whatchu playing now

Yeah, point-and-click has a very specific meaning, but if you think of it literally (as opposed to the genre) it does apply to Pentiment. I'd say though that it plays closer to a 2D Obra Dinn (of course without a supernatural pocket watch of death) in an Umberto Eco-adjacent setting.

The art and animation is great too!

Relevant: https://kotaku.com/pentiment-on-playstation-and-nintendo-switch-1851278458

A smaller and more reserved title compared to the rest of Obsidian’s catalog, and an expertly written story that offers the player choices in how they navigate an intricately designed Bavarian town and the murders happening in it.

Balatro…

that one seems cool

I think I have Obra Dinn, and it seemed super cool, but my general rule of thumb is that if I also need a pencil and paper, maybe the game is not for me.

Man, now I'm trying to remember some game I had for the Apple II GS (I think) that was set in some dystopian alternate reality, and there may have been pigs (or police pigs?) and it might have involved vacuum pipes sending instructions around this giant office building (a la Brazil), and there was this one part that was just this convoluted series of bureaucratic tasks that drove me nuts as a 13 year old (or whatever I was). No idea what it was called.

Haha I had that, it was called "Dream Zone," and it was deeply frustrating! There are walkthroughs on YouTube (that music will take you back). The people who made that game later formed Naughty Dog!

hmm, maybe? title doesn't ring a bell...

Huh, maybe it was "Dream Zone"! What a pain in the ass that game was. That was Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin!? Funny.

In the tradition of Tass Times in Tonetown, Dream Zone follows in the tradition of the text/graphic adventure. It's obvious that Dream Zone has borrowed elements from the aforementioned text/graphics classic and doesn't do the job quite so well but does stand out in its own right.

You're having trouble sleeping. You seek the help of Sigmund Fraud, Psychomental Health. He administers a surge of power through your body plus a liquid concoction that will induce a sleep that will put you at battle with the beast that harbours your nightmares. In this state, you can then defeat him and sleep peacefully ever after. If not, you will never wake.

Dream Zone is the brainchild of Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin, who both worked on design while Gavin worked on coding the game and Rubin drew the wonderful cartoon style graphics. Like Tass Times, you have a text-entry parser but you can use the mouse in combinations of using the action buttons and objects in each scene.

Dream Zone is not an easy adventure. There are plenty of ways to die and because you are living the bizarre reality of a dream, if you think too rationally, you'll get nowhere to solving the puzzles. This aspect is unique, because the situations you encounter are common themes found in peoples' dreams, which hopefully you'll be able to identify with. Too bad if you can't remember your OWN dreams!

Some parts of the game can be downright annoying however, chief among these is the necessity to interact with the local bureaucracy. You HAVE to continue to move within the building where they tell you to...believe me, it WILL get you somewhere in the end. Every item to be put in your inventory has a use, which is good. Every person who can follow you around your dreamscape can help you, but in most cases, they can hinder your progress later in the game...not good.

Certainly, it's a tough adventure game. It should keep you stumped for many, many hours. And that's not a bad thing. It's better to use some lateral thinking, instead of simply using logic means to solve puzzles found in the 'adventure' games of more recent years. Andy Gavin has created a solid program and Jason Rubin's graphics on the whole are very well drawn which maintain a style all their own. The two later worked on Keef the Thief, a role playing adventure with a difference.

https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/dream-zone.html

the situations you encounter are common themes found in peoples' dreams ... chief among these is the necessity to interact with the local bureaucracy

checks out

Balatro is extremely good. My favorite joker so far is the one that adds more multiplier every time you convert a two pair... somewhat like Ouroboros in Inscryption.

