Whatcha Been Playing?

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Tolkientaters
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Tolkientaters »

I've been really enjoying The Forgotten City, it's a well written adventure game that started as a Skyrim Mod. It's got a great premise for a game that's largely reliant on its writing, a city where anyone committing a "sin" condemns the entire population to death.
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Angry_Kurt »

I’ve added this to my steam wishlist. I’ve seen a couple of people say it’s GOTY but no one seems to be talking about it.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

The Artful Escape, new to Game Pass this week, is absolutely stunning! It’s a brilliantly imaginative narrative musical journey, and I really wasn’t ready for quite how blown away I’d be! The soaring, saturated rock guitar soundtrack that cleverly harmonises your controller inputs, combined with ridiculous levels of visual creativity and no-stress platforming results in about four hours of pure exhilaration, thrills and psychedelic wonder. If you’re into music, just play this!

I finished Psychonauts 2 and still don’t know how I feel about it! Unlike its predecessor, movement felt good in the main, but there were times where the camera went a bit old school and dampened my enthusiasm for the more complex platform areas. Apart from boss fights, combat was unnecessary filler. Cut scenes were often over-long and over-dramatic. But for all of this, the promise of the next bewilderingly ingenious, utterly spectacular set piece kept me going! The psychedelic sixties level in particular was just jaw-dropping, and that alone is pushing me towards the conclusion that I probably enjoyed it after all!

I definitely enjoyed Art of Rally, and finally finished its very generous (albeit repetitive) 21 hour career mode. It’s a beautifully stylised proper rally game throughout, to the point that I even took advantage of its photo mode a few times! Three fantastic adverts for Game Pass there too!

Hades is probably another one, but not really for me. I gave it a couple of hours, and I can see the attraction, but it just didn’t click enough in that time to make me want to invest any more into that gameplay loop
Marlew
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Marlew »

I watched James Farley's Dark Souls 2 stream on YT and it gave me a taste for getting back to Drangleic. I've already thoroughly rinsed it on a dozen builds, but I decided to try something different. I'm running an easy mode Rapier build with some sequence breaking to get relevant rings and stuff. I just want to romp through it and revisit some memories.

I really love this game, it's got such an oddball, quirky nature and feels much more welcoming than Dark Souls in a weird way. It's harder, the enemy placements feel like a prank half the time and the tracking lock-on attacks are silly. But I can put up with all the bullshit because the highs are like little else. It feels like one of the greatest 'journeys' of any game I've played, such variety, so many secrets and one-off mechanics, moments and locations, like a patchwork of distant memories. Even Dark Souls can't quite compete in that respect.

The DS2 issue of Cane and Rinse with CJ from Twin Humanities is also probably my favourite ever.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Played a few things lately...

FIFA 21 on the Xbox - I've not played a FIFA game for a few years and I was honestly blown away by the graphics! My career mode character is a few games in to his first season, playing for Shrewsbury Town. Not sure I'll stick it out for years and years, but I've really enjoyed the few games I've played.

The Artful Escape also on Xbox - This is amazing. I played about 90 minutes of it last night and I had a constant huge grin on my face. The writing it great, and had me laugh out loud on several occasions. The atmosphere at the start of the game was perfect, kid with big ideas in a small town, it felt really genuine. And then the big reveal of the story (I had no idea what was coming). The sound, the music, the euphoria, this game is just brilliant, absolutely loved what I played last night.

Monster Hunter Rise on Switch - Got this for my birthday back in May, and put about 60 hours in to it within a few weeks and then dropped it and haven't been back. Did a few quests today though and after remembering the controls fell straight back in love with it. I'm on the high rank online quests now, having completed all the offline stuff, and there's not many gaming experiences more fun than you and 3 random online folk shredding the shit out of a huge ass monster. Excellent game.

Aggelos on Switch - Played about an hour or so this afternoon, and it's great. Picked it up recently for a pound or so in a sale, and it's a pixel perfect homage to the 8-bit early MetroidVanias like Wonderboy III etc. The game plays exactly as you'd expect, and it looks and sounds perfect too. Well worth a quid of anyone's money.

Psychonauts 2 on Xbox - I'm up to the casino stage, towards the end of that part. I'm enjoying the game, but I'm not loving it. It's got a lot going for it, but I'm just waiting for something to take it to the next level. It's certainly a feast for the eyes and ears, though.

