I don’t like mobile games either. I have a chess app where I play real people online. I guess that counts, but I tried a bunch of others and can’t get into it. Even Mario Kart for the phone wasn’t much fun and EVERYONE loves Mario kart.
3 Likes
Couldn’t imagine playing Among Us on a phone, I just play the PC version and I can sometimes I have a lot of fun with it. Mind you, I think the more I play it, the more I suck at figuring who the imposters actually are.
Anyway, been playing Metroid Dread. Enjoying it, think I’m like a third of the way in I’m guessing. It’s very good but can also be very annoying, as so much of it has you avoiding the E.M.M.I. enemies, who are completely impervious and all you can do is evade them.
5 Likes
I feel like I’m far enough into Jedi Fallen Order to give a first impressions opinion. Finished the first two quests on the first three planets, just did my first bit of backtracking with new skills, it’s good.
The story so far seems like a fun Star Wars-type story set after Order 66. You play as Cal, a Jedi in hiding, forced on the run after some Inquisitors catch up to him.
The gameplay is a nice blend of various things. There’s some claustrophobic close-combat, Dark Souls style. Uncharted-type climbing sections and setpieces, and Metroid-vania progression, with routes, shortcuts, and collectibles inaccessible until you return with new abilities.
I just got an upgrade to the lightsaber – the double bladed version! Apparently there’s multiple areas to find this, but I found it on Bogano after a few new abilities. You can find it in the workshop of this Jedi you’ve been following, and Cal does a nice monologue about finding this extra emitter of the Jedi he found earlier, and how he’ll attach it to his own to “carry him with us” where-ever he goes. That doesn’t happen in other areas, he just randomly gets it.
That was a nice unique touch!
Progression is unique in that you can stock up on skill points, but when you die to an enemy, you lose the XP you’ve been saving since the last point you earned. Adds a risk-reward of starting the xp grind for your next point from scratch, or regaining that boost by landing one single hit on the enemy that killed you. If it’s a normal enemy, good. Hit it and run. If it’s a mini-boss that traps you, ohhh good luck.
I’m playing on Hard/Jedi Master. This does lessen the experience a bit, with how quick you die especially when faced with enemies that stun-lock you or have heavy attacks, but overcoming them is thrilling. It’s frustrating, but I have found now that the more you unlock in the skill tree, the more fun combat gets.
I do have some complaints with the structure however, as it feels like it’s overly difficult and part of it relates to the performance.
- Parrying is strange. It’s probably a mix of animation and frame-rate, but it’s not accurate a lot. You need a good lead-up to parry someone, not do it just as they hit you, like in other titles. It takes a bit to wrap your head around.
- Resting at a meditation point respawns all enemies in the area. But this is the only way to completely heal or regain your healing stims, which you only have 2 for a long while. When up against tough enemies, it can be brutal, forced to fight them, lose health, use stims, then have to go back and respawn them just to heal again because you also used up all the stims in the fight.
- Getting to your death point after respawning – when you respawn on a death, you lose your XP, so to get it back you need to get back to the enemy that killed you – but the enemies respawn when you die too! So you have to hopefully rush through (or fight through) the waves of enemies you’ve already killed just to get it back.
- Manual Saving. It’s easy to forget that this game barely has any auto-saves. Usually only after cutscenes after landing on a planet. If you quit a game before using a meditation point (manually saving), You can boot it up later, only to find yourself without some upgrades or in an area further back
- The respawn timer is SLOWWW. This game either isn’t optimized, or isn’t built for the old-gen consoles. Respawning can sometimes take a minute and a half, and it’s not clear what causes it.
- Enemies can pop-in after a respawn. Sometimes you think an area’s clear when you respawn, but boom, enemies appear all around you a couple seconds in – they don’t load properly.
- When moving between some areas of the map, the game can literally freeze to load the section – I haven’t seen a game do that in a long time. Yikes.
- Framerate issues in some spots. The game visibly runs slower with many enemies or foliage on screen.
7 Likes
Finished Star Wars Jedi - Fallen Order today on Jedi Grand Master, the highest difficulty level. It also marked my 4th or 5th time completing the game since it’s release in 2019. It’s such a well crafted game, all from the combat, to the planets and it’s metroidvania level design.
The higher difficulty wasn’t as crushing as I imagined, not that it wasn’t hard. Playing the game at least 3 times before that, gave me an edge and good understanding of the mechanics. Not all bosses gave me the challenged I hoped for and was rather easy after a few trials and errors. It was the last two bosses that by far where the hardest and took me a rather long time to beat. Taron Malicos the fallen Jedi on Dathomir was not an easy feat, yet the final encounter with the Second Sister was by far the hardest. It took me great amount of tries to finally beat her, only for Vader to show up. Of course this being the 4th or 5th time, I knew he would. However after a hellish battle with one of his lackeys, his entrance gave me the same amount of goose bumps that the Rogue One ending. I knew that there was nothing to be done, then run.
