What are you currently playing?

[MetalCaveman]

I'd love to play as Carver one day, I've played DS3 coop before, but only as Isaac.  

[TheMightyEthan]

I just played the Immortals Fenyx Rising demo on Stadia (you don't need a subscription to Stadia to play it), and it was pretty good, definitely has me looking forward to the full game. It was played basically like a more fantastical Assassin's Creed Odyssey, though with even less emphasis on stealth. I actually liked the combat more than ACO though, I think because it was more fantastical, so like the dodge move was more like a blink, and took you farther, that kind of thing. The Breath of the Wild influences are even more apparent than they were in ACO too, but considering BotW was my game of the decade that can only be a good thing.

 

Unrelated to the quality the game itself, Stadia is not as good as I remembered it being (coincidentally the last time I used it was the ACO demo). Latency was still great, barely even noticeable, but damn image quality was bad. I expected it to be like a Youtube video, but it's worse. Definitely not the way I would want to play games at home on the TV, though I can definitely see why it would be attractive if you don't want to spend $$$ on dedicated gaming hardware.

[Thursday Next]

I've been playing Super Hot Mind, Control, Delete on Stadia and have found the graphics pretty good. What's your connection like there? I noticed that there was a lot more positivity on the Stadia Reddit as more people actually tried the tech and found it to work really well.

[TheMightyEthan]

My connection is 160/20 Mbps, I even ran a speed test during the demo to make sure that wasn't the problem and it showed 145/18 Mbps (which makes sense if the game was using the other 15/2). It looked okay when the screen was mostly still, maybe a little soft but not bad, but whenever there was a lot of fast motion it got pretty bad, like the bitrate was set too low. And latency was great, so it didn't feel like I had a bad connection, everything was very responsive, it was only the image compression.

[TheMightyEthan]

For reference, it was about the same quality as this video: 

 

 

ie, pretty good, specially when there's not a ton of fast movement, but definitely not as good as playing it on local hardware.

[Mister Jack]

World of Horror is pretty cool. I guess it counts as a roguelike? Each game lasts between 1-2 hours if you make it to the end and it changes every time so yeah, that seems right. The old school point and click interface isn't especially intuitive and the tutorial isn't as helpful as it probably should be but once you understand what you're doing it's not really a problem. This game takes place in Shiokawa, Japan and has you play as one of many different characters who are investigating supernatural mysteries in order to to stop the revival of an Old God. Which god you're trying to stop can be changed with each playthrough and each god has a different penalty to make it harder. For example, if the Old God of your playthrough is Cthac-Atorasu then you're rendered unable to run from battle. If it's Ithotu then you and enemies will both deal double damage.

 

This game really makes you feel the pressure of the time limit. Every action you do slowly raises something called the doom meter. Resting to regain your HP and sanity also slowly raises it. If the doom meter gets to 100% then the Old God awakens and the world ends so you really can't screw around and waste too many actions. This game is a lot like a tabletop game in the sense that it's all about stat checks. During your investigations at different locations you'll encounter various creepy and supernatural events and if you choose to confront them then the outcome depends on a dice roll. Success can get you experience, heals, or even items while failure means taking a hit to your HP, sanity, or doom meter. You can't just run away from everything either because that's an automatic sanity penalty so you have to pick your battles carefully. To make matters worse, after every mystery the Old God's influence will increasingly corrupt Shiokawa and make it more dangerous, either by taking away valuable resources like the shop and clean water or by perverting the town itself to nerf your stats and add more enemies.

 

Combat was the thing that confused me the most for a while but that really comes down to the tutorial not being thorough enough. It's turn based and on each turn you have 200 "time points" to spend. You can choose various actions between offensive, defensive, support, and spiritual actions, each one taking a certain amount of time to perform. Weapon attacks depend on your corresponding stat. Knife attacks are based on your DEX stat and while the damage done never changes, a higher DEX stat means each swing takes less time to perform. Likewise, using a baseball bat will check your STR stat to determine how many swings per turn you get. Each character excels in a different stat so everyone will be better with different kinds of weapons. So far I have found that the best way to win is to prioritize leveling up whatever your weapon stat is. Things like perception and charisma can be helpful in getting you allies or lowering your doom meter, but extra attacks per turn is just too useful to pass up. Of course, when you level up you also have the option of sacrificing a stat increase for a heal to your HP or sanity instead, and there will inevitably be times when you're hurting so bad that you just can't afford to pass it up, especially during times when your doom meter is high or you can't go back home to rest. It's all about risk vs reward.