Hades on Xbox - I do a couple of runs on this most days, and I really like it. I've always been a fan of the look and atmosphere of the games from this dev, but never managed to really properly enjoy the actual games themselves. But this one has finally clicked with me. I've only made it so far as the boss of the second area, but very close to beating it now, and I can get there most runs. I like that no runs are ever the same, and the sheer variety of power ups keep things interesting, as well as the story back home after each run. I've unlocked most the weapons, but still only ever taken the sword out, so loads left to do still.

Jedi Fallen Order on Xbox - I really am not sure if I've played a SW game since KOTOR, years back. Really enjoying this so far, though. Not too far in to it, just about to head off to the Wookie planet. Having fun playing it.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Angry_Kurt wrote: September 12th, 2021, 9:05 am I’ve added this to my steam wishlist. I’ve seen a couple of people say it’s GOTY but no one seems to be talking about it.
Dale Driver at IGN_UK really loved it, he's spoken about it a few times on the podcast. Sounded really interesting.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I've stayed up far too late playing EA UFC 4. I can't stop playing the career mode. I've spent years slating this series based on a demo of the first or second game, bitter that they canned Fight Night for this, but...it's really fun.

I'm as surprised as you are.

Still rather be playing Fight Night, mind.
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Still addicted to Into the Breach, managed to complete a run with a different team last night with all the islands done, whereas up to this point I had been using the same team you start the game with.

Otherwise I have started The Big Con on Xbox. It's a cool point n click set in the 90s where you play a girl trying to raise enough money to save her mums video store. It has a really 90s influenced art style and has a tonne of 90s nostalgia. Highly recommended if you grew up in the 90s.
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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Feirsteax »

I finished my third playthrough of Dark Souls just last year, but for some reason I'm playing it again. Remastered version. This time I'm just trying to speed through the whole game as fast as possible with a strength build designed to make fights as easy as possible. It's great fun. Black Knight Halberd +5 and 40 Strength meant the Four Kings were a breeze. I'm sure that's also down to my experience playing the game multiple times over though as well :P
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Kasuga-san
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Kasuga-san »

Man, I am still on the Genshin Impact kick. That mix of Zelda with dumbed-down Ys combat is sticking with me and I don't know if I'm going to break free until I get through all the current story content. I kicked them a few bucks for the fun I've been having, but I don't see any reason to give them more than that. I've been looking at getting Eastward, so if anyone on here has, I'd love to hear their thoughts on it. Also planning to get to The Artful Escape and Backbone at some point, though Metroid Dread is coming up soon and I know everything else will get dropped for a while when that hits.
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Miririn
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Miririn »

I was always nervous about first person shooters/first person action games because I had no experience, but I completed BioShock Infinite and it was alright so I started Dishonored 2 yesterday and good lord it's fun. I just played five hours straight and my eyes hurt. The levels are so intricate and explorable.

I do think games can do Honour Systems well (Red Dead Redemption II being a great example where the idea of honour and being a good person ties directly into the game's theme and plot)... but I kind of resent in games like Dishonored 2 where enemies will kill you on sight if they see you but the game tells you off if you use violence on these enemies. It's doubly frustrating here because the game keeps giving you Murder Magic Thingamabobs and Gadgets to Make Murder Fun Again.

I did the first Dunwall mission not knowing what I was doing and missing lots of lore and rooms and slaughtering civilians (I thought they were guards!). Then when I got the hang of it I went back and redid the mission very politely and in a non murdery way (despite one or two ambushes where there was a wee bit of murder) and the game rewarded me with Low Chaos. I started Mission 2 with the same mindset but by the end I just thought... oh what the hell and went full "The Last of Us 2" eliminating everyone. And got a High Chaos rating AND the ghost of my dead mother telling me off. And considering ALL of these people were trying to MURDER me I think that's a bit unfair.


That and the incredibly tiny font are my only reservations. I'm having a blast. I get to play an action hero murder disney princess who has magic powers and this pleases me.

Edit - And everyone is called Anastasia Finkelstrumpet or Albert Appleheart or something equally silly and it tickles me.

