What game are you wasting time on?

[Machocruz]

The Last of Us (PSNow)

Not as good as the insane praise it received, but not the worst overrated normie game either. I can see why people loved it. It's a greatest hits compilation of post-apoc/the-monsters-are-us survival flicks and television. Familiar, cozy, non-threatening. The environmental artists did a bang-up job of recreating the aesthetic and atmosphere of such works. At its best when things go tits up and you have to use all available, and limited, tools and various tactics to survive a violent encounter, sometimes scrambling for resources/improvised weapons on the go as you are dogged around the area by rabid assholes. Has plenty of AAA decline features, that goes without saying, but playing on at least Hard provides some danger. The much lauded story is merely passable to me. We've seen all these beats before. I don't mind it, but Citizen Kane of Gaming™ it is not. It's mid-tier television drama level.

 

[Latro]

Beat Soul Hackers (3ds).

Game I've been meaning to replay, it's still a solid 7.5 for a SMT. It's a good game, but feels like it was cut too short to really be a classic in the series.

PROS: Likeable cast, fun SMT, loyalty system is actually not that bad when you figure it out.
CONS: Feels like it's missing a dungeon or two. Next-to-last dungeon feels like filler. Certain characters get zero spotlight when the rest do, making it noticeable.
Side-quest bonus dungeons are tacked on and not worth bothering with; feels like it could have addressed the shortness of the original campaign but they neglected to do so.
Actually pretty easy for a SMT, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Again, really felt like it was lacking certain oomph to make it a classic.

Spoiler

Hitomi and Yu-ichi get next to zero attention compared to the rest of the cast. Ending is abrupt and almost unsatisfying. The feeling of "incompleteness" comes from all the story beats that don't get addressed: where is the follow-up to the MC's father? no backstory on hitomi or yu-ichi? What happened to the phantom society? Paradigm X is literally two corridors and the e-mail/summoner net internet feature really felt like a missed opportunity for world-building/backstory/side quest set-up etc etc. If Atlus had bothered to address at least one or two things I've mentioned they could have easily put out a few more dungeons for the sake of length. The armor/sword fusions are cool but the game is so easy and so short it's not really worth the trouble. Amami Monolith should have just had one round of the word-puzzle shit, not two.

 

[CryptRat]

A question to

folks here: is it worth to play Perihelion? The artstyle is superb and the soundtrack is really nice too but what about the game itself?

It's a short game close to SSI's gold box ones with first person exploration and tactical turn-based fights.

The UI is terrible, for example you can see only one item in the inventory at a time, I am not sure how someone can come with something that bad and think it's OK, it's tolerable only because you really won't pick a lot of junk. You must understand that the very first keyword is actually more of a piracy protection (the other ones are not), there's a hint in the manual on what you're meant to answer to the first NPC you can answer to, which I think has absolutely nothing to do with what he says (the other keywords either, possibly, but they are all clear keywords you get inside the game, you'll have zero problem with those). It's possible that you need all the base stats high on at least one character, maybe you can get stuck at some stat check otherwise, I'm not sure. Finally keep one savegame in the begin of each dungeon, it's, in theory, possible to get stuck inside a dungeon, because of some weird behaviour of an otherwise fun sequence.

The game is fun though', the content is good with unique dungeons with organic puzzles and only several, fixed, relevant encounters.

 

[Star Citizen]

Dead Space - Shit is pretty cool, perhaps I'll finish it this time.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm still playing Avernum 4 and Biomutant. I'm nearing the end in both. My guess is that I will finish them today.

Both games are done!

Time to beat some PS+/Free games. First, Maneater, then I will try Vampyr and Monster Hunter World.

 

[Bohrain]

Wanted to try to learn to play 2D fighting games, bought King of Fighters 2002 UM. I've played a bit of GGXXR+, but I'm essentially at the level of a button smasher who can occasionally do a quarter circle. Also got a bluetooth gamepad, shitty third party one because my hometown doesn't seem to have xbawks controllers anywhere. In fact so shitty that I had return it because it did both random disconnects and locked in directional inputs for a few seconds. Extremely infuriating when you try to grind a 2141236 motion or something similar.

 

[fork]

If you want to play fighting games seriously, buy a good arcade stick. And, most importantly, don't just pay attention to components (Sanwa, Seimitsu), but to the PCB as well, or you risk ending up with ridiculous input lag. And should you choose to go that route, try if you like other arcade games as well, because trying to master Cave shmups via MAME repayed my arcade stick way more thoroughly than fighting games. :3

 

[Bohrain]

I don't care about getting on a tourneyfag level. I just want to get a level where I can pick up a game and play it online with some fighting chance.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Finished Kingdom Come and decided to give Trine out since I bought it 8 years ago and haven't played it. Its alright but it cannot keep my interest for long. The wizard has the most interesting premise with the ability to create platforms by drawing shapes on the screen. If the game had some more bite it would definitely be a lot more enjoyable. I will end up trying another game I bought almost a decade ago and haven't touched, Fallout 2.

 

[0wca]

Replaying this:

Then moving onto this:

 

[fork]

I don't care about getting on a tourneyfag level. I just want to get a level where I can pick up a game and play it online with some fighting chance.

I was talking more from an enjoyment perspective. You can get to more than decent level with a keyboard, but that's way less fun imo. And gitting gud takes time with any input device.

 

[Nathir]

I don't care about getting on a tourneyfag level. I just want to get a level where I can pick up a game and play it online with some fighting chance.

Keyboard is perfectly fine anyway.

 

[True Ukrainian]

I just discovered the Sega Forever package for mobile, where you can download old sega games and save for the price of watching an ad. I downloaded the Phantasy Star set and have been generally enjoying it.

