whatchu playing now

Control is the closest to a "normal" game that also feels like a mood piece that I've played. I was very bad at it and didn't love constantly hearing gun noises, but it's really aesthetically engaging

It's either that or Hitman I think. Everything else seems too slow or too frenetic, or too story-driven and long.

Yeah maybe Hitman would be a good pace for some convalescence. Every time I see videos of Control there's so much running and shooting. Vibey shooting I'm sure, but still.

Hitman is an absolute blast. It's basically like a methodical coyote/roadrunner cartoon where you are playing as both at once.

Busted out the original MYST on my steam deck for some midnight gaming in bed last night. Perfect environment for it. A beautiful game, keen to unravel the mystery.

Ok I splurged on Hitman and spent all day playing, got through the Paris & Italy missions. It's a lot of fun, though I feel like I'm not playing it as creatively or wackily as I could be. There was an exploding golf ball though.

It took me forever in Italy to realize I needed to leave the mansion compound and go on a scavenger hunt to find the lab entrance.

The best way to explore the creative stuff, imo, is to trigger some of the specific missions, which basically walk you through the most Rube Goldbergy stuff. But I learned quickly that there really is no wrong way to play. If you come across a target and see a window, by all means, just shoot them (if you can get away with it). But the convoluted stuff is the most sadistically satisfying, especially in the Colorado level, iirc. But all of them, really. The AI and writing is really sharp, and at its core there's something really fun about attacking someone with a cheeseburger.

I want to say there's a particularly good Dunkey Hitman video, he's really good at doing the right wrong things (and vice versa).

Current rotation: Elden Ring, Disco Elysium, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Zelda, Trackmania, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Exoprimal, and Dave the Diver.

god bless unemployment

finishing up Zelda, doing all the quests I was supposed to do earlier that were clearly signposted but I wandered off on my own. which was a bit of a mistake as I now have new powers/equipment upgrades that would have come in real handy at points. oh well I had fun exploring anyway!

oh and I've been playing a few rounds of Super Video Golf which scratches that itch for a quick round of retro golf, including low poly trees, 3 button press controls and low bitrate audio samples.

Can't stop slaying spires, pls send help.

haha yeh that game is addictive, think I played 40+ hours of it in one week

Did another Hitman 3 level, and while the game itself is great there are lots of weird things about the scaffolding of the game that drive me crazy.

Like, there's no main menu option to just continue where you left off, just to load previous saves or do a bunch of weird alternate campaigns or modes that I don't want to mess with yet.

And when you finish a mission, it apparently doesn't create a save at that point? You can only load a previous save our move on to the next mission. But if you exit to the main menu at that point, you need to finish the previous mission from your last save.

I only noticed this because the internet went out during a storm and I played the rest of the level offline. But now I apparently have to play the *entire rest of the game* offline, because I'm always continuing from an offline save? Even if I start a new level and save, then go online from the main menu, it forces me offline to continue.

Not that it matters since it doesn't affect gameplay, it's just dumb. Let me know if I'm being an idiot about this.

I didn't know you could play offline! I thought it was one of those games that required an internet connection, for some reason.

Not entirely unrelated, I decided to go back to Signalis and pick up where the fake ending left off, and the fucking game had bumped me back to the tail end of Nowhere. Fuck that, see you later, Signalis, it was nice meeting you.

It just doesn't give you experience points or ratings/achievements. But the xp must just be some leaderboard shit, without in-game ramifications (I wasn't sure before).

re 8bitdo controllers

as someone who now owns too many of these, i prefer the pro to the sn30 slightly. they are both good tho. a pro (or pro 2? i can't remember) + an m30 (the sega-style 6-button) are in heavy rotation, the sn30 i use less these days. wish i had been able to find the m30 in the cure colorway (japanese saturn style i think?) but i just got the genesis black one

if feeling like a real super nintendo controller is your main want tho, the sn30 absolutely feels like one, only real differences are a couple of extra buttons + it doesn't feel worn from 30 years of white knuckle un squadronning

anyway i just realized what thread this is so i will say JAGGED ALLIANCE 3

beat it once and immediately started playing it again. can't remember the last time i did this. long time coming for a real sequel to one of my fave games of all time. by jove, they did it. they really did it

I had the demo for one of the Jagged Alliance games back in the 90s and I played that one level literally dozens of times.

I need to get in on this.

Can't stop slaying spires, pls send help.

― emil.y, Sunday, 23 July 2023 19:27 (two days ago) link

haha yeh that game is addictive, think I played 40+ hours of it in one week

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Sunday, 23 July 2023 19:35 (two days ago) link

Sorry to be terminally out of the loop but what is this? The board game? I can’t find a computer game called just ‘Spires’ from a basic search.