Edit 2 - I still try to be merciful and non-lethally neutralise some enemies but one time I did that and put the body on the roof and it slowly rolled down and dropped onto the payment and she died anyway :(
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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I'm continuing my slow run-throughs of Omno and Wild At Heart on the few evenings I have clear in a week (getting less as work begins to mount up ...) when the daughters are watching. And then push on a little more into Hades later on. Still not very far into it (furthest I've reached is the first boss on Asphodel) - I love the art style and the music is great but I lose interest after a run or two. Still it's much more apparent that progress is made with each run, even if it goes poorly which inclines me much more to return to it.

Slay The Spire has not got a look in for a few weeks but did make time to try out Twelve Minutes
Not a fan - which is slightly odd because I generally like time loop stories. But I'm not invested in the characters played by McEvoy and Ridley, and Dafoe can not shake the shadow of Green Goblin

I've also completed the main campaign for Star Wars Battlefront 2 - the vehicles sections are SO much more fun than the on foot sections. Still have what I think is an expansion campaign to finish off, but not certain that I would come back to it to hunt for collectibles and have absolutely no interest into going into any of sections that don't involve a starfighter of some sort.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I've installed a few emulators to my Series S and had surprising success with Gamecube and PS1 games. Even some PS2 and Dreamcast games run well, too! There's even a PSP emulator but not tried it yet. The PS1 upscales to super high resolution though and the games don't look bad!
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

I started playing Metal Gear Solid 2 after finishing the first game. These controls are an absolute nightmare. I have heard these games have awkward controls, but this is way more than I was expecting. It might not be so bad if they had an actual tutorial to get familiar with them. There is an explanation for everything hidden away under the "extras", but it's just text with a little video demonstration. Nothing interactive to let you practice and see whether you actually understand how to do it. And those explanations don't use the controller button names, so you need to cross-reference it with the manual as well. But even if I had a better understanding of these controls, they still feel unnecessarily fiddly and convoluted. I feel like I'm spending a lot of time fumbling around and failing because I can't get the game to do really basic things. I have heard people defend these controls saying they work well for the specific things you do in this game, but I'm not sure I agree. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but you do a lot of the same kinds of actions in this game in the modern Deus Ex games. Those games can be a bit fiddly, but they are way more usable than this. Granted those game are way more recent though, so they have the benefit of hindsight.

Not sure on the story yet though. I think I'm maybe about a third of the way through the game right now, and the villains haven't proven to be as interesting as the first game so far. What little was covered in the tanker chapter was good though. I was kind of surprised to see some of the stuff show up there, which I was under the impression was only a thing in MGS4. And in the Big Shell chapter there have been some interesting hints at the more meta aspects of this story. Stuff I thought only showed up near the end are foreshadowed really early on.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Ah I really love Metal Gear Solid 2 (and every other game in the series) but the controls can be a little frustrating and certainly don't add to the experience. I found they became easier the more I played (I came to it years later too, probably about 3 or 4 years ago), but the fixed camera doesn't help. I think the story is good, but it really only starts coming together towards the end from what I remember, and even then it's batshit crazy - probably the wackiest story of the series!
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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I’m not big into puzzle games, but I don’t mind them if it’s all logic and I’m in the mood, and I think the new version of Myst on Game Pass must have caught me just right! I only fired it up because I was fed up of seeing the icon, but it’s not bewildering for long then suddenly I couldn’t leave it alone! Anyway, three late nights later and I’d finished it, and am tempted at another quick run now I know what I’m doing from the off.

I’ve had a great time with TimeSplitters: Future Perfect on PS2. Love the first two but first time playing this, and I have to say that five or so missions in I’m loving this too! It might have lost its looks a bit, but that doesn’t stop the fun!

Also got a review code for Boulder Dash Deluxe on Xbox. Huge fan of the C64 version of the 1984 original, and this is loads more of the same but with a coat of paint that I’m not massively keen on, and some lazy free-to-play hangovers still present from a previous incarnation. The game itself is still there though despite everything!
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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stvnorman wrote: September 19th, 2021, 8:50 pm I’m not big into puzzle games, but I don’t mind them if it’s all logic and I’m in the mood, and I think the new version of Myst on Game Pass must have caught me just right! I only fired it up because I was fed up of seeing the icon, but it’s not bewildering for long then suddenly I couldn’t leave it alone! Anyway, three late nights later and I’d finished it, and am tempted at another quick run now I know what I’m doing from the off.
I noticed you playing that the other day and it prompted me to download it. Looking forward to trying it. I've been looking for a puzzle game that comes anywhere near The Witness, and I know Myst has been popular for decades. It looks like it's got that same chill vibe to it, even though the puzzles aren't really anything similar.
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

I've been playing DEATHLOOP! Haven't been able to spend much time with it, but the three hours I've done so far have been sublime. The environments, movement and combat are classic Arkane. Although the marketing played up this zany, knockabout FPS action it's much more what I would have expected/ hoped for from this dev. It's like a big investigation where you need to dig up leads on the targets and figure out how to get geared up to take them on. Also (thank goodness) you are NOT on a timer. You just have a limited number of regions you can visit in a day.

