What are you currently playing?

[toxicitizen]

20 minutes ago, MetalCaveman said:

Is it?

 

I did that last night.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

That the one where the dudes ask you to look into the death of the other dude, the mayor right?

 

Talked to the cop dude, learned the mayor was killed in that secret club, cop dude learned his partner was in on the cover-up, then told the Peralezes that it was complicated.

 

Guy was like "Wut you min complecated?"

Lady was all "Means we better be careful or we're toast you nugget!"

 

Then I left.

 

Is there more or did I miss something?

 

 

There's more to it. IIRC they'll reach out to you eventually about something else.

 

A lot of the side-quests are structured like that. You do something for someone, usually sort of related to the main quest, and then later on they'll call you about something else and it branches off from there.

Edited February 5, 2023 by toxicitizen

[MetalCaveman]

Ah gotcha, looking forward to that then.

 

I finished

Spoiler

Panam's

quest line (or I think I did, hasn't called me in a while, though I did get some texts lol), which started with a story mission and then branched into its own thing, thought the Peralez stuff would be shorter since from the start it was just marked as a side job.

[TheMightyEthan]

21 hours ago, toxicitizen said:

It's like the best quest of the entire game, dude!

 

Maybe they shouldn't have made it look like any other random side job then.

 

I'm half kidding. In general I think big open world games are too full of busywork, and I don't have the patience to do it anymore, so I think hiding major content behind apparent busywork is a good way to get it missed and that's on the dev. But, with Cyberpunk specifically I intend to replay the game when the DLC comes out, and now I understand it's a permeating design throughout the world that stuff is just deeper than I've come to expect based on other games, so I do intend to dive into a lot more of that stuff when I replay it.

[toxicitizen]

6 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

 

Maybe they shouldn't have made it look like any other random side job then.

 

I'm half kidding. In general I think big open world games are too full of busywork, and I don't have the patience to do it anymore, so I think hiding major content behind apparent busywork is a good way to get it missed and that's on the dev. But, with Cyberpunk specifically I intend to replay the game when the DLC comes out, and now I understand it's a permeating design throughout the world that stuff is just deeper than I've come to expect based on other games, so I do intend to dive into a lot more of that stuff when I replay it.

 

It's been a while so correct me if I'm remembering wrong here but aren't quests and busywork labelled differently? I may have the actual terms the game uses mixed up but I remember actual quests having one label like "jobs", while "gigs" are more like open-world busywork. Like you're walking next to a building and you get a call to break in and steal something and it takes you about 15mins.

 

So when something is labelled a "job" it's usually a good indication that it's a lengthier quest with more story importance.

 

I agree about the busywork thing in general, though. It's why I just can't bring myself to play the latest Assassin's Creed games. I enjoyed Origin fine but looking at that map full of markers gave me anxiety...

[TheMightyEthan]

I don't remember either, it's been over almost a year since I played it. That would make sense though, since that's similar to how they did it in The Witcher 3.

[MetalCaveman]

Yup, you have Main Jobs, Side Jobs and some other stuff that shows up in the Journal (houses, cars, and other stuff), then gigs are on the map, these don't show up on the Journal, you have to track them via their map icons.

[danielpholt]

Currently working my way through both Metroid Prime Remastered and HiFi Rush.

 

Metroid Prime is just as good as I remember, only now I can play it on the toilet. Might actually finish it this time, which'll be nice. 

 

HiFi Rush is a game I've been playing in fits and starts for about 2 weeks now. I really like what it's doing, but for whatever reason, I struggle to jump back into it. That being said, I do intend to see this one through.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm also playing Hi-Fi Rush, and I liked it from the get go, but about halfway through it really got its teeth into me and now I'm completely obsessed. This game is so good.

[toxicitizen]

I tried Samurai Shodown the other night. Seems pretty fun but uh, the rollback netcode definitely needs some more work.

 

[MetalCaveman]

Bioshock 2

 

So far, the gameplay is way more fun that Bioshock, just being able to have a plasmid and weapon at the same time is a massive improvement, movement also feels faster.

 

Unfortunately it keeps crashing and the stupid 2K launcher keeps giving me issues, after every crash it'll fail to launch saying it needs permissions from the Epic Launcher lol.

 

Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles

 

A light gun game for the Wii, this game is HARD, playing on easy and even with that, I can barely make it to the boss with any ammo, still fun though.

 

Demon's Souls

 

Yup, enough time has passed since I played Elden Ring that I decided to go back to this and get some of the trophies I'm missing, only need 3 more, unfortunately, one of those is the get all rings trophy.

[MetalCaveman]

Resident Evil 4... Wii Edition

 

Awkward controls aside, the sight turning red when on top of an enemy makes things so much easier lol.

 

Resident Evil 4... HD (2005)

 

Might as well try and get the last achievement, though I was not prepared for professional difficulty lol, aiming is also way harder than on Wii, Leon shakes like he's made of gelatin.

