whatchu playing now

salt & sanctuary.

paging adam bruneau, paging adam bruneau, i think you would love this game (sorry if you try it and don't like it but it's only $18 which is one of the best bargains for a new game that i can remember, ever)

AB i think you'd like it because it's such a great combo of dark souls and castlevania SOTN. it obviously rips off elements of both but the enemies are new and unique, and the boss battles are intense. also this is heresy but tbh i'm enjoying it better than dark souls just because S&S is a 2D platformer and i'm much, much better at that than 3D

i think you've talked me into it. now when can i find time to play it.

I've tried with Earthbound a few times but the beginning (first couple of days I guess) feels slow and not huge fun. is that me or the game?

― Szechuan TV (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, March 16, 2016 3:00 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's definitely the game yo

otoh as of 15-20 hours in i don't think the game it is at any point trying to be either i. fast-paced or ii. fun particularly, and i think it has virtues other than these

i finished kane & lynch 2, which i hadn't thought about it but it's interesting to be stalled in that game and earthbound simultaneously--they're both player-hostile in not-entirely-dissimilar ways

earthbound isn't player-hostile? it's just reflecting the Dragon Quest steez of the times

who put this giant pencil here / oh it's just here

Re: Salt & Sanctuary, it's amazing how well they translated Dark Souls boss fight mechanics into 2-D. I think the jumping aspect (you can freeze in mid-air when attacking, can't remember if that happens in Castlevania or some other game?) adds some complexity. Figuring out the attacks of this dragon boss yesterday was just as satisfying as Kalameet in DS...it seems impossible, then eventually you relax and start looking at the tells instead of the health bars, and it's not so hard after all.

The one thing that stresses me out about Metroidvania games is when you get that new ability that lets you traverse different parts of the world. I know I'm never going to remember all the places that I should backtrack to, and the thought of running through it all is a drag.

KM thanks for the recommendation! sounds right up my alley. unfortunately i don't have a PS4 and can't find out when it comes out on Steam. everywhere lists TBA

S&S sounds so cool but i was watching the gameplay and the visuals look pretty washed out and boring?

I guess? I like the look of the game and different areas have somewhat different palettes, but I suspect that visuals don't matter to me very much in games (compared to other people).

looks v nice imo. found it a little tough to get into, the gameplay not quite as much of a pull as the actual DS games, but liking it a lot now i am over the hump.

i've become obessed with driveclub bikes over the past couple of days after picking it up in the ps store sale. it's really good! start a track in time trial mode and just endlessly looping around it on a massively overpowered superbike, shaving fractions of a second off my best time every few laps, is weirdly meditative and soothing to me.

picked a great time to buy it too, like 24 hours before the developer got shuttered by sony :(

Yeah was gonna say

i look forward to enjoying it for a month before sony shut down the servers and it becomes unplayable

Despite having very little time to play games at the moment, I've managed to find myself juggling several after my birthday yielded many games/gift cards for games. So I'm currently playing Heavy Rain on the PS3 with my wife, and revisiting Pokemon Yellow on the 3DS virtual console.

A friend also bought me Bloodborne on PS4, so I'm trying to come to terms with playing a properly hard game. I'm also still churning through Fallout 4 (which I'm really just not enjoying as much as I'd hoped), and I'm nearly finished Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

Really like the look of Salt & Sanctuary, but think I'll wait for the Vita release. I also want to wait for the Vita release of Hyper Light Drifter, which comes out on the PC in just over a week, but I backed it on Kickstarter for 2 copies so I'm getting it on PC first. Hopefully it's good enough to revisit on the Vita when it eventually ships.

