Whatcha Been Playing?

[Magical_Isopod]

Thinking about grabbing Hades on the Switch. I assume it's not a bad place to play it? It would either be that or the PC but it seems like the Switch might be ideal for it?

I'm not the best judge because I really am not keen on Supergiant's style of games, but I've heard a lot of praise for the Switch version - what it lacks in technical prowess, it makes up for in portability. Playing a run or two on the couch is a great way to enjoy it. However, it goes on sale a lot, usually 25-40% off, so I'd wait til it does once again.

[duskvstweak]

Been doing lots of game shopping too. Picked up The Lost World on PS1 after watching a TripleJump feature on dinosaur games for PS1. Always on the lookout for games where you play the dinosaur, so that was a must-have.

No game looked cooler to me as a kid than that game. I'd go over to my friends and just watch those dino-animations. I don't think we got very far, mainly because we kept stopping and making the dinosaurs roar.

[Magical_Isopod]

Been doing lots of game shopping too. Picked up The Lost World on PS1 after watching a TripleJump feature on dinosaur games for PS1. Always on the lookout for games where you play the dinosaur, so that was a must-have.

No game looked cooler to me as a kid than that game. I'd go over to my friends and just watch those dino-animations. I don't think we got very far, mainly because we kept stopping and making the dinosaurs roar.

Interestingly, it seems to be more popular in Europe. I follow a lot of retro gaming channels, and I've only seen British creators cover it. And on top of that, I can't say I've seen a copy in person, and there aren't even many copies on eBay. Shame, really. Imagine if the American low-poly games made today had more dinosaur inspiration? What could have been...

[RinseWashRepeat]

Man, Tetris 99 is something I need to get back to. I've decided that I can't uninstall it until I've won a game! Still no luck...

[duskvstweak]

Man, Tetris 99 is something I need to get back to. I've decided that I can't uninstall it until I've won a game! Still no luck...

It's so addicting. The fact that it takes no time to get into a new match means I get stuck in an endless stream of matches, always thinking THIS is the one where I get past 5th place!

[ReprobateGamer]

Having completed Unravel, me and my eldest made a start on Unravel 2

So far, it's more of the same but the presence of a second Yarnie allows the designers to put in a variety of new challenges. The graphics remain excellent but without the memory collecting narrative I'm a little confused as to what is going on. The pair of protagonists just seem to be moving on for no good reason at this point - there has been no indication of why they need to be moving forward ...

I have also dipped into my ever growing collection of shame and started on Costume Quest. The Double Fine touch is readily apparent on this RPG lite. The developers have put some thought into this but what is driving me on is to see what happens next rather than any emotional investment with the lead characters plight. The combat is also very simplistic - I'm hoping that they add more options to it soon but I suspect I'm going to find that's not the case.

And for something with a totally different air, I've also made a start on Control. Remedy have done a much better 'in media res' start to this than Coldwood Interactive did for Unravel 2 and this 3rd person action game is suitably creepy. Just reached a point where I've picked up the first of the 'psychic' abilities and I'm liking the pace of this game so far. I liked Quantum Break (other than the final boss ...) but never really got into Alan Wake so time will tell whether it can maintain my initial interest

[Pitwar]

Man, Tetris 99 is something I need to get back to. I've decided that I can't uninstall it until I've won a game! Still no luck...

It's so addicting. The fact that it takes no time to get into a new match means I get stuck in an endless stream of matches, always thinking THIS is the one where I get past 5th place!

I think it's definitely harder to win now than it used to be.

I have about 5 or 6 wins under my belt from the first month or so after release, but much like you tend to get top five now.

I think it's a mix of more casual players no longer playing it, and the people that are left being really good.

[Alex79]

Tried a little Yoku's Island Express as well.... .you're just trying again and again until the physics gods decide to favour you. And that does get pretty boring.

The physics gods...or hitting the ball at the right speed at the right moment...

Jokes aside, I found the actual pinball physics to be really good in Yoku's. Yoku felt just the right weight, and behaved as you'd expect a real pinball to have behaved. Compared to something like Sonic Spinball (unfairly compared, obviously), the difference is night and day.

[Feirsteax]

Still chipping away at both Immortals Fenyx Rising and the Hitman (2016+) series, enjoying them both very much.

