What Videogame(s) Are You Playing?

rattleshnake · September 25, 2023, 5:14am

The Long Drive. You drive down an endlessly long road in a barren post-apocalyptic desert wasteland looking for fuel and such. The vehicles mechanics are pretty in depth and the game has a great atmosphere. One note is that I immediately disabled the first-person character model because it was really ugly, but that’s not a huge deal because it’s optional. Very good game so far all around.

Oh and even though I don’t have them adjusted properly in the third pic, the mirrors are fully functional and very neat.

Beldingford · September 25, 2023, 3:14pm

Not too long after having beaten the first game, I also played through Thief II: The Metal Age. A very solid sequel that improves the formula in pretty much every aspect. Again, I played on hard difficulty.

Mostly the game looks and plays exactly like the first one but there are some new gameplay mechanics, gadgets and enemies. I savescummed a lot so I almost never resorted to the scouting orbs but the new potions and vine arrows were cool. Now we also got security cameras, robots and female guards (who actually sound more threatening than those drunk guys I had already encountered a million times). While I enjoyed some of the supernatural missions in the first game, I’m not too sad about having those elements highly reduced here. Most missions have mainly human enemies and that’s completely fine. That makes the overall mission quality better, even though I absolutely hate the final mission and Song of the Caverns still remains my favorite Thief mission so far. A brief review of every mission and a ranking, like the last time:

Blackmail - This kind of missions define the series for me. All the central elements are there and there are also some unique things like the gear system and the twist near the end of the mission. Couldn’t ask for more.
Framed - Most missions were total knockoutfests for me so it’s nice having being forced to not do that for a change. In such an early mission that doesn’t cause too many difficulties either. It’s a nice idea for a mission too, the main objective is simple but still different from your usual thievery.
Life of the Party - The only mission in the game I’ve played through twice so far. That’s because I couldn’t find the well-hidden alarm switch when I did a blind run (not sure if there’s a hint to it). Otherwise a magnificent mission, all kinds of fun shenanigans happen at the rooftops and Angelwatch is just masterfully built. Having to go all the way back to the bell tower is not my favorite gameplay decision but it’s fine, I guess.
First City Bank and Trust - The Thief series needed a bank mission, of course. There’s a lot to do and steal and it’s just what one would expect. The vault isn’t too complicated to get into and doesn’t need to be. I don’t know if you can dodge the vault cameras but I just blew them up with fire arrows because I knew no one would hear that.
Masks - The mission itself is very good, even though the gas traps are kinda confusing and make you go back and forth. I just wished Casing the Joint didn’t exist, especially since it forces us to find the secret paths in advance. That one somewhat ruins a part of this, but it’s still a very good classic mansion robbing mission.
Precious Cargo - Great atmosphere and many enjoyable and varying areas. This is how a good non-mansion mission is done. There’s not much swimming in this game so I’m glad that in at least one mission it’s required to the point that you’re given breath potions. RIP Lotus, you had a sad end.
Kidnap - Not everyone’s favorite but I did enjoy it. There’s some good challenge and getting the guy out of the place wasn’t too bad, at least not Cragscleft-tier. I didn’t find out about the two additional objectives until I had already found the items so no idea where you are supposed to find out about them lol.
Eavesdropping - A solid mission that introduces the robots and even has some haunts, spooky! The eavesdropping itself makes you wait for a long time, but the key objective after that (pun intended) is more interesting. I actually wished this one was harder, but for the fifth mission it’s fine.
Shipping…and Receiving - The door system was rather tedious to use and I’m sure it could have been implemented better. Fortunately there are a lot of secrets to make up for that crap so it’s not all that bad. I surely couldn’t find most of them but that means there’s something to go back for. Oh yeah, the game tells us how many secrets there are in a level in the debriefing, I like that.
Casing the Joint - The end of the game was surely rushed and it shows. The mission’s not bad but we didn’t need to play the same map twice in a row. I’d put this one lower, but the mansion is actually fun to explore and I kinda like it when the game forces me to be a ghost.
Ambush! - I had some fun moments here, but it’s not a very diverse mission, mostly just dodging guards in the city streets. There are different routes you can take however, it’s nice to have those.
Trail of Blood - Sure, it’s something different but the Pagan missions never were the first game’s strength and this one’s not much better. The different areas look cool, I’ll give it that, but there’s not much exploration. I didn’t expect this kind of a mission so it’s at least a surprising one.
Running Interference - Very basic and linear, acts as a tutorial so I can’t treat it as a real mission. Does fine job with what it is and there are even some secrets to find.
Trace the Courier - I was really bored out of my mind here. Offers little to no interesting gameplay and just numbs your senses. I would have preferred if this one was shorter, like the trailing section in Assassins in the first game and merged with Trail of Blood.
Sabotage at Soulforge - By far the worst Thief mission and one of the worst video game missions I have played in general. The devs probably ran out of time with this one, but nonetheless it almost ruins the game. The first half is uninteresting busywork during which I also ran out of most gadgets so the second half was even worse. No wonder why some people haven’t finished the game, I almost ragequit too.

