Whatcha Been Playing?

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

kintaris wrote: April 17th, 2018, 7:22 amIt's a shame. I get irrationally annoyed when I dislike a supposed "classic" this much because I suspect that there's a problem with my wiring more than anything. But in parallel to my goal of playing more game-of-all-time titles runs the balancing goal of not forcing myself to see something through just because I feel like I should.
This is a pretty common feeling for myself too. I'm seeing all the hyperbole recently regarding the new God of War, and my initial response was not "I really neeeeeeeeeed to play this game!!! NOW!", but "hmm... what if I play it and merely find it... alright?". There's a lot of weird, inherent pressure to agree with the hype, lest there be something wrong with you!

But then that's been the draw of the podcast and the community: digging deeper, beneath the hype and marketing, and actually experiencing the games for what they are, and having genuine reactions and conversations spring out of that. :)
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ratsoalbion »

Exactly, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with anyone’s wiring when it comes to the subjective matter of taste and enjoyment.

As we are striving to emphasise with the podcast, one’s own experience will be different to everyone else’s based on an infinite number of factors.

We don’t expect to like every single music album based on its reviews do we? What if you hate thrash metal or jazz? No matter how ‘great’ an example of it might be, it’s possible one particular example might change your mind to a genre but it’s far from guaranteed.

Other people’s experiences are interesting though, even if we had different ones - perhaps even more so.

The difference round here, compared to too many other places on the internet, is that you don’t get criticised for having a different experience.
arry_g

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by arry_g »

Scrustle wrote: April 13th, 2018, 12:38 pm Story wise, it's kind of a mixed bag so far. None of it is bad per se, but a lot of it feels kind of like filler. The beginning is pretty odd though. Without spending forever getting bogged down in minutiae, a lot of very outrageous things happen right at the start, but then the story seems to just immediately forget about them. Then you are given your overall goal for your quest; to take over the world! It's a game about a megalomaniacal catboy. They try to play off the story like it's a charming fairy tale, in the Ghlibli style, but it brings up a few awkward questions that I don't think it was intending to. I find that more amusing than anything else though, and I can see some of it being addressed later, hopefully. But aside from that, there are also some fun little moments. After that initial opening moments the story felt like it was dragging a bit for a while, but it recently seems to have picked up pace and is having a bit more fun with the characters. There was recently a scene where they stage a mock marriage proposal between the catboy prince protagonist and one of the other young party members. It was pretty amusing stuff.
The weirdest thing for me is how Roland goes from:
Spoiler: show
Presidential nuclear mass murder victim to kingly aide
with little to no care.
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duskvstweak
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by duskvstweak »

I'm starting Spec Ops: The Line tonight. Figured it was time to see for myself. Trying to go in without the expectation that it will change my life.
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Simonsloth
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Simonsloth »

duskvstweak wrote: April 18th, 2018, 9:29 pm I'm starting Spec Ops: The Line tonight. Figured it was time to see for myself. Trying to go in without the expectation that it will change my life.
My one recommendation is to turn the volume up! Louder the better!
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

Back to inching through the Ishimura in Dead Space. Due to a frenetic bout of panic and button mashing, I'd managed to use all my items and ammo, and I exacerbated that by blowing all my remaining money on a suit upgrade. What I am saying is that I am totally unsuited for going onto a spaceship full of hideous necromorphs and feel that Concordance Extraction Corporation's HR department is at least partly to blame.