[Thursday Next]

Dead Space (remaster)

 

Never finished the original, I think a Final Fantasy came out, which distracted me, and then a new console dropped, and before I knew it, the moment had passed.

 

It's as good as I remember it. I'm playing through with just the plasma cutter and really, it's so satisfying and effective that it didn't need any extra weapons (except maybe the flame thrower for the wee bug things that swarm). The stomp feels so heavy somehow. Love everything about this game. Combines the best of Event Horizon and Aliens for some great scares and action. Now that Horizon Call of the Mountain is done, looking to focus on getting this completed.

[Thursday Next]

Forspoken

 

Done with Dead Space, before I jump into Jedi Survivor I'm giving Forspoken a go. It's really tough not to jump to Jedi, Forspoken is taking a lonnnnnnngggggggg time to get going. I don't mind the back and forth sassing between Frey and Cuff, what I do mind is that I feel like I've been playing for a few hours now and I'm still being locked into walking around while people exposition at me. I have had about half an hour where I was allowed to run around, parkour a bit, fight some things, and collect some materials, before I was dragged off for a bunch more exposising. I get the main story beat. A Thing That Happened has happened. The world is full of monsters and bad stuff. Humans are clustered in the few remaining safe settlements. None of this is rocket surgery, let alone brain science. Just let me parkour around some more and do magics on creatures. Please!

 

Oh one specifically weird thing, some of the transitions are... choppy. For a game that likes to take your hand and walk you excruciatingly slowly through story beats, there is a bit early on where you are captured by the locals in the magic world. You walk up to a castle, see some guards, shout "Hi, it's me, the protagonist!" and then... the screen just goes black and then you are in hand cuffs with guards forcing you to the local courthouse. It's such a hard cut that it felt like the devs had no idea how to get someone who can throw magic rocks and do magic parkour to be captured by a bunch of mundanes with pointy sticks that they just sort of dodged it. No like "You have been throwing rocks at monsters for the last half an hour, why not throw some at these clowns?" and "No way, throwing magic rocks at monsters is ok, but I won't hurt people, let's go along with them, I'm sure they can be reasoned with." or whatever, just, she's in handcuffs now, w/e, deal with it. Really discombobulated me.

[TheMightyEthan]

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

 

So, my copy of this arrived early. Like way early. Middle of last week. Anyway, I'm about 30 hours in and so far it's really good (surprising no one). I actually think in "objective" terms it might be better than Breath of the Wild, though it's obviously very similar to Breath of the Wild so it lacks the wow factor that game got. Some of the design changes they made I won't go into, but I think for the most part they work really well and improve the experience. I'm not in love with it like I was with Breath of the Wild, but I really really like it.

[Mister Jack]

I'm recovering from surgery right now and can do pretty much nothing but lie down all day so I've gotten back into Pokemon Unite on my phone/Switch, which is honestly a godsend right now. It turns out I picked a good time to pick it up because there's an anniversary event going on to get Mewtwo for free, plus I finally got that Pirate Cinderace costume I wanted through a daily prize drawing. Being laid up sucks, but sometimes it's the little things that keep you going.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

had  a bit of a moment getting back into playing. ToTK, and finishing Detroit Beyond human. Started on Moonlighter and ran out of steam. Think I'm on the third dungeon.  I don't think it's bad, just not my sort of thing - I don't look forward to getting back to it and don't lose time playing it.

Think it might be because I want to get Assassin's Creed Valhalla but had thought I was saving it until I got a PS5 but still have no desire to pick one of them up. so feel in some sort of strange limbo with that one.

[TheMightyEthan]

My wife loved Moonlighter, but it wasn't for me either.

 

For what it's worth, I think Valhalla is widely regarded as the worst of the nu-style Assassin's Creed games.

[TheMightyEthan]

Starfield! It's pretty good.

[Mister Jack]

Baldur's Gate 3. I'm having some crashing issues with the PC version that need to get sorted out, but when it works it's fantastic. It's like a next-gen, turn-based, more polished version of the original Dragon Age, but with even more freedom. Battles and skill checks are based on dice rolls, seeing that this is a D&D game and all, and a lot of times if you so choose you can find nonviolent solutions to conflict if your charisma is high enough. Actual battles can be pretty tough, and on the surface the odds can seem impossible sometimes, but with some smart thinking you can overcome battles that are stacked against you. I'll give an example. I fought a giant spider boss who would spend her turns summoning five more spiders to come and attack me, so trying to fight her head on would be insane. However, whenever she perched on one of the bridges made of spider webbing I would set the web on fire and cause her to drop down and take massive fall damage. By getting rid of the bridge I also forced the backup spiders to waste a turn teleporting across the gap to get to me, where they became easy pickings for my party. It feels deeply satisfying when you manage to win by thinking outside the box like that. You can do things like shove enemies off of cliffs, dip your weapons into nearby poison or fire, cut or shoot down hanging braziers to start fires, throw flammable chemicals at torches or campfires, electrocute water sources, and turn nearby wild animals against your enemies. As far as I can tell, it is also possible to kill every NPC you run into if you feel like being an evil bastard. At least, I haven't run into anyone yet where it did not at least give me the option. Oh, and if you play this game do yourself a favor and make sure you have someone in your party who can talk to animals because it is highly amusing, not to mention useful.