[Magical_Isopod]

So I rented a couple of games while out of town for work, kinda hoping I wouldn't have time to play them... Sadly, I've had three days straight now sitting in a hotel room with no work. I do home security installs, and the city I'm staying in has lockdown rules such that I can't enter a customer's home - I kinda gotta set everything up from their garage. Had two people cancel this week, big jobs too. The nature of these "virtual installs" means some components can't be installed until the quarantine rules are lifted. Really shitty circumstances.

First one I tried was Link's Awakening, the remake. It's... Not great. I wrote a little more extensively for the podcast episode, but that art style is really quite offensive to my eyeballs, and the lousy framerates and slow feel (probably owed to the framerates) make this feel like a fan remake made in Unity or something, rather than a Nintendo release worthy of $80. It's really not a good release.

Streets of Rage 4 is a bit better, but I don't quite feel compelled to finish it. I recently played most of Streets of Rage 3, and something I liked about that one far more than 1 and 2 was the movement tech... You could dodge roll, easily do running attacks, and the special moves had a cooldown and no penalty to your HP. And in that sense, mechanically, 4 seems like a big step backwards - it seems to forget 3 exists at all, and reverts to a really primitive (and extremely slow) gameplay style more akin to late 80s arcade brawlers. It's really strange to me. Additionally, while the visuals look great, I feel like the hitboxes of your character and enemies don't quite match up with the art. It's weird. It often feels like a punch SHOULD land, but it whiffs. The music is really good though, and if you're wanting a beat-'em-up that feels nostalgic, you'll probably have a good time. But I just kinda got bored, and while it's not exactly lacking in style, it didn't have enough pizazz to really keep me invested beyond the 4th level.

[stvnorman]

We’ve had a broken boiler for most of the coldest week in ages, and the room where the main consoles are is too big and old for portable heaters, so just a bit more Cyber Shadow on Xbox once it was fixed. Thought it was supposed to be too short, but I’ve been playing for 12 hours now... a benefit of being rubbish at games! Anyway, I still love it (despite a couple of areas I struggled with for most of those hours) so no matter.

The room where my old gaming stuff is was easier to heat, so I’ve gone back to SNES Super Star Wars and finally beaten that ridiculous sand crawler level that’s never stopped bothering me since I binned it off years ago! Same for Batman on Megadrive- I’ve been writing something on favourite gaming anthems and ended up getting hooked on it again, but also like Star Wars I’m not sure I’ll see the end this time around either!

Speaking of binned off, I did play another chapter of Vampyr on PS4 but it’s just not grabbing me and I’ve got plenty more to play that will...

I’ve played a couple of hours of a new game of Silent Hill 2 because I seem to have an unhealthy obsession! Also on PS2, I bought TimeSplitters Future Perfect this week, and it only arrived yesterday but I’m liking what I’m seeing so far - story mode and arcade feeling playing great, how they’re supposed to! Then some more Speedball 2 on Atari ST, Simpsons Hit & Run on GameCube, Thunder Cross on Switch, Shao-Lin’s Road on PS1 and Alien on Atari 2600 (my new favourite Pac-Man ever!).

[Miririn]

I played Claire's campaign of the Resi 2 Remake. I never had a PlayStation growing up so hadn't played the original, and so had no expectations or nostalgia... and I had a lot of fun.

I kept saying I would take a break to play something else before Leon's campaign and I did a few hours of "Ghost of Tsushima" and of "Until Dawn" but the unfinished Leon campaign kept niggling away at the back of my mind and so I gave in and started it even though I'm terrified of Mr X. I'm breaking up sessions at the Raccoon City Police Dept with comfort gaming (ie I turn on a Naughty Dog game, pick a random encounter, enable unlimited ammo/crafting and go on a mad Rambo style rampage - helps when Mr X has me feeling powerless and panicked to dip into games I know like the back of my hand! With apologies to those poor NPCs and their NPC families...)

You know, for a place with an adorable name like Raccoon City (run by Tom Nook's more evil cousin?), there sure are a lot of horrific monsters (un)living there.

[Magical_Isopod]

I started playing Ys IX yesterday after coming back from work travel, but I only got through the first chapter. I'm liking it so far, but it hasn't captured my attention nearly as much as the shipwrecked premise of Ys VIII did right from the word go. I'm optimistic that the story will evolve and become more compelling.

