What game are you wasting time on?

[RK47]

I'm playing Honkai Impact 3.
I thought it's a pretty shallow game till they let me do the trial S-rank challenge with a martial arts character.
Her meta goes like this:

I didn't read the first time and got wrecked.
Tried re-reading it and it still didn't go in mentally somewhat. I'm surprised a mobile gacha 3rd person action game (playing with PC client) with basic 4-button combat asked me to git gud.
There are exceptions to these of course. Some melee classes like the greatsword lady are hard to learn but very rewarding to master.

While the range classes just pew pew pew away with cheap dodges but deal very poor damage against specific types.

 

[sser]

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (2003) with widescreen & xinput controller patches. It's a very nice 3rd person Tomb Raider type game given the full LucasArts AAA treatment. Runs like turd on modern Windows 10 with Nvidia 10 series cards with microstutters galore due to subpar DirectX 8.0 optimizations in newer geforce drivers. Was about to give up because of this until I discovered that you can use the DGVoodoo2 wrapper to make it run like a particularly satisfying wet dream with no stutters. Be sure to uncap the locked 30 FPS framerate to 60 (but no more else you get massive physics farts with the engine) for best enjoyment.

This is one of those games I've played through 5+ times. I don't know why, I just found it particularly charming. Also the combat is well done, not only gameplay but the sound effects and motions are spectacular. The pop of the guns carries way more punch than most games. Also a big fan of the Infernal Machine as well, and it holds a somewhat special spot for me as it was the first game I got to play on a fairly 'modern' computer for the time. Emperor's Tomb is the way better game, but Infernal Machine has some of the more interesting bosses.

 

[HansDampf]

I'm wasting my time with Rain World. It's a 2D survival platformer where you play a vulnerable slug cat and have to find your way back to your family. There are predators everywhere that you have to avoid, and you can only save in hibernation chambers (like save rooms in Metroid), but only if you've eaten enough food. Hibernating also raises your karma by one level up to level 5. If you die, or hibernate with an empty stomach, you lose one level. Karma is needed to open gates to the next region. So, the gates are basically testing your ability to gather food and survive in the current region. There are also rain cycles with a timer constantly ticking down. You have to get to a hibernation chamber in time to find shelter, or else the rain will kill you. 'Rain' isn't really the right word to describe it. It's more like the Niagara Falls pouring out of the sky.
I'm now in the third region, Shaded Citadel, and still not sure what to make of it. A lot of it looks interesting. But progress is also very slow, because this game doesn't tell you anything! You have to figure things out on your own by exploring, experimenting, and dying a lot. I'm just not sure if it will be worth the effort.

 

[Seigneur Voland]

Hitman Season 2

I feel like the authored kills are too signposted for my liking. I find myself playign the game much like I do RPGs, in that while I do love the idea of there being alternative ways of completing objectives, I'm completely content with only experiencing what comes naturally to me the first time. The replayability that is there is not one that appeals to me nor excites me. When I come across a scripted dialogue I roll my eyes and know that I'm being spoonfed an alternate solution to the level. I don't think any of these have ever resulted in true satisfaction.

If the player uses the distractions and the gadgets at his disposal, the assassinations are not signposted nor necesseraly linked to opportunities/missions stories/dialogues. A large part of the playable surface can be used as crime scene with some NPCs manipulations, which are perfectly intended by the creators of the game.

For example, it's possible to lure and drown Novikov in the toilet to the left of the palace entrance with the rights tools, instead of using a waiter disguise to poison his cocktail. Or drown Zaydan suit only in the Café toilet, without knocking out anyone. The same can be said for nearly all targets, and all methods of assassinations. These 2 new episodes really offer a lot of freedom compared to the previous titles, on top of all the many scripted and dirigist opportunities.

(playing Hitman 7 too, and Labyrinth of Refrain)

 

[Strange Fellow]

I can confirm that it has some Typical Modder bullshit in it.

Can't say I care much for their taste in music either.

Yep, the combat music is obnoxious as hell. I replaced it with the Silent Storm music.

