What game are you wasting time on?

[NecroLord]

I've been playing some Star Trek: Bridge Commander.
Custom battles and scenarios. Took down a Borg Cube, though not without effort and pain. My ship (Sovereign Class) took a real beating and I had only 5 ships remaining in the fleet. Also some battles with the Cardies and Jem'Hadar.

Also playing Quake, since it's been a long while since I last played it. Pure Id Tech awesomeness.

 

[Ezekiel]

A bit of time have passed since i completed the Spark the Electric Jester series, my craving for momentum-based 3D platformers has been reignited and my eyes are now turned towards Sonic fangames. Sonic Test Labs was the first one that caught my eye.

I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if i could actually use my gamepad in this early demo. Using keyboard is not a very pleasing experience for these kind of games.
Aside from my controller issues i thought this one was neat.
Heard nice things about Sonic Robo Blast 2, Sonic GT and the recently(relatively) released Sonic Encore. Interested in trying them.

I kind of liked Sonic Robo Blast 2, because it didn't have all the automation and lack of control of Sonic Team's 3D games. But these two screenshots remind me of the failure of the official games, for featuring grinding. Like I said...

I would probably take the grinding pipes out of 3D Sonic. Sonic Adventure 2 had too many. Make it more about steering the hedgehog. Their whole design philosophy with 3D Sonic has been to reduce player input, because they never figured out how he should move. That's why all the pipe grinding is there, why the homing attack is there and why he starts steering on his own after you run into narrow paths or loops. Would be as if in a driving the car suddenly goes into auto-control and you can't disengage until the next section of the track. Playing Sonic in 3D should be kind of like steering a sports car once you go fast enough, jumps influenced by acceleration/momentum. The automation just looks cool, but is not fun.

 

[Kabas]

I kind of liked Sonic Robo Blast 2, because it didn't have all the automation and lack of control of Sonic Team's 3D games. But these two screenshots remind me of the failure of the official games, for featuring grinding. Like I said...

Don't mind them that much personally, especially if they're used as an alternative route. Can be a nice breather in between more challenging sections of the level.
I did like how Spark 3 decided to implement them. You could lean forward in order to build up momentum if the rail goes downhill or could buy an upgrade that's lets you sacrifice your momentum for extra energy(used for special powers). There is also another upgrade that lets you activate a speed boost anywhere on a rail if you have enough energy. Simple but works.
Also, it's easier to make screenshots during a grinding section.

While i called Sonic Test Lab pretty neat i must admit that the levels are somewhat linear and often does feel like "a car suddenly goes into auto-control mode".

Sonic: Encore i just tried got a lot more open levels with a nice flow.

Controls are junky AF however compared to Test Labs. Already beat half the levels and still can't get used to them.
At least my gamepad works with it.

 

[axx]

Finishing Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes. Stuck on last level as you have to micromanage every jump with pixel precision. Really annoying dog enemies, they look like furries so I'm happy to kill them. Quite a few annoying design decisions in this series, I'm not sure if this is Tom Hall's or Romero's work. Keen4-6 was an improvement on many levels.

 

[NecroLord]

Finished Quake and will also do its two expansions - Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity.
I remember them being harder than the base game. Will play on Nightmare difficulty.
Great expansions, I think they are really good.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Took a small break from MHW and played through Bright Memory: Infinite. Solid little action/shooter that brought back feels and memories from Vanquish, right down to the god awful and forced stealth section that nobody on earth asked for. The shooting mostly feels good (the shotgun needs a lot more oomph though. It's extremely underwhelming) and the sword combat, while simple, is still satisfying. The set pieces are kind of meh like the driving section and the part where you gotta "outrun" a hurricane. There is one setpiece where you're fighting on top of a flying airplane that is pretty dope.

The game looks and plays astounding for a tiny indie game. There's some jank and weird animations here and there but for the most part it's technically solid. Also it's only 2-3 hours long which feels like the perfect length tbh. Any longer and the game would have worn out it's welcome.



