I’m taking a long, long break from GTA Online and trying out games I’ve ignored for years and now felt an impulse to try now that they were heavily discounted.
Dragon Age: Inquisition was so pleasant to try out from the get-go. The lore, while overwhelming initially, feels very interesting once it peels away slowly. The characters are well done so far, and so is the combat system. Although I have some gripes with the tactical camera at times.
The other is Assassin’s Creed: Unity, which I went in with super low standards and yet have low expectations further on.
have you played origins and 2? inquisition spoils both almost completely, highly recommend saving it for after the first 2 games in the series if you’re enjoying the world and characters enough to keep playing
I wish I could, but I don’t have a PS3 to get them on, nor a proper PC to play them. I guess my current PC could run it as they’re quite old games, but the determining factor is the lack of a good graphics card.
Finished Ape Out on my Switch recently. Snagged it for ~3$ in a sale. That’s a steal IMO. I’d have gladly paid 10-15$ for this.
The concept is very simple, but the game is quite difficult.
You are an angry gorilla held in captivity. You need to get out.
There’s a heavy Jazz soundtrack, entirely improvised by what you encounter, do, get hit with, etc. It also changes instruments through each “album”/world of the game.
A cool 1950’s movie poster art style.
Simple controls, simple gameplay. You get hit 3 times, dead. Enemies shoot you quickly. You can throw one into a wall, or grab and use as a shield.
Increasingly varied enemy types that are either tougher to defeat, offer more ways to kill you, or require a different method of handling them.
The game prides itself on its musical style, with each biome being represented by an album and each 4 levels being one side of a vinyl record.
The procedural generation works great, in that every level is usually the same, entry/exit/room wise, but the placement of doors, windows, and walls to them get mixed up.
Dying can be cool, to see how far you were from the exit & what crazy path you took.
Each “album” has a Harder mode, which over-stuffs the levels with enemies, making things really hectic
Every level title comes with Dynamic Typography, usually in a fun animation complementary of what to expect or what the level’s theme is about.
Get this game. It’s great. It’ll last you a good few hours.
Still haven’t finished the extra-long Epilogue. Still haven’t finished any of the Harder albums.
I’m a good chunk of the way into Stray and it’s fantastic. Is it going to win any awards for innovative gameplay, amazing platforming or complex puzzles? No. But it’s a beautiful game that let’s you explore a weird robot underground. As a cat. While you do cat things. Like sleep and scratch the furniture. And get your head stuck in a paper bag.
The world is richly detailed, the mystery is compelling (and getting weirder) and this is the first game where taking a break from the urgent main quest to wander around and knock over some bottles seems like a legit character decision.
Started playing Crash Bandicoot 4 which I got with Playstation Plus this month. I am so bad at this game, despite the fact I enjoy a number of platformers. But then I also keep trying to get all the boxes and extra areas when I should probably focus on just finishing the level to begin with. I remember actually being quite good at Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex, aka the original Crash 4 but I guess we pretend it didn’t happen, but then I was just a kid and probably more patient with that game.
I replayed Sekiro recently to wash out the taste of Elden Cringe and now i’m playing it again, going for the mortal journey gauntlet. I’m starting to think this is the best game From have ever made.
Actually it isn’t, it is juvenile plus I thought you were responding to Khaki’s comment. Also I will have you know my opinion wasn’t bait, none of my opinions are bait even if they seem wildly contrarian.
Finished watching a playthrough of Prey (2017, Arkane). Whoaaa what a game…
It nails some great sci-fi themes of mystery, fear, and fascination of deadly alien species. The world-building is absolutely massive in the amount of readable files, audio logs, the general design and creation of the space station itself. The amount of side-missions at hand is also very impressive, constantly calling you to various areas of the ship to find specific objects or help specific people. The level design itself is also amazing, with multiple routes and methods to explore and navigate the ship.
A lot of the game has very, very spooky vibes though so I’m glad I chose to watch someone else play through it for me.
The ending -before the credits- is weirdly abrupt. Like, you get a 20-second cutscene and that’s it. But the ending -after the credits- is where the game shows off it’s final trump card. The whole deck is laid on the table and it’s wild.