Anyway, I've muddled through and managed to finish off the boss in Hydroponics, which is the halfway point, I think. Really like the levels in this game - they did a lot with boxes and corridors - but have had it with boss fights, especially the ones where you have to catch their projectiles and throw them back at them etc. Due to my scare with no health/ammo, I am now over-hoarding those items, meaning further suit upgrades will be difficult. Great game though.
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macstat
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by macstat »

As of today im playing new God of War ;). Before that i played Far Cry 5.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Polished off the ninth Collossus on SotC this evening. I'm trying not to do more than two a night to make it last a bit longer, but I did three just now. It's too hard to stop once you've got going! Unfortunately, whilst I couldn't have listed all the Collossi if you'd asked me to before I played this remake, coming upon them in the game has jogged my memory on all but one of them so far, meaning I knew exactly what was needed to kill them. That hasn't taken away any of the fun, though. Scaling one of those beasts and clinging on for dear life before landing the perfect blow is just as satisfying and exhilarating as it has ever been. And it looks so nice. I've spent ages just in the camera mode.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Todinho »

Finnaly got around to playing Divinity Original Sin 2, the reason I didnt play it earlier is because I didnt like original sin 1 at all, the entire setting and story of that game was so generic that by the time I was given a quest to save the universe I tapped out, it also didnt help that you could only play as humans.

Original Sin 2 immediatly makes up for that by having 4 different races plus undead variants of each one, the companions are a big part of the game this time too with each one having an extensive backstory and you can even play as one, which is exactly what Im doing by playing Fane the Undead. Im abit torn about that feature though on one hand is cool that get to play a especific character but on the other Im afraid Im actually missing most of the story and personality of the chracter by playing as him, at the same time I dont want to roll a unique character because you only get 4 people in your party so if you have your OC there you're limited to 3 companion questlines and I hate that, this isnt unique to OS2 but I hate when RPGs limit your party members, yeah I get it it's because of balance and logic but fuck that let me have everybody I dont care about your balance I want my part members goddammit!That aside the setting this time is more interesting at the very least,it's the same world but whats happening more compelling and the starting area is way better then that stupid town of the first game.

Combat is great, it was the one thing I really liked about the first game and it's the same here, one downside is that the game gives you alot of freedom when making your build you're not locked into mage or warrior,despite what the character creator might indicate, so it can be abit overwhelming to figure out what you wanna do I kinda of folded and went online to look for build ideas. One thing that I noticed right away is how the game really allows you to explore and figure out solutions, for example your first objective is to get out of prison and you get like 5 different ways to do it and like I was doing another quest that ended with me teleporting somewhere and when I looked a path it turned out it was one of the escape paths one of the quest givers gave me so you could not even be looking for a way out and stumble upon it. Im really liking that aspect of the game you really have a bunch of ways to deal with any problem and that's the mark of any good CRPG so Im on board for the rest of it.
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Michiel K
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Michiel K »

ThirdMan wrote: April 21st, 2018, 1:12 pm More Breath of the Wild.
I started the Ballad of the Champions DLC. Love how seemless it's integrated with the main game. Even without the DLC though, this is a game that keeps on giving for me.
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Suits
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Suits »

So, besides the obvious new big releases, I’ve been dipping in and out of Super Mario Maker on the 3DS.

The Mario Challenege on there is 10 Worlds, that consist of 3 levels and a castle. All designed by Nintendo and are made up of a mixture of Mario games.

This is some of the most satisfying 2D Mario I’ve played in a long time.

Each level must be completed to progress to the next but as well as that each level has a extra goal - like defeat all Goomba’s or stay crouched for the entire level, little things like that that make you go back and try the level again and again and again.

There’s such a wonderfully, cleverly crafted Mario game in here that many will probably never play because it’s behind this massively handicapped version on SMM.
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duskvstweak
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by duskvstweak »

Started Mad Max tonight. Wasn't sure I was ever going to play the game, but something inside me was crying out for cars and punching and it looks pretty. I don't know how long I'm going to look for every box of scraps (if my play through of Shadow of Mordor is any metric, then all of them) but so far, so good.
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Simonsloth
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Simonsloth »

I’m still working my way through horizon: zero dawn.

I don’t know how anyone else manages their playtime but I’m a one game at a time type person with one on a handheld (secret of mana) and one on home console.

