toxicitizen

I loved Thomas Was Alone, so I was going to be interested in Mike Bithell's next game regardless of what it was. But when it turned out to be a Metal Gear Solid VR-like stealth game, it instantly became one of my most anticipated indie games. I was a little worried about length because of the 20$ price point but according to reviews it's a solid 10 hours long. The scores are also pretty good overall, so that was enough for me to bite.

The Fall. I only had a couple days to kill before both Volume and Type-0 HD came out, so I decided to play something I knew was pretty short. The Fall somehow flew completely past my radar. It came out in May 2014 but I only found out about it at the very end of the year when Giant Bomb awarded it best story during their GOTY stuff. That got me instantly intrigued and I finally grabbed it during the last Steam summer sale. It's a side-scrolling adventure game (think point-and-click but without any pointing and clicking) with basic gun combat. I won't go into plot details because I don't want to spoil anything but suffice to say it's a pretty novel premise, it has some great writing and voice acting and by the end of it I was thoroughly hooked. I definitely recommend this one. It's an episodic game, though, so this is only the first part and it ends on a cliffhanger. I have no idea when the follow-up is due but I'm really looking forward to it now.

The crazy thing is that Dustforce actually kinda looks easier in action than it really is. Like, you'll get stuck on a section, go to the leaderboards to watch someone's replay and go "Oh, okay, I see what I need to do." Then you actually try it and it can easily be a couple hours of "AARRRGG WHY ISN'T IT DOING THE THING??!?!". To give you an idea of how insane the one above is, here's a "normal" difficult level. That's the last level I SS'd and it was one of the two that gave me the most trouble. I actually spent a couple days on that one alone and it actually looks sane compared to the other one.

Ronin. As expected, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was pretty much exactly what I expected from the demo, Gunpoint with turn-based combat with a little Mark of the Ninja thrown in. That's not the say the game is without flaws, though. The core idea is very, very good but the execution can be a little hit and miss. At first, the game seemed like it would be very short. I breezed through the first three chapters fairly easily in like 3-4 hours. But then I got to the final level of the fourth chapter and it was like hitting a goddamn wall. The game makes it a point to tell you "This isn't a stealth game. Just kill everybody.", but there were a couple levels that felt so goddamn impossible to take head on. The only way I managed to beat that fourth chapter level was by sneaking around and taking out as many enemies as possible before going into open combat. Even the final level didn't feel as ridiculously impossible. Another weak aspect is the story: there really isn't one. There's a hint of a backstory/context to what you're doing and I kept waiting to find out more about it but that never happened. And even though there are two possible endings, the only difference is whether The gameplay is an absolute blast, though. If you loved Gunpoint, I'm pretty sure you'll also love this. ---------- So, I haven't posted anything in this thread in a little while because I've spent the past few weeks playing almost nothing but Dustforce and SpaceChem, two incredibly challenging and lengthy games, neither of which I've managed to completely beat yet. But I just realized I can technically make two additional entries. I replayed OlliOlli in anticipation of its sequel's Steam release. It's every bit as good as it was on Vita but something feels a bit off with it. This is a game requiring very precise and quick inputs and at first I kept screwing up the landings and other timing-sensitive moves. When porting the game over from Vita, they somehow screwed with that and now you need to time yourself a little earlier instead of exactly on time. I feel like it ultimately made the game a little easier but I don't think that was intentional because OlliOlli 2 goes back to requiring the precise timing. Also, despite what I just said above, Dustforce. So, here's the deal: Dustforce has only a single achievement on Steam called Double S+ which requires you to earn a rank of SS on every single level. You're graded on two things in Dustforce: completion and finesse. What that means is, as long as you get all the dust and clear the level without breaking your combo, you got that SS. Getting that achievement was my goal. I managed to get that fucking SS rank on every single of the 64 base levels, some of which are pretty goddamn challenging. Seriously, some of the last few levels took me entire days to get just right. I'd have to play all goddamn day long before I developed the techniques and muscle memory required to SS them. By the time I was done, my playtime counter on Steam was past 90 hours. But here's the catch: when you clear all 64 levels, you unlock a new hidden area with even more difficult levels. The thing is, most of those extra hard levels were added post-release so there's only really one of them you need to SS to get the achievement, the one that was there at launch. Now, a lot of levels in Dustforce feel fucking impossible at first. But after a few hours of grinding at them, they quickly start to feel a lot more doable and eventually you get them just right. Not so with that final level. I got to it and just kinda went "What the shit is this even?!". I still haven't managed to clear the fucking thing with checkpoints enabled. I don't think I'm going to get this one. I mean, just look at this fucking load of horseshit: But I did manage to SS every normal level and that's something, damnit! So whatever, fuck you Dustforce!

