|
Post by dangerousdave on Aug 30, 2024 20:11:31 GMT
Still got to finish Mutant Year Zero. Trying to offload my Xbox copy to fund a Switch copy I am more likely to make time for.
|
|
|
Post by Nanocrystal on Aug 30, 2024 23:49:30 GMT
Superhot (PS5)
Superlate to the party with this one, I know. You ever have one of those games that you just know you'll love but for some unknown reason you never get around to actually playing it? For years? This was that game for me. Anyhow, I polished it off in one day and it was as brilliant as I expected. It's basically the closest thing to a perfect video game adaptation of The Matrix there is. The meta story stuff kinda got in the way, it wasn't that engaging and I would probably have been happier if it was just the levels without all the guff in between, but when you're actually playing the game and shooting red dudes it's absolutely brilliant.
I sliced a bullet in half with a katana, so 10/10.
EDIT: Somebody needs to figure out a way to combine this game's combat with Mirror's Edge's parkour to make the best game ever.
|
|
|
Post by Nanocrystal on Sept 1, 2024 3:57:52 GMT
RIME (PS5)
Second game finished this weekend, I'm on a roll. This was a lovely little 4 hour jaunt through some light platforming and at times quite creative puzzles, none of them too challenging but just enough to give you that sense of satisfaction at solving them. The cartoony graphics look nice, like a less washed-out, cell shaded version of a Fumito Ueda game. And there's absolutely no HUD which was appreciated. A cute little fox companion guides you through and keeps you on the right track. Don't want to spoil too much but by the end it becomes clear what the game was about and I found it quite touching. Would play it again, and there's hidden collectables aplenty so I just might do so.
|
|
|
Post by andytheaverage on Sept 1, 2024 11:10:32 GMT
It occurs to me that I might like a FF6 with all the combat ripped out. But in the end maybe I should just accept that JRPG combat isn't my bag and move on. * *Except Chrono Trigger, of course. The remasters of FF7, 8 and 9 have the option to speed up battles, avoid random encounters and power up your characters if that's of any use? I find turn based combat dull for everything except boss fights so I tended to blitz through the random encounters using the game boost options.
|
|
|
Post by simple on Sept 1, 2024 11:16:24 GMT
The Pixel Remasters of FF1-6 have the ability to turn off random encounters and boost XP and loot by x2 or x4 which can remove a lot of the more annoying aspects of the JRPG grind if you just want to experience the world and story.
Especially helpful when it comes to deeper dungeons and removing the need to retreat if you run out if healing items and ether before the boss room.
|
|
|
Post by Bill in the rain on Sept 1, 2024 11:42:41 GMT
Yeah, that would improve things, it was 3 random encounters while traveling along a small corridor in a small house that caused me to nope out of FF6 at least one of the times.
But even then, the turn based spreadsheet combat isn't really my thing, so I'd probably be better off skipping the combat entirely. Or playing a different genre.
I honestly can't say why Chrono Trigger is the exception to this rule, but for some reason it is. *shrug*
|
|
MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
Posts: 6,662
Member is Online
|
Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 1, 2024 13:15:21 GMT
I recently finished two things! (both on Switch)
Steamworld Heist 2
It's good! I'm surprised that this didn't get much of a buzz around it, given the warm reception of the first game.
You get a lot more variety in terms of builds for different characters, and a lot more mission and enemy variety. The only downside is that the submarine sections kind of suck, but there's modular difficulty so you can just make that part easier if you want.
8.5/10
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Finished with the true ending at about 8 hours or so. I would have tried to get all the souls back in the day, but these days I can't be fucked.
I was a bit afraid that this wouldn't hold up in 2024, but I shouldn't have been. It's great! Not quite on the same level as SotN, but it comfortably belongs in the same sentence.
9/10
|
|
JonFE
Junior Member
Uncomfortably numb...
