What ARE you playing in 2020?

Aja on 15/1/2020 at 21:06

Quote Posted by Thirith

Finished Gato Roboto this morning. Cute game, fun, doesn't outstay its welcome - but the ending did surprise me, or at least it felt like there'd be alternative endings and I didn't get the preferred one. For all I know that's exactly what happened, though a quick Google search suggests that the ending I got is the one and only ending.

If you reload your last save file you get a small epilogue.

Tomi on 15/1/2020 at 22:51

I'm getting close to the end of Blasphemous, but for the last two days I've been banging my cone-shaped head against Crisanta at the Rooftops. All the boss fights before this have been rather easy-peasy, the scary baby with the centipede was the hardest one so far and it took me about ten attempts. This Crisanta conehead, however, oh man... I must have tried to beat her at least fifty times by now. I even tried to look for some tips and watched a video where someone beat her easily without taking any damage, and some people claimed that it's the easiest boss fight in the game. Only then I found out that they've made her much harder to beat in a recent patch, so perhaps I don't suck that much after all. :p My last three attempts have all been pretty good, in the latest one I got agonisingly close but totally screwed up when I noticed that I was only one strike away from winning.

Prepare to die, Crisanta.

Thirith on 16/1/2020 at 07:19

Quote Posted by Aja

If you reload your last save file you get a small epilogue.

Yeah, I saw that one. It's cute, but on the whole I still came away feeling that the ending was a bit too rushed and Huh?

TerryHiggins on 16/1/2020 at 22:01

Currently playing LEGO DC Super Villains on Switch. I'm absolutely infatuated with this game, it's so much fun and I feel like the pacing is much better in this game than in LEGO Batman 2. In LB2 you solve puzzles most of the time while I feel like that's more toned down in this game. It's also really cool playing as the villains and fighting the superheroes such as Nightwing and Batgirl. I always prefer proper gaming accessories to get true gaming experience. More importantly i need a gaming chair to get myself fit for the gaming environment. I have Gaming chair of Kinsal and it is indeed perfect though there are other good names but i prefer this one due to my own experience. (https://www.reviewsed.com/kinsal-gaming-chair-review/) Get more info about the gaming chair from kinsal and its feature

henke on 18/1/2020 at 12:52

Alrighty, finished A Plague Tale: Innocence. The game starts off good and just gets better and better until about the half-way point, the arrival at the Château d'Ombrage. At this point you've acumulated more followers and it feels like you're a kid on an epic adventure with your friends. It feels like Dark Age Goonies. Like the cool, chill parts of The Last Of Us. After that the game kinda looses the magic and gets gradually worse as it goes on. You get a new skill towards the end (controlling rats) that's supposed to feel powerful and cool but is so clunky to wield it's just annoying. The AI of your enemies, companions and even the rats start showing their weakness. And there's plenty of frustrating sections you'll have to replay several times because the game blindsides you with some scripted event and it's impossible to react quickly enough due to the clunky controls. However, the storytelling/characters are pretty good and the finale is downright epic. So, eh, overall it's fine I guess. Might be worth picking up in a sale.

qolelis on 19/1/2020 at 02:11

I'm starting to really like The Occupation. I just finished the first non-intro mission. You're supposed to have an interview with someone in their office, so you arrive one hour early to "prepare" -- which means snooping around and gathering information in various ways (crawling through vents, playing with electricity, bypassing locks etc...). You have exactly one hour (in real time) to find out as much as possible. How your interview goes depends on what you find. There's no fail-state, nor any manual saving, so you have to go with whatever happens.

Saving is done automatically after each finished mission/chapter. Not being able to save at will means you need to dedicate some time before starting (or restart if you get interrupted). I generally prefer no timeout, because I like to thoroughly explore, but it does add a bit of tension (or resource management, depending on how you see it) and makes replaying more interesting; next time I will be more daring, so I can find more information before the interview. I'm still learning the game (mechanics, NPC reactions, layouts, how much I can stretch the rules etc) and so far I'd say the game definitely focuses on player skill.

There is en ecology of different subsystems all working together, allowing the player to go about things in different ways, so, in that way, you have the freedom of choice and also have to suffer the consequences -- or reap the benefits -- of those choices (and with no fail-state or reloading you just have to commit or replay later if you want to go about things a different way (I think there will be a chapter select available once I have finished the game the first time)). There are restrictions too, though -- which make the game less of an immersive sim than it could have been: climbing and leaning is context dependent and both are even done with the same button (I haven't yet figured out when or where leaning is allowed (might not only be about being in the right spot, but also about the guards being nearby(?) and in a certain state(?))). Falling off edges is not allowed at all (except in predetermined spots), and jumping is never allowed. These restrictions aren't dealbreakers, but do take away a few points.

henke on 19/1/2020 at 12:03

Decided to give this PS Now thingy a spin, with the 7-day trial. There's a lot of good stuff on there, only problem is I've played almost all of it already. I stream-played a bit of DOOM 2016 and post-apoc-arcade-racing-PS3-games Armageddon Riders and Motorsport:Apocalypse. Probably because I played it early in the day when the net was better Armageddon Riders played quite well over streaming, while the other two, which I played later, were a big too laggy to be enjoyable. Thankfully you can also play some of the newer titles locally, so I'm downloading Mordorgame 2: Shadow of War right now.

Thirith on 19/1/2020 at 14:51

Just finished the final "Patient Zero" mission, thanks to the help Malf provided. I decided not to let the mission play out as is, because I think I wouldn't have enjoyed its break from how the series functions otherwise, even if in theory I love the idea.

Which means that I can now get back to my replay of Dishonored 2, where I think I might pay the new Duke a visit.

Malf on 20/1/2020 at 12:02

I picked up The Surge 2 for cheap this weekend, and realised I'd not got around to playing the first game, even though I've had it in my library for a while.

I'd been hesitant, as I burned out on the Souls formula after Dark Souls (even bouncing off of Bloodborne, where I got to the swamp before giving up, partly in frustration, partly because I felt the formula had nothing new to show me).

But it's different enough to be enjoyable!
And unlike the Souls games, it isn't all grey.

So in all likelihood, I'll polish this off between bouts of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne.
Which is in itself pretty damned good. Still loving the hammer in this, and the sense of mastering a weapon is fantastic in MHW.
On paper, hammer is one of the simpler weapons to use, but to use it effectively, you have to pay attention to the terrain, probably more so than any other weapon in the game. Hammer's best when you're taking advantage of terrain that either lets you slide down it, finishing by barrelling through the air, or by running up the wall to spin off of it.
Or taking advantage of every little ledge for that extra bit of height necessary for a jumping attack, which can subsequently chain in to a massive upswing.

I discovered last night that during a fight with Iceborne's main Elder Dragon, Velkhana, there's a certain part of the stage where doing a jumping attack and smashing my hammer in to the ground fires crystal shards splintering out and damaging the monster. I can now take this information and use it in other fights.

Sure, it's grindy. But I always feel I'm getting a bit better, and it's not just my equipment.

scottrick on 20/1/2020 at 19:05

I might be late to the party, but I started PREY the other day and its fantastic! Really fun so far, can't wait to see where it goes...