Whatcha Been Playing?

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HaloFandango
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by HaloFandango »

Recently been enjoying Telltale's The Walking Dead on PC and am about to start Lost Planet: Colonies on the Xbox 360. Lost Planet is one of my favourite series of all time, I still think the first game (especially with the smoke effects), holds up well to this day!
HaloFandango
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by HaloFandango »

rob25X wrote: August 1st, 2020, 10:47 am Journey (PlayStation 3) -

After many years and getting the game for free recently I got the chance to experience Journey.

All the positive things I have to say about it relate to the visuals to be honest. The game itself I found to be hugely confusing and lifeless - set in a game world far too expansive for it's own good. The biggest problem I have with the game is how overly pretentious the whole game plays and feels. If the game was set on rails - like the brief 'sliding down the mountain' sections (maybe with some narration) - it would have been a quite beautiful, relaxing game and I would probably appreciate it, but the storytelling, game mechanics and confusing exploration side of the game are all a complete failure in my view. Nothing in the game is explained or delivered in a way that makes any of it accessible, logical or enjoyable.

I played the game for about an hour, got to the 5th area in the game so bored and confused with it all I simply had enough and stopped playing.

An artistic video game masterpiece? Absolutely not. A confusing mess of a game with some pretty visuals? Yes.

One of the most overrated and pretentious video games I've ever experienced - right up there with Ico, Braid and Bioshock Infinite.

Overall a 2/5 game for me.
It is a shame you didn't enjoy it. All I hear of this game is people having a surreal experience with complete strangers online, but have yet to try it myself.

I concur with Braid, I did bounce pretty hard off that game!
rob25X
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by rob25X »

HaloFandango wrote: August 1st, 2020, 5:41 pm
rob25X wrote: August 1st, 2020, 10:47 am Journey (PlayStation 3) -

After many years and getting the game for free recently I got the chance to experience Journey.

All the positive things I have to say about it relate to the visuals to be honest. The game itself I found to be hugely confusing and lifeless - set in a game world far too expansive for it's own good. The biggest problem I have with the game is how overly pretentious the whole game plays and feels. If the game was set on rails - like the brief 'sliding down the mountain' sections (maybe with some narration) - it would have been a quite beautiful, relaxing game and I would probably appreciate it, but the storytelling, game mechanics and confusing exploration side of the game are all a complete failure in my view. Nothing in the game is explained or delivered in a way that makes any of it accessible, logical or enjoyable.

I played the game for about an hour, got to the 5th area in the game so bored and confused with it all I simply had enough and stopped playing.

An artistic video game masterpiece? Absolutely not. A confusing mess of a game with some pretty visuals? Yes.

One of the most overrated and pretentious video games I've ever experienced - right up there with Ico, Braid and Bioshock Infinite.

Overall a 2/5 game for me.
It is a shame you didn't enjoy it. All I hear of this game is people having a surreal experience with complete strangers online, but have yet to try it myself.

I concur with Braid, I did bounce pretty hard off that game!
I sometimes have nightmares about Braid. I'm either playing it or in the game myself. Really scary!

I also played The Walking Dead games recently on PC. The first one really was good. I really liked the 400 Days DLC myself. Short stories, all very unique and quite memorable.
HaloFandango
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by HaloFandango »

Ha ha, yeah I know what you mean, Braid certainly has an interesting art style.

It is a really fun series. The 400 days DLC is the one I don't have actually. I'm currently on episode 4.

I'm certainly late to the party with the series.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by duskvstweak »

I'm a few hours into Fallout: New Vegas. I didn't love Fallout 3, but that's most likely because I prefer more focused adventures as opposed to open world games. New Vegas is hitting the right buttons. And, aesthetically, I find it easier on the eyes than F3. I don't have $20 to put to the DLC, but if it was cheap I wouldn't be opposed to that right now.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I've been playing Thimbleweed Park. I'm a good way in to it and really enjoying it. Huge fan of the old Lucas adventures, and this could have easily been released in their golden age and fit right in.
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KissMammal
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by KissMammal »

rob25X wrote: August 1st, 2020, 10:47 am Journey (PlayStation 3) -

After many years and getting the game for free recently I got the chance to experience Journey.

