Whatcha Been Playing?

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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Flabyo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

I’m expecting I’ll go back to Dead Cells when the free expansion drops, it adds new areas and some new boss encounters, which I think it needs.
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KissMammal
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by KissMammal »

I couldn't get on with Dead Cells. I think I just have to accept that I don't like procedurally generated games in general.
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Suits
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Suits »

So I thought I'd give this/these a go tonight.

I was a little too worse for wear last night when I got in, so thought I'd save messing about with it for tonight.

I only currently have three games for the system though, Tetris (not the weird 3D one), Vertical Force and Galactic Pinball.


Image


I do have the power adapter for it but my Super Famicom power pack is packed away in my carry case and I have a stack of batteries I robbed from work, so I went with them, plus, oddly enough its pretty portable really if you just use the batteries.

Tetris is just Tetris really nothing new here just Tetris.

I made 50 lines and quickly moved on.

Galactic Force was the game I actually picked out and fancied the most from all of the games available at the London Gaming Market (about 7).

This is clever, its a shmup but lets you move from the foreground, to the background and fight enemies that appear on those two different plains.

The controls are responsive and it feels fun, if a little cramped on screen. The detail really stands out too, nice and crisp images and detail of the ship and the things you encounter.

Switching from each perspective to take out waves or avoid bigger ships and collect upgrades feel nice and gives a sense of flow which is engaging.

It also looks pretty neat, using the systems ability to give a sense of depth and visual satisfaction - I have to admit is cool.

Short little levels that progress with waves of moving enemies and stationary objects that lead up to a boss fight.

It's damn hard to avoid the bullets though as they are red, the ships are red, the obstacles are red and you red. Everything is red apart from the backdrop of space with is black - which turns red if you use your bomb.

For a shmup that already feels cramped and awkward to then throw in the total non-discernible bullets that you are supposed to avoid feels daft but hey, they new the systems limitations and it's not totally a serious issue but it is hard to spot projectiles as you move around everything.




But, the biggest take away from playing these two games, wow, is the headache you get from the system.

I must have played for about half an hour and while its not the most comfortable gaming position at all, you can feel that headache creeping in from your temples pretty quick.

Even after 5 or 10 minutes, I thought I could feel something.

Then even after I was starting to make progress on Vertical Force and learning how to play it I just had to turn it off as I was struggling to concentrate.

It was bad enough to not want to try the other game at all.

It's not like in VR where you feel sick, it's a sort of sharper more focused pain and if I had to take a guess, I'd say its where your eyes are straining to understand what on Earth you are asking them to do in those two odd red environments.

I'm hoping, that like VR motion sickness, its a time spent thing and giving it another go tomorrow will bring less discomfort.
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Suits wrote: March 18th, 2019, 8:11 pm Galactic Force was the game I actually picked out and fancied the most from all of the games available at the London Gaming Market (about 7).

This is clever, its a shmup but lets you move from the foreground, to the background and fight enemies that appear on those two different plains.

The controls are responsive and it feels fun, if a little cramped on screen. The detail really stands out too, nice and crisp images and detail of the ship and the things you encounter.

Switching from each perspective to take out waves or avoid bigger ships and collect upgrades feel nice and gives a sense of flow which is engaging.

It also looks pretty neat, using the systems ability to give a sense of depth and visual satisfaction - I have to admit is cool.

Short little levels that progress with waves of moving enemies and stationary objects that lead up to a boss fight.

It's damn hard to avoid the bullets though as they are red, the ships are red, the obstacles are red and you red. Everything is red apart from the backdrop of space with is black - which turns red if you use your bomb.

For a shmup that already feels cramped and awkward to then throw in the total non-discernible bullets that you are supposed to avoid feels daft but hey, they new the systems limitations and it's not totally a serious issue but it is hard to spot projectiles as you move around everything.
Pretty much a reflection of my own feelings about this game. Its a solid Hudson Soft shooter (Gunhed, Super Star Soldier, etc), and they did the best they could with the hardware, and at least tried to do something with it. But yeah, it can be hard to discern what is happening!

It's a piece of hardware that is alright in short bursts. I love having it in the collection because, well, you know - it's a curious piece of gaming history. And even with it's shortcomings, any time someone comes around it catches their eye. The experience they imagine is usually better than the experience they have!
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Magical_Isopod
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Magical_Isopod »

Are the any Virtual Boy games that don't work just as well on an emulator? I watched a full stream of Wario World (?) and aside from a few little graphical tricks that might have been shocking in VR, I didn't see anything that said, "Wow, yeah, this needed VR to fundamentally work."
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Magical_Isopod wrote: March 18th, 2019, 9:50 pm Are the any Virtual Boy games that don't work just as well on an emulator? I watched a full stream of Wario World (?) and aside from a few little graphical tricks that might have been shocking in VR, I didn't see anything that said, "Wow, yeah, this needed VR to fundamentally work."
I mean... it's not really VR. If you turn your head, the Virtual Boy remains stationary. It's more stereoscopic 3D, which in retrospective, and mainly with 20/20 vision, evolved to what you get with the 3DS, to varying degrees of success.

