Whatcha Been Playing?

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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Feirsteax »

Feirsteax wrote: June 22nd, 2021, 10:27 am After the Nintendo Direct and seeing how good Metroid DREAD looks, I decided to get my 3DS again and play Metroid: Samus Returns.
Update: Finished Samus Returns, it was very good. Flew through it, even though I spent 11 hours playing it didn't feel that long.
Straight into Metroid Fusion now, also realised I had that on 3DS (GBA VC) and never completed it, so probably going to do that now too.
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Michiel K
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Michiel K »

shadowless_kick wrote: June 27th, 2021, 4:17 pm got acquainted with Rolling Gunner with a quick playthrough in Novice mode and I was happy with my purchase pretty much instantly.

the actual 'rolling gun' mechanic is cool and sure to be a fun challenge to master, the visuals are nice and don't suffer from the simplistic, digital-toy look (for lack of a better description) non-pixel-based shooters tend to have, and I even like the music, which I almost never pay attention to in games from this genre.

also, it's great to have a strong horizontal shoot-em-up to sink my teeth into, as the Flip Grip sadly does nothing for my Switch Lite
Rolling Gunner is ace, glad you're enjoying it. You can see the devs didn't have as much budget or resources as Cave had in its prime, but they didn't let them stop that from creating a bullet hell shooter that rivals Cave's best work in the gameplay department.
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Rhaegyr
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Rhaegyr »

Can't stop playing Guilty Gear - Strive; anyone playing this? Not played a Guilty Gear since 2 and I'm really enjoying this one, perfect entry point for lapsed fans.

Would love a few games with the community, I'm pretty rubbish too! PSN ID is jigerbav if anyone fancies a game.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I have a ton of Google Play credit and am eyeing up Slay The Spire on mobile. I've never particularly got in to deck building games, and normally find card based games boring, but I did really enjoy Gwent in The Witcher 3.

How is Slay The Spire better than other card based games?
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Seph
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Seph »

Alex79uk wrote: June 30th, 2021, 12:38 pm I have a ton of Google Play credit and am eyeing up Slay The Spire on mobile. I've never particularly got in to deck building games, and normally find card based games boring, but I did really enjoy Gwent in The Witcher 3.

How is Slay The Spire better than other card based games?
Slay the Spire is excellent. I can't compare it to other games as I'm not tried that many, but the grind and slow progression are compelling. I had to stop playing it because it was too addictive and eating all my time.

A friend of mine recommended Griftlands to me as something similar (which has just gotten a full release),
but I never got around to it.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Ah thanks, may take a look then.

Next up: a question about Return Of The Obra Dinn...

THERE ARE BE SPOILERS BELOW, ONLY CLICK IF YOU FINISHED THE GAME OR DON'T CARE!

I'm interested in Obra Dinn as it's currently in the sale on Switch, but...
Spoiler: show
...through no fault whatsoever of the original poster, the game story was spoiled for me a bit with regard to someone mentioning a Krakken being at the heart of the mystery. If anyone has played it, would they mind telling me whether that's the 'big mystery reveal' or just one aspect of the story, and it's still worth playing as there's loads more mystery and discovery within the game? If the whole story is basically, 'what caused this, oh it was a Krakken' I'll save my money, but...is it?
Thanks!
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Seph
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Seph »

Alex79uk wrote: June 30th, 2021, 2:52 pm Ah thanks, may take a look then.

Next up: a question about Return Of The Obra Dinn...

THERE ARE BE SPOILERS BELOW, ONLY CLICK IF YOU FINISHED THE GAME OR DON'T CARE!

I'm interested in Obra Dinn as it's currently in the sale on Switch, but...
Spoiler: show
...through no fault whatsoever of the original poster, the game story was spoiled for me a bit with regard to someone mentioning a Krakken being at the heart of the mystery. If anyone has played it, would they mind telling me whether that's the 'big mystery reveal' or just one aspect of the story, and it's still worth playing as there's loads more mystery and discovery within the game? If the whole story is basically, 'what caused this, oh it was a Krakken' I'll save my money, but...is it?
Thanks!
From my experience (and I think the order is almost the same for everyone, give or take a few sequences), that came quite early for me and the story is told out of chronological order anyway. It reminded me of Memento a little, in that you pretty much work backwards through time to understand why things are happening. Play it, it's fantastic, and a proper detective game.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Ah cool, that's good to know, thanks :)
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Simonsloth
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Simonsloth »

Alex79uk wrote: June 30th, 2021, 2:52 pm Ah thanks, may take a look then.