All the positive things I have to say about it relate to the visuals to be honest. The game itself I found to be hugely confusing and lifeless - set in a game world far too expansive for it's own good. The biggest problem I have with the game is how overly pretentious the whole game plays and feels. If the game was set on rails - like the brief 'sliding down the mountain' sections (maybe with some narration) - it would have been a quite beautiful, relaxing game and I would probably appreciate it, but the storytelling, game mechanics and confusing exploration side of the game are all a complete failure in my view. Nothing in the game is explained or delivered in a way that makes any of it accessible, logical or enjoyable.

I played the game for about an hour, got to the 5th area in the game so bored and confused with it all I simply had enough and stopped playing.

An artistic video game masterpiece? Absolutely not. A confusing mess of a game with some pretty visuals? Yes.

One of the most overrated and pretentious video games I've ever experienced - right up there with Ico, Braid and Bioshock Infinite.

Overall a 2/5 game for me.
Hard agree re: Journey. Can't for the life of me understand all the fuss about it. Bored me to tears.
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Nearing the end of Deus Ex. I'm on the penultimate mission. It's been said before that the back end of the game has a few too many bases just filled with combat dungeons, and while it might not hit the heights of Hell's Kitchen and Hong Kong the Paris levels were great. What I'm loving about where I am in the game is that my Denton is well kitted out now. I've got my playstyle down and a bunch of augmentations that support it perfectly, and I'm just enjoying the way it plays. I'm also just as sold on the brilliantly dorky X-Files style story as ever.

Also playing the 2002 remake of Resident Evil. I've fallen back into this series in a big way this year, and I've actually quite liked revisiting the fixed camera angles of yore. Takes me back to playing the original games on PS1 and Dino Crisis, except that these are some of the most gorgeous pre-rendered backdrops I've ever seen. Really stunning, and the character models are terrific for an 18-year old game. Love exploring the mansion, and the familiar rhythm of making little forays out to pick up an item I didn't have space for or burn a zombo before it gets back up again even angrier, before getting back to the safety of the save room.

When we've had time to co-op something over the past week or so my brother and I have been playing Divinity Original Sin, and the combat is (like in the sequel) great, the writing is funny, the music by the late Kirill Pokrovsky is superb and the world is really vivid and interesting. It actually starts off with a big murder mystery, which is right up my alley. However I've realised that if there's a ding against these games it's navigation. The camera is too zoomed-in and stiff, and it is just confusing to explore the often very samey expanses of grassy roads on all sides. The map doesn't allow you to just click and view a particular area like many other isometric games do - you always have to pan across miles of the map searching for stuff. Combine that with the fact that it has more severe level-gating than say, any PS4-era open world game I've ever played. Take your Level 3 party through the gate manned by Level 5 guards and be instantly mauled on the other side, then wonder what you were supposed to do to level up further in the small town you already spent hours in. Overall it can often make for obfuscated and frustrating attempts at progression. I wish that there was another way for me to get between the fun combat and the good writing than this sort of exploration. It's why we eventually fell off the second one and I'm in danger of doing so on my solo revisit to that game - the signposting is so poor that I just get tired of panning around the same big verdant map section while pixel-hunting for some clue as to what to do next.

Lastly, little Switch sessions of Steamworld Quest, which is the Steamworld Dig people doing their version of a turn-based RPG. However it is also a deck builder, so for each character in your party you can customise a deck of cards that give them extra abilities in battle, which you draw for each turn. You find cards on your travels, are rewarded with them at key points, or craft them at the merchant, and it is always exciting to get a new one that might change your strategy or the way one of your party members' decks is built. Very fun!
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Electric Crocosaurus »

I saw a few people say they didn't get on with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and not getting on with it. It's my first Souls-like game (I'm not one for difficult games) and I've also been disappointed by how it feels to play. I'm regularly missing parries even when I'm sure that I've pressed the block button, the limited reach of the lightsaber makes it difficult to land hits on even small enemies, and Cal generally feels sluggish (a bit like old FIFA games where animations would take an age to respond). Can anyone who's a Souls player say whether this is how they all feel to play, or is Fallen Order a poor example of this genre?

On the presentation side it's disappointing to see a lot of texture pop-in and other graphical quirks months after release, with the frame rate in particular being unstable (even after finding a quick fix online whereby supplying user data to EA would cause the frame rate to drop). It feels like a game that was turned around quickly, and I continue to mourn the 1313 game that was cancelled at the start of this generation.

To end on a positive I will say that the music does a very good job of pastiching Williams without overly relying on the usual themes.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by rob25X »

Driveclub - PlayStation Plus version (PS4)

I'm certainly not a fan of PlayStation Plus and never have been (especially becoming a requirement for online PS4 play) but well, I couldn't resist Modern Warfare 2 remastered this month so I got myself a month.