Posts: 1,839
|
Post by JonFE on Sept 1, 2024 14:08:19 GMT
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Finished with the true ending at about 8 hours or so. I would have tried to get all the souls back in the day, but these days I can't be fucked. I was a bit afraid that this wouldn't hold up in 2024, but I shouldn't have been. It's great! Not quite on the same level as SotN, but it comfortably belongs in the same sentence. 9/10 Assuming this was part of the Dominus collection, how good is the port?
|
|
MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
Posts: 6,662
Member is Online
|
Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 1, 2024 14:15:02 GMT
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Finished with the true ending at about 8 hours or so. I would have tried to get all the souls back in the day, but these days I can't be fucked. I was a bit afraid that this wouldn't hold up in 2024, but I shouldn't have been. It's great! Not quite on the same level as SotN, but it comfortably belongs in the same sentence. 9/10 Assuming this was part of the Dominus collection, how good is the port? It works perfectly well. There's some faffing around with drawing the seals when you beat a boss (you can either use the touchscreen, or use buttons), but the emulation has a rewind function, so you can always go back and try again if you fuck it up. It looks maybe a little more pixelated on the bigger Switch screen (even though the right half of it is your map/inventory/stats), but I didn't have any issues with it.
|
|
Aunty Treats
New Member
Delivering tasty treats to the townsfolk
Posts: 735
|
Post by Aunty Treats on Sept 1, 2024 15:08:52 GMT
The Pixel Remasters of FF1-6 have the ability to turn off random encounters and boost XP and loot by x2 or x4 which can remove a lot of the more annoying aspects of the JRPG grind if you just want to experience the world and story. Especially helpful when it comes to deeper dungeons and removing the need to retreat if you run out if healing items and ether before the boss room. How are they in general? Definitive editions or do they make changes to the games that give fans the hump
|
|
|
Post by simple on Sept 1, 2024 16:48:38 GMT
I’ve played the first three and thought they were all really good.
I’ve not enough of a purist to know what version of the games they’re based on but they’ve all got a fairly uniform art style. Think 16 rather than 8 bit. An orchestral version of their scores, although you can switch to original too. The default text is “modern” like Ariel or something but again, you can fix that in the menu.
Mostly its just little quality of life tweaks like a worthwhile save system and menu standardisation.
|
|
Tuffty
Junior Member
Posts: 3,426
|
Post by Tuffty on Sept 2, 2024 17:18:02 GMT
Elden Ring : Shadow of the Erdtree - 8/10
There's not really much to say about this that hasn't been covered already. Suffice to say, I think in terms of what improvements does the DLC do over the base game, I really love the setting and map of this. Everything feels more interconnected than the base game even, big landmarks catching your interest and acting as a driving force to explore it. There's a diverse range of biomes and I think some are the best looking areas in any of Fromsoft's games period. Like the concept art brought to life and it's gorgeous. Some areas are harder to get to than others, involved a very round about way to get there if you're not paying attention, one big section of the map not even reachable unless you find a hidden wall. But exploration was worth it. The new weapons and spells are nice additions too.
They definitely wanted to push the envelope as far as difficulty goes. They know people buying this are the hardcore looking for a challenge, that's how all these DLC's have gone. For the most part, I actually think it's a respectable amount of challenge, some minor enemies more of a pain than others, but for the most part it's fine. There are some bosses however that are definitely not fine and in particular the last one. Attack strings that go on forever, endless AOE, uneven terrain to fight on, crazy damage. They were taking the piss, I resorted to cheesing it with a Mimic Tear and throwing every buff I could and even then I think I got lucky, right down to no flasks and just a sliver of health left. If they want to continue this into a sequel, I do hope feedback is taken on board.
In the end, Elden Ring is a tremendous achievement for them and it deserves it's success, but I feel like the focus is too wide. Too many gimmicky weapons, status effects etc and so it leads to some bosses being absolute bastards or a cake walk depending on the build. Meanwhile Sekiro is too laser focused, relying on one weapon and playstyle only that hampers replayability to me. Blododborne is the one that still sits perfect to me, that one right in the middle. I prefer Old Hunters over all, fighting Ludwig first time was a near religious experience that ER had never topped, but Shadow of the Erdtree is worth it for anyone that enjoyed ER. It's just more of the same, a massive expansion on top of an already massive dense game.
|
|
Tomo
Junior Member
Posts: 3,255
|
Post by Tomo on Sept 2, 2024 23:19:13 GMT
I am nearing the end of SotE and ready to slate it in here. Hoping it will be cathartic.
|
|
|
Post by ToomuchFluffy on Sept 5, 2024 5:21:53 GMT
King Arthur - Knight's Tale (85 hours):
It's a turn-based, party-based tactical RPG with some management elements.
