What game are you playing?

[wankerness]

Played a bunch of Stardew Valley, trying to grind out the stupid "kill 50 pepper rexes" goal for the adventurer's guild, these assholes seem to spawn at the rate of about 1 per 30 floors so it's been terrible, except one day I got lucky and got a floor with 10 of them on it. Got burned out after 7 straight days of doing nothing but going to the skull cavern and getting a total of 5 for the week!!

Booted up Elden Ring for the first time in several months, cleared through the back half of Crumbling Farum Azula on my one character (a pure strength build) that hadn't beaten the game yet, died horribly a lot of times to both the damn draconic sentinel and Maliketh, had to resort to mimic tear on the latter. Then got absolutely wrecked by second form of Horah Loux a couple times and quit. Man, God of War made me worse at this game.

Booted up Dark Souls 1, found I had a character that was halfway through Sen's Fortress, cleared through the rest of that and finished Anor Londo and then ran around the world doing various things. This game is turning into comfort food even if I have to very slowly creep through the chandeliers and poison the archers like a straight up bitch. I was struck by how slick the remaster runs compared to the 360 version that I'd most recently been playing. It does look a bit more plasticy, but wow is a consistent 60 fps a gigantic improvement to gameplay. And while Blighttown is still hideous and has horrendous lighting, at least you can sort of see what the hell is going on.

 

[TedEH]

It does look a bit more plasticy, but wow is a consistent 60 fps a gigantic improvement to gameplay.

This is how I justify spending so much on PC hardware - performance matters sooooo much in some games.

I started up Death Stranding... got an hour or two into it.... and I'm mostly just confused so far. It feels very polished but I have nooooo idea what the crap is going on, which feels like it's by design.

 

[TheBlackBard]

Getting ready to play The Callisto Protocol.

 

[gabito]

I started up Death Stranding... got an hour or two into it.... and I'm mostly just confused so far. It feels very polished but I have nooooo idea what the crap is going on, which feels like it's by design.

Same.

But it's what I expect from Hideo Kojima's games. That and hours and hours of cutscenes.

 

[RevDrucifer]

I was eyeing a bunch of games on the black friday sale on PS store (Cyberpunk, DMC5, Stray, Ghostwire, Steelrising, Diablo II, Scarlet Nexus, and Death Stranding), but NONE of them are still on sale for cyber monday. Oof. Guess I'll just continue playing fromsoft games and stardew valley until that Witcher 3 remaster comes out in a couple weeks.

Whatever they’re charging for Death Stranding, it’s worth it. Even if it was $10 last week and $100 today. That game is fucking awesome. I can see why some people didn’t dig it and just saw it as “This is like a USPS Simulator”, but I’ve never played a game that did such a good job at immersing me into the story and getting an emotional reaction from me.

The soundtrack is awesome and the originality of the entire game is just crazy.

 

[wankerness]

I get it to some degree, but when the "complete" version of the director's cut of death stranding was 25 less than a week ago I'm not going to pay 50 for it today! Maybe if it doesn't get discounted over the new years sale...

 

[RevDrucifer]

This is how I justify spending so much on PC hardware - performance matters sooooo much in some games.

I started up Death Stranding... got an hour or two into it.... and I'm mostly just confused so far. It feels very polished but I have nooooo idea what the crap is going on, which feels like it's by design.

Nothing in that game really makes sense until you get closer to the end. The story is just so out there and unique that it’s impossible to guess or assume what’s going to happen. Even with the things you CAN guess ahead of time, there’s a twist added onto it that’ll make you go “Ok, saw about 1/4 of that coming….the rest…..what the fuck?”

The real fun parts started when the ziplines came in, but what drew me to the game the most was how at some points, when you’re trudging your way up a mountain with all this gear on your back, haven’t seen another person or living thing for quite and while and this somber music starts playing, you can’t help but to take on this desolate/almost hopeless feeling, then something awesome happens and you’re implored to keep moving ahead to find out more about the story, just a really awesome game all around.

 

[TedEH]

I can't say the intro wasn't compelling. I just couldn't possibly explain what I saw without sounding like I'm high.

 

[StevenC]

Nothing in that game really makes sense until you get closer to the end. The story is just so out there and unique that it’s impossible to guess or assume what’s going to happen. Even with the things you CAN guess ahead of time, there’s a twist added onto it that’ll make you go “Ok, saw about 1/4 of that coming….the rest…..what the fuck?”

The real fun parts started when the ziplines came in, but what drew me to the game the most was how at some points, when you’re trudging your way up a mountain with all this gear on your back, haven’t seen another person or living thing for quite and while and this somber music starts playing, you can’t help but to take on this desolate/almost hopeless feeling, then something awesome happens and you’re implored to keep moving ahead to find out more about the story, just a really awesome game all around.

The best thing about those moments is you know there's no BTs for a bit.

I can't say the intro wasn't compelling. I just couldn't possibly explain what I saw without sounding like I'm high.

