whatchu playing now

I love the art style in HK, but I've bailed on it twice now because the size of it is a bit overwhelming, and it's hard to keep the map in my head and figure out where to backtrack & head next.

B2 is pretty clever and generous with its shortcuts and warp points, so it's pretty easy to zip around the map. I'm sure it's a smaller and shorter game compared to HK, but I'm into that. And I like how the traversal is tied to the three weapons, which you can switch between with a button press.

Oh I also like how you don't lose your currency upon death, just a portion of your max mana bar.

i'm playing ilxor.com on my newly liberated nintendo wii console

https://i.imgur.com/3736dPi.jpg

That's really the best way to do it

Finished Blasphemous 2, really enjoyed the level and boss design the whole way through. I clearly missed a bunch of sidequests and secrets/items, but I'm ok living with that.

Next up...maybe Control, finally? Either that or trying Lords of the Fallen again, which I'm not feeing yet even though supposedly it's in much better shape now after all the patches.

Would recommend Control for being one of those games that throws a lot of story around to reward the diligent searcher. The combat is pretty fair, though I could have done with fewer respawns when revisiting areas. Also, it looks great.

Finished Prey. Very cool environment that was more pleasurable after leveling up and becoming familiar with maps. Main issue is that it’s set up for a Prey 2 that was cancelled, so the story feels incomplete. Should have been much denser story-wise. The post-credits surprise would have been a fantastic midpoint event.

Now 3 chapters into Wolfenstein: Old Blood. Feels a little cursory so far. Game leads into The New Order, so playing in sequence.

Having recently played all three, but in order of release, I'm not sure how much they'd benefit from being played chronologically. Old Blood does kind of literally lead into New Order, but the bridge is mostly there as a novelty. Like, oh, now we're back at the beginning of the previous game!

I liked all three enough that I've been tempted to get Youngblood, though everyone seems to dislike that one.

It's gonna get like <$5 at some point, right? Forever backlog it

Dredge seems pretty cool so far! The gameplay loop is really smooth -- as per usual, I only meant to play for about 30 minutes but ended up doing 90.

Trying to get into Control, it's vibey and the combat feels surprisingly good (the shooting and running didn't look very appealing from watching videos, but has a nice weight to it and I love the ammo-as-endurance recharge system). But it has such a pronounced gaminess, always sending you to the next errand and interrupting the spurts of gameplay with talky-talky. It seems very proud of itself. Idk, do the parts where it just lets you play the game get longer? I don't feel hooked yet, it feels a bit like a chore.

In a sense the game is *about* doing chores, lol. But iirc it gets more fun as the powers open up, and it increasingly embraces its weirdness.

Just been flipping between Valfaris, Prince of Persia, Katana ZERO, and Sifu. Thinking about getting Blasphemous 2.

Baba is you, h.p is push, flag is win, stop is death

Really a great little puzzle, this is the kind of thing I was hoping cocoon would be with all its hype. Perfect game to bang out a few levels in a 10 minute sesh. Only complaint is how you feel like the dumbest set of bricks at the dumb-set-of-bricks-store when you get stumped on a level. Typically just takes a reboot the next day to figure it out. Love this little game, takes me back to primary school playing strange flash games on the computers whenever you could get away with it.

Also cannot recommend zachtronics solitaire collection enough if that’s your thing. The final game in the pack, fortunes foundation, is solitaires end game. Completely unforgiving, this ain’t your lunch break solitaire. I’d explain the concept but it’s best to just try it yourself

Dredge starting to get nervy, lol why do I subject myself to scary things.

Because I have an epic backlog I think I'm going to continue my trend of something old, something new and follow Rift Apart (which is an incredible technical achievement) with maybe Far Cry 3.

Liberty City Stories, on ps2 emulator. INFURIATING at times. But still great, and the best one of them all for hidden package hunting.