It is a bit disappointing in that the events of the game are a “what-if” simulation scenario playing out in your-own-alien-mind’s head, but the implications of it in reference to the twist of -you being a Typhon cross-species- is super duper interesting.
I watched Markiplier’s playthrough and even he couldn’t get through all the quests in the game. He was very thorough in reading as much as possible and exploring as much as he could manage, since he also had an intense fascination with the world (and space) itself.
He’s got a 2.5 hour playthrough of the Roguelike DLC which I might check out sometime later. Roguelikes are cool and I’d love to see how Arkane tackles it.
It kind of makes me want to revisit Dishonored, for like the 4th attempt, even though every prior attempt has left me leaving it, bored. Maybe I just have to focus on the side-content because clearly Arkane loves that stuff.
(Maybe it’s just that I’m bad at 1st Person stealth, or not using the right powers, or playing a total pacifist is slow and extremely tedious… I’ll try one more time with Dishonored, but only because I’ve gotten in an Arkane mood.)
I will definitely be looking up a bunch of details on Prey’s development though because it’s a fantastic experience they’ve crafted here.
I recently started playing Cyperpunk 2077. It’s not bad thus far, the story is engaging and the side stuff is very interesting. I like walking around Night City and exploring all the nooks and crannies. And surprisingly it runs better on my laptop than AC: Valhalla. The only annoying thing I find, aside from the driving , is the fact that for most interaction prompts to appear you have to be standing in an extremely specific spot. Which is annoying when you’re crouching behind an enemy trying to do a take down and you’re shuffling back and forth and side to side and looking for the exact right spot for the prompt to appear, and the person turns around and gets alerted and shoots you in the face.
Very annoying. I shouldn’t have to be damn near smelling an enemy’s ass to be able to grab them from behind. But I guess I’m just spoiled by Hitman, where you can scurry up behind someone spamming the grab button and nine times out of ten 47 does it when he’s close enough.
Ah well. I like it thus far. I also wish there were more romance options. Let me kiss Viktor and Takemura, dammit!
Finished Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Had fun, it has a good if obviously dark story. I don’t think it is perfect, but it does have a unqiue blend of being a visual novel but thrown together with a little bit of exploration, investigation elements, mini-games, and basic “whodunnit” plot, it can be quite captivating. It is very talky though, in fact I would basically call it a visual novel first with gameplay elements to spice things up, so I feel like how much you like that kindof thing can be a turn on or off. Not to mention being quite anime-ish, and there is one subject in the game that is touched on that I’m guessing would probably considered to be problematic. And I think the game’s last third is a bit all over the place.
But on positives, the English voice cast is excellent, and the OST is excellent. I think they ported the trilogy of games to the Switch recently and I can imagine this is the perfect game for doing on the go. I’m definetly going to pick up the 2 sequels at some point, probably next time they go on sale on Steam.
i was going to head into finishing sekiro post-er, but my wife got me the shadowrun trilogy as a late father’s day present.
playing returns at the moment. it’s very basic but i’m really digging the noir/detective story and atmosphere of dead man’s switch. i built an ork gumshoe type of thing based on one of the portraits, which happens to fit really well with the dialogue and style. thought i’d find the fantasy elements a bit cheesy, but i’m quite engrossed, i must say.
i’ve heard the sequels are way better, so looking forward to tucking into those.
Just finished Half-Life 2 and it’s two episodes. I had started playing through it a couple years ago on Xbox with the intention of finishing it and got pretty far into the main game, but never got around to completing it. I enjoyed my time with it overall, though I still prefer the original game. Now I need to get around to finishing the fanmade Oculus Quest port of the first game aswell as Black Mesa.
, is the fact that for most interaction prompts to appear you have to be standing in an extremely specific spot. Which is annoying when you’re crouching behind an enemy trying to do a take down and you’re shuffling back and forth and side to side and looking for the exact right spot for the prompt to appear, and the person turns around and gets alerted and shoots you in the face.