I haven't finished that game and I couldn't either.

 

[RevDrucifer]

I can't say the intro wasn't compelling. I just couldn't possibly explain what I saw without sounding like I'm high.

Hahahaha that’s what I love about it so much; even after you finish it and understand it, you won’t be able to explain it without sounding like you’re high. It’s going to get weirder.

 

[TedEH]

It’s going to get weirder.

I'm at the beginning of Chapter 2 and trying to follow the story makes me feel drunk - or maybe like it was written by someone who was drunk at the time.

Spoiler

"Ok, so there's this lady... she's kind of the president, but also maybe your mom who is dead, but also maybe your long lost nightmare beach wife or something, and she's still stranded on the beach... no wait, she's captured by the terrorists, or... maybe she's free, I don't know, but she's here now so that you can rebuild America".

Also eating bugs gives you blood. "Do you mean protein? Health?" Nonono blood. It gives you blood. And your invisible-time-monster-detector is POWERED BY BABIES.

 

[RevDrucifer]

I'm at the beginning of Chapter 2 and trying to follow the story makes me feel drunk - or maybe like it was written by someone who was drunk at the time.

Spoiler

"Ok, so there's this lady... she's kind of the president, but also maybe your mom who is dead, but also maybe your long lost nightmare beach wife or something, and she's still stranded on the beach... no wait, she's captured by the terroriest, or... maybe she's free, I don't know, but she's here now so that you can rebuild America".

Your best option is to not think too hard about it until the end. You’ll definitely get nuggets here and there but it’s a pretty big universe they’ve created and the creativity involved is somethin’ else. Reading the emails you get sent provides a little insight but they won’t give away the whole story.

 

[gabito]

I'm at the beginning of Chapter 2 and trying to follow the story makes me feel drunk - or maybe like it was written by someone who was drunk at the time.

Spoiler

"Ok, so there's this lady... she's kind of the president, but also maybe your mom who is dead, but also maybe your long lost nightmare beach wife or something, and she's still stranded on the beach... no wait, she's captured by the terrorists, or... maybe she's free, I don't know, but she's here now so that you can rebuild America".

Also eating bugs gives you blood. "Do you mean protein? Health?" Nonono blood. It gives you blood. And your invisible-time-monster-detector is POWERED BY BABIES.

Also whales. Lots of whales.

 

[TedEH]

I've been poking at Metroid Fusion for a while and finally finished it today. The timer claims my play time was 5hrs but it feels like more than that. It's a good Metroid game, but I think I played it in the wrong order - it's been spoiled by knowing that Samus Returns and Dread are basically the same thing but better.

 

[wankerness]

I have Fusion and my cart's flash memory died, so I can't save my game. Someday I'll have to beat the whole thing in one sitting.

 

[CanserDYI]

Was watching my kid play today and I pulled out my phone and caught this fantastic little elimination. For 6 years old this kid plays against adults all the time, I was so impressed with this one. I know it's Fortnite, but soon it will be battlefield....can't wait.

 

[bastardbullet]

Finally i'm on the callisto protocol on ps5, no glitches no major fps drops since so far. Lots of people have been cursing the game & playability performance on pc and xbox versions, i guess today the first patch released for those.

 

[wankerness]

Finally i'm on the callisto protocol on ps5, no glitches no major fps drops since so far. Lots of people have been cursing the game & playability performance on pc and xbox versions, i guess today the first patch released for those.

Yeah, I’m going to have to wait with that one. Early reviews suggest there are a ton of one-hit kills that require perfectly timed dodges, and the game is not great at teaching you how the timings work, every time you die you have to watch a lengthy unskippable gruesome cutscene of your character dying, and the problem is compounded by frame rate issues making your timing off. I guess it plays better in performance mode (which I’d think would always be what people choose on every game, but what do I know?!).

 

[rokket2005]

I'm about ~15 hours in to Xenosaga and I'd been holding onto all my upgrade points cause I wasn't sure where to use them just yet. It's a good thing too, cause I got smacked around by a boss and found out that putting your points into tech attacks is much more useful than stat upgrades, at least at this point in the game. I like the battle system more than Xenogears' so far, the similarities are very evident though. The characters are all really great, which I fully expect from Takahashi at this point.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

I'm about ~15 hours in to Xenosaga and I'd been holding onto all my upgrade points cause I wasn't sure where to use them just yet. It's a good thing too, cause I got smacked around by a boss and found out that putting your points into tech attacks is much more useful than stat upgrades, at least at this point in the game. I like the battle system more than Xenogears' so far, the similarities are very evident though. The characters are all really great, which I fully expect from Takahashi at this point.

I'll have to revisit the Xenosaga games at some point, especially now that feeling that Takahashi has certainly left an impression with Nihon Falcom on the Trails games. Though that'll also mean I'll have to replay Xenosaga 2 and that sucked for a myriad of reasons.