgeous vistas Great music (very Ghost in the Shell chanting style) Fun Titanfall/Ghostrunner-esque movement: lots of platforming and I love dodging enemy fire by wall-running and stylishly flipping around like a ninja Cool slow-mo powers and lots of fun guns Fun Doom Eternal-esque feedback loop: shoot enemy weakpoints highlighted with slow-mo or execute them with melee to get more slow-mo/health/ammo, repeat step 1 CONS Short (4 hrs) Story is pretty basic and had no big twist or impact, just bare minimum revenge prompt to keep us going World is a bit too dark and confusing at times where it's difficult to find way forward or spot enemies Enemies are kind of boring, and their AI is easily exploitable where you can run circles around them Slow-mo feels unnecessary: enemies already shoot slow projectiles so the game might've actually been better without it and played in real time? Or enemies should be deadlier with faster bullets to necessitate its use Only really felt challenged around the last few levels where they throw a bunch at you, but its quantity over quality Basically, a very flashy and fun game, but a bit flawed and kind of falls apart on closer examination. But it's short, so you might just beat it before you even notice its flaws and just think of it as fun cyberpunk ninja action.
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Dec 12, 2023 07:22
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I just beat two games this week. DAVE THE DIVER - A really lovely vaguely roguelite experience where you deep sea dive and catch fish by day and then take those catches and run a sushi shop at night. So the loop is catch fish, sell sushi, take money to upgrade your fish catching, catch rare fish to upgrade your restaurant, etc. The game also drip feeds new mechanics pretty much every couple of in-game days, so there's a light farming sim, there's minigames, there's a pokedex you can fill out, you can race seahorses, etc. What I appreciate is that the game is very generous in letting you do whatever you want. You can ignore the story, you can ignore the farm, you can ignore the horse racing, you can just loop through fishing and sushi for 100 days if you want. Nothing is difficult and you can just do whatever you want basically. The animations and cut scenes are super funny and the whole thing is a chill hang. A+, highly recommended. and PICAYUNE DREAMS - This is a Vampire Survivor-like set in space. The difference is that it has a spooky Yumi Nikki storyline you get by collecting memories from defeated bosses. The powers are pretty fun, the upgrades can synergize in some really fun ways, and the soundtrack is pure breakcore goodness. The big difference from VS is that enemies have actual diverse behavior patterns and bosses do light bullet hell tactics as they zip around. It's not just a larger PNG lumbering towards you. If I have any complaints, it's that the upgrades that change bullet size and character movement don't feel very impactful. It's not quiiiite like VS where you can fill the screen with giant psycho particle fuckery. Still, very addictive loop, cool ideas, and the bullet hell was manageable. I've been avoiding VS-likes because it felt like VS kind of gave me everything I needed from the genre but this was a treat. And, only $5!!
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Dec 14, 2023 16:27
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i just finished cocoon and wow was that disappointing. extremely style over substance and very short the basic idea for the game was interesting, but it didn't really feel like they managed to effectively build upon the worlds-inside-orbs idea much - most of the mechanics they layered on top of that were just not very interesting. the puzzles are largely very straight-forward and streamlined, with only a few interesting ones later in the game, and a few frustrating ones where it didn't feel like the game had properly taught the mechanic required to to solve them or that were overly timing-dependent. it's also weirdly unfocused? why does this puzzle game have boss fights, which are completely disconnected from the rest of the game mechanically? why are there repeated sequences where you have to aim & shoot projectiles at the right time many times in a row? the bosses are also both uninteresting and punishing - you have to restart the fights after a single hit and they demand just enough precision and are just long enough for them get repetitive quickly. there are definitely ideas here that could have been the basis for a great game but the result is just lacking. i don't understand the acclaim at all, except that maybe it's a puzzle game for people who don't like puzzles? lih fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Dec 15, 2023 |
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Dec 15, 2023 16:05
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I got a little handheld emulator so have been playing some old games, I just beat Survival Kids last night. A weird little game. Surprisingly ambitious, though they fell short of the mark they were trying to hit, I feel - the first act of the game, where you're exploring an island and getting resources to survive (though honestly actually surviving isn't that difficult, with food and water in plentiful supply) is the most interesting - each new resource is a potential for use and something that might be able to be merged with something else. But then it falters where, after you've found and crafted pretty much every tool in the game, you just sort of are forced into a scavenger hunt to find some gems to unlock a ship (why is a ship locked up using various gemstones? No idea) and escape. The last part of the game is just navigating a big ruin, solving rudimentary puzzles to get the last of the keystones, which was pretty tedious. I was surprised to find that the game has multiple endings and even a sort-of branching narrative, where another character can show up and affect your ending in multiple ways. Heck, if you get a radio and make an SOS signal on the beach you can escape within a couple days and, well, avoid like 90% of the game entirely. Anyway, was interesting, not particularly good, but I'd play the sequel.