Anyway, I had a brief look through my PS4 PS+ games and Driveclub wasn't one of them. Somewhere in my games library/content/saves etc. though I had 3 Driveclub items. I thought they were from when I played the retail game back in the day but it turned out the PlayStation Plus version was there and could be installed.

The good - Driveclub looks and plays absolutely great. The cars, the weather, the tracks... Driveclub is spectacular to look at. It looked incredible when it came out and it still really impresses 6 or 7 years later.

The bad - There is almost no content available to play. The online was cut off early this year (in 2020 I think) and about 95% of the game is now unavailable to play or download. What can be played seems to be just a few India tracks and a few game modes. Quite a lot of cars and paint jobs and other bits can be unlocked through leveling up though.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Played a bit of Dead Cells this evening. I'd got totally the wrong impression about this game. I knew what sort of game it was, rogue lite, permanent progression tree etc, but for some reason I thought it was a more futuristic style setting with guns and stuff as well as melee. No idea how I got to that seeing as it's more or less traditional fantasy style!
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Electric Crocosaurus wrote: August 4th, 2020, 1:10 pm I saw a few people say they didn't get on with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and not getting on with it. It's my first Souls-like game (I'm not one for difficult games) and I've also been disappointed by how it feels to play. I'm regularly missing parries even when I'm sure that I've pressed the block button, the limited reach of the lightsaber makes it difficult to land hits on even small enemies, and Cal generally feels sluggish (a bit like old FIFA games where animations would take an age to respond). Can anyone who's a Souls player say whether this is how they all feel to play, or is Fallen Order a poor example of this genre?
I've not played Fallen Order but I saw a bit of feedback about how the inputs for Cal are a bit laggy, so that even when you feel like you responded in time the character/ game didn't and you get tagged. It was part of what put me off - the reason the Fromsoft games work so well is that if you are doing the right inputs at the right time it is possible to get through every boss encounter without getting hit, and the mistakes are always the player's fault.

As I understand it the difficulty settings widen the parry window if you bump it down, so that may mitigate for the sluggish controls.
HaloFandango
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by HaloFandango »

duskvstweak wrote: August 2nd, 2020, 10:27 pm I'm a few hours into Fallout: New Vegas. I didn't love Fallout 3, but that's most likely because I prefer more focused adventures as opposed to open world games. New Vegas is hitting the right buttons. And, aesthetically, I find it easier on the eyes than F3. I don't have $20 to put to the DLC, but if it was cheap I wouldn't be opposed to that right now.
With all the mods available for Fallout: New Vegas, you definitely have no shortage of content. Bethesda drop the price of the Fallout games fairly regularly. 8-)
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by duskvstweak »

HaloFandango wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:18 am
duskvstweak wrote: August 2nd, 2020, 10:27 pm I'm a few hours into Fallout: New Vegas. I didn't love Fallout 3, but that's most likely because I prefer more focused adventures as opposed to open world games. New Vegas is hitting the right buttons. And, aesthetically, I find it easier on the eyes than F3. I don't have $20 to put to the DLC, but if it was cheap I wouldn't be opposed to that right now.
With all the mods available for Fallout: New Vegas, you definitely have no shortage of content. Bethesda drop the price of the Fallout games fairly regularly. 8-)
Actually, they just started their sale last night! I grabbed all four DLC for $10. Looking forward to getting to some of it.
HaloFandango
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by HaloFandango »

duskvstweak wrote: August 6th, 2020, 6:29 am
HaloFandango wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:18 am
duskvstweak wrote: August 2nd, 2020, 10:27 pm I'm a few hours into Fallout: New Vegas. I didn't love Fallout 3, but that's most likely because I prefer more focused adventures as opposed to open world games. New Vegas is hitting the right buttons. And, aesthetically, I find it easier on the eyes than F3. I don't have $20 to put to the DLC, but if it was cheap I wouldn't be opposed to that right now.
With all the mods available for Fallout: New Vegas, you definitely have no shortage of content. Bethesda drop the price of the Fallout games fairly regularly. 8-)
Actually, they just started their sale last night! I grabbed all four DLC for $10. Looking forward to getting to some of it.
Lovely, excellent to hear! I'm sure that will be many more hundreds of hours of fun for the price of a Big Mac set (I'm not too sure how much a Big Mac set is over there in the states, but I guess around $10? :P )
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ReprobateGamer »

