What Videogame(s) Are You Playing?

[TheChicken]

I just recently bought Mortal Kombat XL since it was on sale for around 7$ (and I missed by a day it last time which I regretted)

Unfortunately, I’m kinda regretting the purchase already since it’s way more technical and faster than the Injustice games that I’ve quite enjoyed.

Even in the tutorial I had quite a few issues with the controls and playing the very first fight in Story Mode was tough! I died like 4 times and only barely won in the 5th try…

The game moves much faster than IJ. Inputting combos requires way more speed and almost overlapping animations with the second button press, before it even connects with the opponent.
There’s also tons of counter/block special moves that are hard to figure out or keep track of.

And man, the AI is stupidly tough and agressive. No idea how I’m supposed to get a few hits in or know when to counter when all the animations are so quick I can barely keep up in my head.

I know there’s some MK superfans in this forum. I think @MrOchoa? Any tips for a newbie/ casual fighting game person?
I’ve bumped down Story difficulty to Easy, but it’s still pretty rough and the speed I still have to get used to…

[Accidental_Kills98]

@Silvereyes

I’m tired. I’ll talk about the rest later. I just finished Act 4 tonight, easily my favourite thus far, although honestly wonder how this will all tie together in Act 5, it seems like there is a lot to resolve.

I told you that you would like Act IV, it is by far the meatiest part of the game in terms of the magic realism. Act 5 is sort of a return to conventionality as the game resolves a lot of plot lines and sort of hammers home the themes of the game in a bit more detail. It will be an experience that you shape in how you engage with the story line in that section.

Speaking of slow boat rides on strange tides, I am currently playing Dredge. Seems really nice, should tide me over well until Dave The Diver finally launches on PlayStation come mid-April.

[MrOchoa]

I haven’t played MKX in Years and to be honest it’s way too fast for my liking.

But i think the best way to get good at a fighting game is to find a main character you wanna play and focus on them, beat the arcade mode a couple of times to get an idea of the basic attacks and combos and then jump into online mode. You’ll probably get destroyed a lot but you can also learn a lot by losing and sooner or later you’ll win your first round and then your first match and so on.

[Nazareth]

You talk about MKX, MK11 but not so much about MK1. Although I admit I still haven’t picked it up yet. I fear it’s another black sheep in the MK series.

[MrOchoa]

It’s… Alright. I think i just don’t like the things surrounding the game like the ridiculous micro transactions, the drip feeding of content, the absolute snoozefest that is Invasions mode, the lack of the Krypt and so on. I’m just not it that much interested in the game anymore i think.

Looking back i think MK11 is probably the best new MK game.

[Accidental_Kills98]

Well I finished Dredge (At least until The Iron Rig is released) so I went and bought Balatro so I can play some poker with a twist!

[Urben]

I just finished Wasteland 3 (base game). Took me 65 hours and I think I did every quest, though of course the game can be replayed with different choices. I put the DLCs on my wishlist and think I will play the bad guy whenever I get the DLCs.

It is fun and I noticed no big bugs. The combat felt better than in Wasteland 2, but that one was too long ago to say what they did better there.

The following contains no real spoilers but you might still not want to read it if you want to play it fully blind.

Quests and companions

I never initially liked any of my squad members but all of them grew onto me.

For example early in the game a girl joins you. She lost her whole family so I let her stick around. She went down in combat way too quickly and using pistols required me to send her right in oftenly. However, with more careful skill building she became quite useful and I liked how she had her own story along the main quest.

I also let a gross drunk dude join me because I wanted to make him go leave my base. Long story short we had fun together and I gave him a chance to be part of a porn movie. Too bad for him he forgot about it two minutes later.

There are also quite a few possible squad members that are clearly psychopaths and I made them either rot in the jail or the dirt. But next round I will pick them instead.

There are also a few non-player squad members you cannot control. I lost a few of them because they refused to stay back one time too often. But to those I never really attached anyway.

I think the quests were good and the ending was not bad either. There are two main possible outcomes and both have their bitter flavor, Which I think is something different to other roleplay games where everyone is either happy or enslaved/dead.

[Screaming_Meat]

the music is so good.

