PigLick on 8/7/2021 at 03:51
Already know about it thanks. The Pilotwings series always has excellent music.
Yakoob on 8/7/2021 at 08:31
I think I'm close to being "done" with
(https://store.steampowered.com/app/738540/Tales_of_Vesperia_Definitive_Edition/) Tales of Vesperia.
After several hours, I realize the game isn't going to try to be anything than a generic (and frustrating in parts) JRPG. You're a group of ragtag people on a question to explore/save the worlds, complete with a gruffy protagonist, a naïve princess, an animal mascot and obligatory comedy-reflief child that joins your party.
That could still be enjoyable mindless romp if it wasn't for the combat. JRPGs live or die by their combat system, and Vesperia just gets more and more frustrating because it' janky as hell. It ties to be an action combat without proper action combat controls or responsiveness.
Your avatar feels stiff and tank-y, sometimes your attacks wont land because enemy is playing a "knocked down" animation, if you try to run away and re-engage enemy you'll likely end up attacking empty air facing away (even though you're auto target is set to the enemy), sometimes you'll take damage form an enemy that's not even facing you without any warning.
But most frustratingly, there is no real defense or ability to break from an attack animation to block incoming attack. If you get surrounded by more than 2 enemies, you will easily get stun-locked into getting attacked by different enemies repeatedly, and you can't even run away. You might easily lose half of all your HP before you regain control of the character long enough to retreat. Same goes for the enemies, so easier encounters just devolve into button-mashing without any thought.
At the end of the day, most of the battles I lost I didn't feel I lost because I was bad at the game, but because the game's chunkiness got in the way of doing what I actually wanted it to do. Without a compelling story or interesting characters, it's hard to make the trudge feel worth it.
Anarchic Fox on 9/7/2021 at 22:34
Quote Posted by Yakoob
At the end of the day, most of the battles I lost I didn't feel I lost because I was bad at the game, but because the game's chunkiness got in the way of doing what I actually wanted it to do. Without a compelling story or interesting characters, it's hard to make the trudge feel worth it.
Yeah, every Tales games I've tried has ended up that way. On paper they look like action RPGs, but then the battles end up being messes in which every decision other than "mash buttons" ends up suboptimal, so that the games fail in both the "action" and the "RPG" aspects.
My last month of game-playing has been all over the place, as usual. I've put the most time into
Shadowrun: Dragonfall, which is a marked improvement over its predecessor. I'm playing a character specializing in shamanism and assault rifles, a versatile combination. My previous attempt I played up to the Black Lodge mission, then quit, utterly demoralized. This time I scrubbed that mission halfway through and shot my way out, saving most of my temporary companions in the process. The Black Lodge sent a pissy email then left me alone. Right now I feel like I'm one or two missions from the end, but it's momentarily on hold while I watch (
www.gamesdonequick.com) Summer Games Done Quick.
For some reason, I took the time to play all the way through
Metroid on the NES, making maps on graph paper as I went, and I managed to 100% it. What stood out most was that the two best upgrades in the game are in a large, easily-missed sector of the game, hidden behind a different powerup. Then I started up
Super Metroid, and admired the parallels between the two games. The main corridors/shafts from the original are there in the sequel, but submerged various amounts, due to the self-destruct. The two bare-bones palette-transition rooms in Metroid show up as the two glass tunnels in Super Metroid, one of which you get to blow up. The Ice Beam section is a near-exact copy, looking at the overall layout. It's all very neat.
I started up
The Iconoclasts a second time, because I always felt there was more to the story than I grasped the first time around. Indeed, in the first cutscene there are details that only make sense on a second play, like the ground below the barrier layer being filled with parasites, and the feathers hanging from the barrier. I also started playing
Nier because I quite enjoyed its sequel, but I'm still only at the start of it. I'm currently saving up money for a PS5 in the spring, since I can't resist the From Software siren call, so I'll likely continue with various old games.
henke on 11/7/2021 at 12:19
My attention has been torn this weekend between Cyberpunk 2077 and BUMP THE WAYMAKER.
Here's my first attempt at playing the latter:
[video=youtube;fIF27wUIKJA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIF27wUIKJA[/video]
Basically it's a metroidvania with Jump King-esque movement mechanics. Very punishing, and engrossing enough that I ended up spending 3 hours with it (and nearly 100%-ing it, that last coin is IMPOSSIBLE to get). If you wanna play it you'll have to pony up 5 bucks to the (
https://www.patreon.com/owch/membership) developer's patreon.
Oh yeah, as for Cyberpunk 2077, it's great.
edit: Ok I gotta share my BUMP SPEEDRUN as well so you may GAWP at my MASTERY and see what a few hours in this game does to you compared to when you're just starting out.
[video=youtube;ax0pkEnLHUE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax0pkEnLHUE[/video]
Thirith on 27/7/2021 at 11:17
I've been playing Dead Space 2 recently. 's okay. It may be one of those games where you can get a lot of fun out of playing around with the weapons and skills, but I'm playing this more for the atmosphere and story than for the combat, and because of that I have to say that I'm finding the whole thing a bit repetitive. Even when the environments are supposed to be different, there's something to the overall art design that makes everything look surprisingly samey.
reizak on 27/7/2021 at 12:23
That's exactly how I felt about Dead Space 2. It's been a while since I played them so I can't put my finger on why I felt DS2 was so samey when DS1 wasn't exactly full of variety, but maybe the stronger atmosphere just elevates it that little bit more. Whenever the series is brought up most people seem to feel DS2 is their favorite, but I much preferred the first one for the atmosphere. I also prefer Alien to Aliens, though, which kinda feels like a similar distinction.
nicked on 27/7/2021 at 18:27
I splurged on a handful of dead cheap games from my wishlist in the Steam sale, and I've now played most of them.
