Whatcha Been Playing?

[Alex79]

So I started Tunic last night and I'm wondering if anyone else who's played it can help. I'm not sure if I'm 'doing it right'?

At the start of the game, one of the first instruction manual pages you unlock seems to indicate you have to do something in the East Forest, the Heros Grave and the Guard Captain. I've beaten the Guard Captain which was a boss, and a little past him there's a tall monolith type thing you can activate (ring?) like a bell, as the manual suggests. But I can't find any boss or anything in the forest or the Heros Grave. Carrying on after the Guard Captain takes you to a big hub type area, but I can't shake the feeling I'm supposed to beat bosses or ring bells in the East Forest and Heros Grave, because the manual has tick boxes by them.

Any ideas? Or should I just keep playing and exploring and stop worrying about if I'm missing stuff or not playing it right?

EDIT: The only reason I started Tunic last night was because I'd started Thank Goodness You're Here in bed and had to turn it off because it was making me laugh too much and I didn't want to be too noisy

To be honest I can't remember but yeah, I would suggest keep exploring and looking for hidden paths which can sometimes be hard to spot due to the perspective.

Thanks, yeah I carried on looking around in the end. I've just rung both bell towers now.

[Jobobonobo]

Still plugging away at E.V.O: Search for Eden and the Birdman Fort is a fucking pain. I hate mazes where you teleport from one room to another. Been ages just stuck running in circles trying to make progress in this place. Really is a proper drag going going through here, will be glad to see the back of it.

Also in preparation for the show, I have started up Super Smash TV for the SNES. What a contrast, just shoot everything you can and pick up weapons and prizes. Difficult but enjoyable. Beats teleporting through a maze any day!

On world 4 of Demon Turf. Levels are certainly getting tougher but I am getting better at the game in general and mastering the controls to get through levels more efficiently. Despite being janky in places, overall game is getting better the further I get into it.

[Jobobonobo]

Currently going though the original Mother in preparation for the podcast later this year and I have to say it is not as painful as I thought an old NES RPG to be. I am a fair bit overlevelled so just blazing through it at the moment. Still have no other party members but I hope that changes soon. Mind you, I am playing it with a mod which balances things out and lowers the difficulty. But I want to experience this for the story so I am fine taking out some of the frustration that is infamous in this game. Also I did play and love the other two games in the series so it feels right to actually experience where it all began.

[Caligulas Horse]

Almost finished a couch co-op playthrough of Baldurs Gate 3 with my flatmate. Had a ton of fun playing it, and it's been an interesting experience overall.

I think they did a really good job of making both players equal main characters, but it definitely strains a bit at times. Like, the dual conversations with The Guardian really break the in-game logic, and the members of your party and other NPCS never really acknowledge the fact there are two of you. Buuut, it's a bit of an impossible task to make something like this work without inconsistencies of this kind.

I'd say the bigger hurdle was in learning how to share a game like this. I'd often have conversations cut short because my flatmate had wandered off into a prohibited area or been caught stealing, provoking a fight with the guards. Or I'd feel a kind of FOMO anxiety because he was starting up a conversation with an important NPC while I was off looting and exploring some other nearby area. It could be quite frustrating and we had a few disagreements on how to approach things, but it also made for some really funny moments and conversations filling each other in and piecing together what we had learned. The slight tensions could also play into the feeling within the game of having to manage the different aims and personalities among the members of your camp. I think we learnt to work together better as the game went on, and it's been so much fun planning out strategies for battles and taking down some of the big bosses.

More recently I've started playing Returnal and I can't really get enough of it. It feels so satisfying to play, especially pulling the trigger all the way in for those alt-fire shots. It's hard to imagine making it all the way to the end right now, but I have gotten to the 3rd biome and can feel myself getting better each time. I can see myself sinking a lot of time into this one... especially now I have the tower mode.

[Rhaegyr]

A combinattion of Indiana Jones, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Kunitsu-Gami and The Case of the Golden Idol.

All pretty great in their own right, I feel quote spoiled!