It was a satisfying conclusion to one of my favourite games. It felt more powerful, then the first time I experienced it. I plan to return to the game again for many years to come.
9 Likes
Was Playing Europa Universalis IV.
I decided to play as Burgundy at that time. At First, I won a war against a small country, annexed a province and vassalized the other. So, I decided to set my eyes on another small nation (which unbeknownst to me, a French Vassal), where I built a spy network and then, decided to invade it. Then, I got fucked over by France and lost the war as a result.
This just the beginning of the end.
England decided to wage war at me and I lost again, losing all coastline and abandoning my fleet as a result.
So, I decided to sell one of my provinces and then rebuild my army from scratch and wage war against another country. It gets worse than this.
France invaded me and a coalition is formed, were inumerable countries joined against me.
The Northern territory is lost to France entirely and Burgundy was humiliated. Bankruptcy was declared in the country.
Fuck.
8 Likes
I’ve bought Carrion for the Playstation, its a reverse-horror game where you play a blob-like tentacle monster and try to escape the facility you have been created in. Very interesting game with a great pixelart style.
7 Likes
that looks right up my alley. no cashish though 
5 Likes
Off this week from work. Want to try and sink my teeth into something now that I’ve finished Metroid Dread. (Awesome game btw, must buy for any Switch owners.) Think I’ll either try Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy XV. I keep meaning to get into FF but keep failing. The only Final Fantasy I’ve properly played and beaten is X, which I did love. I just really struggle to adapt to the Active Time Battle system IV-IX all use.
5 Likes
I have now completed the main story of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable game! Cal Kestis is a fun protagonist and I loved his and BD1’s relationship. Nice performance by Cameron Monaghan too.
I think my main issues with the game itself were because of my inexperience with Dark Souls type games. The frustration of losing and having to redo progress against insurmountable odds is the exact point of the difficulty. Overcoming it without turning the difficulty down is the best drug, and while it didn’t make the frustration any more palatable, the goal of winning is so fun to chase.
The story of the game is a nice quest for a macguffin, but it’s the relationships and backstory of the characters that make it enjoyable and entertaining. A Jedi padawan on the run after Order 66, a Jedi Master who cut herself off from the Force, a little robot who lost its master and fulfill a quest.
I wish the combat were less focused on animals. At least for the first half of the game. There’s a lot of animal enemies with some strange, heavy attack patterns, and honestly it was way more fun to cut through stormtroopers instead.
The ending of the game offers a big holy shit wow moment, which I’ve been spoiled on, but it didn’t keep me from giggling like a schoolgirl as it all happened. It’s so cool.
After infiltrating the Empire’s secret interrogation base and defeating the final boss, the real big boss comes along to finish the job – Darth freaking Vader. What plays out next is a great escape sequence showing off how powerful and outmatched you are (even if it’s scripted) with Vader slowly chasing Cal, ripping the floor out from under Cal, choking Cal, it’s insane and I loved it.
If I were to offer some wishlist items for the sequel (I really hope there is!) it would be – a more responsive parry, less animation-blocking things (healing vs dodging), a greater variety of force powers and better optimization. Also more things to do other than find chests and echoes. There was only one optional pet/stowaway to find and that was weird.
With 3 days left on the EA Play subscription, I finished this just in time… Really worth the $1.50 I spent. If ever I get it for real in the future I’d love to try out a new game plus with all those fancy lightsaber colours, and maybe a lower difficulty so I’m not dying as quick.
6 Likes
It has been almost a fortnight or maybe more but I have completed Red Dead Redemption 2 to one hundred percent.
8 Likes
Doom eternal Nightmare difficulty in a nutshell.
Speaking of Doom eternal, thanks to @Khakiasp I was able to beat the Taras Nabad master level in ultraviolence without reloading a checkpoint (still lost a few extra lives) first try after taking a break for a few weeks. I’m not sure if this is because I am more experienced with Super gore nest, but Taras Nabad master level in ultraviolence is as difficult as SGN master level in nightmare. I don’t think I will ever beat it in ultranightmare soon (or ever, it takes a long time to actually do it and I’m not sure if I can spend that much time on it).
Also I really hate having joystick drift on my PS4 Controller. Made me miss a lot of the time and makes marauders, blood maykrs, armored barons and the Samur fight a lot more harder. If also made me accidentally use BFG a lot of the time whenever I open the weapon wheel. The next update 2 days from now will come with quickswapping for console so hopefully I can unbind BFG on the weapon wheel.
