What are you currently playing?

[TheMightyEthan]

A Plague Tale: Innocence

 

I don't know what I was expecting, but this ain't it. I'm only 3 chapters in, and apparently there are 17, so it may well change later, but so far this game is super linear, with stealth segments being more like short puzzles than the open stealthing areas we usually get. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just different. I'm not sure yet whether I like it, but I'm at least interested in continuing.

[Mister Jack]

Now that my badass new PC is here I'm taking advantage by playing some of the games I couldn't run well before. I installed the Master Chief Collection that a friend gifted me ages ago although it's obvious my former Halo skills have atrophied from disuse. Also got Sunset Overdrive, which is cool, and Vermintide II, which is a lot of fun. I may not be buying any new releases for a while, though. I can't think of anything coming out for the rest of 2021 that I want that's available on PC. That's okay though. I have a huge backlog to catch up on. I looked into VR headsets just out of curiosity but it turns out I don't like any of the PC options. They're either too expensive or too cumbersome so despite having a new PC I might end up waiting on the PSVR 2 anyway.

[TheMightyEthan]

Sounds like you have some cool stuff built up.

[Mister Jack]

For some reason, I dunno why, I was really in the mood to play some boomer shooters so I downloaded DUSK, Dread Templar, and Blood: Fresh Supply. After playing them for a few hours I remembered why I used to love these old-school shooters so much. I have nothing against modern shooters most of the time, but the sheer speed and mobility of these games is such a blast. I love never having to think about reloading in DUSK. You just jump, strafe, and hold down the fire button until everything is dead. I also like that there doesn't seem to be any hitscan projectiles in these games, at least not that I've seen. If you are agile enough you can dodge every enemy attack, even bullets. Plus, I really like that one of your most basic, common bread and butter weapons in DUSK is dual wielded shotguns. So satisfying. 

 

Dread Templar is still in early access but it's looking pretty promising. It shares a lot of similarities with DUSK in that it's a fast-paced boomer shooter, but there are a few differences. Unlike in DUSK, you do have to reload your guns in Dread Templar, but something really cool they did to compensate is that the swords you use as your basic melee weapon can be combined together into a spear that can then be thrown at an enemy. This does huge damage, but it also leaves you without a melee weapon until the cooldown resets. It's great though because it means your swords aren't simply a last resort and you'll always be looking for a good opportunity to throw the spear during a skirmish.

 

Blood: Fresh Supply is basically just the original MS-DOS game updated to run on modern systems with modern control and performance options. I'm enjoying it but not quite as much as the other two for the simple reason that the game is VERY stingy with ammo. I'm only four or five levels in so far but I have run out of ammo for all my guns many times already, and it's not because I'm a bad aim. This means I'm eventually forced to use the shitty pitchfork against large groups of enemies, enemies with hitscan guns. Naturally this gets me killed probably dozens of times in every level and I usually end up having to lure them around corners to stab them to death, which is more tedious than fun. I hear that this is only a problem in the early levels though, so I'm gonna stick with it and hope that it starts dropping more ammo soon.

[MetalCaveman]

Sekiro Shadows Die Twice

 

Two hours in, pretty fun so far, feels and plays way more like a Tenchu game than a Soulsborne game, most of the time is spent finding ways around enemies or ways to lure them away from one another so you can pick them up without alerting the others. It's more of a stealth game than an action game.

 

Biggest issue so far is that the aerial deathblow feels a bit wonky, there's been a couple of times were I've tried one, only to faceplant in front of an enemy after the prompt never popped up. Jumping is also a bit weird, I've already jumped to my death a couple of times, I'll try to jump a bit only to remain in place, push forward a bit more and I jump the next continent, missing my mark. Not too big of a deal so far, we'll see how it goes later on.

[Thursday Next]

I loved Sekiro sooooo much.

[TheMightyEthan]

Halo 3

 

Despite my backlog, this is what I'm playing. No joke, this might honestly be the best shooter campaign of all time. The gunplay feels amazing, the level design is superb while changing it up enough to keep feeling fresh. Everything about it just comes together so well.

 

My plan was to play all the Halos leading up to Infinite, but I'm gonna need a pallet cleanser after this just so it's not so fresh in my memory when I play 4, which does not benefit from the comparison.

 

[MetalCaveman]

God Eater 2

 

Spoiler

Well.... I didn't see that one coming, all this time I was sure Dr. Leah was in on the whole thing and that she would be one of the main human antagonists, then all of a sudden you get this message from her that simply says "Help me"

 

[TCP]

Spider-Man Miles Morales

About a month ago I watched Into the Spider-Verse for like, the 5th time. It's still the best Spider-Man movie and maybe the best non-MCU super hero movie in general. Anyways, it got my hyped for some Spider-Man so I've been waiting for last year's Miles Morales to go on sale. 

I'm enjoying it but it's definitely a lot of the same stuff over and over. Oh something is broken, so Miles has to fix it, either you're moving some equipment around or (more commonly) you're following electrical cables to get a generator/fuse box restarted.

