Whatcha Been Playing?

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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

Yeah I absolutely loved the first half of Halo Infinite, but the latter half turned in to a boring, repetitive indoor shooter punctuated by irritating rants from bad guys. I enjoyed it overall, but shame they couldn't have nailed the second half of the game.
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Simonsloth
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Simonsloth »

Alex79 wrote: April 17th, 2022, 6:41 pm I've never been a huge fan of visual novels, and I'm even less enthused by 'school drama anime' style games, so I have literally no idea whatsoever what drove me to purchase Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc for Android this weekend.

However, I'm about 90 minutes in and absolutely hooked! Anyone else played these games? I know they seem pretty well thought of by fans of the genre, but I didn't know anything about the game before going in other than it was described as a 'twisted Phoenix Wright'.
Yes I have played the first two and keep meaning to play the third. I like visual novels but only if they come with interactivity so I love these as well as 999/virtues last reward and phoenix Wright.
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ColinAlonso
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by ColinAlonso »

Same here, played the first 2.

It was a weird feeling playing them because while I liked them, I didn't love them but I seemed far more hooked than I should have been. :? I don't even think I'm explaining the way I felt that well.

I haven't played many other visual novels except Ace Attorney and Professor Layton (he counts!) so I can't speak for fans of the genre. I tried to play Steins Gate once, which doesn't have interactive elements, unlike the three above, and dropped it after 5 hours, either due to the lack of interactive elements or because I hated at least 75% of the cast.
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Simonsloth
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Simonsloth »

ColinAlonso wrote: April 23rd, 2022, 9:02 pm Same here, played the first 2.

It was a weird feeling playing them because while I liked them, I didn't love them but I seemed far more hooked than I should have been. :? I don't even think I'm explaining the way I felt that well.

I haven't played many other visual novels except Ace Attorney and Professor Layton (he counts!) so I can't speak for fans of the genre. I tried to play Steins Gate once, which doesn't have interactive elements, unlike the three above, and dropped it after 5 hours, either due to the lack of interactive elements or because I hated at least 75% of the cast.
Steinsgate has the narrative branches to get the endings and I found the story engaging but if only there had been some gameplay elements or some more interactivity I would have found it far better.

Both virtues last reward and danganronpa remind me of Squid game/Battle Royale in terms of tone.
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Truk_Kurt »

I busted out the 3DS to give Hotel Dusk a go on the DS after it being recommended on the Back Page podcast. I got up to the end of Chapter 2 and stopped playing, there was nothing wrong with the game, I'm sure it's excellent. It was more just that I prefer my games to be more interactive than just reading it seems as I found my mind wandering as I was playing, which isn't great for such a story based game with a lot of reading. I was hoping that the mix of story to puzzles might be akin to something like Professor Layton but it was a lot more in favour of the former rather than the latter.

As I still had my 3DS out though, I figured it was time to give A Link Between Worlds a go. I bought the Link Between Worlds Gold 3DS XL (with the game pre installed) second hand shortly after finishing Breath of the Wild, so wanted a Zelda break before trying it, but then just forgot I had it. I think it's great, I have just got up to the part where Zelda is trapped in the painting and I am now able to transport between worlds via the cracks in the walls. The 3 dungeons I have done have been designed superbly.

Not so much a criticism but I don't really see the point of the rental system so far. There doesn't seem to be any reason to use any of the other equipment other than the ones needed to progress the story and these are the ones discounted in the shop which I see as Nintendo's way of hinting as to which ones you need to have. I know you can buy them later on so don't really see the point of renting them, it just becomes an annoyance that when you die you have to rent them again before attempting the dungeon again. Happy for someone to tell me why it is a good system though. I am completely hooked to the game however and looking forward to playing more.
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Jobobonobo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jobobonobo »

