Harvester on 10/1/2021 at 16:13
I'm playing Halo 2. A while ago another forum member (forgot who) said he didn't like it as much as the first one, and for the most part I agree. I've just finished the Arbiter levels where you hunt the heretic, now I'm playing as Master Chief again on a new Halo ring, I welcome the pretty scenery after the dreary Covenant ship levels.
For some reason, I don't feel in control as much as in Halo 1. It's very chaotic gameplay and I'm still making mistakes with the added complexity of being able to dual wield but dropping the second weapon as soon as I throw a grenade, often something else happens than what I was planning to do. I mean I'm not doing terrible, I'm passing the levels just fine, dying once in a while but not so often it becomes frustrating. But it's a difference compared to Halo 1 where I felt I was truly in control of what I was doing (on Normal difficulty at least). I'm still having fun, but not as much as in Halo 1.
The biggest thing I don't like about Halo 2 is that only the cutscenes have subtitles. I miss about two thirds of the banter and order-giving during the heat of battle and it doesn't help that the Covenant speak in warped voices. And is it just me or is the story kind of hard to follow? I have trouble keeping the Covenant main characters apart, those elites all look like a cross between Protoss and Predator to me. By the way I found two of the terminals that provide extra story cutscenes. Is there one of those on every level? I found two or three in Halo 1 and so far two in Halo 2.
But I like it enough to keep going so far. Glad I'm back on a Halo ring though, I like the lush nature environment more than the sparse environment of Covenant ships.
Microwave Oven on 10/1/2021 at 20:51
I decided to give Control a try, after the disappointment of Doom Eternal. I gotta say, it is a tasty burger. It's like a mashup of SCP, X-Files, and MIB. Good actiony gunfights, exploration, and really fun puzzles. About the only thing I want more is perhaps a VR version, to really get immersed into the power fantasy stuff. It ticks all the relevant boxes for me.
SD on 11/1/2021 at 21:26
Quote Posted by Aja
I've tried two or three times to get into Doom 2016, and I finally just uninstalled it. I don't know why exactly, but it didn't hook me. Give me Doom 1993 any day.
Quote Posted by Thirith
Same here. I can't remember many games as well-received as
DOOM (2016) that I bounced off of this hard. Though I'm generally not into fast-paced shooters, so that may be a part of it.
Oh thank goodness, I thought it was just me. I couldn't get into DOOM at all. I found it rather tedious.
What I have been playing lately is
Terraria. It's a real time sink. Can't say I'm a fan of the way you're just plonked into the game with scarcely any direction as to what to do. I'm quite enjoying all the exploration but the combat is a bit more frenetic than I'd like, and I find myself often wishing that the enemies would just sod off so I can do some more digging. I'm still not really sure what the purpose of it all is, but I've clocked 40 hours in less than a week, so I can't fault it on value for money.
Anarchic Fox on 12/1/2021 at 22:45
Here are the ones that stand out in memory since I last posted.
Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker is an exercise in self-restraint, with tiny puzzle-box levels and a very short list of possible actions. However, this allows one's mind to readily encompass the entirety of a level, which is a rare pleasure in gaming. On a similar note, one of
A Short Hike's joys is mapping the island in one's head. I bought the latter game for about a half-dozen friends while it was on sale a few weeks ago.
After its positive reception here, I played
Hades long enough to beat it once. It's a very good game, but it's still a roguelike, and I feel these appeal to some of my worse qualities, namely my tendency to fixate, the compulsion I feel from gambling loops, and the compulsion I feel when rewards are trickled out at a slow pace. This is not a criticism of the game, so much as criticism of myself.
Beating Hades made me think about games that appeal to my better qualities, so I'm replaying
Celeste. I'm much better at it this time, enough to beat the B-sides. It's a game about anxiety whose mechanics serve as symbols of anxiety, while also (in its Assist Mode) giving the option of release from that pressure. Its challenges are wholly skill-based, rather than roguelikes' compelling mix of skill and chance. It treats all its characters with care and understanding. Also, both the game's creator and I (
https://maddythorson.medium.com/is-madeline-canonically-trans-4277ece02e40) realized we (and Madeline) were transgender in the year after the game's release, and in retrospect the color symbolism is spot on. Madeline's hair outright takes on the colors of the trans flag, pink when she's at her most capable, blue when she's feeling the most depleted.
Minion21g on 14/1/2021 at 17:28
uh hey! Lately I'm falling back into Stardew Valley because the world is exhausting and it's all I got the energy for. But that said, I recently picked up a whole bunch of older gen consoles (GC, Wii, and WiiU) and I plan to revisit some titles from those systems. First up will likely be The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD as I've never had the chance to play that until now. Cheers!
henke on 15/1/2021 at 15:37
I've been having an odd nostalgia for Jedi Fallen Order, which I played a year ago, so I started it up again in NG+. I say it's odd because it's a game I had very conflicted feelings about. On my replay I've mostly been enjoying it, but then I get to the second visit to Zeffo and I hate it all over. The combat is such infuriating bullshit. If this game is an accurate representation of what it's like being a Jedi, I would most certainly become a Sith in no time. Every time I have to fight one of those Purge Trooper assholes I give in to anger, which in our universe just means lots of swearing followed by angrily turning the game off. Why the hell am I playing this again?
Malf on 15/1/2021 at 16:05
Yeah, I found some of the difficulty splikes infuriating, and I seem to remember the last fight in particular being complete bullshit, so much so that it required cheezing.
Also, the stubborn adherence to verisimilitude for actor models weirded me the fuck out, and in a way that only usually happens with big Hollywood movies. I wasn't able to fully invest in the characters, as I saw the actor rather than the person they were supposed to be playing.
I don't know if this is due to some weird SAG-AFTRA agreement that actors' likenesses must appear in games after Elliot Page kicked up a stink over The Last of Us or whatever (rightfully so, I might add; Ellie's resemblance to Elliot was obvious to anyone who played the game), but I really hope it doesn't become a common thing.
faetal on 17/1/2021 at 00:16
I'm really enjoying AC: Unity so far. The setting is the best so far and the graphical upgrade from Black Flag / Rogue is only enhancing that.
I remember this one getting a lot of hate for technical issues on launch, but not sure why it sits at such tepid ranking on the AC games list. Possibly my favourite in the series so far.
glslvrfan on 18/1/2021 at 13:50
Picked up Farcry, Farcry 5, and The Forest on steam over the weekend. Farcry was only 2 bucks. Farcry 5 looks great, but I haven't played it for very long. I played the Forest on peaceful mode to see how it played. I like it. Minecraft on roids I guess you could say. I played Fallout 4 more than anything over the weekend.
faetal on 20/1/2021 at 14:10
Finished AC:Unity. Probably my second favourite after AC2.
The ending was a bit fucking weird though. Character gets cast out by the assassins, then kills The Foremost Antagonist, then credits roll.
So no denouement in terms of the organization you're working for? No "you were right all along"? Either way, still a great game - going to do the DLC now and maybe mop up some of the Paris stories, mostly because I just dicking about in revolution-era Paris. Then on to Assassin's Creed: Parkour blimey guv'nor*
* Pun nicked from an RPS comment, not mine