I get that this is a video game so they increase the tech for upgrades and diversity of gameplay but I don't like that, between these games and the MCU, Spider-Man is becoming basically becoming teenage Iron Man.

This Miles isn't as charming as Into the Spider-Verse but it's still a fun take on the character. NYC is beautiful and I love the holiday/winter vibes to it. Changing the season is a great way to refresh a reused open world.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Is it a full game, or an add-on to Spiderman?

 

AER Memories of Old. Looks like it's not going to be a long game which is a blessing as it's only just good enough to keep my interest. But if you want a gimpy Skyward Sword get on it.

Edited September 13, 2021 by TheFlyingGerbil

[Mister Jack]

Miles is a standalone game but it's a shorter length. You can think of it like an expansion pack but one where you don't have to own the original.

[TheMightyEthan]

"Expandalone"

 

It's similar to Uncharted: Lost Legacy, or Halo 3: ODST.

[Mister Jack]

Wow, the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is pretty damn solid. In fact, given the "quality" of previous Final Fantasy ports done by Square-Enix, I'm honestly stunned at how good it is. The updated graphics actually look good, the redone music is excellent, and there are a ton of QoL improvements that probably aren't even noticeable to people who didn't play the original NES release. I mean, my god, I can walk diagonally! Pretty much my only criticism is the ugly, out of place font, and that's easily fixed with a text mod, so I can confidently say that this remaster is the definitive way to play Final Fantasy now. 

[toxicitizen]

Did you think I was lying????!??

[Mal]

3 hours ago, toxicitizen said:

Did you think I was lying????!??

I... I don't believe you or Jack. 

[danielpholt]

Apex Legends 

 

I found myself taking a second look at this a few months back and it's still as good as I remember at launch.....it's still got all those annoying bugs and an awful community too, which takes the shine off of it in many ways. That being said I find myself ignoring the very obvious negative aspects of this game and its community because the cycle and shooting is just so damn good.

 

Super Mario Maker 2

 

Turns out Mario Maker 2 is extremely my shit. Again. Nintendo did this game dirty. It should be something they support going forward, but it would appear that they've all but finished with it and whilst the basic game itself is in a decent place, it's community is itching for new styles, gameplay tools and interesting new features, Nintendo said no.

 

Rocket League

 

I think this might be my favourite game of all time. I've put thousands of hours into it and even now, over 6 years later I'm still playing it almost daily. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Has there ever been a shooter without a shitty community?

[danielpholt]

3 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

Has there ever been a shooter without a shitty community?

 

Splatoon?

 

I don't know, I think the game being at its core being a squad based FPS means that those community issues are pushed to the fore in a way that you don't see in other shooters. 

 

I've had squad mates go out of their way to drop me off maps, fly me through insta-death beams on drop and decide they just didn't want to deal with a solo-random and then quit out on me the second they get downed. It might only be a little micro-aggression here and there but when you're playing with others each and every time in a squad setting, it adds up to a hell load of blurgh.

[Thursday Next]

19 hours ago, danielpholt said:

 

Splatoon?

 

I don't know, I think the game being at its core being a squad based FPS means that those community issues are pushed to the fore in a way that you don't see in other shooters. 

 

I've had squad mates go out of their way to drop me off maps, fly me through insta-death beams on drop and decide they just didn't want to deal with a solo-random and then quit out on me the second they get downed. It might only be a little micro-aggression here and there but when you're playing with others each and every time in a squad setting, it adds up to a hell load of blurgh.

 

I agree, I think the only non-toxic FPS games I've played have been coop PvE ones. Like Destiny doing Strikes and Raids I've never encountered any toxic behaviour, similarly (although not an FPS) Ghost of Tsushima has a chill community.

[Mister Jack]

I decided to download Pokemon Unite on the Switch just because I was jonesin' for Pokemon content but I refuse to play SwSh. I normally hate MOBA games for a number of reasons but I decided to give this one a chance and I'm glad I did because it strips out a lot of the bullshit I normally hate with this genre. 

 

First, and most importantly, NO VOICE CHAT. If you've ever played a MOBA, you know voice chat is an absolute cancer on the genre, full of the most toxic kinds of people you will ever meet. No text chat either. If you need to communicate with your team there is a menu to send out prewritten messages that cover everything you would reasonably need to tell your team during a match. This alone is a huge factor that contributes to my enjoyment. I can't stand hardcore esports dicks.

 

But let's be super SUPER generous and pretend the MOBA genre doesn't have the worst community on the face of gaming. Is it still good then? Well yeah, I'm having fun, at least. It's not overly complicated. Each Pokemon has a regular attack, two specials that change as they evolve and level up, and one unite attack, which is basically an ultimate. You have to decide which special attacks they learn as they level up, but they only ever have two at a time. Trying different combinations of specials is where build variety comes in. You can also give them items to hold like in the mainline games and you can pick one active battle item that works on a cooldown. Even though it's only cosmetic, I also enjoy watching a Pokemon evolve from the first stage to their final form over the course of the match. It's quite charming. It's worth noting that there are no type advantages here. Don't expect your Squirtle to curbstomp an enemy Charmander. How well you do depends on skill and strategy, not type matchups, and thank god for that.