Been playing through Psychonauts 2 at the moment and I am enjoying it quite a lot so far. I was a bit skeptical how a sequel would have worked after the original was released over a decade ago but it directly picks up after it with a particularly memorable opening level. I have not played a 3D platformer in ages and it is just nice to wander around bright, colourful worlds and collect knicks and knacks. Like the original, the creativity and integration of various mental health themes into the level design is just top notch stuff here. Can't wait to play more and delve more into the story.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I started Trek To Yomi last night and have really only just begun (I mean literally I've played about 30 minutes) but it seems fun so far. Fairly simple combat, but unless it's too long I'm thinking the visual style will be enough to carry it. I really wasn't expecting it to look so good, it's absolutely gorgeous looking and not at all what I'd imagined from the couple of screenshots I'd seen. The animation is fantastic, the audio spot on, and the visual filter totally in keeping with the early Japanese samurai movie setting. Good stuff.
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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Feirsteax »

started Tunic the other night, so far so good. nice retro vibe with lots of mysterious symbols and hidden things to discover, feels like zelda mixed with fez
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Played a lot of R-Type recently - mostly arcade but most other versions too, with Amiga impressing way more than my old ST version ever did, but PC-Engine CD with its outstanding music standing out the most of those I’d never played before. Got further than ever before too - stage four, no less!

Still playing another old horizontal shooter, Tengai, as well as plodding through Elden Ring, though it’s pull is definitely waning. Really enjoyed the new version of Empire Strikes Back for Commodore 64 too - real looker if you’re a fan of the system! Apart from that, it turns out I’m not as good at arcade Super Hang-On, Power Drift or Continental Circus as I used to be!
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

I've been playing a bit of Grid Autosport lately. I've been wanting to give this game another look for a long time, as I haven't touched it since it was new. I remember it being the second best of the series after the original, and wanted to see if that image stood up. Thankfully it does. It still doesn't capture quite what was special about the first game, but it's still pretty fun in its own right. Handling is responsive but still has some weight to it, and there's a good variety of different race types and cars to get to grips with.

One thing I've noticed about it is something that has actually come up quite a few times with racing games. It's rather tricky to get the AI difficulty in a spot where it feels good. Medium is too easy, but Hard is just a bit too much. Especially when there are a lot of races that start you right at the back of the grid every time. I started off on Hard, but got frustrated with it, so dropped down to Medium. But then that got stale, so today I decided to knock it back up. This time thought I'm trying to play with a bit less of an obsession with trying to come first in every single race, since it seems like the game is designed around you not actually needing to do that at all. And it's been a good approach so far, breathing new life in to the experience.

I'm not entirely sure I'll stick with this though. Even though I am enjoying it, I do have a bunch of nitpicks with it, and I can see the overall experience getting a bit samey after a while. I never did complete it back in the day either. But I'm having fun now, and got a second wind with this new mentality, so we'll see.
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Feirsteax
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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Feirsteax wrote: May 9th, 2022, 2:59 pm started Tunic the other night, so far so good. nice retro vibe with lots of mysterious symbols and hidden things to discover, feels like zelda mixed with fez
so after 5 or 6 hours with this game, I feel like I should add Dark Souls as a major component of this concoction. The game feels very soulslike in its mechanics, even with the bonfire / enemy respawn mechanic and the massive, sprawling, interconnected world. And the combat is quite similar too, with a focus on blocking / rolling and then punishing with a slash or two of the sword.

This is a great thing and I'm enjoying it, however I was really hoping for something more relaxed and forgiving after coming from Elden Ring. I thought this would be a breazy little palatte cleanser but it's actually yet more soulsian struggle!
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I've put about 15 hours in to The Talos Principle on Switch over the last week and really enjoying it. I suppose my lazy comparison would be a cross between The Witness and Portal, but aside from being a 1st person puzzle game it's not really that similar to either of them. It's good though, I've set myself the challenge of not progressing until I've finished every puzzle in a world, and just reached World C, which I think may be the third and final world, but not sure yet. The Switch version comes with the DLC which is a whole extra campaign worth around 8 hours of gameplay, so that's good, and I picked the whole thing up for around a fiver.

I also finally stumped up for the Online Expansion Pass so looking forward to getting in to Paper Mario and going back to some online Monster Hunter soon, too.

On Xbox I've played nothing but NBA 2K22 for the last two weeks. It's great, and I'll probably lose interest once the real life playoffs are finished, but I do love these games and it's nice to have a blowout on one of them every now and then. I even paid £3 to make my player characters stats better. Feel a bit dirty about that.