Ape Out draws immediate comparisons to Hotline Miami - the moment-to-moment gameplay is very similar - work your way through a level filled with goons, any of whom can kill you in a couple of shots, violently murdering everything in your way. What makes it stand apart however, is the style that oozes from every pore. The art is deceptively simple silhouettes of boldly painted colour, and the soundscape is entirely dynamic percussion that syncs its drum hits with you smashing heads.
Clam Man is ostensibly a straight-forward point-and-click adventure, elevated enormously by the quality of its writing. It's absurd and witty, and a lot of fun.
Untitled Goose Game is charming and silly, and had me giggling with sadistic glee at its low stakes villainy, but ultimately runs out of steam and stops being fun when the challenge ramps up. Good for wasting a couple of hours, but I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it.
In Other Waters is like a meditative Subnautica where they only had enough budget to do the UI. It's essentially a text adventure, just disguised as a slick map screen and menu system, telling a slow-paced sci-fi mystery as you explore an alien ocean.
Cloudpunk is a chilled-out, slice-of-life tale about a delivery driver in a far future cyber-metropolis. It's what you'd get if Crazy Taxi smoked a fat blunt and sat down to watch Blade Runner. Strong voice-acting and intriguing characters flesh out an otherwise simple game loop, and the rain-soaked neon voxel skylines are screenshot-worthy at every turn.
Out of Space is a frantic, couch-coop house-cleaning game that the wife and I have become obsessed with. It's like Overcooked meets Dungeon Keeper in a charming retro sci-fi aesthetic.
henke on 28/7/2021 at 05:55
Yay, glad you like Clam Man. I got some good laughs out of it as well. :D
I couldn't really get in to In Other Waters tho, too slow paced for me. Cloudpunk and Ape Out are :thumb: Somehow I haven't played Goose Game yet.
I've been playing Spider-Man Miles Morales. It's pretty much just more Spider-Man. I already beat the first game + DLCs but I guess I'm still hungry for more of this gameplay. New York in the winter looks gorgeous. The story and charcters are... servicable. A lot of the plot feels contrived in a "why can't these 2 characters just TALK and this whole thing could be avoided" kinda way, but despite that it's kinda compelling.
Also picked up Mini Motorways. I wanted to play this on a tablet really but no Android version is out, iOS version is restricted to Apple Arcade, and the Switch version is a year away, so PC it is. Feels kinda like a mix of Mini Metro and Freeways. I love it. If your favourite part of city builders is drawing the roads, this is a game for you.
Yakoob on 28/7/2021 at 07:09
I've been playing Dishonored 2 and few hours in... I don't know if I can keep going?
I don't know exactly what it is, but something about it keeps me from enjoying the game. I think the operative word that comes to mind is - overwhelmed.
I'm overwhelmed with the game's graphics. There's so much detail and fidelity I have a hard time telling what is actually what. What is a pickup? what is a document I can read? What is just static background? It all blends together, so I don't know what to focus on.
I'm overwhelmed wit the levels. I just finished the Addermire Institute and had a hard time trying to place myself in the space. Perhaps it's because everything looks the same. Perhaps the high fidelity (see above) makes it hard to tell apart junk from plot. Perhaps it's because I never know where the guards are and what their patrols route are (no minimap, no echolocation, no nothing). Perhaps because I never know if a street is a dead-end, or some obscure shortcut-through-apartments to the other side.
I'm overwhelmed with the story. I'm following characters I don't care about to investigate an insane asylum angry at the head doctor. Except the head doctor is a sweet old insane lady. Except she's actually a killer. And I find that out from a tape spoken by her sister (I didn't know she had a sister). All the while I'm pursuing some guy. Because the one-armed boat lady really wants me to find him. It's just soo... much. The game expects so much of me, yet gives me so little.
I don't know, maybe it's me getting old, or my depression, or being burnt out on these kind of games, but it just feels like I stepped in a maze made of mazes held by a trope of a story, and it's just all too thin and confusing to enjoy.
demagogue on 28/7/2021 at 07:22
I played it shortly after it came out and I also got fatigued by it maybe the third or fourth level in, and haven't finished it since. It was the kind of gameplay I liked in theory, so it was hard for me to define why I wasn't sucked in. So I'm with you there.
What strikes me is how great the contrast is to the original, which completely absorbed me start to finish... Like I think I was already replaying some levels before I'd even finished it, which is a rare thing by itself. The levels were just a lot of fun to plan out, which is what I didn't feel with 2. I might even be hard pressed to think of a game that's absorbed me like DH1 since then ... the first half of Prey maybe?
(Well, in that genre anyway. Other games have totally absorbed me -- Avorion, Caves of Qud, Noita, Disco Elysium, but they're quite different genres... Well, they're all very immersive & technically sims, I suppose.)