I will probably get to the third game as well, but now I will actually wait longer until I’ll do that. I think I’ve stolen enough gold and goods to live lavishly for a while.

TheChicken · September 26, 2023, 10:53pm

God of War keeps stabbing me emotionally and I love and hate that.

The boys are finally bonding and Kratos has told his son the truth about him being a god, and therefore his son supposedly inheriting said “god status”. What this exactly means for Atreus is unclear, but the kid keeps asking questions about his abilities and what he is fully capable of.

He’salso getting really annoying and scary with how much of a god-complex he’s building up.
After many enemy encounters now, he cheers that “they didn’t stand a chance”. He also now looks at the world with an air of superiority, thinking that “we can do anything, no one can stop us both!”
He also just recently (rightfully) called out Brok and Sindri’s petty family issues by wrongly saying they’re “little people’s little problems!” Since they’re dwarves, I could feel the pain of that insult was on multiple levels AGH ATREUS WHY.

He’s also recently dismissing Kratos’ wife’s agency and importance after finding out that she was mortal, unlike them.
At least Kratos realises that his son is stepling out of line now. I hope he can rein that child in, this is why he never told him the truth!!

Ah yes, and on a more positive note, it’s cool to see more glimpses of Kratos’ violent past in the Greek realm and how he’s ashamed of it. I also find it very fascinating to know that the character of Tyr in thjs game had legends of travelling to other worlds of gods, such as Greek Gods, Japanese Gods, and Egyptian Gods. Kinda neat that they’re making all this religious and powerful pantheons connected together like that.

TheChicken · September 27, 2023, 6:50pm

Anyone on Playstation interested in trying out the It Takes Two co-op game with me?

You don’t need the game yourself, you just use a free version to connect to my full one.
I really wish they’d built the system for cross-platform play. It would really make finding partners easier.

Axwage · September 27, 2023, 11:24pm

Man, Starfield is just… so… much!

I don’t wanna be running around scanning. I already played No Man’s Sky. I don’t want to figure out ship building or outposts. Do I have to? I don’t wanna.

I like story adventures and combat. The game is good for those things! But Jesus, the distractions around every corner…

Focus, dude, FOCUS. Stop going off on side missions. Omg there’s so much mindless busywork to do. Do I enjoy that? I think so?

Nazareth · September 28, 2023, 1:31am

I know what you mean. While in the process of completing one job, I uncovered ten more. Makes me wonder what the hell else can they possibly add with the upcoming DLC. But despite how overwhelming it seems, I’m still power hungry as fuck and damn near finding myself saying yes to every quest. Probably gonna be one of the last players to finally beat the game a year later. Not that I’m complaining.

Axwage · September 28, 2023, 1:49am

I am also taking my time with it and not rushing any completion. It amazes me that some have the need to have finished NG+ multiple times over. And then they feel empty inside. It’s like, yeah— games are meant to be fun!

I’m having fun with Starfield. I’m just struggling a bit with my anxiety-gamer instincts of checking off every to-do box, or searching every room or dead NPC, or needing to make sure every tablet is not a notepad or whatever…

Silvereyes · September 28, 2023, 3:02am

I’d be interested @TheChicken but I’m not sure how much of a time zone difference there would be, not to mention how good a connection would be between continents.

TheChicken · September 28, 2023, 3:18am

Heck, I’m down to try it at least!

Timezones might be killer, but what’s yours? I’m EST.

Axwage · September 30, 2023, 5:29pm

I played Starfield for like 4 hours last night, and I truly don’t know if I had any fun with it.