[Truk_Kurt]

Started playing both Cyberpunk 2077 and Iconoclasts. The former I have christened my new gaming PC with and it does look stunning on there. I am not normally into RPGs but I think it is more due to the fantasy settings of most RPGs as the only other RPG I have got on with has been Mass effect 2 and the Yakuza games, but I am really enjoying cyberpunk. It helps that mechanically it feels so good, it feels like a good FPS unlike games like Fallout. The main plot is good and world building superb.

Iconoclasts is also good so far, just a good metroidvania with really satisfying platforming and general movement which I think is so important for a metroidvania. My only complaint with it is that some of the moves you're required to do can be very fiddling and end up being the wrong side of frustrating to pull off. A couple of times now I have got stuck not able to perform a certain move to the point that I thought that I would unlock a new ability later and return to this bit and so I would go off exploring only to come back and realise that I just have to pull off this incredibly fiddly move to be able to progress, it wasn't that I was lacking an ability. There's also poor signposting for how you are supposed to defeat certain bosses.

[Alex79]

I started Citizen Sleeper (the first one) last night. I don't know if it's my brain getting older and worse, but I don't really understand what I'm doing and the fact there's no way to show the tutorials again once you click past them doesn't help. I'm on on day, or cycle, three, but so far it's just been confusion around the game mechanics (even if I understand the story somewhat).

[Truk_Kurt]

I started Citizen Sleeper (the first one) last night. I don't know if it's my brain getting older and worse, but I don't really understand what I'm doing and the fact there's no way to show the tutorials again once you click past them doesn't help. I'm on on day, or cycle, three, but so far it's just been confusion around the game mechanics (even if I understand the story somewhat).

Yeah, I felt exactly the same. I remember starting it after it getting quite far through the TCGS GOTY show in the year it was released but yeah, I just didn't understand the games mechanics.

[markfm007]

It works a bit like Disco Elysium from what I remember. You have a number of dice that you can roll each day to complete activities. Then as time progresses you collect resources and complete quests, spec into different traits etc. You're just managing your schedule to do what you want to do and trying to optimize your dice rolls to succeed, while keeping yourself alive. I enjoyed the game for its writing more than its gameplay, which once you get it is quite simple.

[Jobobonobo]

Due to it coming up later this year on the podcast, I have finally decided to take the plunge and try out Chrono Cross. I love Chrono Trigger but having heard that this game is quite different from it I have gone in with lowered expectations. It is different in terms of combat system and especially settings but so far I am enjoying myself with it. I think for a PS1 game it looks phenomenal with a gorgeous watercolour aesthetic and the soundtrack is certainly up to par with Trigger. Rare I have two RPGs on the go but this is different enough from Mother that I am not suffering from fatigue. Good to finally get this off my bucket list!

[Megadirt]

I am about half way through Twilight Princess HD after playing almost every pre-TP Zelda game last year. It's really good and it feels like a "give the people what they want" Zelda, i.e a remake of Ocarina of time with more dungeons and better graphics. I still think Windwaker HD is peak Zelda for me, but I understand now why Breath of the Wild disappointed some Zelda fans, as it is a great game, but it's really missing something. Looking forward to Skyward Sword, and maybe I'll force myself to finish the final bullshit dungeon in Phantom Hourglass.

[T-BirD]

About halfway through the System Shock remake. Cleared all available floors (or, in a few cases, as much as is currently possible), and am about to move on to the executive suites.

Working through Beyond Oasis, having been inspired by the podcast. I finally got past the rock boss, and am now storming a castle. It feels like I've been playing quite a while, but apparently I'm still fairly early in the game.

Wanted to work through Half-Life: Alyx for the show, but I can't go 20 minutes in game without feeling like I'm going to throw up. This is the first VR game that has done this to me consistently. In other words, I'm only about an hour into a 12 hour (according to howlongtobeat) game, so I won't be done by tomorrow

[Alex79]

I started Persona 5 on Switch this week. I'm about four hours in and enjoying it so far. I've only played P4G on the Vita before, and this seems very similar in the way the game plays out, but I suppose they're all like this. It's good anyway, and the soundtrack is great.