And I guess, like the 3DS, what that stereoscopic 3D added is debatable. I like it with Galactic Pinball, but then pinball games tend to work because it's a tried and try formula anyway.

The appeal of the Virtual Boy to me is everything that makes it a failure makes it interesting. You learn as much from failure as you can from success, and yeah, the 3DS in Nintendo's historical context makes more sense when you take the Virtual Boy into account.

And it also explains why most people eventually slid that slider back down to the off position! Cool gimmicky selling point, but not essential.
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Magical_Isopod
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Magical_Isopod »

I play 3DS with the 3D on. :3 Only on the New 3DS though, the original one was a pain in the ass to get working correctly.
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dezm0nd
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by dezm0nd »

#phwoar
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Suits
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Suits »

I like me a bit of visual silliness, VR I’m good with, no sickness and I can play for long periods of time - as much as VR let’s you.

N3DS, if a game has 3D (something that the latest 2 years of releases has somewhat omitted sadly) I use it fully, all the time - I love it.

But man, that Virtual Boy 😄 mangled me it did, for the rest of the night.

I’ll give it another go tonight though 😎.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by DomsBeard »

So I spent the day with Anthem yesterday, I decided to have a look to see if is worth my time.

First off it looks stunning on the Xbox One X, way ahead of how the Beta looked. The start was good and the story was interesting but the behind the scenes stuff ultimately put me off.

The loading times are way way too long, I was rightly or wrongly comparing this to Destiny 2. I spent sometimes up to 90 seconds staring at a loading screen at least in Destiny they hid it behind the flying ships. The UI is a mess, press X for this, hold down Y for that is not fun as I spent too much time looking in detail at the screen.

I think as a single player narrative experience with 3 other Javelins as NPC's (think like a Gears Of War/Mass Effect hybrid) Bioware could have had a great new IP here as the story did really really interest me. But as a ''games as a service'' it doesn't.

So I spent a fair few hours and decided to send the rental copy back and get back into:

Nier Automata

No idea what is going on with the story but I am enjoying the combat. I just defeated
Spoiler: show
Sephiknockoff
I have many questions and look forward to finding out more

Starlink

On Switch is a non taxing joy to play, especially with all the Starfox stuff

Alien Blackout

Nearing the end of this and if you liked Isolation and fancy a fun mobile game set in that universe I would recommend.
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ReprobateGamer »

I bit the bullet and purchased The Division 2 at launch - I'm not normally one for day one releases but the beta made a good showing and I've sunk more than 200 hours into the first one ...

I'm deliberately trying to take it a little slower (as my regular fireteam is more split between Destiny 2 and Anthem at the moment) and as I also remember the drought of content that plagued The Division 1 in the end game for several months after release.

For the most part, it's clear that Massive have taken notes of everything that didn't work with the first game and built on what did. Even on my regular xbox one with a non-4k TV the game looks great and the soundtrack is marvellous. There is a good range of things to do, and it's common have that moment of 'well I'm going to this mission... but I wonder what's in that building ...' and get totally diverted, generally in a good way.

It's not perfect - some of the missions are clearly designed for teams. This is fine on the story missions but on the side missions, there doesn't seem to be any matchmaking. You can either call for aid and hope someone joins your game, or matchmake at a safe house and hope whatever group you end up with will join you for the mission. It seems a little odd that it'll give you check points in a side mission but you can't seem to drop into the match-making that is a clear part of the story missions, and which make use of there. You can matchmake from the map which is great, but if you have selected a story mission whilst elsewhere on the map, it matchmakes from where you are. I got caught by this as I joined a group whilst I was at the entrance to a mission and found out the rest of the group was several hundred metres away at a safehouse.

And in a slightly odd twist, the streets of Washington are a little too busy - I think I'd like for some of the activities and random patrols to not emerge until a player above the recommended level for an area. That point where the matchmaking caught me followed a good 30 minutes or more of trying to go 500 metres from a safe house to a mission and just having enemies overwhelm me as activities would pop up in front of me, or enemy groups would patrol up behind me as I was fighting another group. In the end-game, I'm not certain this would bug me but at low levels, it fills a little too much to deal with.

Still, I'm only 10 or so hours in with my first character not yet at double digit level so there is plenty of time to go ...
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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Magical_Isopod
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Magical_Isopod »

I feel like I've been spending too much time on Apex - I usually avoid online games because they tend to be a timesink, and they make me feel depressed. I get addicted, and it's hard to kick.

