Whatcha Been Playing?

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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

It's Dishonored, you can't do it wrong! That's the beauty of these games. I've spent over 4 hours in a single level, I've beaten the entire game in under 2.

Definitely play the first one, it's a classic. There's also Death of the Outsider which is in the same engine/ style as 2, it's one of those expandalone packs like Uncharted Lost Legacy.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I'm still playing Aggelos on Switch, a brilliant little homage to games like Wonderboy III I picked up for a quid or two in a sale a few weeks back. It's really good fun, some great upgrade abilities like making portals to jump through. It's pretty challenging in places as well, I've been on the fire temple for a few days and finally reached the boss today - not beaten it yet.

The level design is really good as well. Loads of short cuts and once you find the boss there's normally a short cut from the save point straight to it. The graphics and sound are spot on for what they're going for, and I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys MetroidVania, platform adventures or just has nostalgia for the Sega Master System style.
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Tolkientaters
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Tolkientaters »

I've been loving Deathloop, it's my favorite game this year. I think the general writing is a big step from Arkane's previous games and the voice acting for Julianna and Colt is fantastic. I love the gameplay loop, and I actually like the invasion mechanic, it's not like Souls where if I get invaded I die almost every time.

I think Arkane made a great game that feels really fresh and it isn't as clearly inspired by other games as their recent games ( Thief for Dishonored and System Shock for Prey).
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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Feirsteax »

Been playing a lot of SNKRX. Very compulsive. Finding a build that works is fun. My strongest so far has been a mainly warrior build, got me up to level 140-something. Was amazing.
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Miririn
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Miririn »

Jon Cheetham wrote: September 21st, 2021, 1:25 pm It's Dishonored, you can't do it wrong! That's the beauty of these games. I've spent over 4 hours in a single level, I've beaten the entire game in under 2.

Definitely play the first one, it's a classic. There's also Death of the Outsider which is in the same engine/ style as 2, it's one of those expandalone packs like Uncharted Lost Legacy.
That makes me feel better because I'm midway through the penultimate mission and the timer says I've played for over 29 hours!!

I've got Dishonored 1 and Prey lined up :)

Although maybe I should take a break to play an indie or a third person game first :P
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Indie, Hotline Miami :P Or Bioshock 1!
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Got my hands on a Steamdeck today! It is a lot bigger than I expected but also a lot lighter too. Very comfortable in my hands, felt very similar to a Switch and the feel of it feels really nice and high quality. Ran the games on it well but all my works company games wouldn't be that demanding.
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Miririn
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Miririn »

Truk_Kurt wrote: September 23rd, 2021, 12:12 pm Indie, Hotline Miami :P Or Bioshock 1!
On my list!
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MauricioMM
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by MauricioMM »

It’s been a looong while since I’ve shared what I’ve been playing recently :lol: So, I’ll try to be as concise as possible about what games I’ve completed since Thronebreaker [cracks fingers]:
  • Firewatch: Lovely little game with some (kinda surprisingly, kinda not that surprising) touching moments.
  • Planescape: Torment - Enhanced Edition: A little late to the party but now I get what people love about it! Not that I wasn’t intrigued at all about it before playing it but I wasn’t prepared to feel so compelled about its storyline and characters as I ended up being.
  • SOMA: Instantly my favorite Frictional horror experience. Not so much for the horror but for everything else, especially the characters, worldbuilding, and existentialism.
  • A Bird Story and Finding Paradise: Downright beautiful stories, especially the latter. I also really like how much charm is in the writing despite the sorrowful premise of this game series.
  • Botanicula: Cute little experience with lovely art style, as always with Amanita. Still hopelessly waiting for a sequel to Machinarium, though :oops:
  • Final Fantasy VI: A very similar experience to Planescape: Torment (being late to it, being unprepared for how much I was going to enjoy it, etc.) but with some JRPG on top.
  • Inside: Short but sweet... Sweet in a “dread and gloom galore” way, though.
  • Shovel Knight: Amazing Mega Man-like game! And filled with more content than I expected.
  • Red Dead Redemption 2: My favorite action/adventure game of all time, and one of my favorite protagonists of all time (if not the). No more words needed.
  • Arkane Studios’ Prey: Yet another wonderful surprise! I had played Dishonored before, so I kinda knew what I was getting into, but still I ended up way more pleased with the experience than I expected. Same with the DLC, Mooncrash, a happy surprise inside the first one.
  • Civilization VI: A mix of all the good things from both Civ V and Endless Legend. An instant favorite of mine, although I’m still debating in my head whether I prefer this one over EL or not... Civ VI has the excellent Sean Bean’s VO, at least.
  • Quake Enhanced (in progress): Taking this opportunity with the remaster to revisit the very first PC game I’ve ever played, now with more than 20fps thankfully (back in the 90’s, my brother’s PC was OK but not overkill for Quake like my current one :lol: ). I’m really liking the new content so far, especially the Dimension of the Machine’s first couple of chapters :o
  • Stardew Valley (in progress): My second try at this game. So far, it’s been way more succesful that the first one, so much so that I’m currently very close to complete it at 100% :)
Overall, those have been an amazing bunch of games. Some more than others, sure, but I still recommend them all.
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ReprobateGamer »