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Dec 15, 2023 16:25
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 I recently beat Saints Row IV and Gat Out of Hell back to back because I bought them in a sale like eight years ago just after getting a PS4, I vaguely remembered that there was a Christmas DLC attached to IV that I never played, and it seemed like one of those "if I don't do it now I will never do it because I barely like Saints Row enough now to even have the goodwill to install these again" situations. Its really weird, SR2 is a generationally good open world game and everything after that has been kind of slapped together. The strength of SRIV and GooH, outside of the superhero movement stuff that you could really only find in Prototype at the time, is that the plot all ties back to SR1+2 and the kind of nonchalant Whedonesque quips that probably landed a lot better before superhero movies ran that trend into the ground. Its like this pristine artifact of gaming from ten years ago that I absolutely wouldn't recommend to anyone outside of nostalgia, but it's still a kind of nice breezy time (both can be nearly 100%ed in less than 30 hours combined lol) and insurance fraud will always be funny to me, but you can really see how Volition was stretching these games beyond their means and beyond knowing what the gently caress to do with the franchise (which I guess turned out to be: reboot it really badly and then stop existing because midlevel studios can only be absorbed or destroyed now). I don't know, it was weirdly melancholy knowing where it all ended up. Rest in peace IdolNinja~
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Dec 15, 2023 21:37
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I go back to the old Donkey Kong Country games from time to time, I just got through DKC3 and remembered what a letdown I guess you've already gone through the hidden world levels by that point, so you're not really missing on content, but I think it'd play so much better if the vehicle got you access to that world. The real reward being the new set of tough levels seems a lot more interesting.
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Dec 15, 2023 22:25
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H13 posted:Kinda yes, but kinda no. Mass Effect's plot is specifically a clear attempt to redo Star Control 3 of all things. And then they Star Control 3'd their already Star Control 3 series with Andromeda
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Dec 16, 2023 12:37
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 Finished Immortals of Aveum. Enjoyed it at about the bare minimum, it felt like it could have been a lot more. I think my biggest complaint was how it didn't feel immersive; the player has very little to no agency or influence over the game world. For first person shooters, one of the best things you can do to make the player feel like their actions matter, is to have destructible objects, give projectile firing some weight to it, and be able to see the aftermath of a fire fight. Immortals has none of this. Boxes, and barrels can't be destroyed, there are no barrels that can explode around enemies. This very simple thing though makes you feel like you're playing a character that is apart of the world, and makes it feel alive and full of consequence by your actions. For an Unreal Engine 5.0 AAA game, and one made by an Electronic Arts funded company, this was really disappointed. In comparison, Robocop: Rogue City (also an Unreal 5 game), a huge amount of the environment will be destroyed from your firefights with the enemy. Walls, pillars, computers, monitors, doors, everything can be destroyed or damaged. It feels very visceral and shooting has a lot of weight to it. Not to completely poo poo on the game, it did fill a niche that I really wanted; using magic in place of guns. I think however that this could have been more creative. There really was not a lot of difference between the three different schools of magic, and you had different AoE blasts that are all essentially the same thing, and then three different gadgets that were used for simple puzzles. Controls were janky at times, and platforming felt frustrating at points. A lot of puzzles felt like they were just there to pad out the length of the game, and added really nothing to the world, or a reason for existing. Nearly every video game does this so i'm not going to really dock Immortals for it too much. I just really couldn't help but walk away from this game feeling like it could have been so much more than what it was. An average, passionless, by the numbers FPS that didn't seem to want to make a statement, or do anything creative with the tools it had been given. It has an identity, it just isn't an interesting one that you want to spend time with. 5/10
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Dec 16, 2023 16:31
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I finished Tinykin! Great short but sweet game. I'm starting up god of war 3 remastered because the new gow ragnarok Valhalla dlc left me wanting more.
