Whatcha Been Playing?

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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dezm0nd
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by dezm0nd »

Paper Mario: The Origami King

Really enjoying this one, definitely my favourite out of the 3 "adventure" style ones. The semi open world gives it a Zelda-lite type structure with its quests in a place, dungeon type areas etc.


Items are shops only for the most part which is a much better system than the previous 2 with stickers and cards.

The game is absolutely off its rocker with the comedy though. My god it's worth playing just to witness the creativity. I've not seen a comedy game this varied since conkers bad for day, although I've yet to fight a giant shit.


Theres no leveling up, and theres no XP but mario does get incremental upgrades to his hearts and confetti/magic, like a zelda game.

It doesnt have the same style of epic quest going for it but they've done is make this new Paper Mario feel more like an adventure. The battle system is fun and speedy but I echo stanshalls comment in that unless I need coins, I try to avoid them.

I like how you can demolish enemies with one hit once you've conquered certain areas so repeat play throughs of area wont mean endless battles but the sheer amount of new enemies it springs on you is getting a bit tiresome. Currently only macguffin 3 out of 5 so I'd presume I'm half way.

It seems long. Even longer if you want to get the very satisfying collectibles
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

You know you get those games you can't stop playing: Hyper Light Drifter. It's brilliant. I've promised myself early nights the last three nights and ended up playing well past midnight every night. Exploring every nook and cranny. Everything about it is so cool. Just about to take on the second boss, and to be honest the game has been flawless so far. Playing on default difficulty (normal) and it's not been overly challenging so far, but I understand its been extensively patched and balanced since the initial release.
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stvnorman
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Played through Ghostbusters on PS4, which is the gaming equivalent of comfort food! It helps that I’m a huge fan of the films, which I think promoted an average game to something I really enjoyed and was sad to see finish as quickly as it did.

I’ve also discovered Bomberman on the PC Engine Mini! One of those games I’ve known about for decades but never felt the urge to play... and it turns out I’ve been missing out on something wonderful!

Also gradually getting better at P-47 on Switch, and getting rather good at Paperboy on the ZX Spectrum, after what started as a refresher for a recent blog post has become an addiction!
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by duskvstweak »

I've been playing some Street Fighter III lately, trying to get to a point where I can put up a fight. I beat arcade mode with Ryu, using a bunch of continues. I'm trying to get Elana's move sets down. I know it's just about practice and time commitment, but it does frustrating that I can't pick it up like I used to as a kid. Luckily, the game is so gorgeous and easy on the eyes. The hip hop vibe is in all parts of the game, it's real cool. Wish I had played this back on release, but I'm okay with discovering it in my thirties, makes me feel young again.
The 30th Anniversary Collection really is great.
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Angry_Kurt »

Played a few hours of Days Gone after Alex79UK generously lent it to me. Each time I play it, it seems to get a bit more enjoyable each time I play it as the gameplay loop begins to take hold. My initial impressions weren't great as there was the constant interruption of gameplay with cut scenes that would sometimes only last a few seconds and seemed rather pointless, it could have just been done through character dialogue. I have a problem with the voice acting though, I can hardly tell what most of the characters are saying as they seem to mumble things a lot, it got so bad that I've no had to put subtitles on. The story hasn't really grabbed me either.
I am however enjoying the gameplay enough, clearing out nests is very satisfying and there is a slight survival aspect to it, but it's not overbearing, I just have to make sure I'm careful with my resources. So far I have found it to be a mix of Dead Rising with Far Cry. I also get Infamous vibes from it for some reason in terms of production values relative to other games within Sonys portfolio.
I'm slightly concerned hearing how long the game is, hopefully the gameplay will be enough to pull me through and the story gets more engaging for me.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I'm about 90 minutes in to Death Stranding (cheers, Rich!) and enjoying it so far... but is it supposed to be a horror? Because I've shit myself about 3 times so far. That truck ride near the start... :| :cry:
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Angry_Kurt »

Been playing more Days Gone and enjoying it more each time as I unlock more skills and weapons. I wish I could reverse one of my earlier decisions as to which camp to give the drug stash too though as now I have to wait longer before I can do any bike upgrades. I like how fast travel is unlocked through clearing out the swarm nests, makes it a bit different to climbing a tower or liberating a base.
One thing I have to ask though, is there a reason why Deacon speaks the way he does, not just talking to himself but in cut scenes too. He will be talking normally but then mid sentence will just suddenly raise his voice for no reason or change his tone of voice, I find it really weird, it's like he's on some hard drugs. I can't tell whether its intentional or just bad voice acting. I understand he will be a bit unhinged living in this world and having lost his wife but I still don't think that explains it.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Yeah this was raised on the CaR Days Gone show actually, the general consensus was that it was probably just lack of time, resources or an oversight, in that the game doesn't always know what context Deacon is in when he speaks to himself. So it's almost like the game is always assuming he's on the bike and having to shout over the sound of the engine, when in reality he might be sneaking through a camp or something. It is jarring, but I ended up finding it more amusing than annoying.

