Aja on 6/10/2023 at 20:03
I spent a couple days last week playing some PS+ games that I would probably never buy but that are very popular. The first was Spiderman: Miles Morales. I could tell it was Insomniac because it had the same hyper-polished, frictionless feel of Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. And like that game, I played it for two or three hours, enjoyed it, and haven't touched it since.
Then I tried Call of Duty: Black Ops. I haven't played a COD since Modern Warfare on Xbox 360. The controls feel good. Like, really smooth and responsive and snappy, even with a joystick. I started skipping the cutscenes because fuck this Ronald Reagan bullshit. I got a few missions in but, like with Spidey, I got tired of how guided and mindless it was.
So there. I tried some popular games, thought they were fine, and learned something about myself in the process. I guess I like games with a little jank, some obtuseness and weirdness. Sand away all the rough edges and it's harder for me to feel engaged. I was trying to decide whether or not I should finally take the plunge on Cyberpunk, but I may have just answered my own question.
qolelis on 8/10/2023 at 21:31
Getting ready for The Talos Principle 2, I got back to Road to Gehenna to look for more stars. Yesterday, I played the TP 2 demo and I'm certain the full game is going to be something extra.
I've finished my first playthrough of Dishonored 2. I played on Easy with no supernatural powers (flesh and steel) and most HUD elements turned off—especially quest markers. I kept the crosshair (because I wasted a lot of arrows without it) and object highlight (good to know what I can interact with). I had great fun exploring and navigating on my own.
For a second playthrough, my plan is to play with supernatural powers enabled—focusing on blink and possession—but on a higher difficulty (hard?). I remember how blink made the first game fun, although I felt overpowered, because I could easily bypass a lot of the enemies, so a higher difficulty might be what I want. It would also be fun to see which places blink (and possession) can take me to that I couldn't get to with just old-fashioned climbing.
Sulphur on 9/10/2023 at 03:08
Bolts, surely? I don't remember arrows in DH2.
If you're going to do supernatural powers and you've never fucked around with them before, Emily's powers like Domino, Mesmerise, and Shadow Walk are all great for experimenting with, and Domino especially is wicked fun if you like to mix things up with a little violence (but it enables your non-lethal playthroughs as well). I believe Corvo is the one with Blink and Possession this time around; Emily has Far Reach, which keeps you visible as you zap around, but it's a good Blink analogue with its own quirks.
Tomi on 10/10/2023 at 07:35
I need to give another chance to Dishonored 2 some time. I didn't find it much fun when I tried to play it like Thief, but maybe next time I'll take advantage of all the weapons and gadgets and superpowers, and see if it's better that way. :)
For the last couple of days I've been playing Trek To Yomi on the Xbox. It's leaving Game Pass soon (at the end of this month maybe?) so I wanted to at least try it. And I'm glad that I did, it's pretty... good-ish! Trek To Yomi is an action game with a samurai theme and quite a typical revenge story. It has very stylish monochromatic graphics with a film grain effect and some really cool camera angles. I think the game tries to imitate some old Japanese samurai movies, even though I don't think that I've ever seen any... But yeah, it looks pretty good to me!
All the action (combat) happens in 2D, and the combat is all about memorising some combos and figuring out where to apply which combo. Random button-mashing doesn't get you far (I didn't try the easy difficulty though) but the normal difficulty offered a nice challenge for me. I didn't find the combat as fluid as I hoped, and the use of ranged weapons can be a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes, but it's still pretty fun. I also like how the combat moves feel somewhat realistic and don't go over the top, even if the story goes all supernatural at one point. Outside the combat you can run around and explore things in 3D, which is a nice touch. It's still a fairly linear game though, but I think that's only a good thing in this case.
If you're good at memorizing combos and/or the samurai theme interests you, I would recommend Trek To Yomi!
qolelis on 10/10/2023 at 14:55
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Bolts, surely? I don't remember arrows in DH2.