Finally finished "Rift Apart," which was longer than I expected/wanted because it's relentlessly simple-minded and shrill, which makes sense, since it's pretty much made for kids. But made really well! I just started "Far Cry 3." I've never played any of these games, but it seems like it's going to be fine/fun enough

"Far Cry 3" was great - the story can be ridiculous and a bit over-the-top, but it's a wild ride. I also remember enjoying FC4 as much. They can be a grind at times (collecting animal skins and plants), though. I actually just finished FC5 a few weeks ago for the first time, and the story is such a missed opportunity - and the ending is downright terrible; but the gameplay is pretty much same ol' FC gameplay, which is good. I probably won't play FC6 (lackluster reviews).
One semi-complaint with FC4 and FC5 is that once you acquire a sniper rifle with silencer (and in FC5, you can just buy one, fairly early on!), then you have a HUGE advantage over enemies. Taking over an outpost is hardly a challenge, if you are patient - just pick everyone off one-by-one from a distance.

I don't think Far Cry pioneered the outpost/tower formula, but I've played a bunch of games that have featured it (and similar hunter/gatherer/crafting mechanics). Like Red Dead 2, or Horizon Zero Dawn, those sorts of things. I do like how these games allow you to engage the enemy however you like, from stealth and sniping to racing straight in. This game, I'm only at the beginning, so only cleared the first/tutorial outpost, but I misunderstood the instruction and just ended up speeding a jeep straight into camp, running over a bunch of baddies before taking cover. At the end a scripted NPC complemented my fighting skills and I thought, dude, what fight were *you* watching?

Hahaha yeah...I love those weird disconnects. Like on one hostage mission in FC5, I was sloppy and only one hostage survived (who died right afterwards somehow), and an NPC was like "you are a hero"...uh, no, all the hostages are dead, man. Or when there's an intense battle and immediately afterwards, NPCs will engage you in casual conversation like nothing just happened. (Reminds me of the old guy right after the witch battle in "Army of Darkness.")

FC5 was extremely glitchy and the AI was hit or miss, leading to more weirdness...like, one of my guns for hire kept setting herself on fire, and then I'd revive her, and then she'd step right back into the fire and set herself on fire again - I swear this happened at least 3 times in a row.

And yes, on engaging the enemy in multiple ways. There are some fun techniques you can use with explosives and vehicles (e.g. strap explosives to cars, release the brakes, and send them, driverless, into targets).

am playing Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and having a good time with it. the only other Yakuza game i have played was Zero and couldn't really get into it. i prefer the turn-based combat in this one. also i'm sure i'm missing some context that would add color, but don't feel particularly lost story-wise dropping in here.

OK, I'm making some progress in Far Cry 3. It's not hard, per se, but I read somewhere that it is a mistake, or at least less fun, to do all the challenge stuff first - liberate camps, hunt animals, craft everything, activate towers - since it will make the rest of the game pretty boring. Better to do that (and other) stuff as the game directs you, or as you come across tasks, rather than seek them out, which makes sense. I think it was Horizon Zero Dawn where I had a lot of fun liberating outposts, until I realized liberating them all gave me less to do later.

On one hand, I feel bad killing a lot of these animals. On the other hand, there seems to be an awful lot of them, and they are almost all cartoonishly aggressive assholes.

Snakebird on Switch. I had it on my iPhone several years ago and found it boring, it just seems to work better on the switch

It took a long time for me to stop thinking of Michael Mando as the FC3 guy (then it was Orphan Black guy, now he's Nacho until further notice).

Anyone play that new 2D Prince of Persia? Looks good, but idk if I'm up for starting a new metroidvania after Blasphemous 2 (or pay full price for it).

It’s fun!

I'm cruising right along in Far Cry 3, having fun, getting detoured, the whole deal. The thing that gets me is that this game seems pretty well accomplished, pretty well designed, and yet, every character is written like an asshole or idiot. Kind of takes me out of the game a little, just as much as great writing in games draws me in.