 

But then there's the ugly side. The microtransactions. I counted no less than five types of currency in the game, and I'm not even sure what they all do. Coins are unlocked through gameplay, tickets are earned through challenges, there's a premium currency you buy with cash, energy that you gain through matches, and fashion tickets. I don't even know how you get those, nor am I sure if that's all of them. Frankly, I'm not concerning myself with all that crap. I'm only worrying about coins and tickets. To be fair, I've already unlocked five Pokemon to use. Every Pokemon can be earned with coins, and when you first join there's a 14 day daily reward system that gives you three Pokemon for free if you keep coming back. The problem is if you're the type of person who cares about cosmetics, both for your trainer and your Pokemon. You don't have to use premium currency to buy cosmetics, but buying them with tickets is obviously going to take a lot longer. There's also a dreaded loot box system in place. Granted, as far as I can none of the cosmetics are loot box exclusive. It's just an extra unlock you earn every now and then. I'd much rather it wasn't in there at all, though. 

 

So would I recommend Pokemon Unite? Yes, but with a warning. If you have trouble resisting the siren song of cosmetics, you might want to stay away. They really want you to spend money on costumes and the prices on some of them are outrageous and insulting. If, however, you don't care about getting Pikachu a hat and just want to have fun battling with Pokemon, then this game is a pretty good time. 

[TheMightyEthan]

On 9/23/2021 at 6:57 AM, Thursday Next said:

I agree, I think the only non-toxic FPS games I've played have been coop PvE ones. Like Destiny doing Strikes and Raids I've never encountered any toxic behaviour, similarly (although not an FPS) Ghost of Tsushima has a chill community.

 

Yeah, I always had good luck with Destiny PvE, other than the occasional AFK person in a strike.

[danielpholt]

14 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

 

Yeah, I always had good luck with Destiny PvE, other than the occasional AFK person in a strike.

 

Apex has a fair bit of 'down-time' too, given that a large part of battle royal is just sort of walking around looting, it gives players a chance to be absolute dicks to one another. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock

 

This game is freaking awesome. I'd tried it once before but bounced off for some reason, and I don't know what's different this time but now I'm loving it. It's a TBS/grand strategy hybrid, kind of similar to things like Total War, though less complicated on the grand strategy map. Basically it's set during the original Cylon uprising, you have a map of four star systems which comprise the 12 colonies, and you construct fleets and jump around between planets battling the Cylons. You've got two kinds of resources at this level, a mineral called tyrium (or something like that), and another that basically amounts to "support" from the colonies. You use tyrium to build stuff and support to recruit officers and research new technologies. You can fight without officers but they make your fleets more effective if you have them. You get both resources from colonies. This is set when the colonial accords are new, so each colony isn't necessarily super convinced the colonial fleet is really going to help them, and if you don't do a good enough job protecting them than they can defect. Short of defecting, they can be more or less stable, and the more stable they are the more of the support resource you get from them. If they defect you lose both their support and their tyrium.

 

Once you actually engage in battle, you can either auto-resolve (which I haven't tried yet but I hear is actually fair, unlike most games like this), or control the battle yourself. There's the various classes of ships you would expect: fighters, corvettes, frigates, and of course battlestars (I haven't gotten any of those yet), but the real star is the battle system itself. This has what is probably my favorite battle from any strategy game ever. It's somewhere between turn-based and realtime-with-pause. Basically you give orders for what you want all your ships to do over the next "turn", and then once you're done you hit go, and everything plays out all at the same time, in realtime, for about 10 seconds before pausing again to let you issue more orders. It's the perfect balance between having time to think and strategize that you get with TBS, without the silliness and frustration of truly alternating turns and your enemy being able to take a bunch of actions without you being able to respond. It also makes the combat feel much more dynamic than your typical TBS.

 

So basically it's a really good strategy game, with the fact that it's in space (and Battlestar!) as icing on top. I would say this game is criminally underrated, but there are about 7 expansions so they apparently think it's successful enough.

[danielpholt]

Marvels Avengers

 

Went into this knowing full well that it was a bit of a let down, but I wasn't expecting to be outwardly bored after the first ten minutes. And then when we finally got to the combat, I found it to be rather underwhelming, aside from the Cap/Black Widow combat which has a bit more 'Batman Arkham series' too it. 

I've just found

Spoiler

Bruce

, I'm going to give it another hour but if I don't find anything to grab onto I think I'm going to leave this one in the dust. What a disappointment. 

[MetalCaveman]

Metroid Dread

 

HOLY COW.... I thought I'd be playing a Metroid game, turns out I'm playing a horror game.

 

I'm jumpy like a pogo stick, so that's probably why, but still

 

Spoiler

every time I enter an EMMI zone my heart starts racing, it's a lot of "What the fuck?! Where the fuck?! Why the fuck?! Nooo- *dead*"

 

Thankfully the game loads pretty fast, otherwise all these deaths would be quite annoying.