whatchu playing now

this is quite good:
http://www.hanakogames.com/closet.shtml#demo

Looks interesting - it's the Long Live the Queen people

Played an actual Intellivision for a bit today. "Burger Time" is the killer app on that system, that game is amazing. I guess they remade it with stupid busy 3D graphics but this version was super charming and fun to play.

I had one - that's why I spent much of my childhood at the houses of friends with the 2600. Does your thumb hurt from the damn edge of that analog disc on the controller?

Mordy I see you've fallen into the paradox k-hole with ck2. How do you like it?

i like it, and EU4 as well (which i think i like even better). so far i reformed the kingdom of ireland which is i guess what they recommend for all newbies and now i'm trying to decide where to play next. i thought about getting the sons of abraham expansion which has some options + stuff that interest me, but i feel like CK2 is kinda a - as these things go - more casual experience than EU4. i do like the focus on domestic/familial dynamics and dynasties. in my last game i married one of my daughters off to a foreign heir and she was shipped out. soon after my steward died and i needed someone new to fabricate claims for me. one trick i've learnt is you can marry yr daughter off into a maternal-descent inheritance line and then her new husband will move to yr court (instead of vice-versa). so i was bemoaning the fact that i married her off too early when i could've used her to lure a good steward in. then the king of norway (one of my allies) asked me to help him fight a war and, lo and behold, it is the family of my daughter's new husband. to blackmail me against entering the war they throw her in prison and at the end of the war i end up ransoming her for like 100 gp. anyway that brought her back to my court and i immediately used her to get a new steward. <- i dig any game that can produce this kind of procedurally generated complex storytelling

paradox k-hole is a good way of describing it. these games are def a world unto themselves.

i'm straight up afraid to get into those games tbh

i've put them on pause while i try to finish wasteland 2 which is a) a fantastic + wonderful game that harkens back to fallout 1 + 2 UI and b) the buggiest game i've ever played. it crashes literally every 20-40 minutes, its story beats are constantly bugging out of order, and if it wasn't as good as it is i would've quit a long time ago.

paradox games are awesome but yeah theyre all about the gameplay since they can take dozens of hours to finish and theres no real endgame to speak of

if you want to get real confused try out victoria 2.. kind of an interesting idea but implemented weird. I have never even touched hearts of iron bc that shit looks insane to me.

Goddamn, The Executive was so good. Blew through it ALL in three days.

Nier has fainting goats and this makes it objectively the best videogame ever

been playing Final Fantasy V on the GBA for the first time
only other ones I haven't played are 2, 12 and the MMO's
it's pretty good so far, can see why that four job fiesta thing is popular

i never even managed to beat FFV on a regular run when I first played it. i looked at a FAQ and found out I was like a dozen levels too low to beat the final boss, gave up. maybe i'll try it again one day

got 110% completion on The Executive - that's all achievements, A+ on every level #braggin #shame

it's a compulsive game

Dug out Mirror's Edge to see if I could complete it. I want to like it, and on the rare occasions you get to actually play the fucking game, I do, but between the constant armed pursuit, ridiculously fragile main character and hand-to-hand combat that is, I do not wish to mince words, pure untrammeled shit, it's really difficult to enjoy. I'm still going to check out the sequel if word of mouth is any good, but Christ, this game is a frustration engine.

Honest to god, just found myself thinking "I've had enough grim slogging through inevitable repeated deaths with failure as my only reward, think I'll fire up Demon's Souls for a bit instead"

lol. i'm afraid of Mirror's Edge now

The simple fix of removing all the stupid fucking guns would almost be enough to make it great, if not a classic for the ages or anything (you have a lot less freedom than advertised). I'm looking forward to the time trials stuff and Tron-looking DLC levels for that reason- I'm thinking of the main single-player like the story mode of a fighting game, with all the implications of crap writing and dialogue and stupid gimmicks (in this analogy the guns are those dumbass matches in Soul Calibur games where you fight a SPOOOOKY SKELETON and the FLOOR IS LAVA or whatever).

haha. maybe i'll make ME next after I torch Bayonetta.

I liked ME, but I played it by avoiding all combat as much as possible

A wise decision. It still shoehorns you into an uncomfortable amount of combat, though, and as much as I hate the inclusion of guns, hate the clumsy way gunplay is implemented, and just HATE HATE HATE in general i found areas where there were a lot of SWAT cops much easier if i just took down one (way trickier than it should be; I'm terrible at doing the disarm move even with the reflex button, and missing the first attempt is a guaranteed pummeling to death), shot the rest in the face, tossed the gun and got on with the actual game.