I don't know if you've played Spider-Man, but that handles it way smarter. Almost every line of incidental dialogue was recorded twice. Once when Spidey is chilled on the ground, and then again when he's all out of breath, shouting as he swings through the city, and the game always knows what you're doing at any time.
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Angry_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Angry_Kurt »

Yeah, that was a great feature in Spider-Man and is an added bit of polish to that game. I look forward to listening to the CaR on Days Gone.

However I would say that I have noticed him doing it in cut scenes too, otherwise I would just put it down to what you said above. For example, last night there was a cut scene where you go into a house to save this girl to take back to Tuckers camp. The girl is on her own and scared and goes to Deacon for comfort and they have a hug, Deacon is saying everything will be ok, then the next second he's raising his voice like he is annoyed with her, even though all he is saying to her is that he's going to take her to a camp. It is amusing but jarring too, as you say.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Haha, yeah, there was a time as well where one of the camp vendors just said, 'oh hey Deacon, how's it going?' and he was like 'get the hell away from me it's none of your godamm business' like well arsey. :lol:
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by SludgeWizard »

Jumped into the RDO update, and so far the new role seems kind of fun, if a little grindy and not too dissimilar to hunting.
They seemed to have fixed a lot of the bugs people were having issues with, and there's some nice menu and quality of life improvements.
But it's more RDO at the end of the day. If you liked it before, you'll still like it now. If you didn't, this new role won't change your mind.
Angry_Kurt wrote: July 29th, 2020, 10:48 am Played a few hours of Days Gone after Alex79UK generously lent it to me. Each time I play it, it seems to get a bit more enjoyable each time I play it as the gameplay loop begins to take hold. My initial impressions weren't great as there was the constant interruption of gameplay with cut scenes that would sometimes only last a few seconds and seemed rather pointless, it could have just been done through character dialogue. I have a problem with the voice acting though, I can hardly tell what most of the characters are saying as they seem to mumble things a lot, it got so bad that I've no had to put subtitles on. The story hasn't really grabbed me either.
I am however enjoying the gameplay enough, clearing out nests is very satisfying and there is a slight survival aspect to it, but it's not overbearing, I just have to make sure I'm careful with my resources. So far I have found it to be a mix of Dead Rising with Far Cry. I also get Infamous vibes from it for some reason in terms of production values relative to other games within Sonys portfolio.
I'm slightly concerned hearing how long the game is, hopefully the gameplay will be enough to pull me through and the story gets more engaging for me.
I'm having a pretty similar experience actually. The first 10 times I turned the game on I'd play for 20 minutes, half hour maybe, and then turn it off feeling pretty "meh" about the whole thing. But then slowly that 30 minutes turned into 45, then an hour, and so on. Now that I have a decent number of upgrades, the gameplay is flowing and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
I've also heard it's very long, which I guess I'll just have to wait and see how I feel about that and whether the story takes any new, interesting turns. I don't mind long games if they have enough story to justify it.

As far as the audio/subtitles, I usually have the subtitles on because it's hotter than hell in NYC lately and my air conditioner is usually running when I'm playing games, but if I'm playing with headphones I can hear/understand the audio perfectly with no subtitles.
Angry_Kurt wrote: July 31st, 2020, 9:30 am One thing I have to ask though, is there a reason why Deacon speaks the way he does, not just talking to himself but in cut scenes too. He will be talking normally but then mid sentence will just suddenly raise his voice for no reason or change his tone of voice, I find it really weird, it's like he's on some hard drugs. I can't tell whether its intentional or just bad voice acting. I understand he will be a bit unhinged living in this world and having lost his wife but I still don't think that explains it.
This bugs me the most in Ripper camps. He's always saying something like "I'll kill every f---ing last one of you sons of f---ing bitches, oh you like raping and killing I'll kill you all slowly!"
I know the Rippers are bad, but take it down a notch buddy. I'm trying to like you. Maybe don't sound like you enjoy killing people with a sawblade baseball bat quite so much.
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Back on my Deus Ex playthrough. Made good progress and got through all of Paris (really great towards the end with lots of exploration and hacking to do) and up to the Vanderberg base, although I'm now tasked with defeating four robots before I can get into it. Used both the LAMs I had and still two to go. Don't have any other explosive weaponry so I'm going to have to comb the building next to the compound and look for other solutions.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by rob25X »

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.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Simonsloth »

That’s very interesting Rob. I know some people that haven’t found it is a revelatory as the critical reception suggested but I’ve rarely heard anyone speak about it so negatively.