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Dec 16, 2023 17:38
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Beat Rogue Trader. It was in every shape and form an Owlcat game. If you liked Wrath of the Righteous at launch, you will like this. But in my opinion it needs at least another 6 months of patches and content before it is near done, though I expected as much going in. If you're a bug enough 40k fan or like the style of turnbased Rpg on offer it is fine, just horribly unbalanced for large parts of it.
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Dec 17, 2023 04:13
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FutureCop posted:Just beat SPRAWL: pretty decent movement-focused cyberpunk boomer shooter. Guess indie games don't have a Legal department that might have caught the giant TOYOTA sign on the left.
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Dec 17, 2023 04:38
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Dabir posted:Mass Effect's plot is specifically a clear attempt to redo Star Control 3 of all things. And then they Star Control 3'd their already Star Control 3 series with Andromeda Oh, hell, you're right. Could have saved a lot of energy if someone had told them Star Control 3's plot sucked.
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Dec 17, 2023 05:40
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i just beat orbo's odyssey and it's a blast-off 3D platformer for speed freaks with a vaguely disconcerting story about being trapped in your boss's office and some, uhh, odd elements (the main bad guys are cardboard cutouts of vampires that never move). it's like 90-120 minutes long, with incredible speed and feel to the platforming, and enough juice to the levels and narrative to make you want to see what's around the next corner.
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Dec 18, 2023 10:09
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Captain Hygiene posted:Luigi's Mansion 3 I went back and played the second game after this, a nice discovery was that all my memories of playing it were just from the first world, so it was 80% new to me. I liked it a lot most of the time, but kind of soured on it at the end. Most of my complaints are in the final world, just a string of BS bosses with unfun gimmicks and a 15+ minute (eventually timed) gauntlet of fighting enemies, all aggravating stuff. Almost all my complaints trace back to there being no checkpoints and very limited continues (and none in the boss stages, I think). This is really rough design for a game that is generally designed around separate, shorter missions for a handheld device. It instantly makes small aggravatioms much worse because of all the repetition if you die. One of the last regular stages came in at 45 minutes for me - it was a fun one, but I'd be so mad if I died 40 minutes in. Playing this one after 3 was jarring, because the newer one's easily available continues and quicksaves in every room are exactly what this one needed. So I didn't enjoy the final stuff very much, but I had a lot of fun along the way. I still liked the game overall, and I really wish the series had more than three games in its 20+ year run.
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Dec 18, 2023 19:02
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Mario Strikers: Battle League Got this dumb cheap physical ($10) at a local yard sale in good condition so I snatched it up (because I collect Nintendo games) and I played it and, uh, I actually really like it. This is not a $60 game. It is barely a $20 game, just as far as breadth of available content. But as a charming and simplistic $10 soccer game with layers of hidden depth Strikers goes hard. I beat all of the single player league tournament content and managed to find people to play a few games online with, with mixed results (I mostly got my rear end kicked). I feel like if this was just on the eshop for $15 and not a full price release people wouldn't have hated this and it would have more of a community to this day. The core is not bad! Simple pass-kick gameplay with modifiers for complexity (add curve to the ball and the like and items) that makes for a fun pick up and play experience when you're waiting for a bus or flight or w/e. Also did 100% completion on Mario Wonder which is an actual masterpiece but you already know that. It FEELS short but if you go for 100% it takes 25-30 hours and you'll think it was short but in reality you just spent three straight days engrossed with the game and that will rattle your head and you'll wonder what happened to those entire days. If there is a modern platformer Holy Trinity, I'd say it's Wonder, Celeste, and Rayman Legends as the ones everyone HAS to play.
