What are you currently playing?

[Mister Jack]

Multiversus also has crossplay across all platforms, which is what the account is for.

[danielpholt]

5 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

Multiversus also has crossplay across all platforms, which is what the account is for.

 

I'll take another look at some point. I just wish it wasn't so in your face. Maybe let me experience the game before you make me sign up and hand over my email address. 

[Mister Jack]

Fair enough, although if it makes you feel any better they haven't really sent me anything so far except notifications about updates to the game.

[TheMightyEthan]

Jurassic World Evolution 2

 

I was looking for something different, this was on Game Pass and I hadn't played a management sim for a while, so I decided to check it out, and I'm glad I did. After I finished the campaign I was not super high on the game, it was really short and there wasn't a lot to any of the levels, but then I discovered there's a second campaign, and when I started the second campaign I realized the first campaign was just the tutorial.  The first level of the second campaign took longer than the whole first campaign put together.

 

Anyway, I'm enjoying the second part, called Chaos Theory, a lot more. Basically there's one level corresponding to each of the first 5 movies (and a DLC that adds a level for the most recent movie, as well as a whole third campaign), and your task is to play the events of that movie but not have everything go to shit. I'm on the second Chaos Theory level now, and it's a lot of fun.

[MetalCaveman]

Been playing some demos:

 

Soulstice

 

Devs went all "What if we made a game that had cool graphics, cool combat and a fun and useful companion... and then we gave it the worst camera system of all time!"

 

Thus we end up with this, it uses that not-quite-fixed camera that follows you a bit before you move to the next area and it moves to its next fixed point, resulting in:

• Getting hit from enemies that you can't see.
• Camera freaking out when moving back and forth between certain areas.
• Geometry blocking your view when walking through narrow paths.

And some other fun issues that make this game kind of frustrating to play, shame really, the rest of it seems fun enough, if they fix the camera issues I might get it.

 

Anger Foot

 

This one was fun, I was worried it'd be one of those games were enemies die in one hit but you do too, thankfully you can actually take a couple of hits before dying.

 

You kick stuff, yeah, there's guns and other stuff, but the main combat is kicking stuff, there's even different shoes that give different buffs and abilities, neat.

 

Frontier Hunter

 

Well, this one I didn't play, downloaded the demo a while ago, tried to play today and... No more demo, you can only buy it, turns out the demo was time limited, so that's a thing.

 

Metal: Hellsinger

 

Absolutely love the concept, awesome soundtrack, cool gameplay, love everything about it and yet... It's not for me, the rhythm game aspect of it is a cool gimmick and something to set it apart, love how the music is tied to it and how things really kick off when you reach a certain combo, but it also made me keep my eyes glued to the rhythm bar instead of looking around and keeping track of enemies and the environment.

 

Wish there was a way to increase the volume of it, or have a different visual cue.

 

Still, love everything about it, it's not the game, it's me.

 

Edit: Way easier to get the rhythm right with headphones! \m/ \m/ EXCELLENT.

Edited August 27, 2022 by MetalCaveman

[TheMightyEthan]

Death Stranding

 

This is one of my favorite games of all time, so of course now that it's available on Game Pass I have to play it again. I was a little worried that replaying the beginning without all my ziplines and whatnot would feel like too much of a hassle, but nope, still great.

[MetalCaveman]

Death Stranding

 

This is gorgeous!

 

What?

 

Wait what?!

 

WHAT?!

 

The fuck was that?!

 

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!

 

DUDE! THAT'S

Spoiler

A FUCKING GIANT HAND PRINT WHAT THE FUCK!

 

Kinda sad I didn't get to

 

Spoiler

Ride around in that bike, looked pretty cool, RIP in Pieces.

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

lol, just let the story wash over you for now, everything will eventually make sense. Or if not sense, then you'll at least understand it. 

[MetalCaveman]

TREPANG2 (DEMO)

 

AKA You got some DOOM ETERNAL on my F.E.A.R.

 

The aesthetic and atmosphere is very much FEAR, there's even some horror stuff here, the combat on the other hand, is FAST, not quite with the same mobility as DOOM ETERNAL, but that's only because it's missing a grappling hook.

 

You have two special abilities, focus, which slows down time, and cloak, which makes you invisible. There's also some kind of stealth system but honestly, it's more of a way to set up enemies for max carnage than a way to sneak around.

