whatchu playing now

Just cracked open Citizen Sleeper and the ~*vibez*~ at least are my catnip.

I just bought the following:

Full Throttle
Sam & Max Hit The Road
Day of the Tentacle
Disco Elysium
moon: Remix RPG Adventure

I started Sam & Max yesterday and it's fun. I also started Antichamber which is novel and curious but it's not blowing my mind.

i got stuck in antichamber and never finished it but it was a neat game thats probably been done better in the 10 years since though i'm not sure by what

Amazon prime has maniac mansion free right now for those interested. They've been giving away one lucasarts game a month for a few months now.

I'm starting to get tired of vampire survivors. I unlocked everything. Now playing some short casual games on my phone, like five-bn games. They're bad but they pass the time.

Did you unlock the secret characters too like Red Death and Leda? I have them all, I think, and so I've been trying to beat the Bone Zone with normal characters.

Yes, I looked at the VS wiki to figure out how to unlock everything. Bone Zone was what I was spending most of my time in when I wasn't grinding for eggs.

Iguess in the subject related to egg farming, something I've been wondering is if evolving Infinite Corridor can happen sooner than later in a run. I always try to get a couple evolved weapons before I pick up the rings so that I have a fair chance against the guardians. Am I being overly cautious?

I've tried it. It takes 20+ minutes for me to get Infinite Corridor, which isn't worth it. Can't build enough levels without at least one other evolved weapon first.

I have finished the main quests of Horizon: Forbidden West

I had New Super Mario U Deluxe on my switch since I got it two years ago and I started playing it a few days ago and my God. I’ve never played a SNES Mario game before so using the extra moves/buttons etc (the glide jump etc) took me some time to complete. Anyway I’ve finished it and now I’m grinding for coins to unlock the secret levels. Loved every minute.

super fucking mario!!

What

apex legends

portal and now portal 2 on the switch. in my head, the first one was the classic, i think because the twist blew my mind at the time, but on replay portal 2 is so much better. the decrepit world is amazing and it's so funny. portal now kind of just plays like an intro to portal 2.

i didnt like the dialogue in 2 but i do have strong positive memories of the whole section of the game where you climb back up through the abandoned facility, that was good environment design

I thought the story was one of the best parts of it, if you have a high tolerance for JK Simmons.

Still pining for Half-Life 3, but Portal has been so satisfying, am okay if it's just the two great games.

I have high tolerance for JK Simmons and almost zero tolerance for Stephen Merchant so yeah, 2 was a slog.

I owned a steam deck for a couple of days last week (almost immediately resold it because the aftermarket value's too high for me to justify keeping it) and played the Aperture Desk Job thing, which is really no more than a system demo. But that's set in the portal universe and was a fun half hour.

I keep pretending that I will score a PS5 sooner or later so am wary of starting anything I'd prefer to start on that system. (Similarly, I haven't uninstalled Elden Ring yet because I know as soon as I do they'll introduce DLC and I don't want to start over to enjoy that). Anyway, has anyone played "Mad Max?" That seems like it could be fun, like "Borderlands" but better as single player (and maybe not as dumb)?

Why not wait to play Mad Max on the PS5? ;-) It's a middling experience but it has some Mad Max flavor. I think you can find something better.

a bunch of the better games I want to play all offer upgrades for the PS5. I wanted to pick one that didn't (afaict).

(Similarly, I haven't uninstalled Elden Ring yet because I know as soon as I do they'll introduce DLC and I don't want to start over to enjoy that)

Deleting a game from a PS4 doesn't delete your save file you know. Save file data is its own separate thing (and if you're a PS+ member it gets stored both on your console and in the cloud, so it'll transfer over to Ps5 easily etc).

I'm not a ps+ member. So you're saying all the games I uninstall, there's still a save file installed on the console somewhere? I figured gone is gone, but maybe that makes sense. I imagine the save files are actually pretty small compared to the game itself.

Yes, and the PS consoles have the ability to copy saves to USB storage as well, if you don't have PS+

yes, you can transfer both the game and the save files to external storage, the save data is tiny and can be put on any USB storage device

the game itself needs a drive specifically formatted for exclusive PS4/5 use. it's still useful because transferring back and forth from USB storage is still much faster than re-downloading and re-installing it all. besides, the PS5 (and i assume the 4 as well) allow playing from the USB drive itself so transferring it back to internal storage isn't mandatory

i believe you'll be locked into playing the PS4 version on the PS5 in order to carry your save data but that's actually a plus in this case because the PS4-on-5 version is the better way to play it anyway

Yeah, I recall reading that about Elden Ring, that for whatever reason the PS4 version on PS5 sometimes runs better than the PS5 version. Anyway, need to get a PS5 first. Hopefully this Amazon invite thing pays off; there is some suspicion that the invites (which you signed up for weeks ago) will go out on prime day to help boost/goose sales numbers.