You’ve listed a couple of my favourite games in your post so I suspect it’s probably a personal preference. I suppose that’s the brilliant thing about videogames in that there’s something for everyone and that’s ok. Ico, Braid and Journey tend to be mentioned whenever anyone talk about videogames as “art” so even though they are quite different there’s similarities in how they are received by a particular audience.

Just out of interest did you play it online? The first time i played it I met someone else and played the whole experience with them sort of leading me through it. I might have found the whole thing a bit more confusing and directionless without my little anonymous buddy chirping at me. I don’t want to suggest you go back if it was really that torturous but there might be an article about the game mechanics that might help because once you understand those it flows wonderfully.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

I've started another run through Devil May Cry 5, mostly because I wanted to refresh my experience of it in preparation for the upcoming pod episode. This time I've been trying to dig in to actually building some pre-planned combos. I've created a couple for Nero so far, and they're nothing special, but it's already really fun to just scratch the surface on these mechanics. I mean, not that I was just mashing my way through before, but I was doing things a bit ad-hoc, stringing together what I could and trying to take chances when I saw them, but mostly focusing on simply playing the game. I could see the depth before, but now I'm actually trying to dive in to it, if only to a modest degree. But even at this level, it's really interesting to work out which moves to exactly what, and how you can manipulate things to create something cool that flows well. Digging in to the properties of moves and how specific enemies react to them, and figuring out new ways to use things. For example I've found I quite like what you can do with Tomboy, which was one of the many Breakers I'd neglected before now. And I worked out that the Bringer Knuckle move can stop an enemy from being thrown away from you at the end of a combo. Very useful.

But I have to admit there's something making it somewhat hard to enjoy playing the game this time around. But it's got nothing to do with the game itself. It's my PS4. The racket it makes is just ridiculous. I've always thought I was somewhat lucky with my Pro, in that it wasn't quite as noisy as others, but it seems to have gotten worse over time, and now it's simply ridiculous. I can barely hear the game over the sound of fans whirring. It was definitely nowhere near this bad last time I played this game. Before it got a bit much during menus, but in gameplay it was fine. Now it's non-stop full blast. I have tried using headphones a few times, but I find the balance of audio levels coming out of the console are awful, and seriously lack bass. I'm not one to obsess over bass either, I think it is somewhat overrated and is overdone a lot of the time, but even to my ear it sounds flat and weak coming out of this thing. And the console gives you no access to any equaliser to fix it either. Also I've noticed that audio will sometimes simply cut out for a moment during play as well, as if there's too much strain on memory bandwidth and it just can't handle it. So I think the time has come to crack open this thing and try replacing the thermal paste. I heard that works wonders.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Stanshall »

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

(maybe with some narration)
:twisted:

I have enormous respect and admiration that Journey doesn't feel the need to entertain you with its mechanics or tell you what to do before pushing your dopamine buttons.

In fact, it deliberately frustrates you at various points in order to make you struggle and then also gives you the most amazing release at times. I won't spoil anything in case you do go back to it.

What do you think the game is about? Why do you think it explains almost nothing to you? Do you wonder whether there's more to it mechanically that you missed? Why do you think it might not teach you everything explicitly and allow you to find out for yourself? The simple fact is that someone who understands the mechanics can play it in a much more satisfying and liberating way than someone new to the game, which is deliberate.

It's also one that needs to be played in full to start to get what it's doing, and it's one which works better and better on subsequent playthroughs. It's one of the most powerful, heartbreaking and exhilarating games I've ever played, personally. It reminds me of Passage. It's not necessarily fun, but it is full of life and humanity.

The last two sequences in particular are among the highlights of gaming for me.

It is frustrating though, I totally get it. The first few times I tried it I thought it was pretty but slow and limited. It's deliberate.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by rob25X »

Simonsloth wrote: August 1st, 2020, 11:04 am That’s very interesting Rob. I know some people that haven’t found it is a revelatory as the critical reception suggested but I’ve rarely heard anyone speak about it so negatively.

You’ve listed a couple of my favourite games in your post so I suspect it’s probably a personal preference. I suppose that’s the brilliant thing about videogames in that there’s something for everyone and that’s ok. Ico, Braid and Journey tend to be mentioned whenever anyone talk about videogames as “art” so even though they are quite different there’s similarities in how they are received by a particular audience.

Just out of interest did you play it online? The first time i played it I met someone else and played the whole experience with them sort of leading me through it. I might have found the whole thing a bit more confusing and directionless without my little anonymous buddy chirping at me. I don’t want to suggest you go back if it was really that torturous but there might be an article about the game mechanics that might help because once you understand those it flows wonderfully.
Thank you Simon for the respectful and constructive response to my criticism of the game.

I was aware of the co-operative function and it was actually my intention to play alongside a friend who suggested we play the game together yesterday but we could not connect or locate one another in the game which unfortunately added to my disappointment with the games design. A few random players appeared for me in each area only seeming as lost and confused with the game as myself.

