Topic: What are you playing?

[broodwars]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution DC (PS3) - I never asked for this game's wonky stealth. Decided to finally play the DC ahead of Mankind Divided. So far, it's just reminding me how much I hate constantly Save Scumming.

[oohhboy]

DE:HR was the game I asked for. Not too sure what you are on about regarding stealth. Their vision is pretty game normal. I have hidden people behind couches since they didn't patrol far enough to crest it. Stashing people into all the vents of the police station is a good laugh.

[MagicCow64]

Codename: STEAM (3DS):

I bought this for $11 off of an Amazon sale a while ago, but only booted up the game in the last few days after I bricked my computer.

I'm about 2.5 hours in and here are some thoughts:

-The much derided art style looks fine when actually playing the game. You kind of need the sharp, thick edges to negotiate the detail of the game.

-I'm playing it on a New 3DS with the patch, and the wait times between turns are not an issue at all (though that must have been game-breakingly shitty without the 3X fast-forward).

-Though the enemy turn speed isn't an issue, it does highlight what feels to me like a broken element of the design. You can't see what the enemies are doing, but the camera tweaks around spastically while they're moving, highlighting the frustration of walking into ambushes and sniper traps.

-Which leads me to sniper traps. I don't know if this is an overwatch thing I don't understand or what, but these are total bullshit. Especially when they nail you twice for trying to back away from the vantage. It adds an unpleasant guess-and-check element to the proceedings.

-Once you get a crew going and can start actually implementing strategy, it's actually pretty fun, but the third person perspective guessing game element can make it very frustrating very quickly when you get ambushed and mooks hop in off the side of the map. It makes one of the more annoying elements of Fire Emblem even worse.

[MagicCow64]

Dropped STEAM for the time being to tackle

Obduction (PC):

This is the last long-in-gestation game that I've actually been looking forward to, especially after finding The Witness an ultimately hollow experience and Inside to be something of a whiff. Myst and Riven are formative experiences for me, but neither Cyan nor the Myst series hit the mark again. But then this looked really good!

I'm about 1/3 of the way through (I think), and so far it's pretty okay. It doesn't really feel like a Myst game as much as one of those forgotten Myst-a-likes, but with better art design and production values. It seems intimidating at first (in a good, Riven-like way!), but so far the solutions have turned out to be fairly underwhelming (the passcode series in the town particularly did not feel up to Riven standards). The second cliff/mechanism world is really cool in concept and scope, and I thought the game was ramping up when I got stuck for an hour with no idea how to proceed, but then it turned out that I missed an easy-to-miss sub-lever that lets you straightforwardly turn on everything on in the level.

There's even a joke about the lack of complexity! There's a console in the mechanism world that's connected to a staircase you need to drop down. The console is covered with dozens of buttons and switches, a keypad with a 20-digit entry panel, and a light array that seems to turn off bulbs at each input with no rhyme or reason. I assumed this was a tough-ass obstacle, and that I would collect clues as to the console's operation. But then later you find out that it's useless, and just acts as a counterweight to the staircase, which is dropped with a simple crank from above.

I'm assuming it's going to steadily get harder, though. Another issue, however, is related to the core "obduction" conceit of the game. This allows for cool visuals and world design, but the warp points from touching the membrane are an irritating constant. There's enough to keep track of without remembering how all the wormholes link up, and I missed an important chunk of the town for a good long while because I missed a portal I thought I had already tried. Overall it just makes navigation more cumbersome and space-intuition more difficult without an interesting gameplay payoff so far.

[ejamer]

So I've started playing God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP).  The sense of scale with bosses in the game seems impressive, and I like the overall staging of levels. Technically it seems great too. But the proliferation of quick-time events during battles is ridiculously annoying, and the combo system early in the game is incredibly bland and repetitive. (My guess: only one of those things will change later in the game?)

