Malf on 25/10/2019 at 13:10
Quote Posted by Starker
The campiness is definitely a big part of the appeal for me (and DMC 5 seems to deliver on that front as well). I don't really have any problems with the difficulty, as long as the challenge is fun. And Clover/Platinum have always managed to deliver something enjoyable on that front.
Oh, it's still camp, but it's just a little bit creepier too in its attitudes towards women.
It's hard to put a finger on exactly why, but I feel it's a combination of more realistic proportions for Bayo herself and some of the dialogue interactions between her and other NPCs. Bayo and Jean had ludicrous figures in the first game, making otherwise "sexy" animations appear weirdly alien.
And the men in the first game felt like background dressing, allowing Bayo to take centre stage (which I suspect ultimately wasn't the intention of the dev team, but came out that way in translation).
By contrast, both Bayo and Jean have more "realistic" proportions in Bayo 2, making the pandering to the male gaze feel just that bit more creepy. And Bayo's story isn't really her own in this game, with an irritating male character taking centre stage for most of it.
But it's still more gloriously camp than most other offerings out there, and has really honed the gameplay formula from the first game to a fine edge, trimming almost all of the extraneous fat. It could still do with some better check-pointing, and getting Platinum or Pure Platinum medals can sometimes feel a little unfair with goalposts seeming to move (sometimes you can get hit a couple of times and get Pure, sometimes not at all and get Gold), but it's overall a
fabulous game.
I've played through it multiple times (thanks to it also being gloriously portable on Switch), and have enjoyed it every time, something I can't say for the first, thanks to multiple, unfair difficulty spikes.
WingedKagouti on 25/10/2019 at 13:37
Quote Posted by Malf
And the men in the first game felt like background dressing, allowing Bayo to take centre stage (which I suspect ultimately wasn't the intention of the dev team, but came out that way in translation).
From everything I've read on Bayonetta 1 and the team behind it, Bayonetta was always intended to be the very obvious focus of the game and as a strong independent woman who acknowledges her sexuality in a powerful way. I've read some (translated) dev complaints about lewd artwork depicting Bayonetta in a submissive position, while being ok with her in lewd artwork where she's dominating others.
Also, Bayonetta 1 is about Bayonetta discovering who she really is, so having everyone else be mostly background characters is very much in line with what the game wants to do.
Pyrian on 25/10/2019 at 17:07
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
Do you click 1-2 times per second playing Minesweeper? That's how brutal combat can sometimes be on your mouse/hand in Diablo 1.
Pretty sure I hit way more than 1-2 CPS on both those games.
demagogue on 25/10/2019 at 23:54
Diablo 2 is the one that sticks in my memoy. It's good to play both maybe, but if you played just one I'd pick the 2nd. Anyway 1 & 2 were clickfests for sure. You just imagine a swarm of 20 or 50 monsters running in from every direction, and 1-3 clicks kills each one as fast as you can click them down, with one or two 8-click tanks in there. You can imagine how fast and long you're going to be clicking to clear the mob out. It has a kind of immediate gratification though, like a pure sugar rush of gaming.
icemann on 26/10/2019 at 02:55
I always liked the first more. More restricted to a single town and pure dungeon crawling.
Starker on 26/10/2019 at 05:50
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
Do you click 1-2 times per second playing Minesweeper? That's how brutal combat can sometimes be on your mouse/hand in Diablo 1.
Sorry, I should have mentioned that my times are below 60 seconds for expert. But I think for Diablo maybe there's some kind of a macro I could set up to ease the pain.
Sulphur on 27/10/2019 at 09:34
Since Halloween's coming up, now's not a bad time to give Detention a try, henke. It's also fairly short (~5-6 hours). I'd also tell people to play Devotion, but y'know, Winnie the Pooh sort of fucked it into a hole in the ground and so no one can buy it now.
Games I have neglected:
Most of them?
Yeah. Backlogging sucks. If there's a game I regret not having played properly yet, though, it's FO:NV.
