Whatcha Been Playing?

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Yeah, although it is more like the old SNES games, stylistically, from what I can tell from screenshots. I didn't realise it came out so late actually, it seems so much more like those classic games rather than the newer 3D stuff.

Thanks for the reply though, definitely going to check that out!
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Sinclair Gregstrum
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Sinclair Gregstrum »

I spent about 5 hours by myself on trains over the weekend, and a lot of that time I was playing Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

Very much enjoying it so far! It starts off as 'baby's first turn-based strategy RPG' and was a bit slow to get going for someone pretty well-versed in the genre. That said, I totally understand why they had to do that given the younger and/or less genre savvy audience the presence of Mario and the Rabbids might attract.

By the end of World 1 and heading into World 2 they've ramped things up nicely though, and I'm very much looking forward to working my way through the game and seeing how the suite of weapons, mechanics, enemies and allies develops along the way.
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ColinAlonso
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ColinAlonso »

I'll add to the Suikoden 2 chat only to say that the plot is a bit more political, more in the vein of a Final Fantasy Tactics than the SNES games mentioned. But yeah, I've played a lot of JRPGs and rate it very highly despite only playing it in 2015. Soundtrack is great too. Enjoy!

Speaking of Ivalice, (Yes! Segue! 8-) ) I've reached the Phon Coast in Final Fantasy XII. I remember being blown away by how this part of the game looked on a PS2. Still pretty now, even though the technical limitations are obvious. Its quite a calming game to play with my gambits all set up.
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

I'm griping and gurning my way through Observation, the game where you play a HAL-type AI on a space station which has had an accident, investigating faults and bringing systems back online at the behest of one of the survivors.

I like a lot about it - the narrative hook, the setting, the exploring - and even the puzzles are fine (for someone who hates puzzles) but identifying the way forward is killing me. My next step always seems to be obscured due to me either not knowing what to do, or how the game wants me to behave. This is compounded by slow movement (you basically control cameras) and a very unintuitive (for me anyway) set of controls on PC.

The gameplay has successfully recreated the feeling of carrying out some shitty opaque computer task, like troubleshooting printer drivers or something. It's that level of minor frustration.

I'm hoping that I've got the lie of the land now, and that the story will pay off as I go along.
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Flabyo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

Outer Wilds... it’s so good.

The way the story is layered.

The way each discovery that you make inches you closer to the next ‘aha!’ moment.

The way you’re not actually doing the Dead Cells thing of unlocking new actual abilities, just more information about the world that makes you realise you can do something with the toolset you already have that you didn’t know about before.

It’s a very smart game hiding under something that seems quite simple.
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

Picked up Bioshock Remastered a few days ago, and the PC version is terrible. When this version was first released it didn't seem particularly impressive to me. The graphics looked more different than better, and only insignificantly so. Then after a while I heard stories about how awful the audio in this version was, actually worse than the original. So when picking up this version, I made sure to install the mod that replaces the audio files with those from the original game, so that fixed that problem. But it's not just the audio quality, it's the balancing too. I'm not sure if this is really worse than the original, but I'm definitely feeling like I have to adjust the volume every 10 seconds, which I'm pretty sure I didn't have to originally. There also seems to be a bug where certain things that should be quiet and off in the distance sound as loud as if they were right there in the room with you. But these problems aren't even the worst thing. On PC at least, it crashes really frequently whenever you open the map. It's a pure gamble whether you'll be able to do it or not. And since the game has complex, labyrinthine levels, and no real auto save system, this becomes a huge issue. I am saving pretty frequently manually, but it's still a massive pain. Saving takes time too. It's a slow process that breaks the flow of gameplay. I'm already thinking of throwing in the towel. It's hard to get invested when the game crashes and makes you lose progress like twice every session. An extremely shoddy port of a pointless and unimpressive "remaster". At least they give you the original version as well when you buy this one. Shows they probably knew how terrible this version was.
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

Man, that is bad. I have the remastered first game installed on the PS4 and have been meaning to get to it. I'll report back if I ever do.
Flabyo wrote: June 7th, 2019, 12:23 pm Outer Wilds... it’s so good.
Started this today, have died three times so far (fall after being jettisoned by geyser, eaten by mysterious blue sphere, knocked into lava pit by the rotating rod part of that dumbbell-shaped planet). Hard to know what to make of it so far. I need to work on my landings.
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Flabyo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

I will say that Outer Wilds takes a little while to ‘click’. The controls are a little heavy and it can be a few ‘runs’ before you start making the connections and realising where you need to be going.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by dezm0nd »

Sinclair Gregstrum wrote: June 3rd, 2019, 2:10 pm I spent about 5 hours by myself on trains over the weekend, and a lot of that time I was playing Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.
Amazing game. Really enjoyed that one. Kirkhope composing Mario music, what a dream
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

Flabyo wrote: June 7th, 2019, 9:04 pm I will say that Outer Wilds takes a little while to ‘click’. The controls are a little heavy and it can be a few ‘runs’ before you start making the connections and realising where you need to be going.
Yeah, I think my mistake was reading a review that said, "stop reading now and go and buy this game." It seems to be shaping up as a puzzle game; please tell me it's not a puzzle game.