I have 1600hrs played in apex. christ

the apex of gaming

Mispelled team fortress 2

I've been enjoying my first-ever playthrough of Castlevania SOTN (the true apex of gaming) on my retro handheld. This game looks phenomenal on a 3.5 inch 4:3 screen. Also the soundtrack, holy smokes. I'm actually sort of astonished at how diverse it is: symphonic stuff, thrash metal, jazz fusion, prog, house, baroque harpsichord shit--it's all here, and somehow it all coheres.

truly one of the best OSTs

i recently bought the ROB/SOTN bundle and finished rondo of blood the other day (loved it,) so i'm looking forward to playing SOTN for the first time ever after hearing so much about it.

the main game i'm playing atm though is MGS 5, which is very absurd, feels very large, and is quite fun. i played the prologue first and thought it was extremely lame, so my expectations plummeted while i had thoughts like "maybe even only vaguely realistic military-ish games are not for me," but once i got through the long and boring expository opening sequence i started having fun. the gameplay loop of going to the field for missions and going to the mother base for upgrades and hanging out with my diamond dogs is working for me

damn, wait until more plot and cutscenes talk about the diamond dogs back at the base

they’re bros forever

I also just remembered the nickname of Revolver "Shalashaska" Ocelot and I’m laughing

balatro looks awesome

i've been playing a bit of helldivers 2 and honestly....it's pretty fun. goofy, ott, but it does what it does really well

also need to return to BG3, which ate up my life for a little while right after christmas

damn, wait until more plot and cutscenes talk about the diamond dogs back at the base

they’re bros forever

I'm genuinely terrified of Balatro...if I get into that, I might not ever get out

No FF7 Rebirth chat yet? Shocking.

Think I’ll be waiting for a PC release. Some of the graphical settings (as broken down on digital foundry) for PS5 look disappointing for a game of this stature.

i had been delaying doing the final battle in super mario wonder while i tried to wrap up some of the extra stuff (finding secret wonder seeds, doing the badge challenges) but the badge challenges get so hard and frustrating! it's funny how much easier the boss battles are than even the 3-star badge challenges, but i guess that's how they keep the main game accessible to everyone. i haven't even tried the extra world of hard levels yet, i know they're just going to piss me off.

i'd been thinking about doing chants of sennaar next but now i'm excited about pentiment so i'll probably get that first.

The final special world level is insanely hard. There's a bit where you are invisible and have to bounce across moving balloons.

also i have so many blank spaces on my badges page. how can there be so many badges i don't have?

ah i see now a chunk of them aren't available until after you beat the story

I've made it to the infamous inverted castle in SOTN...not sure if I'm gonna complete this, but I'm definitely gonna give it a go.

It's shorter that the regular castle. i wish i could play SOTN for the first time again.

balatro is too easy i won on my second run. or first run if the tutorial one doesnt count

it unlocked a million things at once so im excited to play again

I'm playing Inkulinati. Stupidly clunky name. Concept is Pentiment's art (including a character cameo from that game) x Monster Train's team building and randomised journey mechanics.

yeah i was interested enough to add it to my wishlist but have a strong suspicion that the history porn is covering up a not-great game

Is Balatro too easy? Feel like with these rogue-likes it’s so much luck of the draw, can land on a perfect set of circumstances in a given run and clean up. I got really far in one of my early runs, but haven’t gotten close to that since.

Cool game. Not sure I’m as hooked on it as most seem to be, but I see the appeal.

I just beat HUNTDOWN, which is a throwback side scrolling shoot em up with an 80s cyberpunk/outrun aesthetic and 16 bit-ish graphics. Main character makes some horribly corny Duke Nukem-esque movie quote quips occasionally that grate, but it was genuinely a really fun little game. Like to try 2 Player at some point.

As an old Contra and Metal Slug head, it scratched that itch. If y’all know of anything else in that wheelhouse, let me know.

