I’m not one to judge what people spend their money on but yikes.
As I wait for NG+ for Alan Wake 2.
I’ve started and completed Metal Gear Solid 1 for the first time. Despite being well versed in the series I never completed Metal Gear Solid 1 til today.
I’ve been getting further into Spider-Man 2 and it’s been lots of fun.
I keep getting distracted by just swinging across the city. It’s noticeably faster in this one, and that probably helps push the hero power fantasy even further.
The setpieces are very cool, and I love how Insomniac keep putting in silly one-off moments just to show off how fast they can load the city in one jump. (The Black Cat mission was especially cool, unfortunately short, but was clearly a “Watch This!” moment)
The Black Suit stuff is taking a while to get to the iconic “it takes Peter” moment. I was expecting to get it by the 4th or 5th mission, but nope, still not quite yet…
I really like the twist that Harry was unaware of it bonding to him, and he’s started to use it like a superpower. That was cool. But the symbiote is clearly more interested in Peter, so I wonder how he’s going to acquire it, especially if it’s basically something keeping Harry alive…
I will say, some of the things are disappointing me in ways I didn’t expect.
The combat seems way tougher, or the Heroes feel a lot weaker than the last game. Simple enemies take a while to defeat, usually needing more than one Air combo, which is weird.
The UI is also a little wild. I’m unsure how the Parry system works and when to use it vs dodging, and even then, fights can get so chaotic with different enemy variants and projectiles, it’s hard to know when to dodge because my attention’s being pulled by so many different attacks (the robots are really tripping me up).
Plus, a lot of the combat so far is chock-full of enemies with guns that try to shoot you every 3 seconds, always interrupting some combo against someone… It’s quite annoying, especially in some of the drawn-out Hunters fights in the main missions.
The suits and the different colour swaps are cool, but most of them usually have one colour that so garish or clashes with the usual Spidey colour palette, I’m confused who approved it…
Take the Yellow variant of the Advanced 2.0… it’s so bright, and then there’s the white accent on his crotch and butt. Why?? 
None of the other suits use that detail, but someone decided to add that lmao
There’s also noticeable omissions and a lack of a few QoL features we’ve needed for a while now…
There’s no social media feed. What?? That was the best part of the previous two games’ writing, and was fun to check in every once in a while. I’ve heard this game’s story is the same length as the last one, so I wonder what kep the writing team occupied apart from that…
Podcast episodes keep getting interrupted by any side-activity you approach. This is even worse in this title, because you move so fast so you’ll only have barely started listening to an episode of JJJ or Danika that you’ll have to orbit around whatever Activity marker you might be near, just to hear it all before diving in, or else it’ll just end…
And the worst part — there’s no option in the menu to replay podcast episodes! Why is this not standard-issue? If any of them get interrupted, or you don’t want to get held up by one before entering a mission, then that’s it, you can’t hear that story detail being talked about the city ever again unless you replay to that moment…
So strange to not have that at launch.
A bit of a sum-up of my (fairly diverse) gaming activities in the past few months:
Played a lot of The Witcher III in the summer, specifically Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. The former was absolutely fantastic, and the latter is great as well. I got close to finishing the main quest line (right before “rescuing” Syanna), but burned myself out farming Hansa bases (in a futile last minute attempt to farm XP and coin to actually put some effort into making a workable skill build, lol). Hopefully I can still get back to it before the year ends. Also, props to CDPR for giving me what Rockstar failed to in GTAV - my very own vineyard where I can chill in the sun.