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Dec 19, 2023 06:56
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Call of Duty: WWII Originally bought this at release, but never played the single player campaign, just the multiplayer. Finally got around to playing the single player. Felt disappointed; while the game looks really pretty, it follows only one single character through the western European war. This is disappointing because the prior World War II Call of Duty titles, had you jumping between characters across multiple theaters of war. I would have liked a return to this formula, to see different perspectives across the war, with the next-gen graphics, this could have been a nice sequel to World at War, the last previous WWII CoD we got, which released early in the 360/PS3 era. As always though, the guns feel great to shoot, very responsive, immersive, and feels real. Where WWII really drops the ball though is in the scenarios. So much of the game is just shooting enemies, with very little variation, such as vehicle combat, and special one off scenarios here and there, and cool set pieces. In the few times you do drive vehicles, its bad... REALLY BAD. For example there is a tank section, and then later an combat airplane section, the controls on both are god awful. This just felt like a very rushed and poorly thought out Call of Duty. It released at about the time when the series really started to go downhill in a very noticeable and clear way that the direction of CoD is going in the wrong direction. This isn't the worst CoD, but there are better ways you can spend your time with the series.
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Dec 19, 2023 08:43
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i just beat doom (1993) episode 6: sigil 2 after recently beating doom (1993) episode 5: sigil on the steam deck and two things struck me. one, the OLED screen really makes it pop. it looks incredible. the second thing that struck me was the innumerable shower of hot lead and burning plasma. i've not struggled like this with a game in a while. it's pretty hard and playing on a controller doesn't help. but the level design was really remarkable in both episodes. i'm a noob with doom .wads but i was taken aback about every two minutes with how this 30 year old game felt, played, and looked. amazing. A+, strongly recommend both episodes.
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Dec 19, 2023 09:46
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Foul Fowl posted:i just beat doom (1993) episode 6: sigil 2 after recently beating doom (1993) episode 5: sigil on the steam deck and two things struck me. I beat Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince the other day, including what little meaningful post-game content I could find (some extra bosses and arena fights). I enjoyed it all the way through, although I found the mechanics a bit opaque and unexplained at times and didn't care much about the story. Other DQM fans seem to be saying it's a bit of a step back from the last couple of games in the series, but I never had a 3DS and don't speak Japanese so the last one I had access to was Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 - compared to that, the new one seems like an upgrade to me! I'm probably not gonna keep playing just to collect all the monsters, but will certainly pick it back up if more content is added as DLC later on! "Collect [thing] for its own sake" doesn't do much for me even when I enjoy the collecting, I need "collect [thing] in order to [overcome challenge]".
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Dec 19, 2023 10:42
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Beat the main quest of The Iron Oath. It's a "manage a mercenary company" type of strategy game. While I did enjoy it overall, it still seems to miss something, y'know?
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Dec 19, 2023 20:51
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Got all cheevos in Star Ocean The Second Story R. It was never quite in the highest echelon of my PS1 JRPG faves, but it was absolutely top of the second tier, and this remake basically captures all that magic and more. Good poo poo all around.
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Dec 19, 2023 23:57
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Just beat resident evil 7 and still not sure how I feel about it. Great atmosphere, but I hated most of the dialog and essentially being a pair of sentient arms was way too video games to really hit the level of immersion the devs were clearly aiming for.
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Dec 20, 2023 00:37
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I beat Panel de Pon on Super Hard, I do this every weekend to make sure my reflexes and complex logic are still working.
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Dec 20, 2023 01:37
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the rat fandom posted:Just beat resident evil 7 and still not sure how I feel about it. Great atmosphere, but I hated most of the dialog and essentially being a pair of sentient arms was way too video games to really hit the level of immersion the devs were clearly aiming for. I get what they were aiming for, but Capcom's refusal to show us Ethan's face was just so weird. It'd be one thing if he was a blank slate of a character, but compared to other RE protags he had actual wants and desires that extended beyond "trying to survive this nightmare I'm stuck in." I'm not claiming that he was a character with depth, but of all the RE characters they could have picked to be faceless I think he was the worst one. Anyways, just wrapped up the main portion of Powerwash Simulator, and man, what a relaxing game. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did
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Dec 20, 2023 02:30
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I just beat Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and wow what an underappreciated gem of a game. Now I want to replay it just so I can try and spot all the foreshadowing.
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Dec 20, 2023 03:00
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Get Innocuous! posted:I just beat Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and wow what an underappreciated gem of a game. Now I want to replay it just so I can try and spot all the foreshadowing. That's what just doggies do!!!