Demon's Souls, though! How about this fucking game. I've died a moderate amount, not a lot, but never really feel frustrated with the game for it because every time I know exactly what I did wrong.

That said, I still don't understand like 80% of how this game works, especially the hidden stuff and "world tendency" and so on. I just defeated Phalanx and I'm coming back to world 1-1 to try and explore/clear it out, in the process learning that the red-eyed knight will fuck me up bad and that the user messages reading "beginners should come back later" are no joke, and I genuinely have no idea what makes certain elements spawn or not. On this return visit, the dregling merchant is gone, but then so are the dragons, which meant I could run out onto the cliffside and help myself to a shit-ton of free loot. Likewise, I tried Ostrava's escort mission, and died on the blue-eyed knight because I'm used to fighting the ones with a sword and shield; this guy's huge sword totally changes up his attack timing and gives him crazy reach. I came back, and Ostrava's gone, but the first room full of dreglings are all lying around dead. I'm trying to figure out as much as I can on my own instead of playing with a wiki open on my laptop the whole time, but it's a weird experience playing a game where all the moment-to-moment systems are so perfectly transparent and on the surface and everything else is as obfuscated as humanly possible.

i thought that game nicely incentivized the quiet, avoidant playstyle. it's not perfect though.

xp

the time trials are easily the best bit of ME tho
nearly finished FFV, the story is bollocks as per FF tradition but it zips along at a nice pace
goofy sprite puppeteering >>>>>> lengthy "cinematic" cutscenes

I'm reading through the Demon's Souls thread and wincing at my overconfidence last time, when I got up to Phalanx, wasted all my fire shit, and more-in-sorrow-than-in-ragequit for four solid years. I just took my first stab at 1-2 and oh my god so much fire, YOU FRIED

Some day I will play Demon's Souls and it will be glorious.

Currently replaying through Dark Souls 2. I like it a lot better the second time through!

Rocket League. free to PS+ customers. Amazingly addictive Speedball/Destruction Derby/Sensible Soccar style fun. Can't stop playing it.

Seconded, we've been having a great time with the split screen.

I got the Far Cry 2/3/Blood Dragon compilation and started with FC2, which was OK but the 10+-year-old graphics were hard to look past and I wasn't having much fun honestly, so when I accidentally fell into a glitch ditch that I couldn't jump out of, I used that as an excuse to start FC3 instead and it's sooooooooo much better that it's ridiculous.

Soldiering on with Demon's Souls- I took a break from 1-2 (it's that group of crossbowmen with a blue-eyed knight; I've managed to get through it once only to die to the second knight because I'm still a little shaken up from the first one) to work on 2-1, which is markedly easier, and made it to the boss, all while making pathetic whimpering sounds as I notice the giant spiderwebs all over the deepest parts of the tunnel. Unless the Armor Spider turns out to have more nasty one-shot abilities than the flame breath that killed me last time (new plan: swap out Thief's Ring for Ring of Flame Resistance, also run away) I might have my second boss down soon!

I also popped into 3-1 and 4-1 to check things out. Those illithids in 3-1 and their horrible little bells are a little too much for me to handle, though I did manaage to kill a couple on my second attempt and back out with some nice loot. But within seconds of entering 4-1 I was almost killed by a FUCKING NINJA SKELETON what the hell. I was only saved because I was super paranoid- someone had left a bloodstain literally at the very patch of ground you spawn at upon entering the level.

i still like the idea of playing FC2, but it's difficult in a way that feels unfair (unlike the Souls games). FC3 was great but you sorta have to make your own fun.

good luck Telephone, i love reading Souls diaries. i spent sooooo long on 4-1, more than any other level in the game i'm sure (except for maybe 5-2). i think i died in body form there as well, which adds even more (and more powerful) ninja skeletons.

Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes -- Damn this game is smooth. Revisiting it after a long break, and feel like I'm getting the hang of it again. It's such a great sandbox. I'm really into extracting enemy soldiers and putting them on the heli. Apparently you can use the ones you get from this in TPP.

Metal Gear Solid -- On an original PS1. I finally got a decent controller and last played the incredible Psycho Mantis fight. "You like Castlevania, don't you?" "It's true that [Solid Snake] has killed a lot of people, that doesn't mean he doesn't have a heart." LOL

Donkey Kong 64 -- Tried this one out, absolutely loved the intro rap, then the game started. Looked pretty nice but I was in some kind of hub world where the only thing I could do was jump in a barrel and attempt a mini game with the most obnoxious circus organ on speed music I have ever heard. I won. Back to the hub world. Couldn't find anywhere else to go so I jumped in another barrel. Cue the awful music. Cue me shutting off the game.