Also, this game is proof that M-ratings should be called something other than "mature". Quick time events to get bonuses from moaning, submissive, naked slave girls who thank you for you attention afterwards? Really? I've only played halfway through the first level, and feel like this is an embarrassing way to start the game. It's not "offensive" to me only because it's not important enough to get upset about - but this kind of teen male fantasy bullshit is what's wrong with the industry if they want big budget games to be taken seriously.


(Boobs in games are ok. Sex in games is ok. But that particular scene is horribly misplaced in any work that intends to be more than cheap thrills for a very specific audience.)


Edit: Further in now, and enjoying the game more as I go. No repeats of the ridiculous sex slave fantasy so far (which is good), improved combo systems unlocked as you go, strong action overall. Still too many quick-time events for my liking but the rest of the game has been strong enough to make up for that.

[NWR_insanolord]

Picross 3D: Round 2

I'm honestly not sure there's any way I could be happier with this game. It's everything I could have wanted in a sequel to the original Picross 3D. Having multiple colors to work with adds a really interesting new layer to the game, and they've made some smart interface tweaks, in particular the bomb feature that automatically breaks blocks in rows marked 0, which could get tiresome to do manually before.

[ejamer]

Tried playing Star Wars: Battlefront II (PSP) but quickly realized this is a game that has no value for me and moved on. I'm not saying it's bad... but it certainly didn't seem worth playing and I regret spending 30 minutes hoping it would "get better" before moving on.


Instead, planning to spend some time with Ultimate Ghosts'n Goblins (PSP) which is right up my alley. Old-school action platforming with intentionally cheap enemy placement - but with the difficulty tempered by giving you a generous amount of extra lives, plenty of checkpoints, and as many continues as you need.  Only about to start the third level, but so far this game is (for me) fantastic.

[MagicCow64]

Rayman 2 (PC):

I somehow managed to never play the 3D Rayman games despite the fact that they are commonly ranked along side Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie as the best of the dearly departed genre. So when I saw this on sale for $1.97 on GOG, I decided to fill in my historical gap.

I'm about halfway through, and I think I'm about to give up. It's actually more like the obstacle course PS1 mascot games than something like Mario 64 or Banjo. And I can definitely see why Nintendo did not take this approach at the time with as yet unrefined 3D action game components. Early on when doing the fairly linear regular platforming the game is decent, as Rayman controls fairly snappily (though I'm not wild about the toggle on copter spin, it feels pretty wimpy). Combat encounters are terrible but not that common. The game totally turns into a tooth-grinding mess whenever it tosses in "variety" stuff, like riding rockets, skiing, or rolling on plums. Every one of these sections is terrible and they only get more unforgiving as the game progresses. Additionally, the levels get longer and the platforming also gets unforgiving when combined with a typically bad 64-era camera and obnoxious life/respawn system, and the issues with this approach to a 3D platformer becoming more glaring.

[supermario2k]

I been watching a lot of Youtube videos, AVGN, CUPodcast, Pat the NES Punk, Chrontendo, lately and they have renewed by interested in retro Nintendo so I been playing a lot of Wii U recently. Some virtual console. some Duck Tales Remastered, (okay I have it on Wii U but I play it on PS3 because I had it there first and am trying to unlock everything still) and a lot of NEX Remix and New Super Mario Bros. U.

I am starting to realize that I don't care if Nintendo gets all the games the other guys get, I am still going to buy a Playstation down the road when I am ready but Nintendo comes first. Always.

[Wah]

You should watch JonTron and Gamegrumps if you like Let's Plays.

[The Lucky Moose]

Deus Ex Mankind Divided. It's cool, but it's technically rough, feels very sloppy occasionally.

[lolmonade]

Rocket league, rocket league, and more rocket league.  Partially because I'm working on getting the old lady aesthetic out of the house I bought and have limited time.  But I've gotten more play out of something I got for free through PS+ than I have in so many games for a long time.