Got it for "free" on GMG. It's 10% off but I paid for it entirely with store credit. Was lucky enough to win a £50 giveaway on Playfire like a month ago, right before they scrapped the entire rewards program, which converted to nearly 80 bucks in real-world money. I've been saving the credit for The Phantom Pain but it's still not available for prepurchase on GMG, so whatever. This one's pretty cheap so I have plenty left, anyway. Worst case scenario, TPP won't get a VIP deal and I'll have to pay like 10-15 bucks out of pocket. Not a big deal.

I skipped the Vita version of OlliOlli 2 when it came out because at that point the first one was already out on PC, so I just waited for the Steam release instead. I gave it a quick try earlier and it looks to be a nice improvement over the original. Should be fun. As for Ronin, I've been interested since the initial announcement but then it came out a few weeks ago and I kinda forgot about it. I was reminded of it by the current Devolver Digital publisher sale on Steam and noticed there was a demo. Gave it a shot and, yeah, it's pretty much Gunpoint but with turn-based combat and kind of a hint of Mark of the Ninja. The game already had me at Gunpoint. It also had me at turn-based combat. And again at Mark of the Ninja. I don't know why the fuck I didn't already own this, to be perfectly honest. This is going to be fucking awesome.

Man, Dustforce is fucking great but never before have I played a game that makes me go from one skill extreme to the other so frequently. I swear, it's like a constant cycle of "Hey, I think I'm actually getting pretty good at this!", then reaching the next set of levels and going "Wow, I have no fucking idea how to play this game..." It's so good, though. I just can't stop playing. Yesterday I actually wasted two big mugs of coffee while I was playing because both times I just got completely sucked into the game for 2+ hours and forgot to take sips.

Yeah but it's unclear how much progress has been made outside of that one area since they haven't actually shown anything else. And they keep making non-trivial changes like ditching a major story character entirely and replacing her with new a character whose name and role they apparently haven't quite figured out yet. I dunno, maybe I'm being overly skeptical here but they haven't really given me any reason not to be. Also, from what I understand the demo struggles to maintain a decent framerate. I mean, yeah it's demo, but that fits with the engine trouble story. They're also currently in talks with Avalanche Studios about borrowing some tech or whatever. Based on what was previously said in interviews, the popular theory is that they're having difficulty with data streaming and getting airships working. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider what Avalanche's flagship series is. Overall, it just really doesn't sound like a game that's roughly a year away from release.

What do you mean? How far did you get? I've also been playing all this time, and I've reclaimed some of the top spots on earlier levels. Looking at the leaderboards now, it looks like I'm still 3 planets ahead of you. I'm currently stuck on the final level of the 7th one. I usually stop playing for a day or two whenever I reach a defense level. Those kinda suck... Also, I think the leaderboards might be kinda glitchy. Sometimes it takes a minute or so before any scores other than mine will show up. There's also a bunch of people that showed up on the first world right after you started playing again and I'm pretty sure they weren't there before. The thing is, none of them seem to have any recently logged playtime. So they must've been there all along, I guess. They just weren't showing up, for some reason.

While I'm almost hesitant to say it, I think even S-E aren't quite that stupid yet. At least, I really hope so... They recently hinted at a 2016 release but the more new information comes out the less likely that actually seems. It really sounds like the game isn't anywhere remotely close to being done and the main reason for that seems to be them struggling with the Luminous engine. Kingdom Hearts 3 switched to UE4 and that looks to be progressing much more smoothly. Hell, even the FFVII Remake isn't running on Luminous. At this rate, FFXV will probably be the only game that ever will. That engine sounds like a massive failure and at this point they should probably just cut their losses and ditch it entirely.

I'm convinced that they don't. I mean, do I even need to go into how idiotic it is to keep allocating resources to patching that fucking demo? Also, I kinda don't get why the hype for FFXV is so insanely high. I mean, it's FF, I get it. I love the series as much as the next guy (if not more) and I want to play it yesterday and all that. But, ever since they re-revealed Versus as XV and started showing it all the damn time, something has been feeling increasingly off. And that sets off all kinds of alarm bells for me. It looked fucking amazing the first time they showed it, but everything they've shown over the past year has looked the same. It's clearly the same area, so I can't help but wonder: if the game really is only a year and a half out at most, then where's the rest of the game? For a game of this size, surely they must have something else that's ready to be shown? It's no secret that S-E has been struggling with HD game development since last gen, so I'm kinda starting to worry that the alternative to FFXIII's corridor design is that FFXV will either be 1) a very small world and you just keep doing stuff in the same general area over and over again or 2) have a larger world that's mostly empty, completely lacks variety and looks the same everywhere. Some googling tells me they claimed the full world will be 10 times the size of the Duscae region, so I'm leaning more towards 2 right now. I really hope I'm wrong and that they'll show something completely different soon.