[The_reviewist]

I've not long started the recent Robocop: Rogue City game.
Honestly, I'm kind of struggling with it. It's not "bad", the shooting is a little jerky and imprecise but it's still fun, it looks great (if you ignore the facial animations or lack thereof, and weird lip sync) but it also (and I'm only maybe an hour into it) feels kind of bland in a lot of ways.

I'm going to delve back into it a lot harder, but I'm not sure quite what I was expecting considering the last Robocop game I played was Robocop 3 on the Amiga 500.

[Truk_Kurt]

I've been playing a game from last year called Parking Garage Rally Circuit and I am well and truly hooked to it. Had I played it last year it would have made my top 3 of the year. I find it hard to think of anything I don't like about it. It's a time trial based racing game although you're only racing against ghosts which represent gold, silver and bronze times. Mechanically it is impeccable to me, the main mechanic you have to master is the drifting which works like Mario Kart in that you get a speed boost at the end of the drift if you do it for long enough. The graphics are great, each car park stage is great fun and even the soundtrack is superb and some tracks are quite funny as they sing about car parks. It all feels very old school SEGA. Highly recommend it. Hope it comes to consoles so more people can play it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2737 ... y_Circuit/

[Alex79]

This looks cool, very PS1 looking.

[Jobobonobo]

I am retrying Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS. Played this a while ago but dropped it due to me having a period where I lost interest in handheld gaming. That phase is well and truly over so I decided to try it out again. As a Metroid game it is perfectly fine but for some reason this game is just not grabbing me the same way as Super Metroid or Zero Mission. Still quite early in the game so might get better but so far this has been serviceable but not a must play like a lot of entries in this series.

[markfm007]

Lies of P - I bounced off the demo of this game after finding it to be too punishing and too similar to Bloodborne for my liking. However after being gifted the game and seeing all the love it’s gotten, I’ve been meaning to give it a fair try.

So far I’ve had a good time with it. It’s a very straightforward use of the souls formula. It’s a bit by the book for me due to my familiarity with it, but also a lot of fun to pick up and play after work and know I can make a bit of progress.

The game does take far too much from Bloodborne for my tastes, and From generally, but the further I got the more it felt like it was finding its own identity, at least a bit. Bosses and enemies become more interesting, the story gets more intriguing. The more mechanics were introduced and the challenge increased, the more the combat started to get its own feel.

So far the challenge has been fair too. I think they nerfed the game a bit since the demo, which for me is good, as I thought the demo was far too hard for what was the intro to the game. I’ve made it to the fifth boss and think I’ll put the game down for now. I’m on the fence about coming back, whether I have enough interest to push through the harder bosses - we’ll see. Overall I can see why the game is rated, even if parts of it don’t click with me.

[Truk_Kurt]

GTA Vice City (Definitive Edition) - Time hasn't been kind. I only ever actually played Vice City around friends houses as my parents wouldn't allow me an 18 rated game. I was always supremely jealous as whenever I played it I was astounded by the amount of freedom on offer and the world rockstar had created. Looking back now I think the big caveat with my experience back then was that me and my friends would just be messing around in the game, we would never be doing any missions, my friends might have in their own time but not whilst I was there. Had I played some of the missions I don't think I would have had such rose tinted glasses on for this game as I did because the reason I am shelving this game is the frustrating missions. There were multiple missions which were infuriating and the lack of checkpoints didn't help. The main reason some are frustrating is the combat really feels poor now but then you also have missions like the PC plane mission which I'm led to believe has gone down in folklore amongst GTA fans as being a horrible mission. It's such a shame as the rest of the game is really good, the atmosphere is spot on, the soundtrack fantastic and following a recent big patch, the remaster now looks pretty great. Unfortunately though, those positives weren't enough to overlook the agonising missions.

[Alex79]

I'm really enjoying Persona 5 Royal. I'm not usually into anime nonsense in games at all, but this isn't too bad at all for it really. I'm about 20 hours in and it's just such a perfect game, really. Not a single criticism so far.