What, so Amazon can tell their shareholders that prime day was a resounding success with $X in sales? Sounds kind of like hogwash

OK, I'm thinking next up for me will be "Ghost of Tsushima." Gonna play the PS4 version on PS5, since it doesn't seem the PS5 upgrade is worth the $20 or $30 extra, or however much it is.

(Was kind of a pain to transfer the save date from Elden Ring to PS5, btw. Maybe if I was going to transfer to the PS4 save data to the PS5 version, but playing the PS4 version on PS5 required me to download the save date to a USB drive and install it on the PS5 from there. Fwiw.)

Dicey Dungeons got an update last week with 6 more quests, so I'm sucked back in.

got woken up at 6am this morning so i figured i'd check for PS5s in stock and found one at target!!! gonna be wrapping up FFXV in 60fps then probably on to yakuza7

I'm now playing the Miles Morales Spider-Man game and Stray on PS5

I started playing Spider-man PS4 again, this time on the PS5, but I am getting the PS4 Miles from the library and using it to buy the remastered Spider-man for PS5 and start over with that instead. Can't wait to play Stray, too, but I think I'll wait for it to go on sale.

mh, thoughts on Stray so far? I'm thinking of getting it too

I didn't play very far in, just to the point where you're encountering actual non-cat seemingly sentient things, to not spoil things

My impression is that the game is going to open up a fair bit, but the beginning reminded me of a game that a friend wouldn't stop talking about, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Not in the actual gameplay necessarily, but the way you're wandering this beautiful world doing little puzzley things and the central conceit is more important than the challenges you're running into. I thought that one was kind of shallow to the point of feeling like a tech demo and quit it when I thought, "oh, I get the point" but Stray seems like it's got more around the corner.

Kind of feeling like Untitled Goose Game at moments, but there have been much fewer moving parts and it's more of an adventure than a rube goldberg machine like that one is

it is also very pleasing to be a cat in this game

https://mobile.twitter.com/catswatchstray

grinding it out in Multiversus. fun, closest anyone has gotten to recapturing Smash's "feel" but the F2P grind is a bit unforgiving

Into the Breach just got a big update, new mechs etc.

One of Stray's Steam Achievements is to finish the game in 2 hours, so I'm assuming it's not Elden Ring - size.

I think I read 6 hours or so.

xp I didn't get back to it yesterday, but my impression is that after you know where all the puzzles pieces are, you could speed through it like you could a classic adventure game

that'd be denying you time to just do cat stuff, though. kneading a rug or scratching a tree feels nice with the PS5 adaptive triggers

I have also started playing Stray. Just got to the bit where you meet the other non-cat dudes, and it definitely feels like it's opening up into another type of game. I liked just puttering around as a cat but I guess at this point it probably does need the injection of something else to keep it interesting.

Full confession: I cried at the very opening of the game when you're with your cat family because I didn't want to get split up from them and I knew it was about to happen. Man, my emotional state sucks.

completely normal reaction

(I also wished I could hang with the cat friends for longer)

Guess I’m starting Stray tonight!

I liked just puttering around as a cat but I guess at this point it probably does need the injection of something else to keep it interesting.

Yeah 100% agree, as soon as it started trying to move my attention from "hey I'm a cute cat doing cat stuff" to "right, you should unlock the mysteries of this post-apocalypse world" or whatever, I put it down and haven't felt very motivated to go back to it.

I'm also a bit disappointed that the tone is generally dark and creepy and has layers of medium peril etc. My cat-adoring 5 year old would absolutely love this if it was just the realistic cat simulation bits in a chill environment, but he's a sensitive little dude and he definitely wouldn't be ok with some of the more tense moments (which seem to come pretty frequently really).

yeah at a certain point the aesthetic starts to look like it's fucking Doom. still playing because the mechanics are fun enough but the end better be me back in the upper world frolicking with my cat buds.

Still haven't bought it, but based on what I know about it this game seems ideal for DLC, especially an expanded sandbox (litter box?) where you get to do more cat stuff and go on more cat missions.

After a few false starts with it over the years, I had a lot of down time this past week while on vacation and decided to give Divinity: Original Sin 2 another go. Those first few hours are rough, not knowing the mechanics and having next to no gear makes the early game a steep climb, but once you’re over the hump it really is fantastic. So many different ways to approach a situation, allows for a lot of creativity (and re-playability). There’s real depth in character builds, skill choices, and the synergy you can create with your party make-up. Can see myself running through it again trying different approaches if I don’t hit burnout by the end.

I bounced off Stray after it made me do a bunch of boring puzzles. I have a cute cat at home already so that's not really enough to keep me going.

I don't play games at all, but I do watch youtubers with my daughter sometimes. We watched someone play Stray over the weekend. We both really liked it, so I decided to check and see if anyone on ilx was talking about it. I guess you are!