That seems like a decent selection of games ...

Really haven't spent much time on any video games recently but there was an afternoon last weekend where the family pulled out the controllers for Overcooked 2

Arguments ensued (of course) but we did make steady progress over the couple of hours we spent playing. When a level clicks and you can all just go about your tasks, it's great - when you can't find an efficient path, well ...

Reached a level where one person is basically in control of a crane that the other three have to coordinate all their movements - I think we may have just reached our ending point :twisted:
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Obviously, I couldn’t resist a minute-one purchase of the new Switch Castlevania Advance Collection, but have mostly been enjoying the not very “Advance” Dracula X so far. A couple of rough platforming sections and a mundane final boss, but good game! Also picked up Wonder Boy Returns Remix and Blizzard Arcade Collection on sale on Switch this week. Not sure the former adds a great deal to the original, and that’s kind of okay with me, but the latter contains Rock ‘n Roll Racing, and it’s a great place to be playing it!

I played almost three hours of open-world platformer Sable, new to Game Pass, before the bugs, screen tearing, jerkiness and frustrating climbing became too much. Stylish, striking, but ultimately a waste of my time.

Also checking out the last of my PS+ library before it expires... No interest in this month’s games, but I did stick it out with last month’s WWE 2K Battlegrounds for a couple of hours… it’s another mess though! Played some CoD: Black Ops 4 too, until motion sickness got the better of me.
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

I have once again been drawn back to Darksiders 2. I've lost track of how many times I've gone through this game, I think this might be the 6th or 7th run. But this is the first time I've gone through the original non-remaster version on the PC. I managed to find an old key for this version lying around and I was curious how the original compares to the remaster under ideal circumstances. There's not much in it, but this version might be superior. The remaster had a new lighting engine, and there are some areas where you could argue it looks better, but it came with a lot of downsides. It also had a less vibrant colour palette and introduced a lot of bugs. It seems like this old version runs better too, although it still stutters a little bit.

I was also intending on trying to explore the combat mechanics a bit better this time through as well. Seeing if it's possible to pull off interesting combos and experimenting with what you can do. I also wanted to focus just on using the fist type secondary weapons, as I've always fallen back on the big hammer style stuff before. So far results have been fairly positive. There are ways to string together moves and juggle enemies in ways I haven't attempted before. I also discovered some new moves that I didn't know were possible until now too. There are some secret moves in this game you can do with secondary weapons, if you hit the attack button at the exact right point in some attack strings. I think the game tells you about maybe one of these, but not all of them. I knew about them in the hammer type weapons, but not the fists until now. It's cool to discover new things in this game after so long playing it.
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designermatt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by designermatt »

I'm mid way through Dark Souls Remastered on PS4 Pro after being introduced to it by Cane and Rinse. Also playing Lonely Mountains Downhill (chilled out mountain biking game) and Dead Cells when I need a break from the demands of Dark Souls. Got my eye on Hades as one to try next, maybe when it gets properly dark and wintery in the UK.
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SludgeWizard
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by SludgeWizard »

I've recently jumped into the the Ys series with both feet.
Picked up Ys Origins a few weeks ago on sale, enjoyed it quite a bit, bought Ys VIII and REALLY liked it, and am currently about an hour into Ys IX.