I need to get back to Elden Ring at some point, as well.
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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I've been lucky enough to get my hands on another free trial of Game Pass, so I've been doing that to check out Death's Door. I heard good things about it before, but was only ever moderately interested in it. I'm having fun with it though. The art design is really impressive. It somehow managed to convey the feeling of 2D hand drawn art despite it not trying to pretend to be that at all. Something to do with the textures, level composition, and camera usage I think. Combat is really tight and quick too. It's sort of similar to Hyper Light Drifter in being very simple, but really snappy and responsive, and giving you low health. It's not quite on the level of HLD but it's still really fun. It's also got very good writing, with a lot of heart and humour to it, but is also pretty reflective about the topic of death. Like a casual, lowkey existentialism. There's some weird issues I've been getting with it though. I've beaten the first of the three big bosses in the world, yet I've only managed to collect a single part of one health upgrade. I feel like I'm missing something huge because it seems wrong to be like 25-30% of the way done with the game yet not even being close to upgrading my health even once. Also there appears to be a bug where controller vibration won't stop for some reason, so I just had to turn off the feature completely.
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Alex79
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

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I installed and deleted Sunset Overdrive in the space of about 15 minutes last night. It's been a long time since I bounced so hard off something quite so quickly but, ugh, there wasn't a single thing I liked about it. The final straw was when a smug voice over appeared in the world to say, "Hey gamer, we usually equip upgrades in the menu..." and it really irritated me. It was all so, 'nudge nudge, wink wink, aren't we funny' and I despised it.

I never really liked Jet Set Radio so the grinding around everywhere didn't really appeal in the first place, but I was after something dumb and colourful so tried it anyway, but all that 'Yo dude, wham bam noise noise noise this game is so cool dude' shit pissed me off. I'm even annoyed typing about it.

Not for me. :lol:
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by markfm007 »

Alex79 wrote: May 22nd, 2022, 3:57 pm I installed and deleted Sunset Overdrive in the space of about 15 minutes last night. It's been a long time since I bounced so hard off something quite so quickly but, ugh, there wasn't a single thing I liked about it. The final straw was when a smug voice over appeared in the world to say, "Hey gamer, we usually equip upgrades in the menu..." and it really irritated me. It was all so, 'nudge nudge, wink wink, aren't we funny' and I despised it.

I never really liked Jet Set Radio so the grinding around everywhere didn't really appeal in the first place, but I was after something dumb and colourful so tried it anyway, but all that 'Yo dude, wham bam noise noise noise this game is so cool dude' shit pissed me off. I'm even annoyed typing about it.

Not for me. :lol:
God you're bringing back memories. I watched someone play this on youtube and it was so annoying. Constant dreadful jokes, which I wouldn't mind if it wasn't so smug about what a funny game it was, not like all those serious games. Everything you've said here is spot on lol.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Kasuga-san »

Alex79 wrote: April 17th, 2022, 6:41 pm I've never been a huge fan of visual novels, and I'm even less enthused by 'school drama anime' style games, so I have literally no idea whatsoever what drove me to purchase Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc for Android this weekend.

However, I'm about 90 minutes in and absolutely hooked! Anyone else played these games? I know they seem pretty well thought of by fans of the genre, but I didn't know anything about the game before going in other than it was described as a 'twisted Phoenix Wright'.
Every time I look at Game Pass I think "should I download this?" I'll have to keep it in mind when I get done with some of these other games.
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

PCSX2 got a big update recently, so I've been dabbling with that again. So I've been finding myself drawn back to Midnight Club 3 yet again. I have a weird relationship with this game. It's sort of an old favourite from back in the day, but I've never really got on with it very well. Never finished it, and never made it much more than about 1/3 of the way through. Yet every so often I feel the desire to keep giving it another shot. It definitely has qualities that I do appreciate. The visual aesthetic of the game is pretty cool. It has a strong emphasis on really shiny, metallic colours with the cars, in a way that still looks pretty impressive. The customisation options are pretty expansive too, although they are very much in the style of the time. It's still possible to make something good, but certain aspects are a bit limited. The way cars feel to drive is really unique as well. They have a very floaty, bouncy feel, which at the same time is extremely twitchy and fast. It creates this incredible sense of speed where you feel like you're simply trying to direct this irrepressible force of momentum rather than actually driving a car, where you're just barely able to control it.