I'm playing The Outer Worlds now, and it's smart and engaging comfort food where the contrast between it and a random Bethesda game RPG really shows what both studios are good at: Bethesda does great landscapes and painfully tedious popcorn narratives/characters; Obsidian does okay game worlds with dense worldbuilding and real attention to detail in the writing while remaining snappy and fun. The sheer ability to kill anyone and everyone in The Outer Worlds, or to choose a multitude of approaches depending on the kind of character you've built, those two things alone show how much thought went into player choice; heck, if you've got points in medical or engineering, you can even be pedantic with people you talk to, and the game takes the time to answer your pedantry. Having said that, it is still a fairly blunt takedown on capitalism and has lots and lots of jokes about the nature of commoditised living when taken to its logical extreme. Some of those jokes are as dark as they should be. But also, in engaging with these concepts in as gonzo and anarchic a manner as it does, it's more of a flippant comedy and less of a social comment, and thus is kind of disposable in many of the ways a Skyrim is.
FO:NV, on the other hand, seems to actively challenge preconceptions, which means it's immediately a smarter game and more worthy of my time. It's just also kind of painful to play, because a hot and unwelcoming desert is, unsurprisingly, not very fun to trudge around in. (Also that walk speed: ai yi yi![or if Duck's reading this: ay ay ay!]). And that's actually part of the reason why I've neglected some really good games, because they're a bit difficult to engage with (RE7, RE2make, Return of the Obra Dinn, anything else starting with R I guess?).
Also I tend to put some really good experiences on the back-burner for 'when I have time': Dishonored 2, Prey, Hitman 2, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Subnautica, Deus Ex:M... hrm. Most of those seem to be either immersive sims or post-genre, huh. I wonder what that means. I need to think about this some more.
Gryzemuis on 27/10/2019 at 23:48
I played and finished The Witcher 3 in the summer of 2015. I played some GTA V in 2014 and 2015. Since then I have hardly played any games. Partially because I got a new job in 2015. Partially because games seem to interest me less. Few games can capture my attention for longer periods of time these days.
End of 2015 I played and finished Darksiders 2 (simple game). Early 2016 I played and finished The Witness (short game). In August 2016 I played a bit of No Man's Sky. End of 2018 I played and finished Ashen. That's basically it, for the last 5 years. I've tried and started to play a few more games, but I just couldn't be bothered to continue playing them.
The big exception of course is Dark Souls. Since 2016 I played all 3 versions, multiple times. Got all achievements in all 3 games. I even did a SL1 run in DS3 (beating Pontiff, Aldritch, the Dancer, Oceiros, Gundryr and even DSarmor. Stuck at Twins, Nameless King, Friede). Whenever I felt the need to play a game, I would just play a bit of DS for a few days (or longer), and then take a long break again. No other games seem to be able to interest me atm.
So who are the victims ?
I really want to play and finish GTAV. I made a fresh start a week ago. I never got past 35% of the story before. Driving cars was just too painful. Now I have a gamepad and driving is much easier. But shooting and aiming is a pain (auto-aim does not always seem to work). So I plan to do a run this winter combining gamepad and trackball/joystick. GTAV is really good, I know that. I just require some determination, I guess.
After I finish GTAV, I plan on playing RDR2. On PC. Maybe with a controller, on my TV, laying on my couch.
I need to finish the expansions of The Witcher 3. I enjoyed all 3 Witcher games. But there's something about TW3 that does not invite to play. I need to overcome that.
I have finished and enjoyed Dishonored, many years ago. But I haven't finished the expansions. I started Dishonored 2 when it was released, but I never got past 35% or so of the game. They are good games, again, I need to play and finish them.
There are a few other games I tried, and maybe should try again. Draugen, GhostTale, Journey, the latest Metro, Observer, The Sinking City, and Firewatch are all waiting. I haven't played The Dark Mod yet, and I bet it is worth playing. I got Demon Souls running, but choppy, in RPCS3. Not sure if I should play that (I truly suck with a controller, and I'm not sure I will ever improve).
But the real neglected games for me are: GTAV, TW3 and Dishonored2. I'm ashamed.
Starker on 28/10/2019 at 04:49
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I'd also tell people to play Devotion, but y'know, Winnie the Pooh sort of fucked it into a hole in the ground and so no one can buy it now.
Yeah, screw that bear. I'm still pissed about it. I had no chance buy the game in the 7 days it was available, but I'm ready in case it comes back eventually. It's one of only a few horror titles able to fill some of that massive void left since Silent Hill took a nosedive.
heywood on 30/10/2019 at 17:48
Prey is at the top of my list. I need to play that game.
Also, I purchased X-Plane 11 a little while ago and I've hardly played it yet.
I also want to try Mass Effect: Andromeda
Going back further:
Portal
GTA V (I haven't played any GTA game)
STALKER: Call of Pripyat
And lots more