Xbox's Summer Games events means there are a lot of games currently available (possibly only on Game Pass?)
Haven't had much time to properly look through them but do have a couple to suggest

If anyone was a fan of Overcooked then Team17 have brought out Movin' Out. It's the same quirky graphics and same frantic co-op (up to four local or online) but has you as operatives of a moving company. You are tasked with loading boxes and furniture into your truck in a time limit.
For someone who really liked Overcooked but felt the difficulty curve is not family friendly, Movin' Out address's that much better. There is a timed element so you can push to beat your previous times, and bonus objectives to add a twist to levels, but this game feels easier than it's spiritual predecessor to make progress and I'm all for it

And moving from a family friendly game to one that most certainly isn't: the single player Carrion. Billed as a reverse horror, you basically play as something that can be described as a cross between The Blob and The Thing in a pixel styled metroidvania. It's not perfect by any means - some of the enemy placements are mean, the control of your attacking tentacles is a little woolly (which when combined with the previous one leads to some annoying deaths) and the signposting to get around the levels is poor (realistic to be fair).
I'm struggling a little more than others would as the TV I'm currently using can't show the full screen at the moment (an issue with any game that doesn't allow for the screen size to be set at the moment) - which isn't the fault of the game - just with all the UI elements right at the edge, I don't always know how much health I have, for instance. There is a certain morbid curiosity at work and I'm going to continue at for for a little longer.

And not one of the Summer of Gold games but we also started on For The King. I've been very much getting into regular D&D sessions online and this game scratches that itch. It's a rogue lite, turn based RPG which again allows for co-op (local or online). Not necessarily the most polished of this sort, but myself and my daughters have been able to make some headway through this without having to stop to look into things in detail. It's not the best looking game (the light hearted angular graphics all seem to be under some dull filter) but it's been easy to pick up. This is on the easiest difficulty so I would think there would be more of a challenge for players looking for it - but again something I can sit and play without having to worry (too) much about the mechanics is welcomed.
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Angry_Kurt »

ReprobateGamer wrote: August 6th, 2020, 11:18 am Xbox's Summer Games events means there are a lot of games currently available (possibly only on Game Pass?)
Haven't had much time to properly look through them but do have a couple to suggest

If anyone was a fan of Overcooked then Team17 have brought out Movin' Out. It's the same quirky graphics and same frantic co-op (up to four local or online) but has you as operatives of a moving company. You are tasked with loading boxes and furniture into your truck in a time limit.
For someone who really liked Overcooked but felt the difficulty curve is not family friendly, Movin' Out address's that much better. There is a timed element so you can push to beat your previous times, and bonus objectives to add a twist to levels, but this game feels easier than it's spiritual predecessor to make progress and I'm all for it
Just to let you know, we're putting out Overcooked All You Can Eat later this year which will have added accessibility options which should help with some of the difficulty curve. Glad you've enjoyed Moving Out :)
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ReprobateGamer »

Angry_Kurt wrote: August 6th, 2020, 11:39 am

Just to let you know, we're putting out Overcooked All You Can Eat later this year which will have added accessibility options which should help with some of the difficulty curve. Glad you've enjoyed Moving Out :)
That's just made my wife's day!
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DomsBeard
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by DomsBeard »

Had a perfect experience of Fall Guys in its current state last night after downloading it to see what the fuss is about.

Firstly yes it is a homage to it's a knockout but did anyone else use to watch Takeshi's Castle with Craig Charlies commentating?, some of the games are from that too.

It is absolutely brilliant and right now I can see myself subbing to PS+ again just for this. I started it up and had three flawless games reaching the last round in two, this was then followed by 30 minutes of me trying to get into a match with no avail so I switched it off. This seems to be the state of play currently. I hope they get this sorted as I think they have something special on their hands.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

After days of just trying to catch new bugs and fish in Animal Crossing, I’m now getting my money’s worth out of PS+ this month. Played through Modern Warfare 2 Remastered, and while I’m nowhere near as impressed as I was first time around, it’s still a short and sweet blast. And as DomsBeard said, that Fall Guys game is loads of fun. There’s a couple of events that irritate me, mostly involving grabbing tails off people... actually, if the whole game was just races I’d never put it down!

And from last month’s offering, I’m a couple of hours into Rise of the Tomb Raider. Not sure about this yet - I’m already finding Lara constantly being damaged one way or another tedious, and I really don’t want to craft things! But the rest is just about making up for it so far.
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