Far cry 3 great at the time, but I resent it due to every big budget game after it copying its collectathon/openworld/sidequest galore/stealthkillOP design

Playing Persona 3 reload Rn. I love the game play, but the story is doing nothing for me. Think 5 and 4 were enough persona for me. Going to give Alan wake 2 a crack

also shooting myself in the head to gain super powers in P3R
(how well would a furry spinoff called Fursona sell?)
game systems have been streamlined in a lot of ways, and the dungeons are now v similar to P4
wonder if they've considered releasing The Answer from FES as DLC

there's talk of DLC so maybe? gameplay-wise The Answer is pretty dull tho imo, be nice if they did something different

Just getting finished on a replay of Cuphead, plus the DLC for the first time. Amazing visuals, but man did that bastard salt shaker push me to my furthest limit! After Bloodborne and Cuphead, I think it's time for something a little less stressful lol

I got sidetracked from my quest to clear the backlog by Octopath Traveler II, which took up the bulk of my January gaming-time. I've put like 80 hours into it, and I think I'm done. Which is not to say I've beaten it; I'm just done. Virtually every game loses my interest after such a length, no matter how good it is (and Octopath II is very good!).

The next game in my backlog was Hypnospace Outlaw. Pretty much the opposite of OT2 in many ways. And I think it might be my new favorite game? I think the best way to measure a game's is memorability. Hypnospace is short & (bitter)sweet, and very, very memorable. Not to mention funny as hell. Why did I sleep on this for so long (no pun intended)? I am fairly certain I will be thinking about the characters, situations, and absurd earworms in this game for the rest of my life.

Just realized that that's a completely different game from Hyper Light Drifter.

hypnospace outlaw was amazing. they were working on another game but looks like its still not out

So turns out Alan Wake 2 is actually an interesting big budget game like everyone was saying!

Love Hypnospace Outlaw. It’s by a different dev but there is Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer, which is a boomer shooter in the guise of being the game the infamous Zane was working on. I played the demo and it seems fun.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931020/Slayers_X_Terminal_Aftermath_Vengance_of_the_Slayer/

Late to this one, but Subnautica.

Enough of you (and everyone) likes that one that when I finish far cry 3, and after I finish a newer game, that may be my next backlog game of choice.

Home Safety Hotline has a lot of Hypnospace energy. It's more of a Papers Please-like tbf. Contender for funniest game of the year.

Added HSH to my Steam wishlist, thanks for the tip polyphonic! I'll probably check out Slayers X at some point; I do enjoy a good boomer shooter. I also admire how the developer is 100% committed to the bit of being Zane.

The latest development in my gaming life: I bought one of those cheap retro emulator handhelds that looks like a shrunken Game Boy. It's nice to have a portable system that's truly portable; I can just pull it out of my jacket pocket and play a few mins of SMB 3 or Chrono Trigger whenever I have some down time. It can even play 32/64-bit era stuff, though it's not ideal on a 3.5-inch screen. Anybody else fuck with these?

I’ve got a lil Chinese thing like that loaded with all sorts of roms and mames

i have an anbernic rg353vs with the dual sticks. mainly use it for robotron 2084 tbh but it'll handle things up to n64 / ps1 era fine

Yeah, mine's the anbernic rg35xx. I didn't mention the brand/model before cuz I didn't want to feel like I was buzz marketing, and there's like a whole subculture of ppl devoted to buying these things every time a new one comes out. It's pretty dope though!

Steam deck + 3ds + psvita for me. Can't see a place where I'd ever need one of those with these three devices in my house

this did prompt me to check out banjo kazooie on it but the first 20 minutes send to be cut scenes and tutorial. and all the buttons are strongly labelled (the text uses the n64 mappings but the anbernic uses ps labels)

i think there's a dedicated retro thread, remember posting there when i got it

send - seems
strongly - wrongly

I felt like Far Cry 3 was building to something, but now I think I have a ton more game to play, which makes me less inclined to goof around and more inclined to just get it done.

So turns out Alan Wake 2 is actually an interesting big budget game like everyone was saying!

I decided to play AW1 on a lark and actually enjoyed it for what it was, though the combat got very samey and at times annoying, the immersion, writing and even soundtrack more than made up for it. Decided to play Control as well and that game is surprisingly fun as hell. Like an action platformer that takes place in the SCP Foundation with the aesthetics and anachronisms of Severance. Once this is done, I'm looking forward to finally diving into Alan Wake 2. I think having the backstory of those two previous games will be nice going into it.

Splitting time with TotK and Dave the Diver in the meantime. DS1 remaster bored me (coming from Elden Ring) and I might end up selling it.

I had just finished filing you under "good poster" and then I had to read your last sentence