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Dec 20, 2023 04:38
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Shinji2015 posted:I get what they were aiming for, but Capcom's refusal to show us Ethan's face was just so weird. It'd be one thing if he was a blank slate of a character, but compared to other RE protags he had actual wants and desires that extended beyond "trying to survive this nightmare I'm stuck in." In 7 it makes sense because the environments are cramped and you gotta spend time looking at every nook and cranny for items. This wouldnt work in 3rd person. In Village the environments are more open and there's less "we hid a coin in this flower pot".
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Dec 20, 2023 07:35
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the Outer Worlds: Spacers Choice Edition I did a new playthrough of the Outer Worlds, but this time on the Spacers Choice Edition, which is a complete overhaul of the game on Unreal Engine with a brand new lighting and shadow renderer that makes the gameworld look a lot more unique and interesting. Having been a bit disappointed with Starfield has made me appreciate the Outer Worlds that much more. It is everything that I wish Starfield was, albeit on a smaller scale than I would have liked. Interesting main story, characters, weapons, world, and a UI that doesn't suck. I really truly believe the Other Worlds is a hidden gem that is very under appreciated. Really hoping the sequel gives the game the love it really deserves. If I had to knock it for anything its that it wasn't ambitious enough, and the writing doesn't quite rise to the level of Fallout New Vegas, or Pillars of Eternity II. Obsidian needed to get Josh Swayer on board with this game, but I still appreciate and like what the writing team put together. 9/10
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Dec 21, 2023 05:38
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Beat The Great Ace Attorney. Only took me...uh a few years. Look I get distracted easily, and there is a real problem in the game of bloated dialogue. Anyway otherwise it was pretty good. Not my favourite Ace Attorney game but definitely near the top. Just gotta finish up the little side story stuff to get that plat.
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Dec 21, 2023 07:19
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I just finished Sea of Stars over the weekend - the game was pretty good and hit a lot of the same notes that the SNES-era JRPGs did. However, I was fairly disappointed in the final act of the game and specifically the ending. It feels like there were a couple of story elements that ultimately amounted to nothing. Given the price and how solid the rest of the game was, I would still say that it was a good game overall. Sounds like they're going to do some DLC, so maybe they'll revisit some of the poo poo they left unresolved/resolved lazily.
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Dec 22, 2023 17:52
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I just beat the 2021 Myst on "randomized" mode, and then went back to MystRemastered to beat that as well. I'm trying to beat the game in under 2 minutes, but it's kinda hard to do.
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Dec 23, 2023 02:41
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Dead Island 2 Was really surprised by Dead Island 2; the story, characters, environment, and graphics are all great. Its such a well designed game in many ways, and doesn't bog itself down by trying to make an overwhelmingly huge gameworld. If I had to change anything, it's that it feels too gamified in its design, and there are a lot of repeating puzzles, and needing to find things like batteries to open doors. But the melee combat feels good, and the crafting isn't a chore. There are also some really funny and well done side quests, and collectables. Also loved Dead Island 2's graphic violence, and how they implemented zombie body destruction with organs that can fly out of dead bodies if enough damage is done. It manages to be both funny and gruesome. 8/10
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Dec 23, 2023 21:04
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I said come in! posted:Dead Island 2 I was surprised when that came out and I heard good things about it, it was such a long gap after the first game, which I thought had disappeared into obscure mediocrity. I'll pick it up if I see a good sale price when I'm needing more to play.
