What are you playing? (games)

[juansolo]

Just finished Control on the Xbox and I have to admit, I really quite enjoyed it with some slight reservations. It's very twighlight zoney plot-wise (it actually steals wholesale from an excellent mini-series called The Lost Room from 2006) and as such some of it requires you to go along for the ride with it a bit. For example I played it knowing nothing about it and I'm walking around this building thinking 'some of these rooms don't have doors into them, that's just shitty Q&A'. It's not, it's very much by design and makes sense. Especially when you realise that the map is a bit fluid... That was a 'oooooh' moment for me. Indeed it's cool coming into it knowing as little as the protagonist because of the way the story is structured.

The not so good is can be simple navigation due to this 'fluidity' at times. There were a couple of moments in game where I had to consult the internet to figure out where the hell I was supposed to be. Which can be a little immersion breaking. Then there are the side quests that culminate in bosses. I dislike bosses, but I quite liked the side quests. It's one of those moments where I wish games could have multiple difficulty settings so that I could leave it as is for the main game and dial it down for the bosses because I just find them frustrating. You learn their patterns quite easily to be honest, but you can get to them when you are not particularly powered up and actually lack the tools to deal with them. The good news is that you can avoid them completely if you wish and come back to them later. However that meant that I completed the main quest, did one, then ultimately was kinda done with them as there was no real reason to do the others. I think with a little bit of tweaking (like a bloody restart point for the boss battles to make you not have to re-track all the way back there and start again!). As I say, you can avoid them completely, the shame is those side quests were interesting, but ultimately too frustrating for me to complete.

Overall a good game. Not as good as Quantum Break, but definitely worth a play.

Back to Wreckfest for a bit... (lvl 30 now)

[EBK]

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← →B A

Rest in peace, Kazuhisa Hashimoto.

[storyboardist]

Been getting back into Division 2 with fellow forumite @selfdestroyer. It's not a perfect game, but it checks all the boxes for me. Getting back in shape for the new expansion coming out. Also Cody's jealous of my outfit.



(Yes those are fringe chaps and cowboy boots and spurs)

[juansolo]

Dawned on me that I'd never posted pics of the new PiCade. I used to run a Mk1 which was bigger with a smaller screen, the new one is smaller with a bigger screen So 10" screen in a ickle box. Also I splased out on a Sanwa joystick for it with a stiffer spring because the supplied stick, though much better than it was with the initial run of the Mk2 cab, ain't as good as that.

Picaage attatched. Even a gutshot, no soldering required (bah!). Really nice kit though. Just add Pi.

[selfdestroyer]

Been getting back into Division 2 with fellow forumite @selfdestroyer. It's not a perfect game, but it checks all the boxes for me. Getting back in shape for the new expansion coming out. Also Cody's jealous of my outfit.



(Yes those are fringe chaps and cowboy boots and spurs)

The chaps are what really gets me jealous, and the hat.. ok all of it..

LOL

Having a blast starting a new char with David.

Great job on the PiCase John!

[somnif]

Playing some Yakuza at the moment. Yakuza 0 is 5$ on steam, 1 is 10, and 2 is 15 (or 26$ for all three).

Such wonderfully bizarre games. Long stretches of hard boiled life of crime drama, interspersed with brief fever dreams of toy car racing, bowling, and running a nightclub. Also, you can hire a chicken as an employee for your real estate management business.

Mildly annoying at times when you're 20 minutes into a stretch of cutscenes (entertaining though they are, it does get a bit wearying) and the control scheme without a gamepad is a nightmare, but still fun.

[alanp]

Bought Mechanicus from Steam. It's a turn-based tile combat thing, and the gameplay works very, very well with how the Mechanicus think and act in lore (this is a group that thinks that replacing half your brain with a computer is a holy way of getting closer to the Machine God). It's hard, though, really hard.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/673880/Warhammer_40000_Mechanicus/

I also started re-playing Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords. Maybe it's Windows 10, but I don't remember it crashing anywhere near this much on my old XP machine. And I keep picking up Light Side points... ugh... maybe it's too much Jedi Academy talking, but I've only ever found LS useful for healing, in Star Wars games. In combat (which is 90% of these games, or more)  what you want is Force Lightning (zappy instant death) and Force Grip (either slow choke to death, or a quick grab and throw them into the nearest abyss). Going light side has always seemed to be a way of making life harder for yourself.