 

[Onionguy]

I'm wasting my time with Rain World. It's a 2D survival platformer where you play a vulnerable slug cat and have to find your way back to your family. There are predators everywhere that you have to avoid, and you can only save in hibernation chambers (like save rooms in Metroid), but only if you've eaten enough food. Hibernating also raises your karma by one level up to level 5. If you die, or hibernate with an empty stomach, you lose one level. Karma is needed to open gates to the next region. So, the gates are basically testing your ability to gather food and survive in the current region. There are also rain cycles with a timer constantly ticking down. You have to get to a hibernation chamber in time to find shelter, or else the rain will kill you. 'Rain' isn't really the right word to describe it. It's more like the Niagara Falls pouring out of the sky.
I'm now in the third region, Shaded Citadel, and still not sure what to make of it. A lot of it looks interesting. But progress is also very slow, because this game doesn't tell you anything! You have to figure things out on your own by exploring, experimenting, and dying a lot. I'm just not sure if it will be worth the effort.

Man, its a slug simulator, what did you expect?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm playing kotor

Spoiler

1

I'm having

Spoiler

fun

 

[Strange Fellow]

I've had enough of Hammer & Sickle.

Game made by Slav autists for Slav autists.
"Let's turn the difficulty up way higher than Silent Storm gameplay was designed to handle, that will make things fun!"
What it actually does is force degenerate AI abuse, which conveniently enough is easy to do because the AI is monumentally retarded.

"We'll just compensate by adding ten times more enemies than Silent Storm gameplay was designed to handle, that will make things fun!"
Yeah, it's still as easy as playing literal turn-based popamole by ducking in and out of chest-high cover while enemies mill towards you like lemmings.

"We'll just make your soldiers spawn out in the open where there's no cover and have enemies start shooting at you immediately, that will make things fun!"
Fuck off.

I've considered restarting on Easy (if it had let me change difficulty mid-campaign I might have continued, but hey, shit game is shit and doesn't), but it honestly wouldn't help, because at the core of it is still the same thoughtless degenerate encounter design. Typical fucking modders. Good riddance.

Oh, and did I mention that I hate the "gather your party as you progress" thing? If your game is designed to be played with a party just give me the fucking party from the start, don't make me suffer through a sad gimped quasi-tutorial for the first few hours. Fuck you Baldur's Gate for making devs think this is a good idea.

Now let the git gud ratings flow.

 

[octavius]

I'm tempted to give Strange Fellow the

, but since I haven't played Hammer&Sickle that would be a tad unfair.

 

[Krivol]

I finished Steamworld Dig 1 - it was lying on my Origin as free gift for years, and I gave it a go and... oh my, what a charming little game! Finished it, and it was great.

Now I bought SD2 on sale and playing it now. Maybe I'm burned down a little, but I am not so excited as I was with SD1. Still good game, just... too much of the same I guess.

Doom 2016 - everyone is hyping DE, I decidet to give it a chance. It's fun, not Doom 1&2 level of fun, but still gives some satisfaction.

Civ4 Realism Invictus - if you don't want a mod that has too many strange little things (like caveman to cosmos, with invention of tennis and building stuffs like pet shop or hat maker in cities) but is improving the game - this one is ok I guess (didn't finished yet). It's quite fast, loading late game in C2C was sluggish as hell.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I just beat the RE2make as Leon, loved it, time to play through again as Claire.

Finished Devil May Cry V

Now play DMC 3 and 4.

Hammer & Sickle

Oh jeez not that fucking game. I tried that as a huge Silent Storm fan and wondered if it was some kind of half-assed mod made by one guy with no playtesting.

 

[A horse of course]

Almost done with Silent Hill 4 (I think). When I see this game mentioned it's always "it was a departure from the series, more experimental, 4 is its own thing", et cetera. Rubbish. It's Silent Hill to a T only without much of Silent Hill the location in it, which isn't that big a deal since there's already been three games of running around foggy streets. And 4 is just as good as the first three where it matters. Still hits that perfect balance between puzzle solving, storytelling and tense combat with a strong element of resource management. The titular "room" is also a very cool idea and works well (it's also just a bit too relatable in these Corona times ). Someone told me it goes downhill when you have to escort someone around during the second half of the game, and I see their point, but it hasn't bothered me too much, mostly due to the fact that the escortee doesn't seem too concerned about being left behind and/or clobbered by monstrosities.

Great game all around, that deserves to be held in the same esteem as its predecessors.

Well yeah, if you don't care about the ending then the escorting isn't quite as bad.