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Dec 23, 2023 21:24
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I've beaten two picross games! Logiart Grimoire and Khimera: Puzzle Island Logiart Grimoire is fantastic, featuring over 300 puzzles and non-linear progression which gives you access to tons of different puzzles of varying difficulty right from the beginning. There are three assist options you can turn off for "no assist" rewards, so even if you're new to Picross I feel like this would be a great game. Granted, I haven't looked at the tutorial so I can't say whether it's good. The game unlocks new puzzles as you've completed a certain number of already available ones, and the artstyle helps a lot. Unlike a few other Picross game, this title doesn't look clinical and empty, instead featuring a strong sense of identity with its purple color scheme, music, and the presense of the mascot who's a central figure in the plot, as well as just a flavor text provider. The only new thing this game does is that each puzzle turns into a card you can mix with other cards to create more puzzles according to clues given to you in a sort of a Doodle God way but with strong hints towards what to mix with what. Whenever you "craft" a puzzle wrong you might also receive a brand new random picross which in lore is described as a failed attempt at creating a picture by a game's mascot. It's a cute feature and pretty funny way to introduce a few puzzles that don't really look like anything because the wizard you talk to can't draw. If there's one thing that bothered me a bit about actual picross is that the most complex puzzles - 40x30 - are way too big. Even when running the game in full screen those were just a chore to complete. I've had my PC restart as I was nearing the end of one of those and it annoyed me so much I turned on insta-notifications about mistakes because I really didn't want to do it again. Other than massive puzzles, which there are very few of, the game is great. It's decently challenging with very few puzzles requiring you to do a symmetrical object or the ones that pretty much give you the answer to how the borders should be arranged right away. It took me 42 hours to complete the game, and it seems like it might get even bigger, though I imagine not by much. Khimera, on the other hand, while charming, seems to be made with newbies in mind. It's an adorable game with some story and unlockables you can purchase by completing puzzles with no assists or under (very generous) par. Unlike Grimoire, lots of puzzles do require you to start on the perimeter or are made in such a way that only a few completed fields you'll be given enough info to start marking important spots. There is one weird thing I've noticed: if you activate help with greying out numbers on a column/row once they are entered, computer sometimes helps a bit too much. It's a little hard to put it into words, but I've tested it a few times, but it seems AI responsible for crossing out numbers in the given column or row will actually fill out the correct number even if the player should have no idea which is it. Say you have a row of three 1s, and you know that one of them is somewhere in the middle? In Logiart, AI would not grey out any 1s until you're sure that there's nothing else close to beginning or end. Here, however, once you cover it around with X marks, the system might grey out the first 1 of the row of numbers, suggesting that, indeed, all the other ones come later to the right. It's a bit unfortunate since I'm trying not to use hints of any kind, but they seem to just appear sometimes. This might seem a bit negative, but only because it's a particular curiosity I found in this game and in no other titles of this genre I've played, and what else can you say about picross? It's the puzzle you know and presumably love, and if you don't, this seems like a great starting point due to its ease (granted, I've skipped the tutorial, so can't really say if it goes into great detail). Amazing music, cute visuals, pretty funny story that's not too long and can be skipped if you're not into it, and even some sense of progression if you don't just want to stare at one list of 300 puzzles and need some sense of pace. It's also DIRT CHEAP right now, going under a dollar on Steam for me.
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Dec 24, 2023 15:36
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Went through the three Star Wars: Vader Immortal VR episodes. I played them as they first came out on the Quest 1, and wanted to give them a try on the PC this time after I finally got the Air Link to work properly on the Quest 3. The best way I can still describe these games are just really elaborate theme park rides with skilled crew members who guide you from point A to B. Lots of spectacle, intertwined with brief moments to tell a pretty unique story. It's absolutely not a must-see, but as a Star Wars fan, I really like the production value and overall feel of it. A good 2 hours spent immersed in that setting.
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Dec 25, 2023 00:18
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pocket pool posted:I just finished Sea of Stars over the weekend - the game was pretty good and hit a lot of the same notes that the SNES-era JRPGs did. However, I was fairly disappointed in the final act of the game and specifically the ending. It feels like there were a couple of story elements that ultimately amounted to nothing. I liked it up to the actual sea of stars. Everything from that point on felt extremely rushed and lazy. The alternative ending for 100%ing the game is even worse, IMO. Just finished FF5 a few days ago and I'm excited to do a job fiesta next year. I did all the content except for the Shinryu fight and it did make the game drag out a little longer than it needed to be, but I'm still glad I did. Started FF6 again (Completed FF1-FF5 this year) and the leaps in quality over each game is remarkable.
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Dec 25, 2023 20:37
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Cyks posted:I liked it up to the actual sea of stars. Everything from that point on felt extremely rushed and lazy. The alternative ending for 100%ing the game is even worse, IMO. This is a problem with introducing a whole other world in almost any game, especially if it's later in the game - it feels like a separate thing that isn't as fleshed out as the first.
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Dec 25, 2023 21:12
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