Next up: a question about Return Of The Obra Dinn...

THERE ARE BE SPOILERS BELOW, ONLY CLICK IF YOU FINISHED THE GAME OR DON'T CARE!

I'm interested in Obra Dinn as it's currently in the sale on Switch, but...
Spoiler: show
...through no fault whatsoever of the original poster, the game story was spoiled for me a bit with regard to someone mentioning a Krakken being at the heart of the mystery. If anyone has played it, would they mind telling me whether that's the 'big mystery reveal' or just one aspect of the story, and it's still worth playing as there's loads more mystery and discovery within the game? If the whole story is basically, 'what caused this, oh it was a Krakken' I'll save my money, but...is it?
Thanks!
I would say that knowing that part of the plot will have no bearing on your enjoyment and I agree it comes pretty early in the game. Play it!!!
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Cool thanks!

Otherwise...

I'm still playing Breath Of The Wild. Found about 30 shrines in the last week. Can't believe I'm 125 hours in to the game, and still finding mad shit. I floated towards a lake yesterday and all of a sudden the entire screen went dark and I had to stumble around in the pitch black searching for a shrine, it was so good. And I found a giant maze! And rock golf! The scope of this game is just ridiculous, and I've still got an entire area I've not touched yet, one more divine beast (the flying one) and so much left to discover! I killed my first Lynel too yesterday. I always run from them normally, but I was pretty tooled up so thought I'd give him a go. Who knew you could ride them!? Hahaha!
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Miririn
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Miririn »

Snap! I started replaying BOTW because I got stuck in a part of "Mario Odyssey" and was feeling stressed/on edge in general and just wanted something comforting. It's such a pretty game and the sound effects are so nice and it's so peaceful to play while I... watch horrifying murder dramas on the telly.

Edit - I played "Obra Dinn" spoiled and had a great time. A lot of the fun is working out the small details and small human relationship dramas rather than the big overarching plot. Enjoy!
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DeadpoolNegative
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by DeadpoolNegative »

Herbie: Rescue Rally- Okay, time to come clean: when I was a kid, I was a total mark for The Love Bug and its three sequels. My parents tell me Herbie Goes Bananas was the first movie I ever saw in theaters, though I think being exposed to Harvey Korman and Charles Martin Smith at such a young age may be a form of child abuse. It was probably the first thing I ever geeked out about.

Which is why it's kind a surprised with all the reboots, revivals, sequels, side-quels, there hasn't been a big push for the Return of Herbie. In 2017 a writer was announced for a potential television series, but even with Disney Plus nothing's happening.

Which brings me to this Nintendo DS racing game developed by Climax, released in 2007, the last piece of Herbie related media to date. It's a straightforward kinda Mario Kart clone. The heroine, Louise Noble, helps run her parents' animal sanctuary, but she years to be a race car driver. A chance encounter at a garage leads her to the one and only white volkswagen with the red and blue stripes and the 53, Herbie. But just as she's united with the car of her dreams, the E. Vile Corporation plans to seize the animal sanctuary by buying out her parents and turning the place into a dump. With the help of a goofy stoner love interest (well he's not a stoner but his eyes are half lidded like he's straight out of Ctrl Alt Del), Louise will face sixteen races over a handful of tracks to save the animal sanctuary.

As I said, it's a Kart clone. You can grab power ups over the track, like tires to whip at competing vehicles, oil slicks, and a microphone icon that asks you to shout into the 3DS for a big boost (I wasn't good at that). But the biggest power up is grabbing classic 53 icons all through the track. When Herbie's meter fills up, a ramp appears on the track. You hit the ramp, and you then tap tap tap your fingers on two flower icons on the second screen to get a massive shortcut through the race.

The game's a surprisingly, fun racer on a system I don't recall having a lot of good racers, not that I'm a DS expert by any means. But it's awfully slight, and can be beaten in a matter of hours. I was also disappointed with the track variety. Yet if you're a fan of Herbie, like I am, it will put a smile on your face. Now get going with that "Dark" reboot, Disney Plus.