4 Likes
Great game, I recently finished it for the 4th/5th time. I did it on Jedi Grand Master Difficulty. I enjoyed the challenge it brought.
4 Likes
I just finished my first playthrough of Disco Elysium. 
Holy crap, what an absolute masterpiece. I think it might be up there with my favorite things ever, in any medium.
8 Likes
Welcome to the fold, fellow Phasmid believer! 
4 Likes
Doom Eternal
The Mars Core master level is pretty good. I have only played in UV so I can’t speak from NM playthroughs but I’d say UV is as difficult as a TAG 1 level on NM. I also like them referencing The E3/Quakecon teasers by having an arch-vile and cyberdemon tyrant on the same places they were revealed at. The final fight dragged on for too long though, and there were so many tyrants there.
Also the ending of the world spear master level is coin room 2.0, @Khakiasp I might need your help.
3 Likes
Id love to help you again, but i havent been able to play doom due to being on vacation. When i get back ill try to squeeze world spear in my shedule. But never forget the general tips of weapon switching between strong weapons for high dps, make sure to make room between you and strong enemies, prioritise demons that throw off your balance and for tag 2 always make sure its hammertime.
1 Like
I’m a few hours into FFVII. Enjoying, liking it, it has a fantastic soundtrack, that pops up right away. I do like the pre-rendered backgrounds, something that is pretty gorgeous to look at, here and in the original Resident Evil games. I’m getting the hang of the ATB system, would still prefer it wasn’t there honestly. But otherwise I’m enjoying the game, need to really start to invest more into giving my party members magic I imagine.
Plot is interesting. Aside from a couple of famous spoilers, I don’t really know the plot of FFVII, so it is interesting how things unfold. Everyone keeps bringing up Sephiroph but he’s yet to actually appear yet. Just left Midgar, on the world map, interested to see what the rest of the world is like.
8 Likes
Playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow! Thanks to @Rimland for letting me know where to get it. Kinda funny that this one was much easier to get to work properly than the first game despite not being officially available. There is one problem though, the cutscenes after the missions always cause the game to crash on the first viewing but never on the second. This is the third game from the series for me, but the first one that I won’t go blindly into, sadly. I know what will happen in each mission and roughly how most of them play, the layouts of the last two I’ve pretty much forgotten though. I’ll rank the missions as usual when I’ve experienced them myself.
The game looks and plays pretty much like the first one but with some nice tweaks. The laser sight makes shooting more pleasant and now you know exactly where to hide the bodies (though requiring to always hide them is still pointless). The music is great, the voice acting…not as much. Yeah, it’s ridiculed often and for a reason. The main characters’ VA:s do good job, though I prefer Don Jordan’s Lambert.
The first mission has a small tutorial and is otherwise very basic. The spotlight trick is a fun one and manages to do the exact opposite of what the game is about in a good way. That’s the peak of the level, mostly it’s just avoiding lights and mercenaries.
French brains! I really enjoyed the second mission, there’s something in the setting I like. There are also several nice tricks and surprises that can catch one off guard. Luckily they’re not too difficult to tackle, this being just the second mission after all. Some rooms are rather boring but overall there’s good amount of variety. One strange thing though, the guards in the steam room somehow sensed my presence even though I was hanging from a ledge completely out of their sight.
The train mission is a classic one. Definitely the most movieish thing I’ve seen in these games so far. It tries something new, but I’m not sure if it works gameplaywise. It’s also a very short mission and there are hardly any interesting gimmicks, we also lose the SC-20K but it’s not really needed here. Most of the time I was just indoors, kinda missed the part where you can traverse along the side of the train hanging from a ledge, it was easy enough to turn off the lights and KO the sole guard in the carriage. I don’t know why we didn’t just kill Soth here after he was exposed, we know his destination and it’s not like he’s the one with the dead man’s switch.
Next time, the streets of Jerusalem. Let me just finish my orange juice.
What a great track btw.
6 Likes
I finished Horizon Zero Dawn and started Control. It’s actually quite fun. the puzzles are challenging and the combat is super fun. The only thing I find a little weird are Jesse’s pregnant pauses while she thinks about things while talking to people. They seem to go on just a teeny bit too long. To the point where i kinda feel like the other person needs to wave their hand at her and ask if she’s still paying attention. And also not as creepy as I was worried it would be. I don’t care for horror games so that’s great for me. 
6 Likes
I love Life is Strange. Although, the ending leaves a bit to be desired, in my opinion.
2 Likes