But at the same time, that driving model is also the biggest flaw. A lot of the time it simply does just feel uncontrollable. Like it's pure chaos that is way too fast for its own good. Races can be ruined in a fraction of a second by things that are totally out of your control. It can make certain races extremely frustrating as you keep having to restart them until everything goes perfectly and you're lucky enough for the game to not randomly screw you. This is the thing that always ended up stopping me playing before, as it just reached a point where the game felt unplayable. I've just got to around the same point in this attempt, so I'll soon see if this issue comes up again.
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Jobobonobo
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jobobonobo »

Just started up Yakuza 4 a few days ago. Still far too early to have anything concrete to say about it but it is incredible how much better this looks than 3, like the faces are nowhere near as goofy as they were in that game. Also, interesting that we start out with a brand new character never seen before. Kiryu is great but nice to mix it up every now and then. Hope to dig into it more this week.
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Switchsayer »

Ghostwire: Tokyo. I wasn't sure at first, after playing a few hours, thought it was a bit clunky. But after while the eeriness of the deserted streets of Shibuya really gets to you, and I ended up getting to grips with the combat and fully immersed in the world.
Yes, its a standard open-world game, with side missions, collectibles, and clearing areas of the map obscured by fog by 'cleansing' Torii gates. But it's good fun, and quite horribly unsettling in places, seeing piles of peoples' clothes just scattered on the ground, prams empty and spirits floating in the air.
Definitely worth picking up now it's discounted!
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Scrustle
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Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

I've finally got around to having a proper stab at God Hand, as it's spent far too long on my list of shame. The game all the cool kids rave about but I never played. I was always a bit intimidated by this game, with the weird control scheme and high difficulty. I gave it a quick look some years ago and just played the first level, which seemed to confirm my apprehensions about it. But this time I've committed to actually playing through the whole thing. I'm about halfway through so far.

This game is very weird. Honestly the control scheme is still a big sticking point. It works on tank control logic, and I really don't see a good reason for it. I try to be open minded with stuff like this. I think stuff that is different just for the sake of it still has value in its novelty, and it helps to avoid genres becoming homogenised and stagnant. But with these controls I see a lot of cons but not any pros. It makes turning and positioning really awkward and slow, which causes problems that wouldn't be an issue if it didn't control like this.

The level of customisability you have over your moves is really cool though. I've played a few games with mechanics like this, but the one that always sticks in my mind was Remember Me. It's interesting to compare the different approach these games have. That game has a relatively restrictive system in comparison to God Hand. Different moves were attached to specific buttons in Remember Me, and combos demanded certain buttons on each hit, so you were limited in what moves you could slot in where. God Hand instead lets you put any move in to any command, with a single combo string of just one button, but also has a bunch of single attack commands too. It feels simpler, but much more free too. Like Remember Me is much more prescriptive with what you can do, while this has an approach more like DMC, where you have a bunch of basic tools that you can get a lot out of because of how modular they are.

Difficulty in this game is very odd as well. On one hand, it is very hard just as I thought it was. But in another sense it's not at all. It punishes you extremely hard for messing up, and enemies can make very quick work of you if you're not doing things right. You don't have much space to mess around. But actually learning how to deal with enemies is usually pretty simple. It tends to not take very long to get the hang of them, and once you do enemies usually go down pretty quickly. Levels themselves are also very short, so checkpoints are really frequent. Bosses can be a pain though. They can frequently feel like a huge brick wall that just obliterates you before you get a chance to do anything. They often feel impossible, until suddenly they are not. They tend to follow the same learning pattern as the normal enemies, but they just take a bit longer to get the hang of. I've already got through a couple that made me think I would never be able to beat them. Not entirely confident I can keep that up until the end.

There are more thoughts I have but I'll leave it there for now. This is a curious game though, and I am enjoying it overall. But it has that quality where when I'm not playing it, I don't feel great about the idea of booting it up. But whenever I do, I usually have fun with it.
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