whatchu playing now

the hype is real for Persona 5 whadda game

Playerunderground's Battlegrounds has lost its charm for me: just too much time running and looting for too little action. For those who still want to get their FPS on in a social environment, I've been really digging Squad, midway in complexity between console shooters and the cliff-like learning curve and several hour time commitment of the milsim Arma 3. The community is great, no 13 year-olds screaming pejoratives over VOIP. Requires a pretty hefty PC though for all the graphics bells & whistles, though I'm still doing fine with a 4 yo graphics card.

Typical gameplay, from a good squad leader's perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14rRDAXSbYA

very watchable!

Playerunderground's Battlegrounds

Oops. Stupid name, but Playerunknown is now pretty much set for life, if he had even a small fraction of the revenue (9 million copies at $28 net after Steam commission). Not bad for someone who started out modding to honor the film Battle Royale a half-dozen years ago.

Plunderground's Blundergrounds

Bladderunknown's Platitudes

Brendan's Fun Zone BattleHouse

^ better name

Got to play a little bit COD:WW2 on the public beta - better than the last few because it's not a bunch of sci-fi shit, but the maps still felt a lot smaller and less interesting than Modern Warfare and movement was faster/smoother so it's still heavily reliant on tween reflexes.

That's highlights a neat thing about Squad. It's developed (in part) by, and rated highly for realism, by military veterans. Stamina is limited in gear, so one exhausts quickly and movement is reduced to a comparative crawl, one can't sidestep into cover fast enough to avoid fire, visibility is limited without optics, engagement distances are usually 100-300 m, unless one's doing a building breach, which are terrifying on both sides. Positioning and cover matter a lot more than than twitch reflexes. Those playing medic, building forward operating bases, manning mortars, or driving logistics trucks often make a larger difference to the outcome than L33T shooters.

Plus the allahu akbars and ululations on local chat when one's brother in arms successfully places an IED are fun.

Really? That's the kind of thing that puts me off these things.

Roleplay is pretty rare, usually comms are pure business or little jokes about warm hands or insurance when healing/getting healed. But there's sometimes roleplay going on local (the short distance channel) when one's playing insurgents (takbir) or Russians (urrah!). Not sure if anyone has figured out who the Eastern European Irregular Militia represent. I'm looking forward to bad cockney accents once the British faction is released.

that looks way too straight faced for me, pubg works because it's an improbable blend of realism and cartoonishness

I'll return to PUBG when the new, smaller Peruvian desert town map is released. Erangel (the current map) is rare case of a much too large map, which means one's worried about running/driving from the blue death too much of the game, at least if you're a coward like me. The payoff is that there's 20 minutes of buildup to the tension of trying not to reveal one's position unless absolutely necessary in in the top-20.

Yeah, I don't own the game yet but from what I've seen the whole running away from the blue zone seems to take up too much of the gameplay for me. I'm still on the fence. If it comes out at a decent discount price maybe.

How do most people play PC shooters? I've been playing console games so long, using a Logitech mouse and a keyboard feels weird to me.

Among FPS gamers, keyb/mouse is considered far superior as an input method. Console analog sticks simply aren't precise enough to turn to a particular azimuth with "muscle memory", so console games rely heavily in aim-assist. It's one reason why cross-platform games on Xbox and PC always have different servers for each platform, PC players would have an unfair advantage on mixed servers.

guitar hero drumset

whatchu watching now?

this Japanese soap opera about video games, "Final Fantasy XIV: Dad of Light", is the most engrossing thing I've ever watched on Netflix pic.twitter.com/KXJLtfOnf8

— Emily Gaudette (@emilygmonster) September 7, 2017

i just watched the first episode. no one's going to win an award for acting, but the tweeeeeetster is right that it is strangely affecting. it may help if you too have a dad that you can't really communicate with but who you once shared a videogame bond with

the show is about a son who buys his newly retired dad a ps4 + FF XIV, then hatches a plan to anonymously help him through the game and get to know him in that way, since they don't really talk in real life

For those intrigued by Squad, humblebundle sale, $24.

picked up Red Dead Redemption for PS3, playing it for the first time. what a cool game!

kinda off topic and sorry for cross-post but honestly i think most people here would be interested in it:

Video Art

that FF show is hilarious, can't wait to see more after episode 1

has anybody tried out Tooth and Tail?

i tried it at pax earlier this year and it was cute but i'm so poorly versed in RTS games that i didn't really know what i was doing - it didn't seem like it solves the accessibility issues of the genre as much as just provides a lighter/quicker option for people who already play these games.