 

Speaking of, both physics and gore are over the top, run into some enemies with shields? Slide into them and watch them fly sky high, shoot them with the shotgun and watch them explode into a red mist, leaving behind a trail of internal organs. Combine this with the slow motion of the focus skill and you have a symphony of bloodshed.

 

One of the best indie shooters I've played, definitively keeping an eye on this one.

[TheMightyEthan]

Terra Invicta

 

This is basically Xcom by way of Paradox grand strategy games, and it's really cool. Aliens arrive on Earth, are both covertly (and later not so covertly) trying to take over the planet, and you play as one of 7 human factions reacting to that situation. The factions range from Humanity First, who are basically ethno-nationalists, but the relevant ethnicity is just "human", through your standard Resistance, to the Protectorate, who thinks we can't win and should welcome our new alien overlords, and Exodus, who thinks we can't win and should flee to another star system.

 

It's an interesting system, because you're really only controlling your faction, not individual nations, but you can gain control of individual nations if your faction is able to come into power there. But then another faction can take it back from you. It also means that while different factions have different goals, not all of them are mutually exclusive. So like as the Resistance my goals are actually fairly well aligned with Humanity First, other than the whole fascism thing, I'm pretty directly opposed to the Protectorate, but I couldn't give less of a shit what Exodus is doing as long as they don't try to take over any of my countries in order to do it, which creates an interesting shifting web of interactions where you may or may not be in conflict with the other factions at different times.

 

It's not all Earth politics, you do colonize the solar system and build space fleets to fight the aliens, etc, but I haven't really gotten that far yet (I have a few mines on the Moon, Mars, and Ceres, and that's about it). It's in early access on Steam, and I really recommend it if it sounds interesting. Don't be scared off by the grand strategy aspects, I've bounced off every Paradox game I've tried but I'm really liking this one.

 

--

 

Alien: Isolation

 

Had any of you guys heard about this under-the-radar gem from 2013? It's good, apparently!

 

I wanted to play a horror game to get in the Halloween mood, and was going to continue my yearly Dead Space gaming with DS3, but I've heard that game isn't so much horror as it is action, and I had never gotten around to Alien: Isolation, so I decided to give this a go instead.

 

That's not strictly true, I did try it several (probably close to 10... :s) years ago, and bounced off when I ran into my first non-xenomorph enemies. This time I persevered, and I'm really liking it. It is starting to bug me that it seems like the alien is following me around specifically, rather than just sometimes I'm in the area it's in, so I'll have to see how that works out long term, but as of right now it's really cool.

[toxicitizen]

18 minutes ago, TheMightyEthan said:

Alien: Isolation

 

Had any of you guys heard about this under-the-radar gem from 2013? It's good, apparently!

 

I wanted to play a horror game to get in the Halloween mood, and was going to continue my yearly Dead Space gaming with DS3, but I've heard that game isn't so much horror as it is action, and I had never gotten around to Alien: Isolation, so I decided to give this a go instead.

 

That's not strictly true, I did try it several (probably close to 10... :s) years ago, and bounced off when I ran into my first non-xenomorph enemies. This time I persevered, and I'm really liking it. It is starting to bug me that it seems like the alien is following me around specifically, rather than just sometimes I'm in the area it's in, so I'll have to see how that works out long term, but as of right now it's really cool.

 

Alien Isolation is fantastic and it's a fucking crime that we never got a sequel. The campaign is a bit on the long side but there's just enough immersive-sim DNA in there for me to not mind. I've been meaning to give it a replay for years now although I don't think I'll have time for it this spooky season. Maybe I'll finally do Amnesia instead.

[TheMightyEthan]

It also holds up really well graphically. Granted, I'm playing at 4k with the Alias Isolation mod, but once you do that all the assets and everything are great, it's really only the character animations (particularly faces) that look dated.

[Grizz791]

Just been playing that new Disney game lately 

[Mister Jack]

Is it any good?

[danielpholt]

I've been bouncing around a few things of late.

 

Destiny: I've cooled on this since I got my Steamdeck, but I do plan on going back to it as the current season progresses. 

 

Trombone Champ: Plays well enough on the Deck, although I'd be lying if I said I was good at it. To be honest, I think that's kind of the point; it's all a bit silly, at least for a short while before the charm wears off and you're left playing a rhythm game without the ability to hit a note correctly.

 

Vampire Survivors : Picked this up before the price increase, and it's damn good fun. I usually play a run or two before I go bed. It's not overly involved (you literally just move your dude around the screen whilst he deals damage). I've had one run go longer than half an hour and damn if it didn't feel like a god. 