The game more or less kills everyone relevant at Camlann and then revives them anyway, which basically allows the writers to do whatever with the various characters you meet. The player's character is fixed as Mordred with no way to influence his class or his skills, but using his character is only mandatory for main story missions. He and everyone else plus Camelot got shifted to Avalon, because the Lady of the Lake tried to revive Arthur, which of course went horribly wrong. That is essentially the game's story: The player/Mordred is tasked with destroying the four fragments of Arthur as they are now corrupting Avalon. That is also used as the explanation why there are now Undead everywhere, but Acts 2 and 3 don't make too much sense with that setup as Undead and Humans and the chaotic aftermath of Camlann are replaced with Picts that have little relevance to the whole situation and it's no better with the Sidhe in Act 3. In general it felt like the story was barely relevant to progressing through the main story maps, especially after Act 1.
The story was definitely a weak point overall. The Lady of the Lake especially suffers from a case of drama queen and her tendency to prophesy doom with unfailingly emotional voice acting at the beginning of seemingly every second mission, did get annoying fast. Other than that the writing was mostly just serviceable and the quality of the voice acting varied. The various knights we pick up usually just have an introductory quest and occasionally specific events or side missions tied to them. After that they mostly become mute participants in combat.
The meat of the game are of course the combat encounters, of which there are quite a few on each map and there are a lot of maps. Even ignoring the post-game there are around 50 or so, many more of which are non-mandatory side missions. The encounter design is quite formulaic though there are some differences between enemy groups which helps keep things interesting. The Undead for instance leave destructible corpses which will revive after three turns and the Seelie in Act 3 are fairly mobile and can dodge attacks. There are also narrative elements to the maps which helps make them feel distinct at first, but mostly certain scenarioes, aesthetics and themes start repeating themselves quickly and eventually things start to flow together.
The missions and events are placed on the world map together with Camelot as the headquarters of the new Round Table. The events are the main way of determining the player's morality. They will sometimes be simple decisions that may have consequences later on, but there are also various opportunities to influence the loyalty of your knights and let them gain experience. These kind of decisions matter because a Knight which is away cannot join the next mission. It also matters what type of character is sent. I had a christian knight ruin a druidic ritual for instance, which I should have seen coming.
The morality chart unlocks various things and a few recruitment missions for specific heroes based on a Christianity-Old Faith axis and another one to determine if you are a rightful ruler or a Tyrant. For the most part though the knights are recruited during generally available missions. However, their loyalty - which gives bonuses and penalties - is in no small part determined by their alignment. The Round Table can contain a maximum of twelve, though some can also be "stored" until needed. Four of them can be taken on any mission while the rest may be away on events, they may be training to earn some experience or they may have been wounded on a previous mission.
The knights have armor which prevents damage, hitpoints which will be regained for free after the mission and vitality which has to be healed in the Hospice. Once vitality damage is taken there is a chance of wounds which have to be healed in the Cathedral in turn. None of this is mandatory though. Leaving them in Hospice or Cathedral means that they cannot earn experience in any way.
The knights are part of six different classes with various skillsets. There are often a lot of similarities between knights of the same class, but there are also quite a few of them that are more like hybrids between different ideas or certain parts of their skillset might be more emphasized. What you get here is fairly typical. Beefy Defenders with shields and Champions with two-handed weapons and strong damage output for the frontline. Mobile Vanguards with Traps and mobility skills, Marksmen with a variety of Archery skills, Sages with support skills and Arcanists with various damage spells and debuffs. All in all the character building was one of the more enjoyable parts of the game.