Horizon is huge! My clock is at 60 hours and I’ve still got a fair bit left. My main problem is that the collectables are an obsession of mine so I have to get them all even if I resent finding them!
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Simonsloth wrote: April 24th, 2018, 8:23 am the collectables are an obsession of mine so I have to get them all even if I resent finding them!
8th gen gaming, ladies and gentlemen. :P
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

Simonsloth wrote: April 24th, 2018, 8:23 am I don’t know how anyone else manages their playtime but I’m a one game at a time type person with one on a handheld (secret of mana) and one on home console.
One game at a time here too. I can't even manage to keep one going on PC and one concurrently on console (not a handheld gamer). I'm not sure why, maybe it's linked to the need to finish games, and that becomes more difficult if my focus is divided.

That said, I found an old memory stick at the weekend and discovered it held a mod I worked on for the original Mount & Blade. I popped it in the Steam folder and hey presto, so I spent a few hours playing that yesterday.
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Image

Image
They were simpler times. :shock: :mrgreen:
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

I’m much the same, with Rocket League and Stardew Valley as backup for when I don’t feel like getting too deep into something on console, and generally Pokemon on 3DS for when the TV is occupied.

I had my first go on an Xbox (of any flavour) ever today! Got my son an Xbox One for his birthday, then sneakily picked up Rare Replay on eBay for £4 and fired up some Jetpac while he was at school. Great conversion - well impressed with the machine! I also spent a couple of hours on Forza Horizon. Incredible game, and give it a bit more time and I’ll be ranking it above Burnout Paradise af this rate.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Just played through the Detroit: Become Human demo and I think I liked it, but probably not enough to buy the game on the strength of it. It seems to veer towards choose your own adventure game more than interactive movie, the investigation and clue systems are very intuitive - a bit like the Batman ones -and they’ve nailed the Bladerunner vibe. I’m just not sure I want to play hours and hours of it.
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Stanshall
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Stanshall »

Dodonpachi DaiOuJou on MAME (or FB Alpha, to be precise).

Good Lord, I love this game. It's absolutely crushing but there are few pleasures in gaming like manipulating waves upon arcing waves of bright pink and blue bullets to follow you and sweeping across the screen in a U shape, melting enemies with your hyper laser. That strange and usually very brief weightless sensation of gliding through an impossible curtain of bullets when your perception and coordination seem to align and you're one fraction ahead of the game, grazing death but for this moment, you're in control.

This is one hell of a game.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by DomsBeard »

stvnorman wrote: April 25th, 2018, 10:48 pm Just played through the Detroit: Become Human demo and I think I liked it, but probably not enough to buy the game on the strength of it. It seems to veer towards choose your own adventure game more than interactive movie, the investigation and clue systems are very intuitive - a bit like the Batman ones -and they’ve nailed the Bladerunner vibe. I’m just not sure I want to play hours and hours of it.
Where as I do. Day one purchase for me. It did remind me of an enhanced detective mode too.
kintaris

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by kintaris »

stvnorman wrote: April 25th, 2018, 10:48 pm Just played through the Detroit: Become Human demo and I think I liked it, but probably not enough to buy the game on the strength of it. It seems to veer towards choose your own adventure game more than interactive movie, the investigation and clue systems are very intuitive - a bit like the Batman ones -and they’ve nailed the Bladerunner vibe. I’m just not sure I want to play hours and hours of it.
You've summed up my feelings exactly. When I reached the end and it brought up my chosen path, hinting at all the other possible outcomes, I liked the thought of it but had no desire to replay the scene. In my opinion, turning branching narrative into a collectibles hunt and encouraging the player to re-start after every sequence seriously undermines engagement in the story and characters.

If you can switch some of that "THAT COULD HAVE GONE DIFFERENTLY FYI" signposting off in the main game I might become more interested.

I've also finally gotten around to playing Downwell but I may have shot myself in the foot. I thought this would be a perfect mobile game - quick-fix, portrait perspective - but the buttons are in the absolute worst place. I never appreciated how important it is to be able to look ahead in a game like this until the direction of movement was inverted, and my own damn thumbs are in the way of the route ahead!

I want to wrangle with it a little more to see if I like the potential of it, if so I will repurchase it on another platform.
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