Felt the urge to play some real-time tactics when Shadow Gambit came out, so I decided to cross Aiko’s Choice and Desperados III off my list. Certainly got my fix. AC felt a bit ‘weird’ with how I had to go back to the more ‘limited’ gameplay of Shadow Tactics and felt a bit shoehorned story-wise, but was great fun nonetheless (especially the last mission). DIII was just a step-up in pretty much every way and highly enjoyable. Isabelle immediately became my favourite character to play with the sheer amount of options she added to the gameplay, and I imagine Shadow Gambit is like playing with a whole squad of Isabelles. Still need to finish the DLC though…
Last month I felt like playing some Yakuza (probably a result of all the TGS massaging), so I continued in my play through of the series with Yakuza 4. And as it didn’t feel like enough, I immediately went for Yakuza 5 afterwards (which was probably a mistake…). Y4 has easily one of the dumbest stories I’ve ever encountered in a game (well, it’s mainly the 4th act where it all falls apart), but the combat (aside from Saejima) and substories were great, as was the more expanded Kamurocho. Not to mention it has easily the best levelling system in the series from what I’ve played so far. Y5 on the other hand… Well, the story was slightly less rubbish, but man, convoluted doesn’t even begin to describe it. Not to mention the pacing being absolutely awful at times with loads of unnecessary bloat all around. I knew it would be long, but I didn’t expect it to feel long as well (and I don’t usually mind a slow burner). Combat was a mixed bag with both improvements and bad choices, levelling system was definitely a setback, and substories mostly bland. Side stories are fun though. I still have to finish the side stuff (that goes for the three previous games as well), but I’m glad I managed to get the story out of the way this year, though if I ever play it again, I’ll make sure to do it in a window in between other games in the series.
Last but not least, been finally playing through Arma 2’s vanilla content here and there. The base Harvest Red campaign was surprisingly ambitious at certain points and I really liked how they fully embraced the sandbox in some of its missions (especially the COIN ones). The Eagle Wing mini-campaign in the meantime was easily one of the most unusual and memorable experiences I’ve had in the series. It felt more like a community project rather than official content (which turned out to be not far from the truth when I found out who the lead designer on it was). On the expansion side, the Operation Arrowhead campaign was pleasantly conventional compared to Harvest Red, but just too short. Need to try to unlock some of those alternative missions in it. But yeah, overall really enjoying A2 and am pretty sad I got to it so belatedly, especially given the state of the mod availability for it… (slowly managing to acquire some of the lost ones, but still…)
I gotta say, I’m seriously loving Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, probably more than I’ve enjoyed any game in the series since the Ezio games, with a possible exception for Black Flag.
Storywise, it’s fairly run of the mill, slightly more engaging than Rogue, Unity, and the DLC side stories of Liberation and Freedom Cry, but less interesting than the stories in the five entries of the Desmond saga and Black Flag.
As far as gameplay goes, it’s got the easiest and least frustrating parkour; still some frustrations as far as dismounting from one perch to a lower one, but nothing enraging like the rest of the series. The combat is fairly easy to get the hang of, and while it still has the same chop-chop-chop action that’s been present since III, with enemies that somehow still live and fight on despite being gouged and cut to pieces already, this is the most control I’ve had over that form of combat since then, helped along by being able to better gauge how much damage you’re actually doing with what attacks.
The playable characters aren’t nearly as boring and/or annoying as I’ve heard they are from other players. Yes, Jacob Frye is a cocky arse and as an assassin is a bit cringe, but as a character he’s a joy to listen to when he runs his mouth and quips insults at allies and enemies alike. He’s also the superior fighter, so while he might not be able to do discreet missions like his sister, when it comes to brawling for control of a city sector, he’s the one you want handling it. Evie, meanwhile, is better as an actual assassin, but she’s not the stern, overly-serious workaholic she has been made out to be. She’s more like an insecure young lady with something to prove, likely to honor her father, and she only seems more capable when compared to Jacob, who goofs off more. But it’s clear from her interactions with other characters that she’s got just a little bit of a pixie-girl streak in her, which negates any impression that she’s some unstoppable Mary Sue. Even the villain characters, while being comic book villain levels of evil, are at least realistically acted, believably sinister and threatening, and have some logical, if misguided and overly-simplified justifications for their evil acts.