Heh, you just had to educate me, didn't you!? I'm not here to make a...
quarrel, though, so let's call them "bolts" for the sake of separation. :p
Quote:
If you're going to do supernatural powers and you've never fucked around with them before, Emily's powers like Domino, Mesmerise, and Shadow Walk are all great for experimenting with, and Domino especially is wicked fun if you like to mix things up with a little violence (but it enables your non-lethal playthroughs as well). I believe Corvo is the one with Blink and Possession this time around; Emily has Far Reach, which keeps you visible as you zap around, but it's a good Blink analogue with its own quirks.
Okay, good to know.
The detailed customization and different play styles is what I like the most about Dishonored. I can even almost play it as something out of my absolute favourite genre, puzzle explorers, games in which the challenge is about exploring and navigating unknown territory. There aren't a lot of these being made, and even fewer good ones, but
Eastshade and
INFRA come to mind (and, I'm sure, now soon also
The Talos Principle 2). Many promising exploration games in development also tend to get cancelled or delayed indefinitely (seemingly more often than other types of games!?). I can do some action, but a lot of the time these days, I just want to experience a game without stress.
henke on 10/10/2023 at 15:11
Played a bit of Raven's 1997 top-down shooter (
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2464670/Take_No_Prisoners/) Take No Prisoners. I remember digging the demo of this back in the day but never buying it. Well maybe it would've been for the best if it'd stayed a rosy memory. It actually plays well enough once you remap the controls to something more modern, and the cheesy FMVs are fun, but the levels are a confusing labyrinthine mess and my first proper mission ran into a dead end when one of the enemies I had to kill got stuck inside a wall. Ah well.
Also bought the new Cyberpunk DLC, but I'm having a hard time wanting to play it.
And I played a few Steam Next Fest demos, will do a write-up shortly.
Sulphur on 11/10/2023 at 03:52
Quote Posted by qolelis
Heh, you just had to educate me, didn't you!? I'm not here to make a...
quarrel, though, so let's call them "bolts" for the sake of separation. :p
Well, as long as we don't throw a fistmele or two about it.
Quote:
The detailed customization and different play styles is what I like the most about Dishonored. I can even almost play it as something out of my absolute favourite genre, puzzle explorers, games in which the challenge is about exploring and navigating unknown territory. There aren't a lot of these being made, and even fewer good ones, but
Eastshade and
INFRA come to mind (and, I'm sure, now soon also
The Talos Principle 2). Many promising exploration games in development also tend to get cancelled or delayed indefinitely (seemingly more often than other types of games!?). I can do some action, but a lot of the time these days, I just want to experience a game without stress.
Makes sense. Emily's skillset works both ways, but Corvo's probably more useful then because of Dark Vision.
I've played a bit of the Talos Principle 2 demo, and I have to say that it made me feel dumb within ten minutes of starting out, so it's definitely going to be special, with rich seams of smack-your-head-against-a-brick-wall-ium to mine.
Jason Moyer on 11/10/2023 at 04:05
Quote Posted by Tomi
I didn't find it much fun when I tried to play it like Thief
You should try playing it like Deus Ex, since it plays basically like Deus Ex with better movement stuff.
qolelis on 11/10/2023 at 14:07
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I've played a bit of the Talos Principle 2 demo, and I have to say that it made me feel dumb within ten minutes of starting out, so it's definitely going to be special, with rich seams of smack-your-head-against-a-brick-wall-ium to mine.
I must admit I had to give up on one puzzle and use one of my "bypass items" I had found earlier while exploring. It might have been due to what seemed like a bug—with a teleporter malfunctioning—but you sort of never know with TP; there could have been some trick to it up a sleeve somewhere, but I never figured it out, so I just "yeah, that's a bug,
obviously", bypassed the puzzle, and moved on. Other than that, no hitches. I enjoyed every minute of it.
Sulphur on 11/10/2023 at 14:45
I think it's missing some basic things that more playtesting would have revealed, like showing you the distance at which a jammer can operate before throwing a puzzle at you that relies on that knowledge. Sure, you can fuck around enough to find out, but that seems like a missed opportunity to reduce obvious points of friction. I assume the full game has a more fleshed out introduction that eases you into it, compared to simply throwing you into a selection of puzzle rooms from across the game in the demo.