 

[Wunderbar]

Almost done with Silent Hill 4 (I think). When I see this game mentioned it's always "it was a departure from the series, more experimental, 4 is its own thing", et cetera. Rubbish. It's Silent Hill to a T only without much of Silent Hill the location in it, which isn't that big a deal since there's already been three games of running around foggy streets. And 4 is just as good as the first three where it matters. Still hits that perfect balance between puzzle solving, storytelling and tense combat with a strong element of resource management. The titular "room" is also a very cool idea and works well (it's also just a bit too relatable in these Corona times ). Someone told me it goes downhill when you have to escort someone around during the second half of the game, and I see their point, but it hasn't bothered me too much, mostly due to the fact that the escortee doesn't seem too concerned about being left behind and/or clobbered by monstrosities.

Great game all around, that deserves to be held in the same esteem as its predecessors.

Well yeah, if you don't care about the ending then the escorting isn't quite as bad.

you don't know that on your first playthrough.
and if you know that, then you should also know about candles.

 

[A horse of course]

Almost done with Silent Hill 4 (I think). When I see this game mentioned it's always "it was a departure from the series, more experimental, 4 is its own thing", et cetera. Rubbish. It's Silent Hill to a T only without much of Silent Hill the location in it, which isn't that big a deal since there's already been three games of running around foggy streets. And 4 is just as good as the first three where it matters. Still hits that perfect balance between puzzle solving, storytelling and tense combat with a strong element of resource management. The titular "room" is also a very cool idea and works well (it's also just a bit too relatable in these Corona times ). Someone told me it goes downhill when you have to escort someone around during the second half of the game, and I see their point, but it hasn't bothered me too much, mostly due to the fact that the escortee doesn't seem too concerned about being left behind and/or clobbered by monstrosities.

Great game all around, that deserves to be held in the same esteem as its predecessors.

Well yeah, if you don't care about the ending then the escorting isn't quite as bad.

you don't know that on your first playthrough.
and if you know that, then you should also know about candles.

Whether candles affect the final boss fight is a matter of debate amongst most people who've tested it. Also that's meta and cheating. The point is if you if you play the game without caring about whether the escort is getting whacked around all the time, you will certainly enjoy it more.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

We. The Revolution (50% discount on Steam atm). Love the aesthetic, both in terms of narrative and visual design.

Y'all can check the Screenshot thread for more pictures.

 

[laclongquan]

After three runs on Fallout Et Tu, a total conversion of F1 to run on F2...

I am returning to pure Fallout 2, with Restoration Project. This time I add a Better Miria mod, by Endocore.

The common build across the runs is Jinxed Luck2 Unarmed Gifted build. Jinxed Luck 2 is a quite different build that you can find. I encourage you to play a game with this build to see how it is. Non-Unarmed is not recommended, as it just make you ragequit in frustration, which is why not many people know about this build.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I just finished playing Dead Space. Played it on PC via the Origin client. Took me 14 hours or so to see the credits roll. It an OK game. The graphics and audio are impressive. The art direction definitely has helped the game age gracefully. Presentation is the area where the Dead Space excels the most. It's not a very scary game, but there's a mood and a style to it.

It's a standard post-RE4 survival horror third-person shooter. Unfortunately, minor shitty game design decisions keep it from achieving true greatness. The cannon turret sections in particular defy rational explanation. Why did the devs decide to force the player to go through this garbage shooting gallery section in order to progress? I'm playing on PC, so I just used the mouse to aim and got over it as quickly as possible, but I can only imagine how frustrating it would have been if I was playing on a console and was stuck aiming with the analog stick.

The PC port is buggy, but it's not broken. It chugged hard at times, but I had zero crashes in my playthrough. Rag doll physics go nuts often. I only fell through the level when using an elevator once, thankfully. One monster that is supposed to be unique spawned at the same time in two places and both instances of it were visible simultaneously, which was a bit confusing. However, no bug stopped my progress in the game or forced me to reload a save.

If it wasn't for those lousy turret sections and a few unfun - but thankfully short - segments, this could have been an all time great. While not particularly original, it's an very well made and refined iteration of a subgenre that usually lacks this level of polish.

 

[A horse of course]

I just finished playing Dead Space. Played it on PC via the Origin client. Took me 14 hours or so to see the credits roll. It an OK game. The graphics and audio are impressive. The art direction definitely has helped the game age gracefully. Presentation is the area where the Dead Space excels the most. It's not a very scary game, but there's a mood and a style to it.