[Wah]

Just finished Mass Effect 3. With all the dlc. The Citadel DLC makes up for the shitty endings, it was brillant.Speaking of endings I picked the red one. You guys?

[TOPHATANT123]

I wanted the green ending but I didn't have enough points, some of which were because of decisions I made and some of which were locked behind multiplayer, so I also went for the red ending.

[Wah]

Spoilers:
Red pisses me off because it kills the geth after I spent like 3 hours saving them and the quarians. And Shepard does survive if you pick red... but is that worth it? now the cycle of death will continue in 1000 years. So maybe green would be the best option?

[Wah]

I wanted the green ending but I didn't have enough points, some of which were because of decisions I made and some of which were locked behind multiplayer, so I also went for the red ending.

You don't need to do multiplayer it's entirely optional I didn't and got the "best" ending.
What sucks is that EA has said that 4 will contain NONE of your past choices in the trilogy.

[oohhboy]

Deus Ex: Invisible War might have been a bad game but having all 3 endings happen took alot of guts and some solid writing to happen. I haven't played DX:MD yet as I am waiting for the Mac version so I don't know if they did the same thing for it. The endings aren't mutually exclusive so there is room for that to happen.

[ejamer]

Final Fantasy (PSP) - Playing through to relive memories of this game from the NES days. This remake feels like a great way to go through the game - smoothing out some rough points and (I think) making the game a bit easier to get through - but it is still a very primitive JRPG. Too much grinding with frequent random battles, a pretty weak story line, and constant fetch quests having you backtrack between locations. None of those points is a surprise, but I had forgotten much of the game over the years.


I'm not having a bad time with the game, but it's hard to recommend for anything beyond curiosity or nostalgia. You can get much more interesting experiences from the NES era, with both Final Fantasy 3 or Dragon Warrior 3 jumping to mind as huge improvements over their predecessors.


One annoying issue with this port are the constant load times - sure, it's only a second or two, but it happens every time you open a menu, go into battle, look at your map, or return to main screen. Waiting an extra second or two doesn't seem that bad initially... but those seconds start to add up quickly.

[Ian Sane]

I grabbed the Capcom PS3 Humble Bundle a few weeks ago mostly for Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.  I played the Saturn import version of it as a retro gaming con months ago and I was planning on getting it but never got around to it until now.  I figured with that and the sheer amount of other well regarded games being included that the bundle would be the way to go.

I've started playing another game that came with the bundle: Okami.  So I'm wondering why I didn't play this when it was brand new or when it came out on the Wii.  I knew it was critically acclaimed and I knew it was a Zelda clone and I love Zelda.

This game pretty much IS Zelda and scratches all the same itches.  I find most Zelda clones are just not as good as the real deal but this one is.  Actually the cel-shaded graphics are more interesting than Wind Waker's and the brush mechanics make the gameplay less formulaic than Twilight Princess.  I haven't finished the game so I suppose it could fall off a cliff at some point but so far it might be that the best Zelda of the Cube generation was a PS2 game.

Now I'm sure others have pointed this out but the similarities to Twillight Princess are too obvious to ignore.  Both have sidekicks riding wolves and areas that are under some curse of sorts when you first enter them.  The battles in Okami are in enclosed areas with a force field surrounding them and so too are battles against Twilight Realm baddies in Twilight Princess.  Those all seem too specific to be a coincidence but the two games came out only seven months apart with Okami coming first.  Surely Nintendo didn't have enough time to rip off these ideas, particularly when they delayed TP to coincide with the Wii release and thus would have had the core elements in place much earlier.  Or did they show these in a really early E3 demo and that gave Capcom enough time to steal them for Okami?  Since Capcom worked on Zelda games for the GBC and GBA I wonder if they found out about these elements during that time and used them for their own off-brand Zelda game.  Or maybe Nintendo and Capcom had discussed collaborating on a console Zelda and brainstormed these ideas together and then both used them in their own titles after the collaboration fell through?  It's just unreal how many very specific similarities there are.