 

 

[MetalCaveman]

NFS Heat

 

The characters and story are all annoying as hell, the best way to put it, if you've watched the F&F movies, everyone is trying to be a more annoying version of Roman Pearce.

 

The actual racing though, is pretty fun, very NFS, which is to say, very arcadey, been playing with a wheel and honestly, though it is fun, I think this is the kind of racing game that doesn't benefit that much from using one, specially drifting, still don't know how to do that.  

 

Kinda more hyped for Unbound now that I've played a bit more of this one.

 

Dead Space 2

 

Going to try and play through the entire trilogy this month, DS is complete now DS2 is up, thought that I would have a hard time without the Zealot suit and weapon from PS3, but it turns out PC gives you a ton of special suits and weapons, so that's nice.

 

Death Stranding

 

Loving this game more than I thought I ever would, delivering packages is way more fun than you'd think.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm still working on Terra Invicta and Alien: Isolation, though I may be giving up on Alien. It's just too annoying how much repetition there is if the Alien gets you, and too much the Alien getting you when there's nothing you could have done to prevent it, besides just hide forever (which tbf is probably what I would do for real).

 

On 10/7/2022 at 4:23 PM, MetalCaveman said:

Death Stranding

 

Loving this game more than I thought I ever would, delivering packages is way more fun than you'd think.

 

[Mister Jack]

I liked Alien Isolation but yeah, my biggest criticism is that save points were too far apart, which is a bigger problem than it sounds like on paper. I actually think they could have solved this by, if not adding more save points, at least letting you open up shortcuts like in a Souls game so you don't have to backtrack as much.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Mister Jack

[TheMightyEthan]

There are a few shortcuts, but more of them would definitely help, so after going through a dangerous area you could loop back around to a save station through the shortcut without having to retrace all your steps. Having save stations farther apart does lend to a sense of danger, but it also degrades the experience if you do actually get killed. The first time I go through a dangerous area is super tense and scary, but the second time and subsequent times are just irritating, especially if I feel like I didn't get killed because of anything I did wrong.

[danielpholt]

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope

 

It builds on the first game in some nice ways; ditching the grid-based movement found in most turn-based games in favour of a movement zone that's a little more forgiving, getting rid of the star based ranking system and bringing in Sparks that allow for a little more customisation with regards to your characters and squad. 

 

It's far from perfect though. The 'open' hub-world thing they've got going on doesn't work at all for me; I've spent far too much time walking around these pretty uninteresting spaces, solving boring puzzles and trying to figure out how to get to my next combat scenario. 

 

All in all though I'm having a good time. Hopefully they find a way to make the next game more focused on the combat and less focused on the moving around between those combat scenarios. 

 

[Mister Jack]

In between Alyx and RE4, I enabled the developer mode on my new headset so I could do this.

 

 

[danielpholt]

Somerville - XBOX SERIES X

 

Not sure on this one so far. It's got all the trappings of a game from some of the people who made LIMBO and INSIDE, but it's just not hitting those same highs. I've done lots of walking. I've solved a few puzzles after doing lots of walking. 

 

It's not bad by any means, it's just not...grabbing me in the way LIMBO especially did. And maybe that's an unfair comparison to make....unfortunately it is the one that will be made. 

 

I think I'm half way through, there's definitely some interesting things here, but right now it feels like a poor version of something that was done better 6 years ago.

[toxicitizen]

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide

 

I had briefly tried one of the betas a few weeks ago but my friends and I pre-ordered and finally had a proper co-op session last night. Holy fuck, this game is great! Like, Vermintide was super fun but 40K just makes everything better. They really nailed the 40K aesthetic so it's a real treat to see the grim darkness of the far future (where there is only war) done justice in such high fidelity. Can't wait to play more!

[Mister Jack]

How's the performance? I heard it's kinda jank at launch.

[toxicitizen]

With ray-tracing (at max settings) on it can barely hold 60fps on my RTX 3080 at the best of times. It'll shoot up in an elevator or whatever enclosed area but when shit's going down it dips pretty hard. The most demanding area is, weirdly enough, the main hub. My framerate drops to the low 40s in it. It looks absolutely incredible, mind you, but yeah.

 

The game also kept crashing for my friend but that stopped (and performance really improved) once he turned ray-tracing off completely. He's on a 3060, though. I haven't done much tweaking yet but I'm hoping that with DLSS and the right settings I can get it to stay above 60fps even with ray-tracing on.