What Video Games Are You Currently Playing

Godrick was a big step up in terms of diffriculty, so instead I explored Limgrave East and did a bunch of those story lines (the fort, the man-wolf, the mariner). Just went down to the peninsula and beat that fort.

When it displays a message on the screen and you can't fight, but enemies still attack you is the worst. What a design flaw.

  On 1/17/2023 at 10:10 AM, Hail Sagan said:

That guy was a real menace for me as well. Not a boss fight but I knew things were going to be bad when I got hit with a cut scene. Good job sticking with the game. It’s stressful but I’m sure you’re doing quite a bit better already and it’s an immense and amazing world to explore. 

I haven’t played ER for a while but YouTube often gives the best farming spots for runes if you need to go up a couple of levels to make it easier.

if I can finish Elden Ring and get all the endings (I even completed the Melania story with summon help) then anyone can. I did have a few moments where I just laughed manically and put down the pad rather than launching it thru the tv but overall I really enjoyed it.

I finished Return to Monkey Island yesterday… ending was a little disappointing but I like the other games and humour etc. 

Sable is my next fix - style looks great.

  On 1/18/2023 at 10:50 AM, Grain Bastard said:

I haven’t played ER for a while but YouTube often gives the best farming spots for runes if you need to go up a couple of levels to make it easier.

 

if I can finish Elden Ring and get all the endings (I even completed the Melania story with summon help) then anyone can. I did have a few moments where I just laughed manically and put down the pad rather than launching it thru the tv but overall I really enjoyed it.

I finished Return to Monkey Island yesterday… ending was a little disappointing but I like the other games and humour etc. 

 

Sable is my next fix - style looks great.

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Yeah I just bought Sable on sale. Next on my list.

Elden Ring update: beat the rest of Weeping Peninsula and Godrick at Stormveil (getting the cooperator was key). Now in Liurnia trying to get the Flintstone key. Most unpleasant thing was losing all my runes to an invader in the Roundtable which I thought was a safe space. Beat the fucker after 30 tries and for some reason still didn't get the runes back. Thought I grabbed them every time before the fight began.

watching my brother play god of war : ragnarok.

dull and unengaging so far. seems like it's desperate to disguise how small it is? if it is big, it's currently the biggest tutorial i've ever seen.

Just Cause 4 - mainly bc it just went up on PS Plus Pass or whatever TF it's called. Pretty fun, mindless with excellent traversal mechanics. But, also, could see how this could get ultra repetitive. Perfect for blowing off steam/not caring too much about actually getting through it. 

Gravity Rush Remastered - midway through the first game. Fun little indie PS game, has a very anime feel in terms of the story etc. plus a fun mechanic. 

Oneechambara Origins - pretend you're playing Dead Rising but instead of being based on sort of third person shooting it's based on hack n'slash (e.g., Ninja Gaiden, DMC and Bayonetta). Bloody, borderline hentai, mindless fun with combat that is slightly jank but also probably deeper than it looks on first blush. Again, free on PS Pass and I went ahead and shelled out 10$ for the extra levels etc. cause GD it's FUN.  

  On 1/20/2023 at 3:55 PM, logboy said:

watching my brother play god of war : ragnarok.

dull and unengaging so far. seems like it's desperate to disguise how small it is? if it is big, it's currently the biggest tutorial i've ever seen.

They have a massive hidden section you can easily miss around mid-game that is worth exploring. I would not say the game is small, but it's also not true open world.

  On 1/21/2023 at 12:43 AM, onecaseman said:

They have a massive hidden section you can easily miss around mid-game that is worth exploring. I would not say the game is small, but it's also not true open world.

my initial impression was that it was using a series of zones as sections, like uncharted, to control exploration. now it's moved to a desert with skeletal caves, and it feels like it wants to be zelda.

Just finished the main story of God of War: Ragnarok. It's at least as good as the previous game. I love the combat and the exploration, but most of all listening to Mimir's stories and conversations. The voice acting is superb. 

It's hard to beat Sony's big triple A story driven games for entertainment.

played through Stray in the last couple of days and loved it. many feels were had. it was apparent from the off that this wasn't going to just be feline equivalent of goose simulator but it delivered well over and above to be a genuinely moving experience. people who hate on it (thankfully a small minority, it's received a lot of love) have no soul.

cuddled my catters extra hard afterward.

  On 1/22/2023 at 12:31 PM, usagi said:

played through Stray in the last couple of days and loved it. many feels were had. it was apparent from the off that this wasn't going to just be feline equivalent of goose simulator but it delivered well over and above to be a genuinely moving experience. people who hate on it (thankfully a small minority, it's received a lot of love) have no soul.

cuddled my catters extra hard afterward.

My daughter (much to my wife's chagrin - she hated it) repeatedly asks for us to play "cat game." I loved it an even on playthrough like 20 I still am movef by it (particularly  the ending). Lots of depth to the story/world building, particularly if you take the time to deviate from the main quest. Sad, beautiful game. 

  On 1/23/2023 at 1:11 AM, T3551ER said:

My daughter (much to my wife's chagrin - she hated it) repeatedly asks for us to play "cat game." I loved it an even on playthrough like 20 I still am movef by it (particularly  the ending). Lots of depth to the story/world building, particularly if you take the time to deviate from the main quest. Sad, beautiful game. 

yep. the start and the ending will pull on your heartstrings every time, if you have any.

if you think about it and digest it a little bit more, it's actually a fair bit less sad than it seems on the face of it.