 

This game is in early access and it's still in the process of adding new characters, items, mysteries, events, Old Gods, and even mod support. There are some areas that still need improvement. Spiritual actions, the only thing that can hurt ghosts besides throwing salt at them, are way too difficult and unreliable to be useful and need a serious buff. Some of the characters are also borderline useless compared to others and need to be balanced. Thankfully, the devs have acknowledged these issues and are working to fix them. Even in its unfinished state it's a pretty fun game and I look forward to seeing it fully realized.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Mister Jack

[TheMightyEthan]

I ran out of stuff to play while waiting for my PS5, so I decided to get Gamepass since I qualified for a $1 introductory month. Tried several things on there, finally stuck on Rage 2. It's not the greatest game ever made, but it's quite a bit of fun. Much better than the first one so far.

[danielpholt]

7 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

I ran out of stuff to play while waiting for my PS5, so I decided to get Gamepass since I qualified for a $1 introductory month. Tried several things on there, finally stuck on Rage 2. It's not the greatest game ever made, but it's quite a bit of fun. Much better than the first one so far.

 

Gamepass just added EA Play if you're interest in erm....year old sports games, a few middling NFS games or maybe Anthe..............Ha what Am I saying. No one's interested in Anthem. 

 

But seriously. Gamepass is awesome.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I'll probably cancel it after this month, but then get it again when The Medium comes out.

[MetalCaveman]

Bloodborne The Old Hunters

 

Keeping with the theme of DLCs that really want you dead, this thing is not playing around, really fun though, and some of the best music in the game. \m/ \m/

[TheMightyEthan]

I've been kind of dabbling. I started New Game Plus on Miles Morales so I can get the platinum on that, I finished Bugsnax and Super Mario 3D All-Stars (thoughts in the Games You've Beat thread), and I started Detroit: Become Human from the PS+ Collection.

 

I only played the first level of Detroit so far, but it definitely piqued my interest. The differing approaches was cool. Hopefully the rest of the game holds up. The most impressive thing is the graphics though. Like holy shit, I can't believe this is a PS4 game.

[TheMightyEthan]

I've been playing Immortals Fenyx Rising (which definitely should have a colon in it).I'm only a few hours in, but I'm really liking it so far. I don't think the comparisons to Breath of the Wild are really fair, there is definitely some influence there, especially at a surface level, but it doesn't seem like it's trying to be a BotW clone. It really plays a lot more like one of the recent Assassin's Creed games, although I'm enjoying it more than those. I especially like the more light-hearted, cartoony tone and aesthetic, it's something we don't see very much in AAA games outside of Nintendo, and it's really refreshing. It seems like even fantasy games now think they need to feel grounded in a base level of "realism", and then add their more fantastical elements on top of it. Immortals just throws any sense of reality out the window and runs full into cartoon reasoning, and I love it.

[Thursday Next]

Played the demo on Stadia and found the Zeus / Prometheus banter really grating.

[TheMightyEthan]

I like it, but it's also not near as constant in the full game as it was in the demo, and it doesn't keep cutting to them the way it did in the demo, it's just voiceover when they do talk.

[MetalCaveman]

Spider-Man Remastered

 

Spoiler

I really wanted to go full Punisher on that Screwball lunatic, I saw the "twist" coming but still, by the end I was just like "If I dropped her from Avengers tower without a parachute, no one would notice right?"

 

The social media posts after that ain't helping.  

 

 

[Thursday Next]

Demon's Souls - Back in Boletaria

[TheMightyEthan]

I just realized this thread is more than 10 years old, which is nuts.

 

I'm playing Dirt 5 and really liking it so far. One of the coolest things is that you can feel through the adaptive triggers when you have traction and when you don't, which makes controlling the car so much more precise. By the end of the first race I already found myself instinctively feathering the throttle to stay right on the edge of controllability. It's easily the best 3rd party use of the DualSense I've played so far. Even counting 1st party, only Astros and maybe Sackboy are better.

[MetalCaveman]

Spider-Man Miles Morales

 

Spoiler

Kinda sad to learn that venom powers aren't VENOM powers, I was hoping to do some cool stuff with those, still, this electric stuff is kinda cool, Venom punch is awesome.  

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I was confused by that same thing.

[Mister Jack]

I only downloaded Shadow of War to test out the HDR on my tv but I forgot how much fun that game is, especially now with all the pay2win bullcrap removed.

[Thursday Next]

I'm nearly there on my first completion of Demon's Souls. Think I'm going to plat it. I normally find NG+ way easier than NG.

[TheMightyEthan]

Star Wars Squadrons in PSVR

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MetalCaveman]

What it feels like going through a certain area in Bloodborne

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

I started Bloodborne last night. I got to Old Yarnham, found a hidden ladder, circled around and opened a shortcut gate, then got killed by a big ol fatty with a big ol cleaver. I got him down to half health, so I thought I'd try again (plus I wanted my blood echoes back), and got killed again. So then I quit and played Death Stranding for a little while. Unlike the other two From games I've tried though (Dark Souls 1 & 2), I actually keep thinking about Bloodborne and want to go back, so it's possible I'll stick with this one, at least for a while.

[MetalCaveman]

That guy is a good way to practice interrupts, though you'll likely die a bunch.