I get the impression Sony are taking Driveclub in house rather than shutting it down? So server switch off seems unlikely, it might even end up getting more frequent updates.

this is my favorite trap room in Salt & Sanctuary so far, i did the exact same thing:
https://youtu.be/VNP1FSDUx3M?t=366

haha, i haven't gotten that far yet, although i have reached the edges of the hall of cages. i'm planning on spending a lot more time with it on saturday, though.

when i left off, i was kind of unsure where to go. i seemed to have reached a point where i could only go to 2 new areas, both of which featured enemies that were way too difficult for me. one of them was the castle sort of off to the upper right, and you could only access it by using the obelisk that lets you flip upside down. soon after entering, i almost always get annihilated by the little floating flame skulls. one hit from them seems to deplete more than half of my life bar, even when i'm wearing armor that's fire-resistant. i dunno, maybe i need to just spend more time leveling first? (i think i'm around LVL 29 right now)

the castle is the place to go, and it's definitely a difficulty spike. i admit i looked up where the sanctuary was and ran there, then ground out some levels (the only time i've felt the need to do that) and learned how to deal with the skulls (ie don't get hit by them, and you can touch them without damage as long as they're not firing up).

another non-obvious thing that helped a ton is that you can level up the same stat multiple times on the same node. at first i was going through all this useless stuff on the skill try just to get another point of dexterity.

damn, this looks really good.

try = tree

also how often do you guys have that horrible moment of self-awareness when you realize how ridiculous the minutiae of any game must sound to anyone who hasn't played it?

when four people are nattering on about how the yimmicks are totally fouling up that last jump where you should be able to get a toehold but the crumbling turf has led to a faceplant on the spikes BUT the anti-yimmick jodhpurs you purchase from the second merchant at the ice station (the hidden merchant, not the guy with the dog) totally make that jump a breeze and you can even backstab that fucker and kick HIM into the spikes.... that is the moment when i get my credit card out and walk sadly to the teevee to buy another game i will not likely finish. the seduction of the gullible through excitable argon wins again.

"jargon", not http://s1.thingpic.com/images/px/8egCww5y5x8bTXdbLJvhcZBc.png

and learned how to deal with the skulls (ie don't get hit by them, and you can touch them without damage as long as they're not firing up).

aah, thanks! i didn't realize you can sometimes touch them without getting damaged, so the way i was approaching them was kind of crazy and counterproductive. i'll give it another shot.

re: self-awareness and insane minutiae, i usually try to dial it down but on a thread like this i'm just let it all hang loose

Stardew Valley: they ain't kidding, this will warp time past you in a blink

I am still getting used to all the underlying systems (especially the submission & pin-escape minigames) and fine-tuning my settings, but I have played enough of WWE 2K16 to endorse it wholeheartedly. it's basically The Show, except it's about pro wrestling instead of baseball. I haven't played a wrestling game since that Fire Pro game which inexplicably came out in the US towards the end of the PS2's run, and this definitely scratches the itch (or at least I feel eminently confident that it will once I get the timing & logic down).

also been playing some Civ V with the Steam Controller lately and I sincerely and truly recommend the experience of kicking back on the couch and building up an empire enthusiastically enough. CK2, EU4, and Cities: Skylines all work great too (although I only gave them a cursory test; I'm limiting myself to Civ rn to avoid burning myself out on the genre); if someone ever puts together a template for Colonization I may never leave my apartment again.

I am also still playing Galak-Z; I am unilaterally terrible at it but the premise + mechanics are just too satisfying to put down. it's free on PS4 for PS+ members this month btw.

star wars battlefront developers did an excellent job of making people disappointed the new hero was nien nunb only to reveal him as a powerful battlefield commander

borrowed my sister's copy of until dawn, resolved to lead all of these hapless teenagers to their respective untimely deaths

trackmania turbo is amaaaaaaaaazing

okay, hooked on salt/sanctuary now

Anyone playing Hyper Light Drifter? I'm loving it so far; especially, oddly enough, the total lack of any context clues in the UI or environment beyond the initial "press X to slash," etc- really forces you to go for full immersion and apply what you know of how other games in the genre work, though it did make me cry a single manly tear upon realizing that what I thought was currency for upgrades was in fact quarters of said currency and far from being able to buy the cheapest upgrade in the game at a point where I was already starting to butt up against incredibly hard fights, I was only 25% of the way there.

The music from Disasterpeace (Fez, It Follows) is really something else too.