Overall, with more than 60% of the game complete, there are only three things about it that I dislike. 1) That you can’t switch your type of melee weapons while on the fly like in past games; you have to select a weapon type (brass knuckles, cane sword, or kukri) and that’s it, wait until the fight is over before you can switch. 2) The transition to the Big Ben clock tower every time a big mission starts; I don’t know why this bothers me more than other transitions in this game or the others, but it does for some reason, it’s somehow even more jarring than jackknifing into the modern day story after a successful mission. And 3) navigating the fucking River Thames. Seriously, fuck the River Thames. Fuck the River Thames, fuck Agent Thames from Apex Predator in Berlin, fuck anything that even remotely sounds like Thames, fuck the New York Times just because it kinda sorta does, fuck Times Magazine for the same reason. It’s not even pronounced right! I know the English language does that a lot, but goddam people, look at the fucking spelling! It’s THE-AIMS! Not T-AMS! I don’t care if that’s how the British originally pronounced it when they named it, they pronounced it wrong, people who first name things can still pronounce it wrong, like the maker of the gif did! Either way, fuck that river and anyone who ever drowned in it.
Well, that’s my input on this baby until I give my final opinion after finishing it and moving on to the next.
Been playing Death Stranding lately, thanks to @Silvereyes. It’s great fun, there’s something very satisfying to the gameplay loop that I can’t turn away from. The first time that I got dragged through black goo and chased by that whale/octopus thing was one of the more genuinely tense gaming moments in memory for me, the game really throws you into the deep end over and over in that respect and I love it. Also I get a little giddy whenever Hannibal shows up.
Here are some screenshots I’ve grabbed, I’m blurring them out because they reveal what I think is a fairly late-game area and some of them are taken during a story event. This game reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus in a lot of ways, with the player being tasked to traverse a wide-open, empty but beautiful landscape. Just such a well designed, beautiful map that I love exploring.
I’ve been playing Sniper Elite 3 on my PC single player whilst also playing Sniper Elite 4 co-op with @TheChicken on PS5. Enjoying both games, just playing on normal so the only real bullet physics we are dealing with is gravity drop off rather having to deal with wing physics. The size of SE4’s maps are really impressive, each level really is a small open world with lots of ways to traverse the map and do the objectives in the ways you want to do. Co-op is a treat as well, SE4 is smart enough that each player is detected seperately so we had situations where one person was being hunted, whilst the other player could sneak behind on the enemy. It’s alot of fun.
I don´t know kind of rig you have, but if it´s something not ultra-powerful, would you say the game is well optimised or not? I want to get around to it eventually, so I´m just wondering if my standard laptop will manage or not…
Played Death Stranding during start of covid lockdown (felt in the game), it is a good game a unique walking trekking simulator.
The graphics is extraordinary and the game concept with time is innovative and crazy.
The best part is when you have the baby, the antenna starts picking up signals on the Harry Potter’s invisible Dementors (its BT in the game) and that is the most eerie part.
The game was smooth in PS4 and waiting for the next part.
A fan of Japanese video games and Hideo Kojima.
I’m running it on a laptop with an intel i7 core, 16gb ram. It runs very well most of the time, though on occasion I’ll get framerate hiccups that are resolved by restarting the game.
Edit: Took a few more screenshots. BT death is art.
Ok, sounds pretty much similar to mine (though my i7 is likely a lower/older model). I’ve checked some videos in the meantime on how the GPU I have handles it, and it seems to be actually really well optimised, so I think I’m good to give it a go.
Once I finally clear the side content in those four Yakuza games and make the space for it that is… 
I agree! It’s been very fun and the stealth/traversal feels pretty Hitman in nature, as you have to infiltrate guarded checkpoints and areas stealthily, or run the risk of alerting half the map to stay on guard. (Something we’ve struggled with so far, but are slowly getting better at.)
I quite enjoy how levels feel pretty swiss-cheesy, with multiple paths and routes to go around a level, including some sneaky areas to climb up for a better infiltration.
We’ve also pulled off a couple of simultaneous sniper kills which have been awesome!
Finally got my physical disc for Driveclub (the 2nd purchase, not the first), and it’s quite a lot of fun! I’m kicking myself that I didn’t pick this up sooner when the servers were online!
