Now Playing - Video Games

[breakfastcowl]

Screenshot 2023-11-19 214351.png (139.42 KiB) Viewed 4987 times

part of the merry throng over here

(it's actually crazy. The overall average player count since 2012 has been closer to 450-500. Happy birthday, Half-Life, indeed!)

[andrewelmore]

@malyzar hey matt, how's that Raft game? my daughter's been asking about it

[malyzar]

@malyzar hey matt, how's that Raft game? my daughter's been asking about it

Only a few hours in, so hard to say definitively. But it's the chosen winter co-op game with my wife and her brother, so I should know more soon. But initially, it's, uh, pretty weird. Just drops you in with no hint of story or clear tutorial or anything. But we've managed to figure most of the mechanics out and are having a nice enough time. We did end up dropping it down to Easy mode after a couple of failed initial attempts, so I'm sure that's helped things. And from what I understand, there eventually is a story once you discover certain items, so I'm optimistic it'll pick up once that happens. But it's a little slight, as far as first impressions go. Still kinda fun to fish things out of the water and slowly build up a base.

Last year we played Grounded and had an overall great time. I feel like it has a lot of similar stuff going for it (survival mechanics, building bases, and such). And out of the two, I'd definitely say Grounded is the better game. (Not a fair comparison, probably. Obsidian, and all.)

We play again in a couple of nights, so I can keep you posted!

[malyzar]

@malyzar hey matt, how's that Raft game? my daughter's been asking about it

How are you liking Baldur's Gate 3? My wife and I are going to play that together after Raft. (She's a huge fan and has already gone through it like 3 times, lol.)

[Fruitality]

As I've been playing through Baldur's Gate 3 (just finished Act 1), my partner has been interested, but not interested enough to join in for a co-op campaign. We've just been making joint decisions for the one character, which has been a great way for us to explore together. I don't think she cares too much about or enjoys the combat.

The co-op looks so fun though. I'm hoping that they open it up to cross-play one day so I can play with some mates on PC.

Or else we'll be forced to actually commit to some sessions of Tabletop

[Skellingtor]

i haven't posted here in a while so i might as well update on what i've played this year after system shock remake!

Quake II Remastered: i tried playing the original game but i didn't get too far into it before getting bored, mostly due to the UI being extremely small on modern resolutions. when i heard nightdive was giving their polish i decided to give it another shot and goddamn, what a great video game! i think i prefer it over Quake I. the expansions were also great, especially call of the machine. nightdive always delivers and i can't wait until the system shock 2 remaster comes out (i should have it free of charge since i pre-ordered system shock remake back in 2021 lol)

Max Payne 3: replayed it 10 years after my first time and man, was this game not written very well lol. probably the only time in my life i ever wanted james mccaffrey (RIP) to stay quiet because the lines he was given were terrible. at 16 i chuckled at the line "Baghdad with bikinis" but at 26 i'm just appalled that we let that fly. it's still great to play most of the time, so props for at least being fun to fly and shoot if you're gonna make be have to listen to what a 15 y/o's idea of max payne is. as a funny aside, i found it to be a shorter game than i remembered until i went back to my PSN trophies and realized i somehow beat this game on hard mode back in 2013. i sure as shit do not have that kind of patience anymore!!

Halo MCC: lumping most of it in since i played them back to back. Halo 3 was alright, it would've been better if cortana and the gravemind didn't slow me down to a crawl every time they wanted to blabber in my ear. coming after halo 2 was always going to be a tough ask but i guess this would've made for a fitting end to the story at the time. Halo 3 ODST was also pretty good. having to piece together the story was cool, while having to cross the map back and forth to do it was not. Halo Reach was the best of the bunch mostly because the story was surprisingly dark and i also liked the characters involved. i knew it was going to end badly but i really liked the journey there. and i got to drive a forklift for all of 5 minutes, that was fun. and the less said about Halo 4 the better.

Leaf Blower Man - This Game Blows!: it's a free game where you blow leaves and get to be a nuisance with an interesting attempt at metalinguistic criticism. it won't blow (heh) any minds but for a short romp it elicited some giggles.

Growing My Grandpa!: i bought this after seeing eurothug4000's video of her best games of 2022 and it sat on my computer unplayed until last month. it's a pretty filthy and disgusting looking thing, and it fills you with that special kind of dread you get with good horror art. short point and click game and very cheap, so i'm mostly holding back in the hopes people will figure out what it's about for themselves.