Yep, I'm playing Hyper Light Drifter. Really enjoying it, but I'm only about 2 hours in. Still not 100% sure what I'm doing, but I seem to be gradually getting further through areas, and lighting up ~somethings~ here and there, so I assume I'm making progress. Loving the sound track, too.

definitely gonna get HLD sometime in the future. SFV still pretty much sucking up all my game time

Lately p heavily into Cities: Skylines, its a pretty decent replacement for the old SimCity4 and its mod community (the Simtropolis forums even brought it into their fold). I wish it ran a little better than it does on my laptop, but I'm enjoying it regardless.

Also if anyone is playing Animal Xing New Leaf hit me up with a code so I can come and vandalise... er play in yr town.

i should open that game...

Finished Salt & Sanctuary, great game. It was kinda crazy how similar my approach was to Dark Souls, from the build (melee, one-handing a fast weapon so I can keep a shield in the other hand, rarely using it but enjoying knowing that it's there) to being terrible at looking at item descriptions.

I got 4 bosses in but I haven't played a videogame in the last few weeks. A friend of mine was talking to me about S&S last night, and he said that it was good but the last half of the game was imbalanced so that your character could just steamroll through all the bosses, many on the first attempt. Was that your experience too Jordan?

Not at all, but I think that's because I was doing a dex build (with the Steel Centipede sword/whip). Relatively low damage and I never put much into hp or armor, so I had to learn the boss movesets until the end (and the last boss was appropriately hard).

Looking on Youtube, strength and magic builds seem to do 2 or 3x the damage, which would certainly make things easier.

yeah it absolutely unbalances as you progress. leveling happens too often and there is no incentive to do anything but pour points into damage output. i realized early on that a shield doesn't really do anything so i played through with a 2h weapon. the game ends up leaning more on platforming for challenge as it gets to the later stages. it never stopped being fun to play though.

'her story' was really fun, i wish that was a genre of puzzle that there were hundreds of (maybe it'll happen?). thinking up new words & phrases and typing them in and hitting enter and getting that unseen video icon was a great video game loop.

even if you don't like leaving the anti-glare off i would recommend leaving if off for like 15 minutes just to appreciate all of the weird little touches they put in, like the police sirens illuminating your creepy avatar's waxy face.

I finally made the breakthrough and beat my first boss in Hyper Light Drifter (West). From there I was able to quickly go on to meet a 2nd boss (North), but as yet he has me bested. I'm about 5 hours in, though I'm not sure how long the game really is. It's fun, though, despite the fact I still have no idea what's going on.

i've cleared east, north, and west in 7 hours or so. east was the easiest boss i think, so you have that to look forward to.

sometimes i just sit my drifter down so we can relax and take in the scenery. such a dreamy game! also dashing + slashing in general is one of the best mechanics ever.

I'm about four hours in and have made significant progress in East and West (all four terminals, if I remember the term in the achievement, activated) and made it to the boss in the North- I gave him two tries, but with a an attention-seeking cat who kept jumping up in front of the TV it was absolutely miserable. Gonna try again later, and since it's a fairly easy path to him and I don't have to worry too much about my save point I might buy an upgrade first. Right now I've just got the multi-dash and bullet deflection with the sword; multi-dash could be crucial here but I haven't totally mastered consistent timing yet.

dirt rally. so, so hard.

started playing life is strange. i'm on episode 1. despite the fact i prob should hate this due to the intense, incessant indieness, i am enjoying it. some of the parts where you sit down and the camera just moves about and you can kind of just hang out are cool.

it's a longstanding legendary board game, but Twilight Struggle has finally made its way to PC/Mac/iOS. the graphics are a little...basic, although I expect them to improve quite a bit as patches come out. but the game itself, holy moly - this is an addicting, wonderful game, esp if you have any interest whatsoever in the cold war or 20th century history in general.

agreed - fantastic game. haven't tried the digital version yet (is the AI any good?) but the board game is a stone cold classic

definitely a game that benefits from not having to deal with setup/cleanup