Castlevania 64 -- Ok I have never played this and I'm sort of a 2d snob esp. when it comes to Castlevania but this game is DAMN impressive! Getting very strong Dark Souls vibes right from the start. Semi-open world that is unlockable, combat that centers the camera on the enemy, that first boss the giant skeleton set piece, etc. Refreshing lack of scrolling text boxes and tutorials. Might try and play this one all the way through.

I've never played castlevania 64! I thought it was supposed to be legendarily bad? Maybe it was ahead of its time

<3 <3 <3 talos principle <3 <3 <3

Yeah as long as you realize Castlevania 64 is a 1st gen 3d game (thus shitty camera and awkward platforming a sort of a given) it's a pretty spectacular thing imo. Most 3d games of the time had a hub world structure but this game feels like a real world unfolding in front of you. I'm probably doing a bit of projecting but fighting that giant skeleton for the 2nd time, while a crew of skeletons roll around him on motorcycles, and cutting off his left arm and still having him chase me, all felt very Dark Souls II.

rocket league is a goty contender for me. maybe my favorite futbol game full stop.

The last six months, I've been checking on and off this one damn puzzle in Hexcells Infinite. Can't bring myself to quit or win...

Debating how much more Wasteland 2 I wanna do. Am deep into the SoCal portion after several dozen hours.

The free-to-play Trials Frontier (iOS) is really addicting.

The reviews make it sound like IAP hell...

yeah, it's definitely heavy on IAP, although i've always managed to steer clear without a problem. i played about 3 to 4 hours straight and constantly had new stuff to do, without having to wait for any countdown timers. (althoooough i can foresee a point in the near future where i won't have enough fuel to race and will choose to view a 30-second ad to get more fuel rather than waiting for a countdown timer to give me more)

but mainly it's just fun. if you've played other Trials, you know what you're in for.

<3 <3 <3 talos principle <3 <3 <3

oh this is good? i'll check it out when it hits PS4, it's been awhile since i've had a good puzzle game.

the cat cover alone convinced me... to eventually buy it when it goes on clearance

still jamming Swarm Simulator (because I am an idiot) and today I finally finished getting all the achievements. 20 ascensions! and I am STILL letting it run. I like watching numbers get bigger.

talos principle is very fun. the puzzles are generally not particularly difficult but get kind of baroque in terms of implementation and are thus satisfying. the mechanics are consistent enough that one can generally enact one's envisioned solution.

what makes it really compelling imo is that it feels very expansive. obviously it's a puzzle game so there are discrete puzzles, but there are hub worlds and optional worlds and little unexplained details that are left up to the player in a very 90s fashion. a little portal, a little myst, a little old fashioned fps in momentum and movement.

(also there are optional puzzles to solve that cross those discrete puzzle boundaries in ways that demand a different kind of thinking than the rest of the game, which is cool.)

fwiw i feel much less railroaded into a meme-y theme park ride than i did with portal (which i liked)

still a slave to destiny trying to break the habit w a USB snes controller and roms of every snes game. looking very much forward to play through #20ish of ff3

Spent some quality time w Fallout: New Vegas. First time playing a Fallout title for a substantial amount of time.

Tutorial NPC was a grizzled hunter/trader with a faithful companion dog who she loved. She took me on a mission to shoot some geckos and when she was off-screen her dog got in the way and met an unfortunate end. Running into her a few minutes later, she had little to say on the matter. I think if you were living in a post apocalyptic wasteland and a stranger had just killed your companion you'd be upset but nothing much seems to upset ANYONE in this world. Ran into an NPC later that told me about losing his wife and daughter and retained a pleasant and cheerful disposition for the entire conversation. It wasn't long before I just started skipping all dialog. Oh, Bethesda.

The world is fun, if a bit boring and empty. Everything is a bullet sponge, from the scorpions that take a dozen shots with a 10mm to wasteland bandits that can withstand a barrage of shotgun blasts at point blank range while wearing NO armor. The bullet-time is fun, but it gets a bit ridiculous shooting limbs off with a frequency only matched by Arrested Development's armless man.

Mod the hell out of FONV if you cast.

Anyone else playing Rocket League?