It's called Slay the Spire and it is a video game.

It's also nicotine in video game form.

ΔV: rings of saturn

it's the kind of game where your crew looks like this

oops, hit post before i included the image and before i typed anything else, but i'll just leave it at that i guess

https://i.imgur.com/bjDhAHP.png

Loool, I just realized I'd been playing the missions from Hitman 1, not Hitman 3. I swear, the main menu is so confusing.

Ok so far the actual Hitman 3 missions are both way easier and more fun

Hitman 3 iirc is like the apotheosis of gameplay and scenarios, plays well and looks great, too. Then again, the first full level of the first game is the Paris fashion show, and that's among the most fun and creative of all the levels (though a little overwhelming when you're just starting out). Just a fun game all around.

Yesterday I started Bioshock, which I've always heard good things about. For an old game it holds up pretty well!

No idea which Hitman, but I remember watching Funhaus guys playing the race track level which was amazing.

I think that's the ... second one?

the mascot costume in that level cracks me up

I love how the game does not take itself too seriously.

glad to hear Jagged Alliance 3 is good. someday... someday...

I can confirm that Marvel Midnight Suns passes the "I'm just going to play for 30-60 minutes before bed, oh god it's 3am" test.

yeah that game absolutely slaps, i was obsessed with it for weeks at the start of the year

I need to get that one. Waiting for a deep special

ΔV: rings of saturn looks good, tempted by this

I tried Katamari reroll, but couldn't get past having to use the keyboard in the tutorial urgh.

I'm surprised at the sophistication of "Bioshock," especially for a 16 year old game. The design, the gameplay, the enemy AI (especially the Big Daddies). And it's not particularly easy, either.

bioschlock

It is kinda schlocky, but I don't mind.

I'm surprised at the sophistication of "Bioshock," especially for a 16 year old game.

would you say this about a movie

(bioshock significantly less sophisticated than system shock 2 iirc not-of-course-to-mention deus ex tho i do like the twist well enough)

I don't know those games. But xpost yeah I would, and have, about the way things are made. Like, I watch "Sunrise" and think, huh, this movie looks really cool for being 100 years old. I guess one distinction in my mind is that essentially video games often *are* special effects (and vice versa, given how much contemporary computer effects frequently remind me and others of video games), so when I see a 16 year old game that presages stuff I see in slicker, more contemporary games, I think that's pretty cool, too. Like the telekinetic power in "Bioshock," that's straight up something used in "Control." Though for all I know, maybe that's in a hundred games pre-Bioshock and 100 games since as well. But anyway, that's what I'm playing.

okay but proportionally to the age of the medium this is like being surprised by the sophistication of the empire strikes back

nevertheless i was taking "sophistication" in a fuzzy and technically incorrect way (as, like, "depth"), sorry, so if we are just talking about technology (+attendant accumulation of technique)-- like whoa i didn't know they did deep-focus photography back then-- whoa i didn't know they had physics systems-- yeah it's true that not much has changed between the ps3 and the ps5, either because of decadence or because not very much time has passed, or both. i am just maybe overly thingy about assuming video games actually "improve" w technological development any more than any other medium does

anyway ground zero for throwing havok-physics-enabled objects around with magic in a first-person shooter blockbuster that everyone played is half-life 2 (2004), which my literal dad is playing rn, that's been nice.

I can't even remember much of the original Bioshock because the much worse sequel displaced it in my memory.

I really wish the Orange Box was available on current gen consoles (same for Portal 2). :(

For some reason I thought people liked Bioshock, that's the only reason I'm playing it.

Oh they did, I remember liking it, it's just been so long that I can't remember much about the game itself.

You can play portal 2 on the Xbox series consoles! It was a free game on Xbox gold a few months ago. Tbh it’s a crime to play any of the other 4 games on console though; shooters should always be played with mouse and keyboard

Speaking of the Portals, both of them are on sale on Steam for $0.99 each or $1.48 together.

Lol, I don't think I've ever played a shooter with mouse and keyboard. Maybe the o.g. Doom, but that was just keyboard iirc. Haven't played a game on pc for many years.

I'm surprised at the sophistication of "Bioshock," especially for a 16 year old game.

would you say this about a movie

― difficult listening hour

if it was a 3d movie sure

i would be surprised if "scar 3d" was in any way sophisticated or even watchable in 2023

Maybe the o.g. Doom, but that was just keyboard iirc

you rc: a literally perfect control scheme, which m&k itself adulterated (out of axial necessity) before the gamepad did (out of demographic necessity)