At 4/25/18 11:54 AM, Zymbot wrote: I'm finally gaining ground here. I even defeated my first boss, the Cleric Beast.
This game is very stimulating, and rewarding when you find success.

I take it this is your first FromSoft game? Cleric Beast was a pushover personally but Gascoigne is a bit of a bastard, although there's ways to cheese him. For regular enemies you just need to embrace the rally system, ie the way you regen health if you counter attack quickly.

At 4/25/18 07:38 PM, Auz wrote: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
My only minor complaint is that the game is incredibly easy and forgiving. Dying doesn't have any consequences whatsoever. This made the boss fights unchallenging and a little uninteresting to me.

iirc getting killed breaks your stud multiplier counter or something. So you can go consequence-free or you can give yourself the extra challenge of trying to hit "true wizard" on every level by maxing out the counter. Could be wrong tho, it's been a long time since I played a Lego game.

At 4/28/18 03:48 PM, TheQuietGamer wrote: Ratchet & Clank (2016). My first time playing a real R&C game.

Man the movie was trash. But the games are classics, particularly the first two (Ratchet 3 is a bumblefuck in comparison and ya'll can FIGHT ME).

I loved this game, played it through twice in a row and got the platinum. I think it's an excellent installment and standalone game, but I have mixed thoughts on it as a remake and in comparison to the original. The combat is miles better, some levels are far bigger and majorly improved. But there's less planets overall, the story is needlessly convoluted, the humor and characters are severely toned down.

And there's some technical disappointments like the fact the original game on PS2 ran at 60fps while still being one of the most impressive looking games of the time, yet the remake is stuck at 30 even on the PS4 Pro. I'm not a huge stickler of framerates, but it's admittedly disappointing when we're a full 2.5 generations later and the games are running worse.

I still don't see why everybody says these games are so funny though. They just aren't really.

The original was a LOT funnier and had a lot more to say. It was also a far nastier universe built on an extreme model of capitalism (while obviously still being child friendly overall), where in this new version they've opted to make it super-inoffensive and make every character bright and friendly (when they were all kinda greedy assholes in the original, other than Clank).

Originally the relationship between Ratchet and Clank was strenuous and grew over time, since Ratchet grew up very much a part and product of this mean universe, so Clank's optimism and naivete grated on him. Now Ratchet is the wide-eyed, hopeful and nerdy goody two-shoes and Clank is... basically just a smaller Ratchet. They kinda fucked it on that end, they ruined almost every character.

It's in a weird spot, because it's meant to show the beginning of their friendship but it acts as if it's carrying on from the more recent games. There's zero chemistry. And I didn't particularly love Ratchet being a dick in the original, but here he's just a bland furball and nothing about their friendship seems earned genuine.

There's a theory that Ratchet 2016 is the original game retold from Quark's memory, so it's the same timeline and just a more fanciful, mythical version of the tale, which I can live with. Some people decry this remake as some huge betrayal but I enjoy it as its own thing, the original isn't perfect and this is a better (or at least different) game in several ways. I like it way more than Ratchet 3 and some people incorrectly think that's the best one.

I also maintain that this is the best looking game on PS4, esp if you have a pro. Not just for looking realistic, but for its colors, lighting and art direction. The lighting is magic. That moment when you first open the garage door on Veldin is jaw dropping.

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/cc750999f954e3e17a4651168109ad9b
https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/56c220e5126d3e43271be59b222726db

I've been playing some Far Cry. Made it about halfway in.

It seems like a good FPS game for its time. The plot is total B film material and includes B grade voice-acting, which is pretty great. Its main selling point though is the open environments, where the game gives you the space to approach enemies and objective flags from different directions. While I like the idea, it is unfortunate that the player's options remain somewhat limited due to faulty stealth mechanics. The enemies are just super-humanly sensitive; they will hear you through steel oil tanker doors and see you straight through camo-tents as if they got x-ray vision. When they spot you, the whole platoon will be all over you in seconds because everybody will know exactly where you're at from then on. So sneaking doesn't work so well, unfortunately. But the game seems pretty fun and enjoyable overall.

At 5/1/18 07:59 PM, Jackho wrote:

At 4/25/18 07:38 PM, Auz wrote: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
My only minor complaint is that the game is incredibly easy and forgiving. Dying doesn't have any consequences whatsoever. This made the boss fights unchallenging and a little uninteresting to me.

iirc getting killed breaks your stud multiplier counter or something. So you can go consequence-free or you can give yourself the extra challenge of trying to hit "true wizard" on every level by maxing out the counter. Could be wrong tho, it's been a long time since I played a Lego game.

