whatchu playing now

Guardians of the Galaxy in PS5 is a nice visual spectacle (looks consistently good in the new ray tracing mode, fine at 30fps unlike Miles Morales or Demon's Souls), engaging enough story and combat

I also got Assassin's Creed Valhalla off the recent Epic sale to casually play on the laptop and it's insanely beautiful looking, never thought I'd be indulging in escapism by walking round Tamworth tbh

I guess the gameplay loop will get appallingly repetitive sooner or later but I quite like the recent games' side mechanic of gradually rooting out cultists

i’ve got the microsoft game pass for pc thingy and have been playing halo infinite

this has always been a playstation/pc home, so i’ve had little experience with the halo series

jumped into halo infinite, playing it on the tv with a controller. completed most of the campaign, been having a lot of fun with the multiplayer. matchmaking is broken for the big game modes right now, but just jumping in and playing some 4v4 matches is a lot of fun. i’m not that competitive, just like having a fun time and it’s pretty well-balanced for that

i have no idea why the people who are the worst at driving the vehicles always decide to drive the warthog, but it’s hilarious. i jump in the back and inevitably the driver just drives directly into a rock

whole lot of jumping, if you didn’t gather that

halo is all about driving like an asshole and doing stupid stuff, i guess there are competitive types out there but i'm here for the madness

i was really enjoying the open world lite stuff and knocking out map icons, now that i'm back in corridor city i'm a little less interested. there's kinda too much story imo

looks and feels great, i love all the variant weapons and vehicles you can unlock

the grappleshot upgrades in single player are ridiculous and fun

I think half of the guys I've taken out since I upgraded it to the max level were just pure grapple kills

100% agree, the hookshot rules.

never thought I'd be indulging in escapism by walking round Tamworth tbh

This is the main reason I’m excited about this game, but I’m still in the intro section in Norway and it’s a slog, snowy mountains are just such an open world cliche at this point.

Yeah the start is fairly long and boring alright. Makes for a nice contrast when you then get access to the incredible natural majesty of [squints at notes] Ravensthorpe

At this very moment? The latest installment of "Antigen Internet Radio," on the Ship Full of Bombs podcast. SFOB is a real mixed bag, but this show is one of the best. I love his commentary, which is absolutely scathing.

Oops haha I misread the question.

awww and I was trying to imagine what a podcast that was also a game would sound like.
played thru Gorogoa in a couple of hours. perfect length for the kind of game it is, some pretty art and puzzling and then it's gone. good stuff.

That's a million dollar idea right there.

gorogoa rules

Played breath of the wild for a few hours. Ambitious changes for the series but some seem for the worse. Not sure if taking 10 minutes to walk in a straight line to the next dungeon really improves things. Most of the weapons suck so far -- maybe i should just bomb everything.

nba 2k22 is fun but has the very bad graphic design. every menu looks different and each one worse than the last. sometimes it's cool and technical and boring, sometimes it's jagged mountain dew lettering, sometimes it's these bizarre drop shadowed WWE PPV logo things, also every background is every color

has the difficulty improved? I used to win by 50 every game cos of how easy it was to steal back in the day, but it's been a few years

it changes difficulty based on how you play iirc. it can get pretty tough pretty quick if you know what you’re doing. i never had the patience to learn all the post up moves and crossovers and stuff though

i was never really good at any of that either, lol. just relying on steals and fast breaks

i am trying to unlearn my steal-spamming ways, getting called for it left and right here

i am shamefully kind of addicted to the myteam mode, the stupid pokemon thing that's wholly constructed to make you spend real money on imaginary cards. obviously i don't do that part but trying different arrangements of poke-players vs the computer is a good time. giannis wildly OP.

i uploaded this simplified graphic of the most famous sculpture of my metro area to use on a livery, and some guy chimed in with his own amusing artwork related anectode

https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/gtsport/user/notifications/decal/11767790/8368321499567751680

the middle aged anglo plur vibes of sim racing are something else

Really enjoying "nobody saves the world" so far ... snes zelda meets a boy and his blob?