[ZeroGravitas]

Played and enjoyed Homebody, a weird little indie game from last year. It’s one of those games where part of the pleasure is discovering what it is and how it works, so I won’t say too much other than it’s kind of a psychological horror game with an emphasis on old-school CD-ROM point-and-click style puzzles–with 90s graphics to match.

Emily meets an old group of friends that she hasn’t seen in a while at a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Weird, creepy things start happening. The thing is, Emily suffers from social anxiety and OCD and depression, subjects that the game handles quite well–in ways both literal and metaphorical. (As someone familiar with some of those issues, it struck particularly close to home when I would pick a dialogue option for Emily only to have her say something completely different–and always much more innocuous. My brain does that shit all the time.)

Not everything lands perfectly, but it comes from a heartfelt place with a perspective you don’t see a lot in video games.

---

And I started Pentiment. I’m only a (game) day in, but I’m already loving it. Normally when I play these types of narrative games (or any game really), I tend toward the “good”/helpful options, but I find that playing a 16th century artist in a Bavarian Abbey has caused my inner atheist to start annoying the clergy, especially the pious ones in charge. You’re goddamn right I want to debate the finer points of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses at the dinner table.

(I’m totally going to get burned at the stake. )

[TheChicken]

I’ve been (mostly) enjoying getting back into playing Dead By Daylight since they added Alan Wake, and recently finished up the Revision Season Pass (Battle Pass) the other night.

Yeah, that’s not really something to write home about but I just have something to say about it.
The other day, I did a bad thing . Neglected my sleep, stayed awake till 2am grinding out challenges just to finish off the last 5 or so levels in the pass. It was mostly fine since I had a day off after that, so I didnt need to wake up early, but still, not a good habit to make.

This is why I quit Fortnite, and continue to loathe its FOMO-heavy pass system. Makes me sad there’s unique cosmetics I’ll fully miss out on until the heat-death of the universe, but also puts you in a choke-hold to play when you don’t want to and has a horribly slow levelling system that always got worse with each season.
I only play it for the Music mode now. Good job, Harmonix.

Anyway, yeah, I’m not proud of finishing the pass so late at night, getting unlucky, and continuing to play until I finished up the last 1 or 2 challenges I needed to get enough points for the last tiers.
I kinda did this to myself, since I took many weeks off of playing DBD in february and then ravenously remembered and chose to try and grind out the weeks I missed in like a 1.5 week period…
(And apparently, DBD puts its Pass cosmetics in the Shop like 6 months after they come out. So it’s not like I’d miss out forever… but I’d still get a fantastic deal for value here, IMO.)

But yeah. Good reminder that I won’t do this again, especially if I’m just not enjoying myself when it comes to pushing myself to play it.

On the bright side though, since I got to the end it means I made my money back in Premium Currency and was able to re-invest that into a Classic Alan Wake skin that looks pretty great

Also one of my favourite killers The Hillbilly has a Batman-themed costume at the very end of the pass that I think is pretty neat.

Anyway! Don’t do FOMO kids!
I’ve at least reconciled this with HITMAN’s ETs (though largely because they’ve become repetitive and I don’t find much enjoyment from them anymore)

[Rimland]

@ZeroGravitas

And I started Pentiment. I’m only a (game) day in, but I’m already loving it. Normally when I play these types of narrative games (or any game really), I tend toward the “good”/helpful options, but I find that playing a 16th century artist in a Bavarian Abbey has caused my inner atheist to start annoying the clergy, especially the pious ones in charge. You’re goddamn right I want to debate the finer points of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses at the dinner table.

(I’m totally going to get burned at the stake. )

I bought it during the spring sale a few weeks back, but have only played for a few minutes (got my attention diverted by another game). I´ll try jumping into it asap before it joins my long list of “installed but haven´t touched since” games

Coincidentally, Noclip released a documentary on it a few days ago! (gonna watch after I actually play through it)

The Making of Pentiment - Noclip Documentary

[TheChicken]

Alright, cool, jumping back into AC2 after like over a month of being locked out of it.
(Probably gonna have to re-read a synopsis to get to grips with the story, since I left off at a climactic mission where you’ll finally kill your father’s killer and Templar leader…)

And man, it’s a cool mission and story events, but also pretty bad and terribly paced?