Hmm I don't think that's the case. You get multipliers from those red bricks and once you turn them on they never go away.

I remember losing some studs from falling down cliffs, but so few that they hardly make a difference for your True Wizard counter. Turning on Fall Rescue negates this penalty altogether.

Lots of LoL and starcraft these days

Well after completely destroying Shadow of War, I have embarked on playing Breath of the Wild. Seems like one of the better Zelda games for sure and reminds me a lot of Wind Waker and Ocurina of Time

At 5/6/18 10:29 PM, Zymbot wrote: I beat Bloodborne. I beat Gehrman, and the Moon Presence on just two tries each. I was quite overleveled, to be fair.

Nicely done, and getting the 'real' ending too. The moon presence is a bit of a pushover but Gehrman took me a few tries, I found him one of the best bosses.

also bought the DLC.

Prepare to get your shit wrecked

Sunk 15 hours into Pillars of Eternity 2 since it came out yesterday.

It's a mixed bag so far. I'm really happy to have another proper CRPG to dive into, but it feels like for every improvement over 1, there's a step back too.

Big fan of the changes to the world map, feels a lot like the Expeditions games, and they're both great. Just a little resource management with your ship for your exploration, hell of a lot more engaging than the keep management in 1 which it replaces.

Companion reputation is also a welcome addition, and I love that they gain dispositions with each other as well as you, but the points required to max them out are preposterously low. I had most of my party at max reputation before I'd finished the first city, and finished the romance storyline for one not long after. If this is another 50 hour game like 1 then it seems crazy to have this all sorted so early on. Likewise for the character reputations, there are 9, and I've maxed out 5 already, and the remaining 4 are ones I've actively avoided.

Combat is much better for the removal of vancian casting, having everything be per encounter makes fights much more engaging since you're actually popping abilities rather than saving them for a boss, and the dungeons themselves are also way better. Feels like there's less trash mobs to wade through and fewer, more meaningful encounters instead. The non-combat options are also much appreciated, I bypassed one dungeon entirely by stealing a guy's robe and bluffing my way through pretending to be him.

Eager to properly dive into it. I've barely done anything outside of intro area and the first major city. Feels absolutely massive, hopefully it doesn't fall into the trap a lot of these games do of having an amazingly detailed and content rich first area, and then increasingly short areas as it progresses as the developers run out of time and money.

Mario maker

I just won a copy of the Rise of the Tomb Raider so I guess I will be playing that soonish.
Before that I have been playing Stellaris. Great game to explore space and build spaceship fleets.

At 5/10/18 07:04 AM, TheQuietGamer wrote:

At 5/10/18 06:03 AM, stabilowl wrote: I just won a copy of the Rise of the Tomb Raider

That's awesome, congratulations!

Thanks! It is pretty awesome! The next give away is Kirby Space Program. The link is here:

https://steemit.com/contest/@bengy/steam-key-giveaway-kerbal-space-program

You just need to comment and the author of the post chooses who he think's has the best reason to own the game.
You would have to register for steemit though

I recently had gotten into a 4 game plan with gamefly, currently I've got Radiant historia:Perfect Chronology,New super Mario bros 2,Mario Kart 7 and Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World out right now.
I kind of like radiant historia ,only wish it didn't sound like it was carried out by various voice actors from older Funimation dubs ,it makes it sound like cheese central.

Gal gun

At 5/9/18 07:25 PM, Absurd-Ditties wrote: Sunk 15 hours into Pillars of Eternity 2 since it came out yesterday.

Finished it.

I liked the first one a lot more on the whole. Going for 100% voice acting was a MASSIVE mistake, the world feels empty because where minor NPCs would previously have unvoiced dialogue they just don't exist at all, and instead you have a small number of fully voiced characters, each with far less dialogue than their partially voiced/partially unvoiced counterparts from the previous games.

Companions are the prime example. They promised to make them more involved than the first game and added reputations, where they approve/disapprove of your actions, but the system is meaningless in that it has no effect on gameplay, and you get a short 3-4 line conversation once you reach rank 1, and then again at rank 2. Compared that to the REAMS of dialogue characters had in 1. You can exhaust Eder's dialogue for the entire game in about 5 minutes in this, whereas you'd be looking at around half an hour in 1, and in that more would unlock as you progressed. That's not even counting the companions with more to them, like Durance or Grieving Mother, where conversations with them made up entire quest lines that spanned the length of the game.