The series gives me low budget Zelda vibes, but with better combat but worse everything else. I've found the characters to be very charming. Both Origins and VIII hit that "7/10 game" sweet spot, where all the fun messy games live.

I am, at the same time, disappointed that I haven't dug into the series before, and happy I've been unaware until now because I have a giant pile of past Ys adventures just waiting for me.
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dezm0nd
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by dezm0nd »

I've been playing Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania which is a remake compilation of the first 2 SMB games and the additional content found within Deluxe.

At first, I was disappointed. The physics were off and my muscle memory from the Gamecube classic (and 2) weren't gelling with it at all. The music isn't as good and the camera was acting strange.

After a little bit of tweaking by turning the camera sensitivity down to 2 I've found it to be a better experience. I've bought the Digital Deluxe edition which gives me access to the original soundtracks and also the classic characters making it more in line with what I know and love but with the engine change, there's something slightly off.

Having said that, i am thoroughly enjoying it all over again. I get absolutely absorbed into trying to pinball my poor simian into the goal from any angle and when the going gets tough, i swear, sweat and get red in the face but in that sort of way that happens when you know you, the player, is at fault.

They've added some great touches to help the player guide through the story mode which i've used once or twice as some levels are really quite devious. You can skip levels if you find them annoying (you get a silver tick on your list) and you can also slow down time to help manouver round trickier corners etc. (You get a stamp saying Helper! on your list)

Also they've removed the lives system which is perfect. It really does get hard and back then when you failed level 40 out of 60 it was a bit of a kick in the shins to get back to that point. I approve of the assists and more games need to acknowledge that these modes don't harm the game but only help people who are struggling.

A strange roller coaster ride this one. I've been waiting since ... well, since the Wii came about for them to remake the first one and it's taken them so many games to finally loop back around and start again.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Just played two hours of Superliminal, really enjoyed it. Think I can't be too far from the end as HLTB has it pegged at around 2.5 hours, but it's bedtime... Fun little puzzler. Reminds me a lot of Portal and The Stanley Parable.
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Cornelius_Smiff
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Cornelius_Smiff »

Got back into Trailmakers again the past few days. I forgot how addictive this game is and how much fun you can have making the most batcrap crazy vehicles ever. There's no bigger thrill than going back to the early game rally tracks with a fully realised rocket car and lapping the other ghosts.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

I was surprised at how familiar Castlevania: Circle of the Moon in the new Advance Collection on Switch still felt, and I must be well past half way now, but I had completely forgotten about how much grinding you need to do! It feels great in handheld mode too, which is no surprise, but on a big screen it just about manages to stay the right side of blocky.

Not the case with G-Darius HD, also on Switch, which just brings a load of polish to how the original looks, but I wouldn’t want anything more! I’m not the greatest at horizontal shooters, but I’ve been playing them for a long time and this was already in my top three. It’s inventive, thrilling, challenging, has a wonderful soundtrack (that I’d never listened to with headphones before so it blew me away all over again!), and its giant robot fish bosses have never looked better!

Did play the Halo Infinite multiplayer beta for a bit, and if feels good but it’s not for me and I’ll wait for the single player now! Otherwise, I’ve been getting quite good at arcade Rolling Thunder too.
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DeadpoolNegative
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by DeadpoolNegative »

Maneater- thanks, XBox GamePass! This has been on GamePass since may and I took another crack at it as I was looking for an open world game to get lost in while I listened to podcasts. It's by turns a fun and frustrating game, as playing as a shark is lots of fun... once you grind enough. And this game wants you to grind- story progression is sometimes gated behind getting a certain amount of collectibles in an area, or reaching an infamy level. Strangely, the infamy system, which is key to unlocking some of the better upgrades, is only locked behind how many shark hunters you kill, and not the gobs of civilian population you must gobble up to trigger their emergence. There's also a strange glitch in my version where they don't seem to come out during the night cycle.

Here's the thing: the game is grindy, but chewing into fishes and people can be wonderful fun. It's exhilarating to jump out of he water and grab a dude and bounce right back into the water. You can zone out and listen to a podcast.