I'm watching through an old Let's Play of Wuppo done by DesertP and like... While it's not a perfect game, Wuppo is something that's really grown on me since I played it. There's really nothing else like it out there, and it's very special to me for bringing me goofy little smiles in an otherwise terrible period of my life - I was out of work and stayed at my mom's for a month. Now I feel like I could lose my job at any second, and I'm actively looking for work preemptively. So it's time for more Wuppo, I suppose.

I think I'll talk about work stuff in off topic.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

For someone that doesn’t like puzzle games, I’ve been playing a lot of puzzle games! I finished The Witness on PS4. I did like the logical nature of the puzzles but in reality there wasn’t much variety and by the end it was dragging. And I’ve still no idea what any of it was about! I’ve also done about 15 levels of Baba is You on Switch. Again, appeals to my logical brain, I love the simplicity of the look, and this really is shaping up to be the best game I’ve played in a long time.

Elevator Action is my no. 7 favourite game ever, and the Arcade Archives version came out on Switch this week, so that was insta-buy and is as wonderful as ever! And I got Trials Rising on PS4 for £21.99 from Amazon this week, and so far it’s a brilliant Trials game.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I played a bunch of The Gardens Between last night. I had a quick go and did a few levels when I first bought it a while back and didn't really think it was that good. Last night though, it really clicked. I was so tired I had been nodding off during the film I'd watched with my eldest before he went to bed, but it was only about half nine so didn't want to go up yet.

It really clicked. It's so chilled out, and you can play it with one hand! And no, it's not what you think. But I was lay on the sofa, one hand behind my head just holding the pad in my left hand and you can do everything in the game with the left stick and L1 button, and the soundtrack and dream like nature of the game just really fit with my state of mind.

So there you go, anyone who's tried it and bounced off it, just wait until you're semi conscious and dive right in!
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

In between coats of paint (and a state election, to which the results are expected, but still disappointing), I've been playing Batsugun.

This PCB is using according to System 16 (an excellent resource) Toaplan version 2 hardware, which just like Dogyuun and V-V means there's a few graphical issues regarding my setup. Mainly because I'm building from scratch, with a LCD screen and GBS-8200 v.4 converter, there's a few graphica; issues unique to this particular PCB revision, fortunately sort by the Dodonpachi era.

And yet despite of the tearing that appears on the left hand side of the screen (still Googling solutions) it's such a fun game. The fact that I have no regrets abut the purchase despite the technical issues that exist speaks volumes to the quality of the game itself. If you've splashed out in the Saturn version, then you've easily got one of the best versions available. I also own that, so you're doing fine! Playing the arcade version made me greatly appreciate the effort poured into the Saturn port.

Other than that, paint fumes and woodwork. Batsugun, it's super great! :D
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Suits
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Suits »

Joshihatsumitsu wrote: March 23rd, 2019, 4:04 pm Other than that, paint fumes and woodwork. Batsugun, it's super great! :D
I take you’re going update your cabinet thread with your results and hard work ??
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Suits wrote: March 23rd, 2019, 4:15 pm
Joshihatsumitsu wrote: March 23rd, 2019, 4:04 pm Other than that, paint fumes and woodwork. Batsugun, it's super great! :D
I take you’re going update your cabinet thread with your results and hard work ??
Hmmm... theoretically? If I can figure out a new way to link photos, then yeah.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jobobonobo »

Being busy with work, I decided to go for something quick, easy and cheap so picked up Thomas Was Alone. Played this briefly at a mate's place and loved the concept of imbuing basic shapes with personalities and motivations. The writing is really fun and the humour in general is quite dry which I appreciate. I am only on Chapter 3 but already I can see the puzzles are getting more complex as the game goes on. Unlike the recent Trials games, the difficulty curve here is actually fair and only decides to move things up a notch when players have adequately mastered the basics of the mechanics with each character. Always good to see.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Pitwar »

Trials Rising

I've always been keen to give the Trials franchise a bash, but have only previously played Fusion a bit in the past.

While I've not put a great amount of time into Rising, I've really enjoyed what I've played so far and really want to put some time into it to get really good. Watch this space.

Devil May Cry 5

I've played all the previous games in the franchise but must admit I was kinda disappointed that we have a continuation of the old series, and not a follow up to the amazing DMC.

Much like with Trials, I've not played a massive amount of Devil May Cry 5 but what I have played has not really gripped me. I'll definitely play it through but I'm not chomping at the bit to crack on.

The Division 2

I'm still loving this game and can safely say this will be my most played game this year. It's more Division which is exactly what I hoped it would be.
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