MrOchoa · September 30, 2023, 5:57pm

Currently replaying the best Zelda Game.

Nazareth · September 30, 2023, 7:29pm

Sounds like you’re getting lost in the sauce, my friend. Time to switch it up and play something else.

Axwage · September 30, 2023, 9:08pm

Totally. And don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying following the narrative threads of the various quests. But there’s just so much clunky stuff throughout that I kinda feel like I’m playing a live service grind-a-thon.

TheChicken · October 2, 2023, 4:05am

I’ve started checking out The Quarry – the latest big budget horror-movie-homage from Supermassive Games. (It’s leaving PS Extra on the 17th) Only just played the prologue and a little of Chapter 1, and it’s okay.

The cast as shown in the beginning seems massive, lots of characters to appear here, way more than the just 8-or-so like Until Dawn.

I haven’t really made it far enough to make any good impressions, though there are some annoyances so far that stuck out to me

The facial capture is as weird and uncanny looking as ever. I don’t know why this game series stands out this way compared to other facial-captured ones, but it both feels intentional and unintentionally rough. Eyes aren’t open enough or mouths extend too far.

The way the game switches scenes is also weird. It’s like it shifts from “gameplay visuals to cutscene visuals” which doesn’t make sense since the whole game is in the same engine, but there have been a few times where after a quick black cut, the lighting in a scene is noticeably different and more high-quality.

QTE’s need better readability or tutorialization for PS players. I failed all of them in the prologue because it wasn’t communicated what the prompt meant.
It’s a big dot with a circle in the middle. Okay, so that’s the Circle button right? Because PS has Circle, and that’s how it looks!
Nope! I thought my controller was broken or something, but I had to look up what I was doing wrong – the dot and circle represents the depressed form of the Joystick that you have to move. Why didn’t it tell me this?? Every other time a stick is needed it shows clearly a circle with L or R, denoting a stick!

The motion blur is also horrible, horrible, horrible. And there’s no option to turn if off! It’s already a little annoying that the characters move sluggishly related to their motion capture movements, or the framerate is noticeably slower, but when Chapter 1 gave me the third-person camera to swivel around – ouch, don’t look at the backgrounds. Bluuuuury and ghostly.
And I don’t usually mind motion blur in games!

Bardachenko · October 2, 2023, 3:29pm

I just bought this game on Steam. I know tne owner of the software house. He’s a friend of mine and the last year I worked for him as press officer, for an event he organizes every year. He’s publishing on Steam his old games.

lukefsje · October 2, 2023, 5:26pm

I finally got around to playing Resident Evil Village! Man what a great game! I played it once on Standard over the past few days, then I played it once again on Casual this morning to get the trophies for beating the game using 4 or less health items (I used 0) and beating the game in under 3 hours. I was surprised how generous that three hour time limit was given it took me about 9 hours to beat the game the first time around.

Things I loved about the game:

The size! I was expecting something similar to RE7’s size, but after going through the massive castle I was shocked to realize there were still three other areas to go through. I was similarly shocked by just how big Heisenberg’s factory was, I was expecting something fairly small, not several levels of basement.
The atmosphere of all the areas! The village, the castle, the factory, the various side areas, they all come together to give the place a sense of unity and connectedness.
I loved how many different enemies there were. While RE7 had a good amount of enemy variety, most of them were just ugly Molded variations. Here the enemies look a lot more interesting while still being really freaky
The Duke! I kinda expected some twist that he was actually evil and working against you so it was nice that he was just a genuinely helpful guy! I guess his motivation for helping Ethan is so he can get ingredients to cook exotic dishes?
The optional bosses! I love that there were several places where you could find an extra boss fight and get some more loot out of it.
New Game+! while the first encounter at the village was super tense the first time around, it was fun to go around blasting the enemies with the end-game weapons. It seems like you can do it multiple times so my goal is to eventually fully upgrade all the weapons. At least, fully upgrade my core weapons before tackling the Village of Shadows difficulty.
My favorite small detail was how the design of the grenade rounds was a throwback to how they looked in the classic RE games. That’s something that they didn’t even do for RE2make or RE3make!