Yeah, no level cap doesn't seem like a positive to me. Didn't they also already say that enemies don't scale? That's good but you kinda need a cap to balance that out, no? I was a little worried that they showed nothing but the sandbox-y stuff at E3 but now it's kinda starting to sound like that might actually be the main focus of the game. That would be such a massive fucking disappointment. I don't play Fallout to build a shitty outpost and "fuck shit up", as the gameplay trailer so eloquently put it... I love Fallout 3 despite its shortcomings but I really hope Bethesda aren't taking this one even further away from what makes Fallout, well, Fallout.

Oh fuck me, this looks amazing. This might actually be the first game I buy at launch/full price on Origin...

Honestly, it shouldn't be too difficult for most of them. I only worry about coming up with a working solution at first. Some of them would probably need to be redesigned from scratch if I wanted to make them anywhere near efficient. Especially the early ones, before I figured out some of the tricks you can use to save cycles. As for me, I've been getting back into Dustforce and SpaceChem lately but the past couple days I've been mostly glued to TIS-100. I've already solved about 80% of the main puzzle set. That game is so much goddamned fun, it's ridiculous. Especially considering that I don't always get that focused on my actual programming assignments...

Oh man, this is looking pretty good!

Don't worry TFG, I also got it. It was a good joke.

Hahaha, man it was kind of a pain in the ass trying to shave off just a cycle or two in some of them just to get back in first place. Looked ahead a bit and you still have some scores on the third planet that I haven't beat yet. Looked at my solutions and instantly went "Oh, hell no." Those things are a fucking mess. I am not looking forward to screwing around with them. Lol.

Do it! I wouldn't mind some competition to give me an excuse to go back and optimize some of my solutions. The leaderboards are populated from your friends list and the only other person that showed up was CrowKnow, and he stopped showing up around the same place as you.

Yeah, I just finished the fifth world today, so I'm about halfway through. You stopped showing up in the leaderboards a couple worlds back. I got stuck way earlier than you when I first played years ago, though, so it's pretty satisfying to see how much my problem solving skills have improved. It's almost like that computer science education is actually working! Totally worth the thousands of dollars in student debt. If I can manage to beat the whole game, that shit is going on my résumé.

Just came out of Early Access like a week ago. I've been really curious about it since I love Zachtronics' games and a literal programming game seems like it should be right up my alley. Then again, I was kind of terrible at assembly when one of my classes covered it... Anyway, speaking of Zachtronics, I also started playing SpaceChem again recently. On the first couple worlds, it was kind of annoying how every single time I came up with a solution to a level I'd end up at the leaderboards and there was Buttface Ethan with a score like twice as efficient as mine! But now that I'm more than halfway through the game, I picked up a few optimization tricks. So, I went back to the early levels and fucking destroyed your scores, Ethan! In your face! In your buttface!

Lol, you dun goofed. But yeah, considering how Ground Zeroes runs on my 960, I don't think The Phantom Pain is going to the game to justify getting that powerful of a card, anyway. It's cross-gen and Fox Engine is pretty well optimized. They haven't released the official specs yet but I'd be very surprised if a 970 wasn't more than enough to run it well at high settings.

Because AAAAAAAAAH only a month(-ish) till MGSV!!!

It's definitely watchable and it has some really good action sequences. But I found it pretty underwhelming overall. It's a massive improvement over the last standalone Wolverine movie, though. Yeah, John Wick is kind of shallow. You really need to love straight up action movies to enjoy it, because there really isn't much else to it. Gonna have to completely disagree about Gone Girl, though. Without getting into spoilers, 15 mins really isn't enough to properly get what kind of movie it is. The first half was pretty standard "Did Ben Affleck kill his wife?" mystery stuff but the movie shifts gears about halfway through and that's where it really won me over. But I dunno, I love mysteries and I love David Fincher, so the movie definitely had that going for it before it even started.

Yeah, if you thought Gone Home didn't have much of a story, especially compared to Stanley Parable of all things, then something is very wrong here. Did you rush through it without reading anything? I mean, Gone Home had actual characters that I still remember to this day. Stanley Parable is more of a glorified decision tree where the main appeal is "Oh, let's see what happens if I go left now!".