 

[Abu Antar]

I was going to play a few PS+ games, but instead, I am replaying Albion and Way of the Samurai 3. I have a four week vacation. No plans to do anything. I'll play games for ten hours a day.

In Albion, I made sure to get the gun early on, and gain two levels. Being level five, instead of level three will surely help. I'm also reading everything, because my memory of the game is so-so. (I posted screens in the other thread from my alt. account.)

In WotS3, I am dicking around on my first run. A few hours in. I'll maybe do 10-15 endings, all endings might be a bit much.

 

[Puukko]

I was going to play a few PS+ games, but instead, I am replaying Albion and Way of the Samurai 3. I have a four week vacation. No plans to do anything. I'll play games for ten hours a day.

In Albion, I made sure to get the gun early on, and gain two levels. Being level five, instead of level three will surely help. I'm also reading everything, because my memory of the game is so-so. (I posted screens in the other thread from my alt. account.)

In WotS3, I am dicking around on my first run. A few hours in. I'll maybe do 10-15 endings, all endings might be a bit much.

The rate you post about games at, I figured you were on a permanent vacation...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

In WotS3, I am dicking around on my first run. A few hours in. I'll maybe do 10-15 endings, all endings might be a bit much.

They're easy enough that you can do most of them under an hour. The real fun of the game is in the sword making anyway.

 

[Vlajdermen]

My thoughts on some consolefaggotry I've been catching up with these days

Ape Escape 2
The core gameplay loop of searching and catching monkes in non-linear Mario 64-style levels is fun, the art style made me slighty nostalgic for Digimon, Yu-gi-oh and other weebshit that was popular when I was little, and I found the prevalent banana motifs cute, but it all got old after a while. Might finish it later.

God of War: Ascension
The combat is decently involved with a solid enemy pool, surpriisingly good boss battles, and just the right amount of difficulty, but the other elements of the game fall short of the previous god of war games. Not bad, I still enjoyed it from beginning to end, I just remember the previous games being more interesting. The story and art style are among the better in the series.

Nights into Dreams
If I were a cynic I could complain about the game all day, but the core gameplay is so fun that I don't want to. It has all the best characteristics of the patron saint of autism Yuji Naka.

God Hand
It really grew on me. The combat is deep and involved, with just the right amount of randomness and unpredictability to not get repetitive, but make each outcome a result of skill, not of luck. The presentation is neat and legible, and the campy style of the cutscenes works well. Some of the lines made me laugh, but most are just fun to watch.

Devil may cry 3
What I said for God Hand combat still applies here, but the controls aren't as tight, the level design doesn't work as well and the view is a little muddled. On top of that, everything besides the gameplay (story, visuals, writing, music) is irredeemably awful. I get why others like it, but I don't. That's just the way it is.

Crash Bandicoot ans Uncharted trilogies
Will give my opinions later, in a dedicated post

 

[Exhuminator]

Right now I am almost 30 hours into Mass Effect 3 (the 360 version not that censored remastered bullshit). I am almost done with the fourth and final DLC, then I'll wrap up the main campaign. I loved ME1 and ME2, but there's something about ME3 that kind of bores me. Ultimately I think it puts too much emphasis on cover shooting, the game feels like 95% of the time that's what you're doing. Which is fine if it was supposed to be a cover shooter and not an RPG. Not saying it's awful, it's still reasonably fun. But I'm not addicted to it like I was with the first two. I kind of have to make myself play it honestly.

 

[Nathir]

Demon Souls on the RPCS3 emulator. It's kinda funny seeing how many elements were repeated in Dark Souls. Pretty good game. Bosses are more like puzzles in this one, instead of tense action fights like in later DS installments. Which is fine. The level design is a lot more treeacherous here though, and the run up to a boss is sometimes harder than the boss himself. Tower of Latria is the best stage ever though. Legitimately scary. Emulator is amazing too. Easy to set up, no problems with the game. Runs amazing, the only time it lags is when i break enviromental stuff. Camera is a bit wonky but it's fine. Just need to finish Valley of defilement and then go back to Boletaria. Wish world tendency was explained anywhere though. I went in completely blind and essentially locked myself out of getting pure white stonefang tunnel tendency.

 

[Abu Antar]

Demon Souls on the RPCS3 emulator. It's kinda funny seeing how many elements were repeated in Dark Souls. Pretty good game. Bosses are more like puzzles in this one, instead of tense action fights like in later DS installments. Which is fine. The level design is a lot more treeacherous here though, and the run up to a boss is sometimes harder than the boss himself. Tower of Latria is the best stage ever though. Legitimately scary. Emulator is amazing too. Easy to set up, no problems with the game. Runs amazing, the only time it lags is when i break enviromental stuff. Camera is a bit wonky but it's fine. Just need to finish Valley of defilement and then go back to Boletaria. Wish world tendency was explained anywhere though. I went in completely blind and essentially locked myself out of getting pure white stonefang tunnel tendency.

Tower of Latria is great, isn't it? The level design is cool, but the freakiness is what made it memorable for me. First, you hear these ominous bells, and you wonder wtf is going on. You're cautious, and then BAM! These Cthulhu-esque monsters slowly come at you, and you just want to NOPE out.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Tower of Latria is the best set of levels in any of the Souls games.

 

[fork]

Maybe.
But still, Dark Souls > Demon's Souls.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Scratching an MMO itch... playing the New World beta & the Ashes of Creation alpha. But both will end very soon. Then I'll check out the "Remnant: From the Ashes" expansion, and maybe try a hardcore run of Valheim.

 

[NerevarineKing]

Tower of Latria is one of the best things FromSoft has ever done.

 

[fork]

Lordran is better.