Metroid Dread: I'm so happy that Nintendo still makes high quality 2D platformers. I feel like I'm around a third of the way through but it says I've found only 5% of items.

Slay the Spire: roguelite deckbuilder that I play at least once every day this month. much more variety than other roguelites i've tried. all of the characters are very different, each having their own deck of cards to work with.

finally finished Yakuza 0. i'm sure it was a masterpiece but i'd let it sit for more than a year so i was not following all the plot endings very well.

decided to jump into another game from the same stable; the first hour of Judgment is really good. less absurd but more fluid. the mystery/investigation/interrogation bits are promising

I did not enjoy my time in Yakuza 0

I love the Yakuza series unreservedly but being confused about labyrinthine plots is an integral part of it, and I would argue most yakuza media in general (good luck trying to keep track of what's happening in any of te 70's Fukusake films!).

lol true. is saw the first Battles without Honor and Humanity and loved it but also wondered how much crazier the series gets

Moncage (2020) is something like Gorogoa but with a cube that you rotate. If you like that "just roll with it" type of game, where it's hard to define exactly what's going on, it's a good one.

Vampire Survivors - finally someone made a good video game and it's $3

Cool game, but PC only :/

This is my first season doing Fantasy Critic, which is fantasy sports for video game reviews? It's a hoot so far.

link?

https://www.fantasycritic.games

cute but i dislike the review aggregator sites too much to play something based on them

sounds like it'd be very frustrating given how many games are delayed a year out (unless there are keeper leagues)

They account for that somewhat with the "counter pick"... From the FAQ:

After everyone has drafted their roster of games, the players will draft their counter picks. A counter pick is a game from someone else’s roster, but instead of getting points for it, you LOSE points for it. The goal is to choose a game from someone else’s team that you think will be bad, or one that you think won't even release.

I chose Breath of the Wild 2 for my counterpick. If it's released I'm kind of screwed.

released in 2022 you mean? it's certainly coming out in the next 2 years

Yeah, exactly. Final league scores are based on whatever the average score is on the last day of 2022.

nintendo's too hard to predict. it could be way behind schedule or it could be completely finished and sitting in a vault somewhere waiting for holiday release

I just played through Cuphead and beat the whole thing in like a week, I was OBSESSED

also having a bit of a thing for nontraditional RPGs rn and have just started Parasite Eve, which is perfect (Square RPG in a contemporary setting w/ zero fantasy elements and zero horror ones) and also started Secret of Evermore a few weeks ago

I got the Collection of Mana on Switch and I'm starting with the first one, Final Fantasy Adventure originally on the Gameboy. I had that game as a kid but I don't know if I ever beat it. It's a primitive Zelda clone with a fast pace and garbage combat.

They mapped start and select to X and Y so the game resets if I mash on the buttons. No button remapping I could find, either.

I could've sworn that Parasite Eve was horror?

Oh whoops I meant to type LOTS of horror ones!!

Stevie D! I was just talking about you with someone who met you in Philly.

omg what who???

my buddy Em? They said it had been many years

i impulse purchased TRIANGLE STRATEGY despite some of my most opinion-similar friends talking about how annoyingn the endless dialogue is. i played through the first battle and have now fallen asleep twice before even reaching the second battle. it's out of control how fucking wordy this game is.

sounds good

if you're trying to sleep maybe!!!

I've been playing Hades for a few days now, and I think I might be getting obsessed. I am and always have been terrible at combat games but it's so fun and has so much other stuff, I truly love it.

i fell asleep a lot at the beginning of the visual novel 428 Shibuya Scramble but I eventually got into it and liked it. Maybe you'll get into the groove of it.

I am mostly playing variety sudokus I see on Cracking the Cryptic right now. The puzzles have leveled up since the last time I did sudokus. Have a look at this nonsense for instance: https://app.crackingthecryptic.com/sudoku/8DfMHmLpqP