I'm giving it a bonus half point for the cute protagonist and free sexy outfits.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Waited for the full release to try Sons of the Forest. In many ways this sequel is 1 step forward 2 steps back. The new enemy designs are all good but the cave exploration has taken a massive step back. Most of the verticality of the first games caves are gone. A lot of the caves are very small now as well.

The game starts you with an npc companion that can only harvest materials, this is decline for a horror setting for obvious reasons.

A lot of the exploration rewards I've found so far have only given blueprint rewards for furniture that a madman would want - chairs made out of human legs and the like.

The lore of the island is better in the sequel at least.

The pacing is a bit of a slog and I don't think enough is improved to justify more of this game.

 

[Catacombs]

The pacing is a bit of a slog and I don't think enough is improved to justify more of this game.

So... stick with the first game?

 

[Frank Capicoli]

The pacing is a bit of a slog and I don't think enough is improved to justify more of this game.

So... stick with the first game?

No I don't think so. This is the codex. How can I tell you if a game is worth it or not or bad if I haven't put in at least 100 hours?

 

[NecroLord]

Finished Quake, now playing Scourge of Armagon.
Cool expansion, I like it. It's definitely harder than the base game, playing it on Nightmare without much difficulty, but still having some close calls...

Also playing some Star Trek: Elite Force 2.
Louis_Cypher have you played this game? I think I remember you talked about it in the Star Trek Games thread. I really like this one. Takes place one year after the controversial Nemesis. This game is pure Star Trek fun, not Nu Trek garbage.

 

[Ivan]

Trophies/Achievement is not the same as doing 100% in a game for me. Some games you can do everything the game allows you, but you still didn't get all the achievement because you didn't kill "10 enemies with weapon X without getting hit once" for example. That has nothing to do with doing 100% in a game, just some stupid shit you need to do because devs had no idea what else they could ask players to do to unlock more achievements. It's also so arbitrary one could argue that, "yeah, you killed 10 enemies, but did you kill 15? 20? 100? Nah, then you didn't do everything in the game".

That wasn't what I was saying. My point was that I'd be doing this even without the achievements. I was fulfilling the types of requirements that are now rewarded with achievements years before they were introduced to PlayStation. If I cared so much about achievements, I would get the last three in Crazy Taxi by getting less than a "CRAZY!!!" score. Yeah, I've considered games completed even when I didn't get really arbitrary, dumb achievements. Shadow of the Colossus was considered completed after I got all the items and climbed the shrine again, regardless of all the other trophies.

where does this behavior come from: frugal upbringing?

 

[adddeed]

Im the opposite of that guy. Sometimes i leave games half finished, and i never 100% any of them. If a game is really fun i do an achievement or two, but tahts about it.
Sounds like this guy has ocd or something.
Too little time, too many games.

 

[Ezekiel]

Im the opposite of that guy. Sometimes i leave games half finished, and i never 100% any of them. If a game is really fun i do an achievement or two, but tahts about it.
Sounds like this guy has ocd or something.
Too little time, too many games.

Lies, there aren't that many games. It's common that I lose interest or don't get into them, so I just don't buy that many. Of the 302 PC games that I actually bothered to log, only twenty I marked "completed" and 110 are unfinished. But "unfinished" would be way higher if I didn't often procrastinate on adding them until I beat them and then never beat them and never added them. Coming from consoles (that I abandoned, but still emulate), I don't play many games designed more with computers in mind. Mostly not my thing.

 

[Kabas]

Sonic: Encore is a nice fangame but for the supposed "final version" it could use a lot more polish, especially when it comes to controls. Also a bit lacking when it comes to optimization.
Loved the levels themselves and all the different characters you could play as but the boss battles were kinda meh.
Made me want to play Spark the Electric Jester 3 again.

Damn, i can't describe just how good it feels to control Spark. I am having a lot of fun trying to speedrun every single level, aiming for at least a golden speed medal.

 

[Chippy]

Currently playing X3: Litcube's Universe Star Wars Mod. So far. Edit: See below:

This is the first time I've played this mod, and if I wrote a review 100s of hours in, I doubt I'd ever get around to it. AP came out 13 years ago, and I still haven't finished it.