It's a standard post-RE4 survival horror third-person shooter. Unfortunately, minor shitty game design decisions keep it from achieving true greatness. The cannon turret sections in particular defy rational explanation. Why did the devs decide to force the player to go through this garbage shooting gallery section in order to progress? I'm playing on PC, so I just used the mouse to aim and got over it as quickly as possible, but I can only imagine how frustrating it would have been if I was playing on a console and was stuck aiming with the analog stick.

The PC port is buggy, but it's not broken. It chugged hard at times, but I had zero crashes in my playthrough. Rag doll physics go nuts often. I only fell through the level when using an elevator once, thankfully. One monster that is supposed to be unique spawned at the same time in two places and both instances of it were visible simultaneously, which was a bit confusing. However, no bug stopped my progress in the game or forced me to reload a save.

If it wasn't for those lousy turret sections and a few unfun - but thankfully short - segments, this could have been an all time great. While not particularly original, it's an very well made and refined iteration of a subgenre that usually lacks this level of polish.

I enjoyed it up until it got too crazy with the action. I wish the game was more focused on survival and perhaps some exploration or simple puzzles. I think DS1 is a survival-horror-action, whilst Dead Space 2 is a straight generic action game with horror themes. I have Dead Space 3 on origin but apparently you need the DLC to finish the story, so meh.

 

[Wunderbar]

I have Dead Space 3 on origin but apparently you need the DLC to finish the story, so meh.

DLC ends on a massive cliffhanger.

 

[Puukko]

Dead Space 3 is decline popamole but like most decline popamoles it can be fun with a friend as long as you forget where the series started.

 

[Biscotti]

"Fun with a friend" is the most meaningless criteria ever tbh, watching paint dry is fun with a friend. There's better co-op games out there, so there's little point in bothering with DS3 unless you're so invested in the story you really want to see it continued (and shat all over).

 

[samuraigaiden]

True. Even the most garbage game can be fun with a friend.

 

[Squid]

True. Even the most garbage game can be fun with a friend.

Fun friends make things fun, who would have guessed?!

 

[Robespierre]

Just finished Amid Evil, and it was good ... for the most part. The level design is mostly good, until the last episode which is interesting in concept and beautiful to look at but doesn't play as good as the other episodes, I think the abstract design of the episode is the main culprit here: for it to be playable the designers kinda had to make the levels more linear, which is a shame.

The enemy design was meh though, either bland either repetitive, mostly generic (those fucking golems in the episode 3), but they play well which is the more important as far as I'm concerned. The weaponry is as classic as it goes : you basically have your chainsaw (the axe and don't underestimate it, for it remains useful from start to finish), your BBgun (but it comes with homing missiles, those are good against aerial opponents), your shotgun (the star of torment which nails enemies to walls, and yeah it's fun), your missile launcher (oh god, I blew off the Earth yet again while rocket jumping), your rifle (the voltride) and your BFG. All of them work as intended, and you do have to use them all in order to kill efficiently everything the game throws at you. The weapons also have special modes, which you can trigger by collecting the souls enemies drop when killed.


Amid Evil is a bit easy however, but I won't hold this against it for I played on hard difficulty (I didn't find the Evil difficulty at first) and I hardly ever died (and most of my deaths occured during the platforming bits, which are a-plenty in the fifth episode).

It currently costs 11€ on GOG, and I would recommend it. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, nor does it try to break new grounds, but almost everything it does it does right. It's fun, it's very atmospheric, it's long, secrets are hard to find, and it runs godly even on a potato. And the soundtrack is great and fits the game just fine.
Good shooters are hard to find these days, and this one stands among the good ones.

Spoiler

 

[CuckMasher]

I am still playing a ton of Out of the Park Baseball 20. It's great as a strategy game because the lack of full information, just enough randomness, and good enough AI. I really want a start a meaty RPG but I feel like I can have only one meaty game going at once.

Ran out of steam on Nu-God of War. I think I'm maybe half way or more through? I just got sick of it.

Started Ori sequel and decided to wait for them to iron out the framerate issues. I do not like the new save system, I do not like having an inventory or what looks like a bigger emphasis on story. If I want an RPG, I'll just play an RPG. Not every game needs to have RPG elements.

Tried Play Unknown's Battleground which is "free" on x-box game pass. I'm actually having a lot of fun with that.

Planning to start the next game in my metal gear solid playthrough, which will be MGS Peace Walker. Really enjoyed the series so far although MGS 4 really went way way overboard with the cutscenes. MGS 1 and 3 probably my favorites so far.

Tried and have been playing a little bit of Stardew Valley as well.