What the Golf!?: silly billy golf. i played this on apple arcade when i still had a macbook and played the full game + DLC last month. it's fun to see just how absurd it gets with the concept of golf and how to figure out some of the harder challenge holes.

Hi-Fi Rush: i didn't think i would be very good at this game because i'm bad at rhythm stuff, but it became second nature a few hours in. i can't praise the art direction enough, i just loved seeing the characters move in the cutscenes. the flow of combat with the music is also incredible, i was pleased at how easy it was to adapt to it. i'm not totally done with the game since there's some post-game content to go, but looking back on it i can safely say it was my game of the year (easy to say when i only played like 4 games released in 2023). and most important of all, it features nine inch nails not once — but twice.

An Arcade Full of Cats: another short free game, in this one you have to find all the cats spread out on an arcade spanning multiple eras. like Where's Waldo only waldo bites you if you try to pet its belly. it has a generous hint system in case you get stuck, but it was easy to find most of the kitties on my own. there's paid DLC that benefit cat adoption and rescue so i'm thinking of buying that and some of the dev's other games for that end.

unless i get the itch for something else over the next week that should be all for 2023 from me!

[malyzar]

About 30 hours into Baldur's Gate 3 and the rumors are true... it's a good game!

[Fruitality]

I've been playing through Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the first time, and the rumours are true about that game too!

Not sure how it took me so long to give it a try.

I'm in the inverted castle now and shit's wack. Love all the items and weapons you can collect even though I'm not sure what half of them do or why you would use them except for fun.

I'm gonna make a thread about this one to get into it more

[andrewelmore]

Glad you're doing the inverted castle as well, that's where all the cool stuff is!

[Fruitality]

I definitely killed Richter and hit credits and was like wait a minute, something's not right here. Isn't this castle supposed to turn upside down???

Man, the boss designs in this game are nuts. I just defeated the Beelzebub and jesus christ dude what the fuck

[andrewelmore]

hahahahahahaha dude RIGHT

[breakfastcowl]

Have basically been offline for a bit... as well as caught in the vortex of Cyberpunk 2077. On PS4. The absolute worst way to play it!

So many crashes, horrid frame-rates at times, glitching quests & scripted moments that fail to trigger... it even crashed during the ending credits! And yet I've been playing for so many hours. I think somewhere at the core I wanted a particular aesthetic and array of colors on rain soaked future streets in which to cruise... so guess I wanted a glorified walking simulator with a whiff of Blade Runner. I also like the guns and hacking. One day I'll have a new PC and will be able to take the *actually fixed* 2.0 version of the game for a spin.

[breakfastcowl]

You know I just had a realization: the last Xbox game I played was the original Forza Motorsport. I know basically nothing about Microsoft consoles.


Anyway I returned Cyberpunk, ne'er to grace the PS4 again

Been trying out a few other games as a result:

• Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania
  It's ok. Doesn't feel good compared to original run, but may not be an issue for most.
• Balan Wonderland
  Didn't linger here too long.
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R
  Loads of personality. I suck so bad, but it's fun just watching the action unfold.
• Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway
  Oof.
• NBA2K '24 Kobe Bryant Edition
  All the player models look so ... vacant.
• Madden '24
  Wasn't about to do the whole online account thing so that effectively nullifies basically the entire game. Hadn't tried a Madden entry for ages. Most I can say is they added bisexual lighting here and there -- that still won't save EA from hell.
• Little Nightmares II
  Single session type game once again, a good dread time. More of an action puzzler. Died a LOT more times than in the first one. (There are combat segments and the loosey goosey controls gave me a very rough time.) But the look of the thing and emotional story beats are great.
• Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp
  I missed out on the originals, this update seems pretty snazzy. I find the cutesy warmongering very funny; entire platoons being decimated and they're practically awarding you Gym Badges

[Fruitality]

Loving the variety of games you've been checking out.

I've wanted to give Little Nightmares a go for a long time. I think I went to pick it up one time to play with my partner but didn't realise it wasn't coop?

re: NBA / Madden: I wish there were good sports games

[breakfastcowl]

@Fruitality you could totally play through the first Little Nightmares in just a few hours. Wonderful way to spend a tense evening :D

edit: and the 2nd one only took about 6-7 hrs itself. Good for a big session, but can work as Chapters for bite-sized dread