Danganronpa 2 on PS4. First one started out slooow but it sped up once the cast got smaller. It's Phoenix Wright style mysteries with some j-horror and short dating/"social links" sections thrown in. Second one is also starting out slow.

Steppy Pants and Make More on android.

neir automata is really good on first contact!

also hmmmm
https://kotaku.com/the-notorious-board-game-that-takes-1500-hours-to-compl-1818510912

got pro evo 2018 at the weekend - enjoying it so far. seems kinda easy when you play in one player, which is unusual. might chance an online game this evening.

Nier:Automata is really special. I strongly encourage you to play all the way through to ending E, if you stop the first time the credits roll then you miss a substantial amount of the game.

i started playing N:A on hard and had to replay act one for over an hour before i finally allowed myself to play normal and move forward... i gather there's a ton of spoilers regarding how the game plays out so i won't ask for help. but yes, it's immediately engaging and super well done so far!

yeah once you get past the first act and get some upgrades you can turn the difficulty back up without a problem. I'm awful at character action games myself so I just play on normal regardless but this one is not particularly hard.

it also has one of the best soundtracks ever

yeah, the music is killer. I may go back to hard difficulty as I've been cruising without a death since I started playing on normal. Health recharges are plentiful and autoheal makes it easy to explore.

biggest difference in hard is you lose the lock-on iirc so you have to actually aim your ranged stuff. other than that it's just the standard 'you take more damage'

ciderpress otm

the best non-spoilery tip for N:A is to save as often as possible, there's no auto-save and you *will* lose hours of progress when you least expect it if you don't do it manually. It's just a couple of button presses so do it whenever you're in range of the save terminals

have been marathoning Danganronpa 3 this week since I want to finish it ahead of the crowd to avoid spoilers. they've still got some tricks left in their bag after the first 2 games, though so far it's been a tad easier than DR2. still best in class for theatricality and clever staging in detective games though.

I only saw the trailer, it appears to be Teenage Witch Phoenix Wright but also .. all other games ever?

Meshi Quest ON IPAD

I do cooking good

SMW and LTTP on snes classic mini

humblebraggin

xp yeah the series is basically Phoenix wright with horny anime teens and twistier cases, plus a Lost-style overarching story of figuring out what's actually going on with the game world. First game starts pretty slow with some simpler cases iirc but ramps up nicely and is a good litmus test, 2nd and 3rd games assume you've played the previous ones and use that foundation to do more ridiculous things.

id recommend them if you like detective fiction and have a high tolerance for corny anime and the visual novel format

i do. i should give those a try. didn't have a Vita so ignored them for some time but they're on PS4 now, right?

downloading Cuphead from Steam right now. i hear it's really tough bullet hell so that plus the art design is like my dream game.

i'll get that when the Mac port hits, probably

Steamworld 2, which is very, very good! Practically played it in one sitting (11.5 hours to finish, though not even close to 100%).

The controls and physics (?) are so good, and the powerups so well designed, that by the time you've unlocked everything near the end you get in this state of perfect, intuitive platformer "flow" or whatever. Might be better than Super Mario World in that respect, which seems like it's the gold standard.

Whew, those 11.5 hours were the most fun I've had playing a video game in a long, long time!

Does it still have procedurally generated levels?

Sorry, I should have given the correct title, it's Steamworld Dig 2, not to be confused with Steamworld Heist (also very fun!)