That is also due to good itemization. Items are kept simple and the impact of the various modifiers is clear and even uninteresting items usually have a non-negligible impact. These can be found in missions, acquired through events or bought back home for gold or relic dust.
On Intermediate - which was apparently introduced as the difficulty between Normal and Hard since people found these to be too far apart - the game wasn't overly challenging. Still, while I never lost any of my knights, I did definitely have some close calls.
Edit: I forgot to adress visuals and sounds. It's basically quite grimdark with not exactly a lot of vibrant colours and a good amount of detail in the environments. It does have decent lighting and some dynamic elements like fog and leaves though. The look of the characters is fixed and doesn't change with equipment. Combat and skill sounds are well done and satisfying and the soundtrack is fitting and supports the dark atmosphere well.
|
|
|
Post by Nanocrystal on Sept 5, 2024 6:57:32 GMT
Mortal Shell (PS5)One of the older soulslikes that I just got around to. It looks pretty nice graphically and has some very nice art and level design in places. The combat is quite slow and deliberate, more OG Dark Souls than Elden Ring. There are no stats, instead you choose a combination of a shell (a build) and a weapon, and there are four of each. You can upgrade them, so there is a bit of a sense of progress as you play. It's fairly short, about 10-15 hours. I enjoyed it for the most part once I got used to the slower tempo of the combat. Instead of shields you have a kind of solidify ability that turns you to stone temporarily, which feels great when you use it at the right moment and enemy hits bounce off you. But then the game ended with what is by far the worst boss fight I've ever played, in any game. Imagine Elden Beast (without Torrent) but it's a giant plucked chicken that moves twice as fast, spams endless concentric rings of waves at you that knock you down if you fail to dodge them, and ALSO spawns adds that run at you and stun-lock you, and ALSO has a massive health bar, and also HEALS ITSELF back up to half health when you think you're finally near the end of the fight. So it ended on a really sour note unfortunately. Still worth a look if you're into soulslikes.
|
|
wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,389
|
Post by wunty on Sept 5, 2024 8:34:35 GMT
Callisto Protocol - Final Transmission DLC
I'm alone on this hill but I really like CP. I've played it through twice, once at launch and then finished off a second playthrough recently, moving straight on to the DLC.
The DLC was more of the same but with a big hammer. I liked it a lot. I also like the way that it ended. Looking online tells me I'm in the clear minority. Meh. The game looks and sounds fucking phenomenal. It shipped with brilliant performance and no discernable bugs, it did exactly as advertised and provided a brilliantly visceral engaging slice of sci-fi horror with crunchy melee, a good assortment of firearms, and a glove that lets me throw things at things.
If Dead Space is the video game equivalent of Event Horizon, then this is Pandorum. Not as good but still really enjoyable and very well done.
I'll do another playthrough sometime no doubt.
|
|
Aunty Treats
New Member
Delivering tasty treats to the townsfolk
Posts: 735
|
Post by Aunty Treats on Sept 5, 2024 10:59:47 GMT
I'm alone on this hill but I really like CP. Hopefully no one takes this quote out of context
|
|
wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,389
|
Post by wunty on Sept 5, 2024 11:03:02 GMT
I'm trying to think what else it could mean. Help me out. I'm old.
|
|
MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
Posts: 6,662
Member is Online
|
Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 5, 2024 11:07:04 GMT
Clown Play
|
|
Aunty Treats
New Member
Delivering tasty treats to the townsfolk
Posts: 735
|
Post by Aunty Treats on Sept 5, 2024 11:08:13 GMT
Cyberpunk. Awful game Child...
|
|
|
Post by peacemaker on Sept 5, 2024 11:13:01 GMT
Callisto protocol.
Excellent game overall. Hampered a bit by terrible checkpoints which has made plenty of people understandably bin it. Production values across the board first rate. Visuals, sound, animations, cut scenes, music. Combat is nice a simple but fun, story is simple but serves its purpose and for once the ending was pretty good if you ignore the final 30 seconds. In many ways it feels a bit like resident evil sifi to me.