I genuinely don't understand why the games I mentioned above received such high praise from critics and gamers alike. The Bioshock series above all, particularly Infinite. For me the games don't really seem to know where they are. Infinite constantly jumps from it's poor attempts to tell a story (which I could not gather at all) to mindless violence and basic video game enemy blasting and by the numbers boss fights. By the end of the game I was left completely confused why I was smashing a mans head to pieces other than it feeling like glorified violence. The end was just like the start with the saw thing being shoved in a mans face in graphic detail and then running and gunning for about 10 minutes. Is this really the the best of video game creativity and experience? I don't think so. Even fans of the game couldn't make any sense of the plot by the end. (Bioshock 2 multiplayer... absolutely fantastic though in my opinion and I hardly ever enjoy online play.)

Ico & Braid. A lot of other people liked them too. Like you said, it's great how we appreciate different games.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by rob25X »

Stanshall wrote: August 1st, 2020, 11:59 am
rob25X wrote: August 1st, 2020, 10:47 am Journey (PlayStation 3) -

(maybe with some narration)
:twisted:

I have enormous respect and admiration that Journey doesn't feel the need to entertain you with its mechanics or tell you what to do before pushing your dopamine buttons.

In fact, it deliberately frustrates you at various points in order to make you struggle and then also gives you the most amazing release at times. I won't spoil anything in case you do go back to it.

What do you think the game is about? Why do you think it explains almost nothing to you? Do you wonder whether there's more to it mechanically that you missed? Why do you think it might not teach you everything explicitly and allow you to find out for yourself? The simple fact is that someone who understands the mechanics can play it in a much more satisfying and liberating way than someone new to the game, which is deliberate.

It's also one that needs to be played in full to start to get what it's doing, and it's one which works better and better on subsequent playthroughs. It's one of the most powerful, heartbreaking and exhilarating games I've ever played, personally. It reminds me of Passage. It's not necessarily fun, but it is full of life and humanity.

The last two sequences in particular are among the highlights of gaming for me.

It is frustrating though, I totally get it. The first few times I tried it I thought it was pretty but slow and limited. It's deliberate.
Thanks for the response, it was interesting to read. It's good to hear from a real gamer what he (or she) liked so much about it.

I do think the cooperative experience (possibly with someone familiar with it) would have helped a lot. I wanted to like the game, I tried but just couldn't. I might go back to it later today and give it a second chance. It's a game that requires patience, that's for sure.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Stanshall »

rob25X wrote: August 1st, 2020, 12:10 pm Thanks for the response, it was interesting to read. It's good to hear from a real gamer what he (or she) liked so much about it.

I do think the cooperative experience (possibly with someone familiar with it) would have helped a lot. I wanted to like the game, I tried but just couldn't. I might go back to it later today and give it a second chance. It's a game that requires patience, that's for sure.
I just wanted to say that I do totally get it because my first reaction was similar to yours but just from plugging away to the end, and then thinking about what it was trying to do and say, I started to see it in a different light.

And I'm no real anything mate, just shooting the breeze here! :D
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jon Cheetham »

So apparently there are more explosive weapons to be found in the level I was stuck on in Deus Ex, but I managed to install an augmentation that makes me invisible to robots. So for each of the remaining two bots, I turned it on, walked up to them and took them down with a mix of circle strafing and melee attacks. The strategy only occurred to me when I took a closer look at the two options on the augmentation canister and worked perfectly, while saving resources. Love this game.
Scrustle wrote: August 1st, 2020, 11:22 am I've started another run through Devil May Cry 5, mostly because I wanted to refresh my experience of it in preparation for the upcoming pod episode. This time I've been trying to dig in to actually building some pre-planned combos. I've created a couple for Nero so far, and they're nothing special, but it's already really fun to just scratch the surface on these mechanics. I mean, not that I was just mashing my way through before, but I was doing things a bit ad-hoc, stringing together what I could and trying to take chances when I saw them, but mostly focusing on simply playing the game. I could see the depth before, but now I'm actually trying to dive in to it, if only to a modest degree. But even at this level, it's really interesting to work out which moves to exactly what, and how you can manipulate things to create something cool that flows well. Digging in to the properties of moves and how specific enemies react to them, and figuring out new ways to use things. For example I've found I quite like what you can do with Tomboy, which was one of the many Breakers I'd neglected before now. And I worked out that the Bringer Knuckle move can stop an enemy from being thrown away from you at the end of a combo. Very useful.
I feel the same way. I can't imagine myself getting really technical with DMC5 as there is so much depth, much like a fighting game, but the way the game rewards you and makes you feel cool just for experimenting a bit it is really terrific. Super fun having a new favourite Devil Breaker and feeling overpowered for a little while.
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