Sulphur on 11/11/2024 at 11:22
Since you're getting SH4 on GOG, all you need to apply to it is a liberal helping of patience and maybe keep some lotion around for when it inevitably chaps your ass.
Thirith on 11/11/2024 at 12:33
I've got the Wii game Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, which I've heard very good things about (if I'm not mistaken, Sam Barlow of Her Story fame was one of the leads), but I only ever played the first half hour or so. I should see if I can get it to work on a Wii emulator.
Sulphur on 11/11/2024 at 14:08
By the way, regarding SH4: there's some events that occur past a certain point called hauntings, which are about as self-explanatory as you can imagine. The PC version has (
https://www.silenthillmemories.net/sh4/hauntings_en.htm) 6 missing out of 14, for some probably stupid reason, so if that's something you're concerned about then you've probably guessed the solution: emulate it on PCSX2. If you don't care about this all that much, then the GOG version's good enough.
Edit: or, if you don't do what I did and spend only 60 seconds reading the PCGamingwiki page, you can restore them with an updated fix (the GOG version uses an old one) (
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Silent_Hill_4:_The_Room#Silent_Hill_4_PC_Fix_by_Steam006) here.
Renault on 12/11/2024 at 16:58
Astro Bot is amazing. It's the best platformer I've played in quite a while. The levels are so creative and just plain fun to navigate, and there's almost no repetition. Nothing ever gets old. And tons of secrets to find. I actually feel bad for people who don't have a PS5 and can't play this one. I don't know if it's actually a system seller, but it seems like a pretty good reason to get a PS5. Hoping this thing sells really well and we get a sequel or two.
I'm also playing through Batman Arkham Shadow on the Quest 3 and digging it. There's so few super polished AAA VR titles, so it's a pleasure to get one like that that also has some decent length. It's funny how some things in VR are OK that usually wouldn't pass muster with me in a regular flat game, like quicktime events and contextual actions. But it all works pretty well here. Most VR games are still pretty simple with their mechanics and are very linear, but sometimes that's OK too. There's times you just want to play through the game and experience it and the difficulty level doesn't really matter.
Combat in particular is fun, and actually kind of physically taxing when you're taking on a dozen guys at the same time and swinging your arms left and right repeatedly. I could see some type of offshoot game, the Batman Arkham Workout, I seriously had to shed a layer last night while playing for an hour or two. But there is some sameness to it, I remember more than once thinking "this again?", but overall the game is a lot of fun, I'd definitely recco it if you happen to have a Quest 3.
Aja on 12/11/2024 at 17:27
I don't know why I keep buying Horizon: Zero Dawn. Apparently have a fixation. I bought it on PS5. Then I bought it again on Steam Deck (which I don't recommend at all). Each time I get like 10 or 15 hours in and then stop. I tell people (you plus my wife) that I don't like this game, but for some reason I want to like it, so I keep trying, and here we are, with the new remastered version, which I have purchased for a slight $15 fee.
It's great. It looks way better than the original and feels like a proper next-gen game. Like in the original, terrain is impossible to read, so you're still following the objective markers obsessively, but I've made peace with that. It's not about exploring; it's about progressing the story and shooting arrows at Decepticons. And the arrow shooting feels better now thanks to haptic feedback and gyro assisted aiming. Resource gathering is still a burden, but at least now you can disable the pickup animation so that it feels more like Breath of the Wild, a game which has weaker combat but a more beautiful and interesting map to explore. In the remaster they also improved the character models and motion capture, which look a bit stiff but a lot better than before. I'm at the point where I'm about to find out what the subtitle Zero Dawn means, which is farther than any of my previous playthroughs, and I am actually excited for that! Also, I'm planning to be sick later this week, and H:ZDR is the perfect game for a sick day.
Sulphur on 14/11/2024 at 10:58
I don't remember if I said this earlier, but at the risk of restating it, HZD has a much more well-written backstory than most games I've played. Yes, technically it boils down to 'lore', but unlike the boilerplate boredom of, say, The Elder Scrolls, the mystery of why the world ended up that way and the pathos behind it is compelling. And, in a departure from most Ubisoft map games, the rewards for the side activities are often snippets of narrative that colour in the events at the edges of the story well. It's still a formulaic open-worlder with strong combat propping up the gameplay, but the story makes it a worthwhile journey, at least in my opinion.
Thirith on 14/11/2024 at 11:08
Yeah, I'd agree that in many ways Horizon: Zero Dawn is a better Ubisoft game than most of the actual Ubisoft games in recent years.
Malf on 14/11/2024 at 11:35
Same, just too large for its own good.
Still thoroughly enjoying Veilguard here.
Alarmingly, it looks like the troll campaign against it may have done the job, as I haven't seen a single other person in my Steam Friends list playing it apart from that one guy who buys EVERYTHING then plays it for 5 minutes before putting it down forever.
We all have that guy in out Friends lists, right?
Sulphur on 14/11/2024 at 11:40
I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, Malf :cool:
Thirith on 14/11/2024 at 12:11
I've not even played Inquisition yet, even though I've had it for years. Hell, I've not even played Baldur's Gate 3 yet, in spite of helping to crowdfund it, and that one's higher on my list than a present-day Bioware game. Most of what I've read about Veilguard sounded good enough, but it didn't immediately excite me, and the most enthusiastic reviews tended to praise things that don't necessarily do much for me. I'm not saying I'll never play the game, but at the moment I'm not really looking for an action RPG of the Bioware kind.
Overall, I kinda feel that Disco Elysium broke me when it comes to RPGs. These days, if I think about playing an RPG, I immediately wonder whether I should replay Disco Elysium or Fallout New Vegas or perhaps go even more old school and reinstall Planescape Torment.