** After finishing "Far Cry 5," I tried the 3 related DLCs (one is in Vietnam, one on Mars, one is zombie-themed) for maybe 30 minutes each and wasn't motivated to finish them. Probably won't get back into the FC universe any time soon.
** Played a few hours of "A Plague Tale: Requiem" over the last few weeks - voice acting and graphics are good, but the gameplay and combat were just not fun for me, so I abandoned it. ("Dishonored" and "Dishonored 2" have a similar plague vibe, but are far superior games IMHO.)
** Started "Rollerdrome" yesterday - this is really really fun! Roller-skating + guns in a dystopian near-future arena competition thingie. To replenish ammo, you have to do tricks, so you are constantly doing flips and grabs and grinds and stuff. The graphics are comic-book style (like "Sable") and look fantastic.

xp i was joking, theres like 10 more difficulty levels and lots of other decks besides the starting one that make some of the more obvious strategies less achievable

xpost How was Far Cry 5? I have that one and 4 to play at some point. I assume they are more or less all the same? I thought the separatist compound in "Hitman" (3?) was fun, so I kinda suspect I would enjoy 5 over 4. Maybe it all comes down to the antagonist, but everything I read made a big deal of Vaas in Far Cry 3 and he was pretty stupid, so I suspect the story/baddie doesn't matter much, either.

I found the FC5 ending to be extremely disappointing, so much so that it kind of makes me regret putting 60 hours into it (I did a fair amount of side quests). The basic story idea had promise, and they blew it. The gameplay is fine - similar to FC3 and FC4. I enjoyed FC3 and FC4 more than FC5, all things considered. I'd say I liked FC3 and FC4 about equally, and there are some welcome trippy/psychedelic FC4 sequences and fun features, such as riding an elephant to trample people. Note that the outdoor settings of FC4 look pretty similar to FC3, so it might not feel like a terribly different game in that respect, if you need variety.

As an old Contra and Metal Slug head, it scratched that itch. If y’all know of anything else in that wheelhouse, let me know.

Huntdown is the only EAR-like i'm aware of but in the R2RKMF side-scrolling tradition here's some i've read good things about:

GnG Resurrection <- game of the decade tier
Tanuki Justice
Blazing Chrome
Steel Assault
Shinobi Non Grata

these are all recent ones, if you're willing to dig into Arcade Archives titles or emulation there'll be much more

Awesome, thanks!

There's a new Contra game coming out this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pXSRjVS9IM

one more since it's on a 90% off sale right now for PS4 and PC: Assault Suit Leynos (2015 remake)

I see the publisher's also slashed the price on the remake of Assault Suits Leynos (Target Earth), the predecessor to Assault Suits Valken/Cybernator—the doujin dev that made this remake is long dead, so once it's delisted, it's probably gone for good https://t.co/4rNvMP4cia

— GSK | https://cohost.org/gosokkyu (@gosokkyu) March 4, 2024

As an old Contra and Metal Slug head, it scratched that itch. If y’all know of anything else in that wheelhouse, let me know.

Did you try Broforce? I played all the way through on coop and it was a mega blast - just a bucket load of action movie parodies.

been playing a lot of In The Hunt, an Irem arcade game from 1993
a scrolling submarine shooter, really beautiful pixel graphics which remind me a lot of Metal Slug
also it is HARD, boy was this was designed to munch coins!

https://i.imgur.com/JmplXzq.jpeg

just looked up the wiki and

In the Hunt was designed by a group of Irem employees that would later go on to found Nazca Corporation, the creators of the Metal Slug series.

welp that explains that then

Good recs all, thx. Obv no shortage of this thing, been around forever, was just curious about new spins on it. Was wondering if there were any Streets of Rage 4’s of the genre that passed me by.

Down with remakes and out-of-the-ordinary old stuff too. Assault Suit Leynos is completely new to me, playing it now and it’s wild. I dig it.

Broforce is on Gamepass, grabbed it. I have played Into the Hunt and I remember it just kicking my ass.

choice recent beat'em ups are Ninja Warriors Once Again, Fight n' Rage and Final Vendetta.

like everything else Tengo Project have been doing, NWOA is an improved remake of the SNES game; the other 2 are original indie games

fight n’ rage is a goat contender imo. the full package

trying to replace my full fat msg (apex) addiction with diet msg (balatro) instead. it has such a pleasing look - that was always one of my issues with slay the spire. amazing game but so ugly