But I'm worried it'll be another bog-standard Medieval Europe setting, and I'm so, so over those in games. Like it's been 40 years of this setting, guys, can we not do an RPG in like India? Or Aztec Central America? Or like an Inuit-inspired RPG in the cold, unforgiving North? Medieval Europe and Feudal Japan probably make up like 80% of all RPG settings that riff on real-world settings - and if you include Post-Apocalypse America, that's like 95%. I thought Ys was known for generally for bucking that trend, and maybe it eventually does. But man was I not enthused to see castles and knights.

[Alex79]

But I'm worried it'll be another bog-standard Medieval Europe setting, and I'm so, so over those in games. Like it's been 40 years of this setting, guys, can we not do an RPG in like India? Or Aztec Central America? Or like an Inuit-inspired RPG in the cold, unforgiving North? Medieval Europe and Feudal Japan probably make up like 80% of all RPG settings that riff on real-world settings - and if you include Post-Apocalypse America, that's like 95%. I thought Ys was known for generally for bucking that trend, and maybe it eventually does. But man was I not enthused to see castles and knights.

Totally agree, I've been wishing for years we had more diverse RPGs. The generic fantasy setting is done to death. I'd like RPGs set in normal modern day times, or maybe a world war II RPG, or anything really different. I know there are the odd ones here and there, but nothing on a big scale.

[Magical_Isopod]

Well the Valkyria Chronicles games are definitely WW2-inspired - almost to a fault, to the point where by the end of the 4th one I was just kinda like, "Okay, what else you got?" Fantasy WW2 is an inventive setting for sure, but I think it would only benefit the series to leave Europe or try a different time period. Obviously setting things in the Pacific Front would be dicey for Japanese sensibilities, but some kind of tropical setting or naval combat could be great additions.

Even if they wanted to tackle like the Greek and Yugoslav conflicts, where the Balkan states repelled the Nazis while also keeping the Soviets at a safe distance... That could be super interesting. Maybe a new state analogous to Tito's Communists, focusing on guerilla tactics in the mountains.. Something that forms out of the ashes of the conflict, rather than a Switzerland stand-in defending its own borders. But keeping the focus on Gallia and the Allies stand-ins is kinda drawn out at this point.

[Magical_Isopod]

Oh, and there's also Operation Darkness(?), a WW2-inspired SRPG on the 360, published by Atlus.

[Miririn]

I was having a grand old time pootling around the Raccoon City Police Dept. I saw the on-fire helicopter and said "oh good, I remember from the Claire A campaign that Mr X won't crop up until I put out the fire, so I'll get all my police station chores done first".

Spoiler: show

NO ONE told me that in Leon B he randomly turns up with no dramatic cut scene after you've finished in the STARS office. I almost had a heart attack. And he can climb ladders!? How did I not know he can climb ladders!?!?

I really hope games aren't a "Wreck-it-Ralph" scenario where all the characters feel everything, because I let Mr X chase me into the library full of zombies I hadn't cleared out yet (I thought I had more time!!!) and decided to let a zombie on the floor and Mr X finish Leon off so I could go back to my save and plan around not going to the STARS office until I absolutely have to. I'm sorry, Leon. (...I would have just loaded a game from the menu but I had a delicious bakewell slice to munch on while Leon got killed and I'm lazy).

[Feirsteax]

On the subject of Fantasy RPGs with slightly different settings than usual, I do quite like the look of that Black Myth: Wukong game we've been seeing trailers of. It isn't wildly different from stuff we've seen a lot before, but it does look very good.

Though I think they're only a small team of developers and their projected release date is 2023, so I'll not be holding my breath for it

[Magical_Isopod]

I know there's a lot of Chinese- and Korean-made RPGs that feature mainland China and other parts of East Asia... Koei's covered it extensively too. But those almost never get localized for the West.

[ThirdDrawing]

I know there's a lot of Chinese- and Korean-made RPGs that feature mainland China and other parts of East Asia... Koei's covered it extensively too. But those almost never get localized for the West.

I bought a couple of those in Hong Kong. Sword and Fairy 6 seemed kind of low budget and rubbish but Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament actually seemed pretty interesting and well put together. Like not amazing, but competent at least.

After a disastrous order from Play-Asia I never received, I got my money back and decided to splurge on something I've wanted for a while. I got FF7-9 for Switch. A website in Canada had them on sale and I got a discount for making an account with them, so it was actually quite a good bargain compared to other prices I've seen around.

I've never actually finished FF7, and I wanted to wash the remake from my brain, so this was as good a time as any.

The models and in-game graphics have cleaned up nicely for FF7!