Mighty Final Fight- playing on the 3DS's virtual console, this game is fun, but it's also an NES game from 1992, so it's harder than it needs to be. Playing super deformed versions of that classic game's characters is a trip. There's also an experience/leveling up system, which is a tad surprising. But you can't grind and exploit it since the game has a set amount of enemies. There's a way to earn more by doing certain movies, but you know how I am with doing moves. And even with a save state, I'm not sure I can make it though with just three continues of five lives each.

Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl- I honestly never thought I would do it, but I finally beat the boss at the end of the second level. And now I'm fighting an Abobo lookalike with a Pretzel for a head. The more I get into the groove of this game, the more I appreciate its aesthetic. However, now I'm in the shopping cart level, which was so difficult in the original NES version of the game that they nerfed it. I'm unconvinced, because lordy it's too hard and fast and goes on too long. But it is funny.

A Plague Tale: Innocence- Thanks, XBox Game Pass! Hey, I was really into this game last year, but I stopped playing it for some reason and started up only a few weeks ago, I wonder why I--

--sees last time I played it was the middle of March 2020--

Oh.

Right.

Anyway, subject matter aside, I find this to be a very effective, genuinely horrific adventure game, filled with gruesome, hard to shake imagery. THe story is a bit cloying and obvious (I'm pretty sure the character they want us to think is very dead is very very not dead) but it helps that the voice actors are very effective.

I appreciate the way every area is like a small puzzle to solve, the solution being how you get through things without being eaten by rats or ganked by a soldier. The combination of the disturbing story and setting and the slower pacing- you really have to think to make it out alive- really grabs me.

--Dan
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

I've started playing Scarlet Nexus, and I'm liking that quite a bit. It starts off a bit slower than the demo, since that had a bunch of moves unlocked that you don't get until later in the full game. It also throws loads of text box tutorials at you in the first handful of hours. But I'm starting to get to a point where the combat flow is really clicking, and it's a lot of fun, even if it's not the deepest game out there. The story is starting to get intriguing too, with lots of twists that it is setting up already. The dialogue isn't great though. Very anime cliche, characters who explain their feelings directly instead of just displaying them naturally. But it's tolerable, and most of the characters are likeable enough. I really dig the aesthetic too. There's a few cracks there if you look closely, but the overall style is very nice looking, and the PC version runs very well. The 60fps is definitely makes for a big improvement over the feel of the game.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

I love Game Pass! Noticed The Messenger is leaving soon, have always fancied it, so had a few hours of nice looking pixel art and very competent but ultimately generic metroidvania gameplay. Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered just appeared, and I’m not sure I’ll go the full distance, but it’s a lot of good-looking, chaotic racing fun so far! And I’m still very much enjoying my first Madden NFL 21 franchise mode season and mindlessly but happily plodding through Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance - nothing special, but it’s got me hooked!

My Sega Astro City Mini arrived a couple of days ago. I’ve only had time to play Fantasy Zone, Space Harrier and Cotton in earnest, but what a gorgeous machine! Perfectly sized desktop cabinet, and serves as a perfectly sized desktop controller with a HDMI cable.

Finally, for anyone interested in ZX Spectrums, there’s an incredible new racer called Travel Through Time Vol. 1: Northern Lights that you have to look up! It’s up there with the machine’s best racing games, and the ingenuity, creativity and sheer craftsmanship on display here will just blow you away!
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Been playing Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate while waiting for Stories 2. To be honest my Switch home screen is just a row of MonHun titles at the moment.

MHGU is great. Pretty old school compared to World/ Rise and built for handheld systems so the environments are much less detailed and have loading between regions, but that's not a huge problem for me. I like the aesthetic of low(ish) poly, brightly coloured environments in games and the interstitial loads actually contribute to the regions feeling quite vast, particularly with the sand dunes.

The combat is fun and I decided to go with the longsword for now as it has some pretty tasty special moves. There's quite a few "go and find ten mushrooms" quests at the outset, so itching for battle I went and did a hunt at the hub (solo) and only just managed to kill the monster in the time limit. Coming back to the same creature in the village quests it was much less tanky and I got it done in about 15 mins which felt more reasonable.