The combat is way better, and it's very pretty, but everything else feels like a step in the wrong direction.

Played the demos for Detective Pikachu and Hey! Pikmin yesterday. Currently playing Mario Kart 7

At 5/12/18 03:45 PM, argile wrote: Played the demos for Detective Pikachu and Hey! Pikmin yesterday. Currently playing Mario Kart 7

How was Detective Pikachu?

At 5/12/18 10:14 PM, Atlas wrote:

At 5/12/18 03:45 PM, argile wrote: Played the demos for Detective Pikachu and Hey! Pikmin yesterday. Currently playing Mario Kart 7

How was Detective Pikachu?

It was a pretty interesting niche title to be honest,I love the personality for the title character,the Pokemon you interview talk like they do in the anime some that I've noticed on there were from the 3rd and forth generation so I liked that mightyeena and starly were in it.the overall look and style of the game was very colorful and presented very nicely that i've found myself taking in the view of several spits most particularly the park for a few minutes at a time before moving on. I might just buy the game

At 5/13/18 09:51 AM, argile wrote:

Sounds like it's worth a purchase. Thanks for the info!

Mario 3

Undertale and Geometry Dash.

I'm progressing through Undertale, I just finished the Papyrus fight and spared him. I'm doing neutral route though, since I realized I killed a monster at the beginning of my run. I'm playing it the right way, and I'm trying to avoid myself from the fanbase since it's still overrun with Sans fanboys and fangirls + cringe + Finger Family. It's gonna be a great game to me, without the fanbase ruining it.

And as for Geometry Dash, I'm working to finish my level which I'm building on mobile.

after a 6 month hiatus, i'm getting back into Fallout 4. i had to take a break because for a long time it was all i played and i just got sick of it. i had actually uninstalled it entirely. recently popped it back in and it's like playing it for the first time, except i know what i'm doing. i only got to play it for half a day before my work week started back up, but i'm dying for my days off when i can really get into it.

I made it a point to play Fallout 3. Never played a single game from the Fallout series until very recently. And it's built on Oblivion's engine so I have the comfort of knowing that no matter what I do I will not achieve a steady framerate on an older dual-core laptop that doesn't clock in at around 3ghz except by using the TLB, TT, TS and TG console commands.

PokePark

Stardew Valley now has a co-op feature, and I've been trying it out with some friends.

My impression thus far is that, while you can get things done a lot faster and maintain a much bigger farm, co-op doesn't really add all that much to the gameplay. After watering the crops and all, we all kind of went our separate ways and did our own things. Each player still gets his own quests, and activities like fishing, foraging, or socializing aren't better done as a team. So in a way, it still feels a lot like playing the single player.

We haven't visited the mines yet, maybe that's where co-op really adds to the experience. But thus far, I must say that while it's a fun little extra, it's not something that greatly enhances the game such that it warrants a replay.

Whomp em

Overwatch is my game at the moment, was playing Crusader King 2 for a bit last week, but not now! I reformed the Holy Roman Empire and moved on. Though I'll probably go back at some point and beat up some more people.

Mario 64

I am playing through Ultima IV and Dark Souls III, though both playthroughs have been put on hold for the moment. I've been playing a bit of custom Doom wads lately.

Started on Dark Souls Remastered.

Big Faith, with Astora's Straight Sword and Lightning Spear, doing tons of sunbroing and fucking vapourising bosses in seconds. Will switch to Divine Uchi eventually.

Nice to have the online populated again but I can't see any difference between this and DSFix.

Detroit Become Human.

I finished the first Far Cry earlier this week.

I had fun playing this game. It's a very good shooter for it's time. Very challenging and difficult in certain levels, but due to the semi-open environments you can try out different approaches which, to me, feels unique to this game. It's just very satisfying to overcome difficult sections after you've found some way to play it smart.

Aside from the poorly working stealth mechanics, Far Cry's main weak points are probably the B-grade story and voice-acting. However, you get that sense of being in a B-action flick which is pretty cool.

So I would recommend this game.

I'm also still playing Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

The game is all right, but the story fails to really captivate me. Apparently I've made a few choices that have a big impact on the ending, but it's very vague to me what my choices mean and why I should care. You get this typical JRPG-philosophy thrown at you and then it's something like: 'Don't you agree?' Eh... sure, I guess. Whatever. Anyway, the combat with the demon fusion system is quite fun, which is what keeps me playing.