[juansolo]

PCs being backward compatible is a myth... They're just not (GOG helps, but it's far from perfect), there are some era's that without correct hardware you can forget being able to play period games. It's why I've got four of the things: A Voodoo/PII/Soundblaster equipped Win98 machine, which for me covers the golden era of PC gaming from 1998-2002 or there abouts. Then I've got a couple of differently specced old Lenovos configured as WinXP and Win7. Finally I have my modern machine running Win10 (still about 10 years old mind you because nothing I run is up to date).

That said... one of the most bizarre games computers I have is a G4 Powermac running OS/9. The other myth in the computing world is the mac doesn't have any games. Well from that particular era, it's far, far easier to get a G4 to run games than an equivalent PC and the vast amount of stuff you can think of from back then is available on it. I ended up building that one first and in all honesty, it covered SO much ground it was untrue. Had I not been given the PII and the Lenovo's had cost absolute buttons, I simply wouldn't have bothered with them. As it was it was fun to build them, so I did

[midwayfair]

Playin' Avernum 3. Continues to be an incredible well-written series, though I guess this was the third time releasing it. (It was originally made in the 90s, and it's gotten an update like every decade, which is some real dedication.)

ON my Mac, by the way.

[EBK]

This evening, I picked up Goldeneye for the wii, which I haven't played in years.  I used to be so good at it (except for the final level's shootout, which I believe is terribly designed).  Tonight, I struggled mightily with the very first mission. 

[alanp]

The plot and characterisation really don't hold up to much, but I'm enjoying Shadow of the Tomb Raider, so far. Big dumb action, when Lara doesn't come down with a case of stupid, or a case of emo.

My only real complaints is that one, she isn't quite as pneumatic as in the originals (which is honestly a bit fratboy as complaints go) and two, it's another game where she looks like she rolls in the mud for fun, and thinks that baths are a sign of Roman level decadence that will lead, like Rome, to her downfall.

But, as long as you don't think about it too hard, it can be fun

[mjg]

Alan, do you have any thoughts on how it compares with the others in the reboot of Tomb Raider?  I played the first one, expecting Tombs, and puzzles, and stuff like that.  Was disappointed overall - to me it seemed like a first person shooter with lots of 'press button now to dodge crashing airplane' built in.  Which is fine if that's what you want, but I was after puzzles and didn't get them.

Interested to know if they have swung back to more puzzles, or just more of the same shooter+cinematic style.

[Scruffie]

This evening, I picked up Goldeneye for the wii, which I haven't played in years.  I used to be so good at it (except for the final level's shootout, which I believe is terribly designed).  Tonight, I struggled mightily with the very first mission. 

I found an old copy of Tony Hawk's Pro 3 for the PS1 I didn't know I had over the weekend, while it holds up remarkably well, damn was I surprised at how hard it was.

[juansolo]

Alan, do you have any thoughts on how it compares with the others in the reboot of Tomb Raider?  I played the first one, expecting Tombs, and puzzles, and stuff like that.  Was disappointed overall - to me it seemed like a first person shooter with lots of 'press button now to dodge crashing airplane' built in.  Which is fine if that's what you want, but I was after puzzles and didn't get them.

Interested to know if they have swung back to more puzzles, or just more of the same shooter+cinematic style.

I'm with you on this. TR was an odd experience. It was trying to ape Uncharted, but ended up a bit more shoot-em-up than TR. She literally goes from scared teen to professional cold-blooded assassin in a blink of the eye too, which was a tad jarring.

IMO Rise of the Tomb Raider for me is when they got the balance right. I genuinely prefer this to Uncharted 3 and 4. Rise is one of my favourite games of it's kind.

Shadow for me feels like a DLC for Rise... It's just missing something I can't put my finger on.

[thesmokingman]

Been getting back into Division 2 with fellow forumite @selfdestroyer. It's not a perfect game, but it checks all the boxes for me. Getting back in shape for the new expansion coming out. Also Cody's jealous of my outfit.



(Yes those are fringe chaps and cowboy boots and spurs)

The chaps are what really gets me jealous, and the hat.. ok all of it..

LOL

Having a blast starting a new char with David.

Great job on the PiCase John!

all that modern battle rattle and a janky mosin nagant