Anyway this is a huge game, there's nearly a hundred monsters compared to about 40 I think we're sitting on with Rise at the moment, tons of regions and four villages so I look forward to chipping away at this.

Edit: the only weird thing is that when you're in the villages and your house, you can't move the camera. It's a fixed angle. It takes a bit of adjustment every time I switch between a village and a quest.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I played the first 90 minutes or so of Ashen last night. It's very influenced by Dark Souls, with equivalents for the bonfires, estus flask, homeward bones and various other items. Combat feels weighty and quite satisfying. It's clearly on a much lower budget than the From games, but it's been fun so far. Graphically it's very stylised with an almost low-polygon type look about it, it's a lot more 'angular' than the Souls games, characters don't have proper faces etc. Performance wise on Switch it's ok. Few frame drops now and then and a bit of pop-in, and the game is visibly fairly low resolution, but otherwise fine. Enjoying it so far.
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Kal_Luke
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Kal_Luke »

Alex79uk wrote: July 5th, 2021, 11:44 am I played the first 90 minutes or so of Ashen last night. It's very influenced by Dark Souls, with equivalents for the bonfires, estus flask, homeward bones and various other items. Combat feels weighty and quite satisfying. It's clearly on a much lower budget than the From games, but it's been fun so far. Graphically it's very stylised with an almost low-polygon type look about it, it's a lot more 'angular' than the Souls games, characters don't have proper faces etc. Performance wise on Switch it's ok. Few frame drops now and then and a bit of pop-in, and the game is visibly fairly low resolution, but otherwise fine. Enjoying it so far.
That sounds really good. I’ll get it downloaded. Does it have multiplayer like Dark Souls?

I’ve just completed Resident Evil 4 again last week. Wooooow I don’t think any game has done as much for gaming as RE4 since Breath of The Wild.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Kal_Luke wrote: July 7th, 2021, 11:40 amThat sounds really good. I’ll get it downloaded. Does it have multiplayer like Dark Souls?
It has quite an interesting way of integrating multiplayer. I believe it's possible to join friends etc, but the way it works if you don't change any settings is that you (almost) always have an AI companion with you during the game. But, that AI companion might be a real human, and the game doesn't tell you. Bit like Journey in a way, there are clues that give it away in the way they behave etc. I think you can drop in to other people's games, too. I've not noticed any way of doing PvP though, so you can't invade and grief people etc. It's quite a novel approach really.

But here, I've got a question for anyone who's played Star Wars: Squadrons. I downloaded it since it was on PS+ and gave it an hour or so. I wouldn't say I'm a Star Wars fan, never seen the most recent trilogy and only 2 of the prequels, but I like the original trilogy well enough and there's enough nostalgia for them that sitting in an X-Wing or whatever was quite exciting the first time.

The game isn't grabbing me, though. I'm finding it a bit dull and repetitive to be honest, but the one thing I'm interested in - is there a stage where you're flying low on an ice planet with AT-ATs and stuff walking around? As if so, I'll push on because the idea of that sounds brilliant. If not, I'll probably knock it on the head.
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Tolkientaters
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Tolkientaters »

I Played some of Black Ops 4 since it's on PS Plus. I never really got into multiplayer gaming because I didn't grow up gaming and was mostly focused on those singleplayer games I missed. As expected I'm terrible, but it's a lot of fun and I can definitely see how almost every aspect is designed to be addictive, so I don't wanna play it too much.
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dezm0nd
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by dezm0nd »

Been playing a few FPS games lately as they are my bread and butter alongside platformers. Whenever I can't be bothered with a game from outside my comfort zone I just pick up and from the two genres and find it easy to stay there.

Metro Exodus was my first foray into the zone of comfort and whilst I enjoyed it at the beginning, I found the combat to not really change over time and got a bit tired of it when it goes all Far Cry 2 on ya. (In the dry, dry area)

Prodeus. Now this left a massive impression on me after 6 or so levels but unfortunately my laptop wasn't up to the task as the levels got more involved. If you like Doom/Quake and the likes then this one sits very highly in amongst the retro throwback FPS games.

And now I'm playing Shadow Warrior 2. A silly loot based FPS but I'm enjoying it. Its trying to be destiny a bit but that's OK. I just follow the markers and do the stuff needed to get more loot. Definitely worth a peek on gamepass if you have it.
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