But once I finally got to the end, and a boss fight which was truly nuts and nerve wracking, the whole experience felt strangely hollow. There was a lot of amusing voice work by Chris Parnell as the narrator, but the overall story, baby shark is out for revenge and grows up to battle the reality show shark hunter that killed her mother. The shark hunter guy's not that interesting and the voice actor is kind of dull. It's hard to care about the story when it's gated the way it is. I often forgot there was a story until a blip appeared on my map to trigger a cut scene.

Jay and Silent Bob Mall Brawl- I did break through to the third level, but then I ran headfirst into a part of the game where i had to ride a shopping cart through a gauntlet, super quick, in fact so super quick they had to patch/revamp it or something for the commercial release. Thing is, I'm not sure it helped.

Armed Emeth- this is a mobile JRPG by Kemco, ported to consoles for some reason. It's so far a pretty enjoyable little game. Our con artist/bounty hunter hero is accosted one day by a semi-sentient mech that's asking him to help out and find the guy's mother, whom he barely remembers. Together they have many wacky adventures. It plays simply, feels almost like a PSX RPG, but since it's a mobile game, it also plays at warp speed. I need to get back to it, but it's an amusing experience.

Doom 3- the black sheep of the franchise. And understandably so- it doesn't have the giddy highs of the other three main games. It's yet another game where the long shadow of Half-Life looms over it, Because the long playable opening is just the main character getting ready for a long, long day at work by touring Mars Base.

The story is a little too perfunctory for its own good- survive and help seal off the gates of hell. The main character is barely there. Which is fine if it's just the original game which is fun, super-fast, and wild. But Doom 3 is very different. It's slow, deliberate, more akin to survival horror than run and gun. There are OCEANS of backstory to discover in the many PDAs strewing throughout Mars Base- but since the main character has no real investment in it, it all feels a bit hollow. I kind of wished that would have had something like the first Doom movie, with our Space Marine hero having a cute girl to rescue. Sexist, yes, but I would have been invested.

But the actual gameplay, once you resolve to yourself it's not going to be like the other mainline games, is pretty satisfying and the monster designs have aged well. There are some frantic, genuinely challenging battles, even on the lower difficulties. I think history will be kind to this game. I'm currently working on The Lost Mission, will probably get to Resurrection of Evil Later.

The Walking Dead: a New Frontier- if you are going to fire a gun while holding a baby, Please, for the love of god, put cotton in the baby's ears first.

Does anyone remember that expose, I think it was in Game Informer, of Telltale Games, where it was revealed that the head of the company was a violence obsessed lunatic who pushed for more and more gore and nasty things happening to the characters, especially in the Batman games? This game is a relentless grind of scene after scene of the characters wallowing in misery or having horrible things happening to them. I Think the Walking Dead comic book itself has always had a pretty unhealthy, paranoid worldview, but these games are way worse. I can't believe I hate played the whole thing- the Telltale mechanics are still sound, and it was on GamePass, but it's such a grueling experience. I could say more but I really don't want to; the game doesn't deserve it.

--Dan
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

DeadpoolNegative wrote: October 4th, 2021, 6:17 am The Walking Dead: a New Frontier- if you are going to fire a gun while holding a baby, Please, for the love of god, put cotton in the baby's ears first.

Does anyone remember that expose, I think it was in Game Informer, of Telltale Games, where it was revealed that the head of the company was a violence obsessed lunatic who pushed for more and more gore and nasty things happening to the characters, especially in the Batman games? This game is a relentless grind of scene after scene of the characters wallowing in misery or having horrible things happening to them. I Think the Walking Dead comic book itself has always had a pretty unhealthy, paranoid worldview, but these games are way worse. I can't believe I hate played the whole thing- the Telltale mechanics are still sound, and it was on GamePass, but it's such a grueling experience. I could say more but I really don't want to; the game doesn't deserve it.

--Dan
I wasn't expecting to see that reaction to the game haha. I actually quite enjoyed it, as you say it is pretty gruesome but I enjoyed playing as someone else in the series for a change and didn't think the tone was any worse than the TV show or other games. I am yet to play the final season but out of the 4 I've played I would say New Frontier is my second favourite in the series.
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