In short: this mod un-spasticates the German logic of the vanilla game. It makes it fun. It puts all the Star Wars ships in there. It adds interesting & QOL modifications. Things make sense now. Ships that outclass you are actually dangerous. Busy work has been cut down (like advanced satalites cover almost a whole sector). Dumbfuckery has been fixed (ships don't smash into each other). It has Star Wars music. It's easy to install and you only need this and no other mods.

It's probably the best Space sim for Star Wars on the PC. Only one thing it needs: Salvage Command Suite which has to be installed manually because the plugin manager isn't compatible with LU. If you're a newbie you need it to sell ships with engine tuning to make the game playable. SCS V.5 on the way.

I put this in the X4 thread as X4 is still a bit pricey and the Star Wars modder says it needs all expansions to play it on that game.

Edit: Unfortunately 50 or so hours in and the game is too unstable to recommend. It hangs, crashes, and slows more than the initial release of the Star Wars mod. I'm on a beefy system for it as well with 12GB video card, 32GB ram, AMD 5700 CPU and a mid grade SSD. It might be the salvage command suite I installed, but that mod didn't overwrite anything. So mileage may vary.

 

[markec]

Finished Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, and can only say that this is easily the worst Yakuza game up to date. I dont know if this was DLC that was jerry-rigged into a standalone game or a rushed, budget title. The game is short both in the way of the main quest and the city to explore, manages to look worse then last few games in the series even Yakuza 0, and even gameplay feels like a downgrade. The story and the new characters are underwhelming and I honestly have hard time finding good things to say about it. Before playing this game I was disappointed that this was not a ending of the Kiryu story since I think that he deserves retirement. After playing it I am thankful that this isnt the end since he deserves better.
The game managed to drain most of the excitement I had for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and seeing its price tag I think Im going to wait a bit to play it.

My new ranking: 0>Judgement>LaD>1>LostJ>2>5>6>4>3>Gaiden

Still playing Ashes, playing a bit of Black Desert and thinking to either play Cyberpunk 2077 or Nier Replicant.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Playing Bloodstained : Ritual of the Night.
Its a nice little metrovania with some light RPG elements. Gameplay wise it doesn't feel as polished as Hollow Knight, but it makes up for that by giving you a lot more options. You get more weapons with different damage types, you get a bunch of spells that deal different elemental damage types and enemies have their own resistance stats that you have to adapt to. I don't know if its a good tribute to castlevania because I haven't played a true castlevania game, but it is fun.

Spoiler

Also Miriam is hot.

 

[Sigourn]

45 hours into Human Revolution.

I'm still having a lot of fun. I struggled to enjoy the game at around the 30 hour mark because I was dead certain I was about to end the game and it made me feel sad about it. But it was enjoyable nonetheless.
One thing I would love to see more often in games are computer passwords you have to deduct based on your knowledge of characters and environmental storytelling.

But so far it's great, living up to the awesomeness™ of its cinematic trailer. I've also begun the Missing Link DLC added into the Director's Cut version. It could have been amore seamless integration by removing a couple of cutscenes and integrating a small gameplay section, but other than that, no problem.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Director's Cut was objectively worse in multiple ways to the original. The way they take away your gear in Missing Link is extremely buggy and fucked up. You lose your Praxis upgrades too, so if you had a full inventory and all inventory upgrades and go to recover your things, anything that can't fit will be lost.
If I'm not mistaken it's not possible to just progress through it to find Praxis then backtrack either, since there's eventually a few places where they don't allow you to turn back.

 

[gabel]

Got this in a sale a while ago and it's quite good.

 

[BruceVC]

Im still busy with the Shadowrun franchise, I installed about 4-5 new campaign mods and I was very impressed with the overall quality of these mods, I did have one bug that meant I couldnt finish one campaign buts not a big deal considering all the others mods were fine

They not long about 5-7 hours but fun. Then I have just finished Dragonfall which was excellent and my best part so far of the narrative and now Im going to play Hong Kong now

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm playing a bit of everything.

Pixel Puzzles, when I just want to chill, with game soundtracks in the background.