[azeke]

I guess this is my Batman month.

Batman: Arkham City (Wii U):

I am playing a bit of New Game+. When starting it i was relieved and almost disappointed (almost) that the game doesn't force you to collect trophies all over again. It's been years when i completed it and doing that insane collectathon all over again would be kinda nostalgic.

Man that "console" framerate... At least combat was made better, but low 20 frames per second makes it worse than it is.

Because NG+ has no collectibles it's more of a linear story (whereas playing "normally" i would more likely to postpone doing story missions for as long as possible), though i did notice game asked me to do some VR mission so maybe i have to re-do some side-missions...

Arkham Knight had changed button layout somewhat, so re-learning stuff for Asylum was kind weird. It got weirder when i had to re-learn again for City where buttons were re-arranged again.

Oh and i am also playing that Batman game on 3DS. It is eh, and i constantly find myself confused with it's 3d directions that are actually 2d.

Oh, and 3DS game also has somewhat different buttons, like having to press A for crouching.

Playing so many similar games with kinda similar but still different button shortcuts makes my finger memory very confused.


Shadow or Mordor (Steam):
You don't know how good you have it in one series, until you play a game which rips it off and kinda does badly.

Getting surrounded by hundreds of orcs is just not fun. At least Batman games have other activities you can do


I am constantly harping on Batman combat and here is a game where the entirety of gameplay is nothing but killing baddies using Batman style combat. That is literally ALL you do.

Good job, Monolith.

The game is not exactly a looker:



It also lacks what i really enjoy in both Assasin Creed and Batman games -- layered 3d architecture for me to climb. Mordor is mostly completely flat. The map is also rather small, but it is very densely populated which is more of problem because you are constantly surrounded by endless army of orcs and you can't kill them all ever. There will always be 100s of orcs around you no matter what you do.

Nemesis system is kinda cool in principle but it is a poor replacement for proper bosses. Why should i bother gathering intel on some Warchief learning his weaknesses if i can still just walk up to him and kill him regularly in combat?

Were people THAT enticed by WB bribing them to prop that game up to make it their GOTY? Many publications and awards did it, passing over Bayonetta 2 which while an inferior to first game still is much more solid action game and a shining beacon of game design and polish compared to this mongrel of Assassin Creed and Batman which lacks most things that i like from both series.

[ShyGuy]

Deus Ex Mankind Divided. It's cool, but it's technically rough, feels very sloppy occasionally.

how is it compared to Human Revolution?

[pokepal148]

Catrap is the most stupidly addictive puzzle game I've played in ages.

[Stratos]

I finally opened Monster Hunter Generations so if anyone wants to play I should be ready to go online soon. I started a Gen thread for discussion too in the handheld section in case we get a bit of a following going.

[sudoshuff]

I've started playing another game that came with the bundle: Okami.  So I'm wondering why I didn't play this when it was brand new or when it came out on the Wii.  I knew it was critically acclaimed and I knew it was a Zelda clone and I love Zelda.

I was in the same boat.  I never played it simply because I wasn't in the mood for another Zelda-like game with a wolf (and I played Twilight Princess first).  Nice to hear you're enjoying it though...after I finish Skyward Sword I'll need something to fill the time between now and the NX (and unplayed Wii games are a good way to go). 

[MagicCow64]

I really think Okami is worse than any 3D Zelda game by a distance. The design of most areas is barren/repetitive, the paintbrush control is lousy (on Wii at least, but I have a hard time seeing how this isn't a stupid/cumbersome item system with a control stick), puzzles/dungeons are perfunctory, there's way too much awful dialogue and cut scenes, and the GTE sequences are some of the worst I've encountered. It's also stretched out past the breaking point given how shallow it is. The final boss was cool, but that's about the only positive I can recall. This falls under the umbrella of games that are overpraised because they're similar to a Nintendo-designed game but not made by Nintendo (Looking at you, every Rayman game.)