Colt and Julianna are both hilarious, I think the VO and soundtrack is one of the areas that's unquestionably better than ever. So funny and Colt is really relatable, but Julianna could be an all-time great antagonist. She just rules. And when she invades you it's awesome fun (and a little terrifying). The music bangs.

Also doing my 5th or 6th run of Dark Souls to mark its ten year anniversary coming up, second time sunbroing it with my IRL brother and it's good fun. Rolled a dex character for the first time, +9 Estoc and I'm at Anor Londo. Damage is a little low but I have been leaning into parries and ripostes more than ever as a result which has been a lark. Got pyromancies in my pocket in a pinch, too.
Miririn wrote: September 16th, 2021, 11:06 pm Edit 2 - I still try to be merciful and non-lethally neutralise some enemies but one time I did that and put the body on the roof and it slowly rolled down and dropped onto the payment and she died anyway :(
:lol: love it. You never know what the physics might decide to do with your slumbering victims. In the first game there's also the risk that a guard you've knocked out and laid in a grimy corner somewhere will attract the attention of the plague rats, aka furry land-piranhas...
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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Alex79 wrote: September 19th, 2021, 9:04 pm
stvnorman wrote: September 19th, 2021, 8:50 pm I’m not big into puzzle games, but I don’t mind them if it’s all logic and I’m in the mood, and I think the new version of Myst on Game Pass must have caught me just right! I only fired it up because I was fed up of seeing the icon, but it’s not bewildering for long then suddenly I couldn’t leave it alone! Anyway, three late nights later and I’d finished it, and am tempted at another quick run now I know what I’m doing from the off.
I noticed you playing that the other day and it prompted me to download it. Looking forward to trying it. I've been looking for a puzzle game that comes anywhere near The Witness, and I know Myst has been popular for decades. It looks like it's got that same chill vibe to it, even though the puzzles aren't really anything similar.
It has got a Witness vibe about it. Or vice versa! I found the first half an hour rough because I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but it started to click in the nick of time! Look forward to hearing what you think.
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Miririn
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Miririn »

Am finally up to the time gadget level of Dishonored 2 having played the game for the last week. I don't know if I'm doing things wrong/very badly because (even taking into account that I restarted the whole thing once or twice) my playtime is so long (about 23 hours so far) and so many of the reviews complain the game is short. I do make it a policy to get every single bone charm and rune in each level and to try and explore every corner of the levels I can find... except for one bone charm in Jindosh's clockwork house because by that point I had had ENOUGH. (I understand the incredible design that went into that level but I have no sense of direction and I hate getting lost in video games so that level was a nightmare from hell for me).

That said (and I obviously haven't finished yet), I *adore* this game. Each level so far has been so lovingly and creatively crafted, each challenge so carefully considered. There's so much variety, so many different ways to approach things. The integration of powers and gadgets into the gameplay is intuitive, fun and satisfying. I love to link my victims together and transform into a shadow to quietly take them out. The art design is absolutely stunning. The paintings you can find in each level are gorgeous. I'm obsessed with the owl-themed interior decoration in the Royal Conservatory.

The plot is pretty interesting even though it clearly comes second to the level design and worldbuilding which are the true stars of the game. The world and characters sort of remind me of the Robin Hobb Farseer books (although those books aren't steam punk). The emphasis on royal intrigue, bastard children of the crown, magical diseases infecting the populous, shadowy magic from a shadow realm. It makes me nostalgic for those books.

I'm so glad I got over my weird thing against first person games to play this because I've been quite wiped out by work stuff over the last week (I don't have to work that hard but we have had many many four hour plus meetings each day) and it has been such a comforting, compulsive game to turn to. I already purchased the first game (ballsy because I'm so crap at games in general I don't know if I can complete 2 yet) and I'm excited.
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