80/100
|
|
wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,389
|
Post by wunty on Sept 5, 2024 11:47:21 GMT
Cyberpunk. Awful game Child... Erm… wtf
|
|
MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
Posts: 6,662
Member is Online
|
Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 5, 2024 11:47:54 GMT
The movie Child's Play, of course.
|
|
|
Post by Bill in the rain on Sept 5, 2024 14:24:43 GMT
Corporal Punishment
|
|
lukasz
New Member
Meat popsicle
Posts: 640
|
Post by lukasz on Sept 6, 2024 14:08:01 GMT
Rise of tomb raider done. including fun manor dlc.
I quiet enjoyed the story, the personal stake Lara had in getting the plot device.
will be taking some break but will move on to shadows which i have thanks to generous people of Epic Games.
|
|
apollo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,493
|
Post by apollo on Sept 6, 2024 17:56:03 GMT
Watch doggers: legion
It was only £4 from CEX and wanted a GTA type sandbox game as gamepass is really shitty right now
London looks great on Series X, some nice ray tracing when its wet on the road and lights/neon reflecting off mirrors/glass. But its the usual terrible written characters from ubislop. The good guys sound like cunts and the bad guys are comical evil - all the character models look ugly or they hipster bearded wankers. One cunt keeps going on about fam and blud, it really stinks of "How do you do, fellow kids" writing
I do like you can recruit anyone to fight after a few quests but there is only a few good characters and I had 2 people that looked roughly the same. My construction guy was great, the cargo drone spawn was helpful and he would mash people with the metal wrench (his "shut up crime" weapon) Shame you can't use multiple people on a heist like mission.
With a better developer improving on some of the main ideas, it could be so much better. Its held back by the ubisoft cookie cutter game design. For what I paid, I had good enough time and its really nice looking driving around famous landmarks, piccadilly circus looks really good
3.5/5
|
|
MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
Posts: 6,662
Member is Online
|
Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 7, 2024 0:59:13 GMT
The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
A folk horror point and click adventure game, about a woman who goes to investigate an old barrow up in the moorlands.
It's a great little game! Very creepy, puzzles that are just about the right level of difficulty, and the whole thing is over in about 5 hours or so. I have slight misgivings about the ending, but it's only a small thing.
9/10
|
|
|
Post by uiruki on Sept 7, 2024 10:33:35 GMT
32 - Tevi - September 7 - PC - 3/5
A decent game but just overstuffed. The combat’s fun, though a surfeit of moves makes it feel more mashy than anything, but the sigil system’s completely overcomplicated with literally hundreds of equippable items that have some combination of tiny positive effects and massive changes which makes going through it like trying to go through a Magic card deck. I won’t say the map’s too big but getting around is perhaps more of a hassle than it could be due to the limited fast travel and poor map screen which makes actually getting to where you want to go take longer than it should. The story and script are definitely too wordy; every line is about two sentences too long and especially towards the back it pushes it to the front leading to a more stilted finale than it could have been and one which doesn't resolve itself particularly well. Even though the voices are Japanese you can tell it was originally written in Chinese because it's full of words that are technically fine but I never see them in game scripts so it all feels a little off.
I’d definitely play another one from these people but this 30-odd hour game would have been much better at half the length.
Steam Deck: Set it to 90hz and go, nice and smooth. Expect 6 hours on OLED.
|
|
|
Post by barchetta on Sept 7, 2024 10:35:55 GMT
The Excavation of Hob's Barrow A folk horror point and click adventure game, about a woman who goes to investigate an old barrow up in the moorlands. It's a great little game! Very creepy, puzzles that are just about the right level of difficulty, and the whole thing is over in about 5 hours or so. I have slight misgivings about the ending, but it's only a small thing. 9/10 I bought this at release.... really must get around to playing it!
|
|
|
Post by dfunked on Sept 7, 2024 16:21:35 GMT
Thank goodness you're here (Switch) - 9/10
My only real gripe was that navigating the world could be a bit of a pain at times. Feels like it could do with a few more shortcuts opening up. Bloody brilliant stuff. Love the art style, great soundtrack and it doesn't outstay its welcome. 10/10 for the last bit. Absolutely mental!
|
|