My chief complaints with the game:

It’s stupid it’s called RE Village and not RE8: Village. Are they gonna call the next game RE9 or will they have to call it RE Ixnay on the Umbersnay?
I hate how dedicated Capcom are to refusing to show Ethan’s face. I could understand it if they wanted to reveal it in an impactful scene (like the ending of the game) but they didn’t.
Third person sucks. The game wasn’t designed around it, many of the scary moments are a lot weaker in third person, places don’t feel nearly as claustrophobic, the cutscenes are still in first person, and they made it so Ethan turns his head if you try to rotate the camera to see his face.
Lady D following you in the castle: I get that it’s a trend since RE7 to have some form of stalker following you, but she felt the least dangerous of any of them. It was way too easy to just run around something and get away from her and there are a ton of areas in the castle where she couldn’t go and I didn’t even need to worry about her.
Donna Beneviento: The other lords got a ton of characterization, but Donna barely got any. I guess maybe they were more focused on making that…thing…for her section than fleshing her out more.
While what we got in the game is great, a lot of the stuff in the concept art looks even cooler and it’s a shame so many ideas were cut: Ada Wong showing up and helping Ethan, having House Beneviento be a whole ghost family, Moreau being fused with a girl he loved, showing people being “birthed” as lycans, having a giant lycan wielding two vârcolacs like a dog-walker, the Uriaș being the leader of the village who was transformed and the Uriaș Străjer being his older brother (this might be canon but it’s not explained in-game at all), Heisenberg actually having family members, Heisenberg turning his own dad into the Sturm, Miranda turning into an even freakier mutation at the end, etc. It’s also really weird that they included a ton of RE7 concept art here instead of actually putting it in RE7, but better than not releasing it at all I guess.

Apparently the game was trying to be a throwback to RE4, but I’ve never played it or its remake so it’s nice that the game’s still so enjoyable without that experience. Next on the agenda is Mercenaries and the Shadows of Rose story!

zubin47 · October 3, 2023, 9:51am

Finally I completed Sniper Elite 5 last week and replaying on Authentic difficulty (it is taking ages for me to complete one mission, but I am enjoying it).
I like this sniper game but still wished something more from it - Rebellion studios could have put some kind of contract / freelancer gameplay like concept. Maybe a random target on this huge map tweaking a little on the map maybe.
Overall I think it is my second best Sniper Elite game (after the very first one).

Meanwhile I am dying repeatedly in Returnal again and again, I am confused with the story and my objective - could not find white shadow at all.

I got A Plaque Tale 1 and 2, on my friends recommendation and a price drop.
I think I missed this great game somewhere somehow and enjoying the story and puzzle gameplays. It has unique game style and the level design, sound and character performance is appreciatable.
And it is scary as I have a phobia of rats.
Currently at mid of first game.

Here are their trailers -

TheChicken · October 5, 2023, 5:37am

I’ve finished God of War 2018, and what an awesome experience that was!

I have no experience with the original series, which is fine, since this is some prestige, cinematic storytelling for the reboot, that really, really hooked me.
Plus, any small reference to the Greece series’ was cool, as Kratos’ gratuitously violent history was teased as mysterious, unspoken, buried truths to his gruff, guarded personality.
And you see how Kratos opens up and teaches his son good morals (mostly) about what it is to be a god and have such immense power, and his son begins to respect him as he opens up more. It’s so sweet!

The story itself, and the performances from Christopher Judge and Sunny Suljic were outstanding. I was hooked with the mystery involving Kratos needing to survive as an Outsider God in a realm not his own. His son, curious about the world outside their forest, and with some dangerous pieces to his heredity that Kratos doesn’t want to reveal. And of the world itself and all the stories told within it – the Gods who can’t help but get in the way of Kratos, and become so vain they’re all just major a-holes.

What impressed me the most about the world was the sense of SCALE!! Massive ruins, monuments, constructs built by dwarves and giants. The HUGEmongous beats and monsters you have to fight, that could eat Kratos for breakfast is insane, but you still manage to beat them as they throw you around in different cutscenes, just because of how cool and strong you are!

The way the story’s hightened moments with the main relationship was also tied into the gameplay at times was really darn cool!

There’s a moment in the middle of the game when Atreus starts getting a god complex about his status as a “child-god”, and becomes way more defiant towards Kratos.
It’s at this point where, throughout all of the game before this, you fire an arrow with , he does it.
But in a series of a few fights. He doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything you tell him to and is left to roam free and fire whatever arrow and is on pure enemy-attack mode, leaving you without a way to strategize combat efficiently.
Is this what it’s like being a dad whose kid doesn’t listen to you?? And you just can’t do anything about it?!