  On 1/23/2023 at 2:24 AM, usagi said:

yep. the start and the ending will pull on your heartstrings every time, if you have any.

if you think about it and digest it a little bit more, it's actually a fair bit less sad than it seems on the face of it.

  Reveal hidden contents

the city is opened, the zurks are destroyed and the sentinels are shut down. so the companions can live in peace and flourish and go beyond their walls, and the cat can revisit anytime it likes.

the flash at the end hints that B12's consciousness has been absorbed/copied across even though its form has been destroyed.

the cat almost certainly finds its pals/family again because the whole area is not really that big in diameter and - if you trust this guy's number-crunching - it returns to the surface in close proximity to its home.

 

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agreed, that theme is a big part of the game and colours it throughout.

personally I'd love to see a sequel or expansion, but it has to make sense to the devs to do so. story-wise, it could wrap up there and be perfect. the studio really exercised good judgement in how they crafted this game and planned it out (i.e. it didn't sink to total feelgood fanservice or meme-level content) so I trust their judgement when it comes to making a sequel or not.

https://www.chronophoto.app/game.html

  On 1/22/2023 at 12:31 PM, usagi said:

played through Stray in the last couple of days and loved it. many feels were had. it was apparent from the off that this wasn't going to just be feline equivalent of goose simulator but it delivered well over and above to be a genuinely moving experience. people who hate on it (thankfully a small minority, it's received a lot of love) have no soul.

cuddled my catters extra hard afterward.

I'm so tired of hallway simulators that I didn't even give it a try and I fucking love cats

that's sad.

  On 1/24/2023 at 5:03 AM, usagi said:

agreed, that theme is a big part of the game and colours it throughout.

personally I'd love to see a sequel or expansion, but it has to make sense to the devs to do so. story-wise, it could wrap up there and be perfect. the studio really exercised good judgement in how they crafted this game and planned it out (i.e. it didn't sink to total feelgood fanservice or meme-level content) so I trust their judgement when it comes to making a sequel or not.

I'm with you. In some ways the end is sort of that "it's the mystery that endures" thing. Although ofc I want more, it's probably better that my mind sits on precipice and wonders what's past the top of the stairs than actually knows. But, lol, ofc I still want to see it, even though I know it probably wouldn't match my imagination. 

Also, agreed - it's pm a perfectly self-contained game with a perfect ending. I'm more than happy with it as it is. 

Elden Ring update: Defeated the Raya Lucaria dungeon. Rannala was easier than Radagon for me. I went back to the Roundtable, and the guy said to go to the end of the game, and I was like lolwut. Before he told me there were five bosses to kill, and I've only killed two. So gonna roam around and try to find what to do next.

Currently grinding camos on MWII and playing a couple warzone solos sparingly.

I've picked Subnautica back up. I really cannot get into this game properly tbh. deep water phobia aside, it's just not my thing to be going around hoovering up shit and crafting and just fucking around as a means of advancing the story, it feels awkward and weird to me. there are so many prohibitive constraints on the early game (e.g. simply nightfall itself) that you can easily just get into a pointless loop of just living day after day around your habitat and doing nothing. finding it hard to get satisfaction from this game.

^ lol just as I said that I managed to build my first Seamoth and now the whole game has changed.

I've got a cart of River City Ransom out for early delivery today.

  On 1/25/2023 at 12:49 PM, usagi said:

^ lol just as I said that I managed to build my first Seamoth and now the whole game has changed.

yeah I bailed on this one pretty quickly. Kept dying. Had no idea what to do.

Dead Space remake drops soon and it appears to have all the right signs on it.

^ 6 chapters in now, and it is amazing. they've reworked a lot, so much so that it'd be a new game if it didn't retain the same basic ideas and story as the original. missions flow and interconnect differently but follow the same broad goals as before. there are new sideplots and new characters that integrate well. the ship layout is much more interconnected and feels like a more realistic (dead) space that you traverse through, rather than a sequential series of individual levels connected by a tram. you can backtrack to explore new areas and the clearance system makes it so that doing so usually rewards you. areas don't stay cleared and you can encounter fresh enemies, making for a constantly tense time. the combat is still fun and satisfying and varied, and there are some cool new mechanics. oh and it looks great of course, though Callisto Protocol was superior in that department (if only CP had had equally good combat...)

I do have some nitpicks. the new sound design: flatter and less rich compared to the original. in the original you could stand in a hallway and hear/feel the icy silence and ghostly whispers with the mix so well-tuned that they blended seamlessly. here it's much less subtle, there are voices practically in your ear saying sPoOpy things like "self-inflicted ocular injury". ok cool. some of the new voice acting from secondary characters is subpar compared to the original. the new Hammond in particular is really flat and boring compared to Peter Mensah, and the new Kyne doesn't have the manic delusional edge to him that made you wonder if he was going to go crazy on you or not (counterpoint: the new Mercer is fantastic). also, some of the running animations are a bit funny, like Isaac's head and shoulders wobble like a child running to the toilet in need of a poo. lastly, and probably the only example I have found so far of a reworked mechanic that is actually worse: the contact beam, weapon of choice for high risk/reward players, no longer makes sense to me.

that's a longer paragraph of whinging compared to the game's merits (in classic snotty idm fan fashion) but overall those are pretty small issues. this is a really fucking good remake.