In Fire Emblem: Fates - Conquest, I must have reached somewhere around the halfway point. It's been solid gameplay wise, but the writing is ehh. Some fun level designs, which are much better than Awakening. My main is stil doing fine as a dodge tank. If things get messy, I pair him up with one of the beefier units.

Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children. I play this on and off. Still great, and I really like the customization. The translation is as bad as you can expect, but the characters are mostly likeable. Violent missions are the cream of the crop in this game. I feel like if you don't plan ,meticulously, things can quickly spiral out of control, and the shit will hit the fan in no time.

Steelrising. I saw that the thread got bumped, which made me remember that this was part of last month's PS+ offering. I'm half a dozen of hours in, and finding it to be serviceable, but not great. If anything, the setting is spiced up with the automatas. Some environments look cool, and audio is decent enough. Gaemplay wise, it ticks all the boxes, but it doesn't excel at anything. I decided to focus on agility/endurance, and use the weapons that stvck with it. For the most parts, I use a dual sword combo, or fans. Bosses have been okay, but haven't felt like bs crap, other than their attacks sometimes sticking to you. Their patterns are easy to discern, and fairly easy to avoid. I'm at the point where I got the hook.

Shin Megami Tensei V. Since I was gifted the new version of this, I decided that I need to wrap up the Switch version. I have a save that I left when I got other games. The story is paper thin, but unlike others, I don't mind. The gameplay is still good. I like the gathering of demons, and fusing them for better ones. Exploration is mostly fun, with some areas being boring due to big levels.

Live A Live. Replaying this just because. I'm at the Edo area chapter. Last time, I went through with zero kills, but this time, the aim is to have 100 kills before I reach the boss. Only 14 kills left.

 

[Kabas]

Completed the main story mode of Sonic GT, another fangame.

Short but I liked it. Feels a lot more polished compared to Sonic: Encore but still not on the level of Spark 3. Surprisingly has a somewhat complete story with full voice acting and stuff.

After completing the story campaign you unlock more characters and extra gameplay modes for the levels you beaten like 'time attack' or 'challenge', you also unlock the ability to search for secrets on the levels(chaos emeralds) which are tied to some extra unlocks i guess.
By the way, the same devs are currently making that Rollin' Rascal game.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Been playing around with Star Wars Battlefront II Classic (2005). Bought it for like $1.50 on Steam 2 or 3 years ago but never really got into playing it because of lack of proper controller support and awkward resolutions at 4K but then I found this decent menu UI and controller mod and now it plays like it should. Squad tactics in SP are rudimentary (to say the least) but there's such incredible variation in settings and styles that I'm finding it fun especially with a good controller scheme. Trying to keep it as vanilla as possible for compatibility and stability reasons and haven't even installed the unofficial 1.3 patch (don't like too many surprises but you can try to talk me into it if you wish) but there are a few interesting mods that tempt me like XBOX DLC for PC that adds "official" Battlefront I maps, levels and vehicles (the other "conversion" mod that does something similar has too much custom shit that makes the game look like turd, I heard... you know exactly what I'm talking 'bout, son). Will try multiplayer after learning the ropes in SP... maybe.

 

[NecroLord]

Been playing around with Star Wars Battlefront II Classic (2005). Bought it for like $1.50 on Steam 2 or 3 years ago but never really got into playing it because of lack of proper controller support and awkward resolutions at 4K but then I found this decent menu UI and controller mod and now it plays like it should. Squad tactics in SP are rudimentary (to say the least) but there's such incredible variation in settings and styles that I'm finding it fun especially with a good controller scheme. Trying to keep it as vanilla as possible for compatibility and stability reasons and haven't even installed the unofficial 1.3 patch (don't like too many surprises but you can try to talk me into it if you wish) but there are a few interesting mods that tempt me like XBOX DLC for PC that adds "official" Battlefront I maps, levels and vehicles (the other "conversion" mod that does something similar has too much custom shit that makes the game look like turd, I heard... you know exactly what I'm talking 'bout, son). Will try multiplayer after learning the ropes in SP... maybe.

Pretty good game.
I really like the space dogfights followed by docking the enemy capital ship.
I would say it's better than the first game.