It’s an Arcadey racing game, but styled to look like and borrow from Sim games with its ultra-detailed models, lighting, and sense of real speed, as well as emphasis on clean driving.
Can’t believe I somehow paid this game no mind since I thought it looked like a simulator.
The best thing is - despite all the servers being turned off and DLC delisted from sale, all the tracks added post-launch are free, given through updates… It’s only cars and specific Tour playlists that are locked off from access.
And there are a lot. Countryside courses, urban courses, racetrack courses. It’s neat!
The driving can be punishing though. Drifting is difficult to pull off, and even then, I’m quickly learning that it’s better to find a good racing line and slow down as much as necessary at turns.
One event I played had some serious rain, and I’m sure it also caused me to slip out multiple times – I got last place, btw lol
(There’s a nifty “Auto Slow” feature that you can turn on to help you prepare for any sharp turns – great for starting out, since I don’t know any of these tracks!)
I quite like this introduction to the game. It might get old after a while since it’s just single-player events all the time, but it’s neat to experience.
I’ll just be forever sad that I can’t experience any of the multiplayer or social features, unlock any online-exclusive cars, or get any of the DLC vehicles.
(There IS a “Starting Line” tour that offers a few select events to try out some big DLC cars, but that’s the only way for me.)
I really like the damage models in this game. Your car can really get scratched up, dinged and dented, I’m impressed since these days, there’s been a lot of licensed racing games that offer very little to no damage to their cars.
Began playing Black Mesa a few days ago. I played it once when it was free and was missing the Xen part. That was long ago enough for me to forget pretty much everything, or things did change much since then, I don’t know.
It is still a fun shooter and I really like the level design (I bet it got altered a bit for this version). You rarely have to run back and forth without new experiences. Sometimes you find hidden stashes to refill your suit shield and at the same time peek into an area you visit a bit later. So as ridiculous the whole facilities seem to be, they are not random and… well, believable ridiculous. 
Got to Xen last night and will get to that last part for the first time as I only played HL2 onwards.
Kirby’s return to dreamland deluxe if freelancer ever gets to annoying I just boot it up and relax for a while and have been enjoying it personally my favourite thing about it is the outlines around most things I understand some people don’t like it in comparison to the original for that but I think it’s nice
I only just (finally) beat Portal 2. I actually started playing it earlier this year, but one of the gel puzzles stumped me so I got frustrated and stopped. When going back to it recently, it took me less than a minute to see what I was doing wrong lol and things went smoothly from there on out. Great game, funny at times but admittedly Wheatley annoyed me although I think he’s not supposed to be pleasant. The ending was perfect and kind of unexpected, they literally have you shooting for the moon lol. Would love it if Valve made games again, they’re good at it 
I also finished Death Stranding a week or so back. One of my better gaming experiences in a while, I was telling a friend how much it reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus. You spend the bulk of the game traversing these open, gorgeous, mostly empty landscapes and yet it’s enjoyable. The story is certainly odd and to me never stopped feeling detached from itself, but it’s surprisingly human and there’s so much depth to the world that kept pulling me me in. I’m looking forward to the sequel, but not looking forward to it likely not hitting pc until a year or two after release. Ugh.
I loved that game. Still have to do the coop some day.
Yeah they are good at making games, but as the meme goes, they are bad at counting to 3.
EDIT: You can even make your own test chambers, I have some in my Steam workshop. With varying quality. 
The funny thing is gabe actually helped in making a song making fun of the fact they can’t count to three I posted it in the music thread
All valve games are mid.
Yeah, I think that´s the generally shared opinion 
Also, if you feel like a bit more Portal-related stuff (outside of mods), I found out yesterday that the Aperture Desk Job game, which was made as a demo for Steam Deck, is actually available for PC as well. It´s only a 30-min game and the HW requirements are a bit higher, but hey, it´s free and actually Valve-made 
Can you elaborate?
Oh neat, will definitely check that out thanks.