Jokes aside, I have figured a few things out and I'm sure there is a good reason for the time limits that will hopefully become apparent later on, as I'm feeling them a bit. Not just the sun exploding every 20 mins, but the sand filling up on the hourglass planet, and what seems like a serious tidal problem on another planet. With the controls (is there a specific reason for the strange jump controls - hold and release A?) and the clunkiness of flying the ship, I feel some pressure to perform, while the style of the game is telling my brain I should be mooning around aimlessly for as long as I want.

There are some fantastic bits so far, the orbiting planets are a marvel.
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Flabyo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

The jump is basically useless once you put on your space suit and just rocket pack everywhere.

There are definitely some puzzle game *bits* in there, but it’s mostly a game of ‘find the connections to work out where you need to go to find the next connection’. You have several tools to play with (the scanner, and your scout probe) that seem useless in the beginning, learning what they’re for is a large part of the game as well.
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

Good to know, cheers!
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I've bailed on Iconoclasts about five hours in. I realised I wasn't enjoying it, and thought I was wasting my time. I can't really explain why, I just knew I didn't want to finish it. It looks gorgeous, but there's just something that feels off about it. It's not much...fun I guess? Anyone else played it?
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

Just been playing a bit of Bioshock Classic and it's already such a better experience than the remaster. Even though it lacks some minor visual detail, overall I think it actually looks better. There's a better sense of aesthetic cohesion to it. The way the levels are lit feels a lot more natural, and this version also has specular highlights on surfaces that the remaster lacks for some baffling reason. It certainly sells the idea of an underwater art deco city more when things actually look wet or metallic. I think this version also has less aliasing than the remaster too. I definitely noticed some of that looking at things like metal banisters, and that's not an issue in this version. There's also a level of polish to it that the remaster just doesn't have as well. That version has small issues with the UI not lining up properly sometimes, and the map taking a few seconds to load every time you open it. Not so here. Everything looks right, and is snappy and just works. At least, better than the other version. Being an old game means that there's a little bit of clumsiness that is to be expected, but at least it does what it's designed to with no issue. And of course there's no damn crashing! You can just play the game and not be constantly afraid you're going to lose progress all the time. Such a weight off the experience.
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

Struggling a bit with The Outer Wilds now. I think the issue is that I need a bit more reward/motivation for completing sections of the game. At the moment there doesn't seem to be any reward except a bit of writing on a wall saying, "Now go here," and then that pretty much repeats. I'm imagining that achievements popping up on console would provide some small sense of progress?

I guess the rewards is meant to be the environments themselves, which are pretty great in fairness.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Started Sonic Mania on PS4 last night. I'm not really a Sonic fan so much (I did like the first couple of games back in the day but haven't really enjoyed them in recent years) but wow they really nailed this, it's perfect as a homage to the classic games. I wasn't expecting to have a direct copy of the first Green Hill stage so that was a nice surprise. It really does look and play just like Sonic 1 and 2 (I never really played 3). The music is fantastic, too. Really nice package for fans of the series. I can see myself playing it through.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

I gave Sonic Mania a spin too but it feels like every other Sonic I’ve ever played so unlikely to convince me!

I went back to Cuphead on Switch and finished everything I was capable of on the regular difficulty, but three of the last area bosses are still way beyond me after hundreds of tries between them, so I resigned to completing them on simple difficulty just to see the rest of the game. It’s fantastic and it’s stunning, but after nearly 25 hours of relentless punishment I’ve really had enough!

I’m about that far into Final Fantasy 7 on Switch too. I just had the end of part one message, which seems to be where you swapped discs on PS1, so I guess that makes me about a third of the way through. I think it’s brilliant, and the more I play the more I want to keep playing. I must admit to having used the 3x speed option in a few recent areas though, where the random encounters just got a bit too much!
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shadowless_kick
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by shadowless_kick »

Sonic Mania was a surprising letdown for me. everything about the presentation was fantastic and it's obvious the creators have genuine love for the classic series. unfortuantely, I felt control of Sonic was too often taken out of my hands while the stage itself just flung me around various springs and contraptions. I also found the boss fights unintuitive. still, I'm happy for the game's success.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

shadowless_kick wrote: June 9th, 2019, 2:42 pm Sonic Mania was a surprising letdown for me...I felt control of Sonic was too often taken out of my hands while the stage itself just flung me around various springs and contraptions.
Did you play the originals..?

I think it's always been a bit like that. Funny how they always got compared, but Sonic and Mario couldn't be more different really. I don't think it was ever about the precise platforming, more just about dashing around. I think it's why I don't really enjoy them nowadays (he says whilst quite enjoying Sonic Mania!)
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Chopper
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

Trying to get to grips with Into the Breach (PC)

Objectives:
  • Destroy the Dam
  • Protect the Time Pod
Turn 1:
  • Mech punches dam, destroying it
    .....
    .....
  • Map floods
  • Time Pod destroyed
  • Aliens start whaling on townspeople
  • Cannot use weapons while flooded

:x
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