You gotta go kill Rodrigo Borgia by disguising as a guard and delivering him his package with the supernatural Piece of Eden.
So, you do that, but in a cutscene Ezio then kills all the guards around him when he approaches and reveals himself, making you start a forced combat sequence.

All thr friends you’ve made over the course of the game end up appearing to help fight the groups of guards which I found pretty cool and a culmination of all Ezio’s journey so far.
But, after lowering Borgia’s health 3 times, he knocks down Ezio and runs away in a cutscene.
Great! I think!. Time for a chase mission to kill him!
Nope! Ezio’s friends say “ehh he’s gone, don’t bother. Good news: you’re The Prophet!”
(I don’t know who the Prophet is, not sure if I’m supposed to? But I’m guessing its some important figure that can wield the Eden pieces.)
Anyway, just… UGH. Terrible anti-climax and we just let the main bad guy get away?? Why??

Well, good news, because up next you’re told by the Modern Day people that you’ve got to skip some 9 or 10 years into the future when the Main Bad Guy becomes Pope of Italy, and you’re going to the Vatican!
But actually nope again!
Turns out Ubisoft cut out two mission sequences before this to finish and sell as DLC after releasing the game, so you have to disregard all that and return to doing other busywork before you can see the Big Bad again. Ugh.

I’ve read that players really aren’t fond of these DLC sections at all so that’s very reassuring

[Accidental_Kills98]

I mean if it makes you feel any better you and everybody you cared about suffer severe consequences because of it in the next game.

[Accidental_Kills98]

@Rimland

I bought it during the spring sale a few weeks back, but have only played for a few minutes (got my attention diverted by another game). I´ll try jumping into it asap before it joins my long list of “installed but haven´t touched since” games

Pentiment is fun and it is very short, it doesn’t take more than a half a day or so playing to finish it once.

[TheChicken]

Lol. Damn. Them’s the consequences of your actions, gang. Ah well.

Actually, playing through the Forli Missions right now, it’s not all that bad. It’s very combat focused with you Notorious at all times and forced into combat a lot because of the amount of guards in town, but the missions are fairly short and trigger one-after-the-other.

Not that I have much incentive to do anything aside the main missions now, since I’ve cleared out nearly all the other side-content.

[Accidental_Kills98]

@TheChicken

Them’s the consequences of your actions, gang. Ah well.

I mean you can’t break into The Vatican, beat up the Pope, attempt to steal the papal fibrula and then try to kill the pope without suffering some consequences

[Rimland]

@TheChicken

I’ve read that players really aren’t fond of these DLC sections at all so that’s very reassuring

Honestly I don’t think they’re bad at all. People are probably just not fond of them because of how they suddenly affect the pacing after the whole “You’re going to the Vatican, Desmond!” thing (which frankly - despite how dramatically efficient it is - shouldn’t be there, because Shaun has absolutely no way of knowing it, because you have to solve a certain puzzle to find out that is where you indeed have to go).

As for the DLCs themselves, the Siege of Forli is neat because more Machiavelli and Catarina Sforza (plus it has a scene pertaining to the aforementioned puzzle), and the Bonfire of the Vanities unlocks the last part of Florence and shows the city under very different circumstances (also, more Machiavelli and cool cutscene/speech for Ezio).

[TheChicken]

Oh. Right. Well.

I’ll get to that when I get to that.

@Rimland

Bonfire of the Vanities unlocks the last part of Florence and shows the city under very different circumstances

Ah neat! I assume that’s the bridge down south?
I was wondering when that area would unlock!!

@Rimland

also, more Machiavelli and cool cutscene/speech for Ezio

And cool. I enjoy hearing Roger Craig Smith in his silly little italian accent

[Accidental_Kills98]

You should, Brotherhood is even better than 2 and you also get to breaking into The Vatican in that game as well! No beating up the Pope though…

[Rimland]

@Accidental_Kills98

Pentiment is fun and it is very short, it doesn’t take more than a half a day or so playing to finish it once

That is good to know. I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on a reading game and it also makes it much more friendly towards repeated alternative playthroughs.