[Mister Jack]

Taking a break from Baldur's Gate for a bit to play Lies of P and ho-lee fuck this is hands down the hardest soulsborne game I have ever played and it isn't even close. You thought Sekiro was hard? You thought Bloodborne was hard? Imagine a game where every single boss is like fighting the hardest boss of a typical From game. I'm seeing From veterans getting filtered by the second boss of the game, and even the minibosses scattered around the levels frequently kick my ass. Hell, I am getting killed by normal enemies way more than I ever do in any From game. It's because the primary defense mechanic of this game is parrying, which is not only much less forgiving than Sekiro but enemies are also way more aggressive and prone to doing fast combos on you, with every hit needing to be parried with perfect timing. You'd have to be a masochistic lunatic to subject yourself to this kind of punishment. Anyway I'm on chapter 6 now so I'll probably finish it in the next few days.

[TheMightyEthan]

Still going strong in Starfield. 50/50 shot whether I get it wrapped up before Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty comes out next week.

[TheMightyEthan]

Dead Space Remake

 

I got a month of EA Play Pro for Jedi Survivor, so I decided to try Immortals of Aveum (not good) and this (pretty great). If I didn't already know that they had changed the layouts of the ship a little to make things flow better, I would think this was a 1:1 recreation of the original's levels, and that's pretty emblematic of the whole thing. Basically, it perfectly modernizes everything about the game in such a way that it seems like it's a perfectly faithful recreation, when in fact everything is improved. It's pretty amazing. Also this game is still great.

[Mister Jack]

Playing Asgard's Wrath II right now and holy hot damn this game is amazing. This might surpass Half Life: Alyx as the best VR game for me. At the very least, it's neck and neck right now. Anyone who owns a Quest headset absolutely needs to play it.

[MetalCaveman]

Onechanbara Z2 Chaos, it really does change things up lol, previous games you could just mash buttons and win without issues, outside of the blood mist enemies, which required a Cool Combo, this time around, you do have to be much more careful, enemies are more varied and aggressive, bosses deal a ton of damage and can take a while to beat.

 

There's a bunch of other changes too, overall, a much better game than before. \m/ \m/

[Mister Jack]

I'm loving the hell out of Palworld, and for me that's saying a lot because I usually have no interest in survival games at all. I think what sets this one apart is that there's more focus on building your base and less on managing hunger and piss meters and stuff like that I usually hate in the genre. There is a hunger meter for you and your pals, but it's not that hard to manage and once you get a farm going you never really need to worry about starving anyway. You'll be spending much more time building up your base and catching pals to put to work. That's really what I love most, all the different ways you can use your pals. Not only will they help you with building things, but depending on their element they can also do things like cook food, water crops, plant seeds, power electric devices, and more. You can even make special equipment to use them in unique ways out on the field. I built a special harness for my fire fox that lets me carry him around and use him like a flamethrower. I made a harness for my deer pal so I could ride him around. I built my grass squirrel...well, an Uzi. I gave him an Uzi. Don't go to the Palpagos Islands tomorrow.

 

Playing single player is fun, not to mention pretty challenging during boss battles, but I made a second character so I could join a friend's world and we had an absolute blast building up a base and hunting for new pals together. It's the most fun I've had in co-op in some time. While I didn't try it myself, you can also play on both official and fanmade dedicated servers that support up to 32 players. Maybe at some point I'll make a third character to give that a go.

 

Some people out there are ripping on this game because they say they blatantly copied several Pokemon designs, and some of them do look really similar, but I kinda...don't care about that? Yeah, I don't care if they ripped off the biggest media franchise on the planet. Getting up in a tizzy about it stinks of some real "leave the multi billion dollar company alone" vibes to me. Besides, the gameplay is completely different in almost every way. Actual pal battles happen in real time and you're actively helping out with whatever weapons you have on hand. There's really no comparison. 

 

The other criticism I hear is that it's too edgy and I feel like this is really overblown. There's no blood or gore whatsoever and when you kill(?) wild pals they just ragdoll with spirals in their eyes. The supposed edginess comes from the fact that the game gives you total freedom to do horrible things if you choose to do so without forcing or even encouraging it, but the amount of freedom can lead to some fucked up implications. For example, I had a human poacher take a shot at me with a rifle so I caught him in a pal sphere. Yes, you can capture humans. I took him back to my camp, grabbed a meat cleaver, and chopped him up for parts (the butchering was censored with a mosaic).  You can be as kind or cruel as you want to be and both approaches are valid. My personal style is to cherish my pals and keep them happy but also rain fire and death down on any humans who dare to cross me. It's a real hoot. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed an early access game this much and I can't wait to see where it goes in the future.