The one-shot camera style was a very neat choice to frame the game with, though at times could get in the way of the gameplay.
I wish there were sometimes an easier way to fast-travel, rather than needing to go to-and-from specific points for the sake of the magic-continuous-shot-door. Or, sometimes I wish it’d cut to black so it could spawn me closer to whete I’d need to be for the story, if ever there’s a part that involves backtracking.

I also didn’t quite enjoy the RPG elements. I don’t see why enemies need to be power-levelled or I need to keep buying better and better armour. I ended up skipping a lot of special-looking and “powerful” sets because I kept managing to save up juuuust enough for the newest most-stat-bumping armour piece.
So, things like the Traveller or Ancient set themed around enemies, (and you get a trophy for buying the whole set) I only ever bought at the end to check those off, since they were always so underpowered to what I’d bought at the time I never looked back.

I hope the sequel has some sort of transmog system, where I can change the look to something else but keep the stats.
Lots of special-looking items I never wore because the stats were too low, or I never had enough resources to buy them! I never wore any full-chest covering armours for Kratos, because of those reasons! And I should’ve!

All in all, I’m really really satisfied with this purchase I made like 3 years ago lmao. This was an AMAZING game and it’s already going in my books for one of the best stories and performances in a video game. I was SO invested and SO immersed in everything going on, I really didn’t expect that!

Oh yeah and that tease for the sequel is SUPER HYPE. Omg it’ll be so cool when I get to it one day. Finally, getting to see the big name gods, starting with Thor himself!

It was a good choice to set the epilogue “Years Later” in the future, since it’s clear that Sunny aged up quite a bit between both games, I expect he’ll look a lot older in that same scene, if it’s recreated in Ragnarok.

zubin47 · October 5, 2023, 8:25am

Nice… now is a good time to start God of War Ragnarok if you get a chance, it is equally as good as the first one with bigger map and realms which were disabled in the first game. They could have won the game awards only if Elden Ring was not competing. So check it out, I am waiting for the 3rd one if they have plans/in developing.

Meanwhile I completed A Plaque Tale Innocence and just started the second installment
But I will hold the second game and restart later as there are new contents in Hitman today

TheChicken · October 5, 2023, 4:39pm

Started some It Takes Two with @/Silvereyes last night too.
It’s by the same co-op devs as A Way Out, but where that game was an action-stealth-puzzle title, this one is way more of a puzzle-platformer.

We only played through the first 2 or 3 chapters (actually, we’re still in Chapter 1, but each chapter has multiple sections I guess) and it’s a fun, whimsical experience!

You play as a couple, May and Cody, both seeking divorce since they can’t reconcile their problems with each other. And one day, after some sort of magical wishing from their daughter Rose, they wake up as little dolls she created, and have to find a way to return to their human selves (and reconcile their relationship as a “Book of Love” keeps pushing them)

The game and world is way more fantastical and surreal than the previous prison-break one.
I’m guessing this is some sort of dream-scape right now, as the opening Shed area is way too big and complex to be a shed – plus, you encounter living objects and talking vacuum cleaners.
Plus, there’s an anthropomorphic book that appears and disappears randomly.
Which, btw, the trailers made me think he’d be a fun supportive character, but man, he’s the antagonist! Constantly getting in the couple’s way, putting them into life-threatening situations, preventing them from trying to “get help” from their monolithic daughter (whether that’ll work, we don’t know yet, but I don’t think so)

And speaking of vacuum cleaners, the boss battles are quite fun!
The vacuum boss was fairly simple, just redirect flaming pieces of garbage at him, but the finisher you both perform was cartoonishly gruesome?? You suck his eyeballs out with his own vacuum hands! WTF??
The next boss, a living rusted toolbox, was a challenging and INTENSE platforming challenge, as you have to avoid attacks before you can get damage in, and the playing field you jump around on keeps getting cut away… You then blow the toolbox up to free all the tools inside!

Lots of fun so far, and just like A Way Out, there’s silly little competitive minigames to find in each level, and each level also throws a new gameplay mechanic at you, so things always feel fresh.