Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!
Please don’t forget to use the spoiler tag as soon as you start talking about a storyline.
The last couple times I've tried it I struggled picking up momentum and progressing in the game, as the initial tutorial seems to be missing a few key steps so I end up spinning my wheels not knowing what to do next.
This time I had Christmas break time to fuck around and find out. Pushed through the initial hurdles and actually made decent progress, including soloing the first boss. It's a solid game so far, but it could communicate its expectations a bit more clearly.
I picked up Monster Hunter World again last night after playing some Dark Souls Remastered and itching for more of that style combat. I forgot how much better it was than Rise, and I never got around to playing Iceborne. Having a lot of fun with the new stuff, and I think it'll be my default game this week.
I don't know what it was about Rise but something about it just didn't suit me. Out of the 3 MH games I've played (GU, World and Rise) Rise was by far the fastest I've dropped a MH game. World and Iceborne were excellent, my only two criticisms of Iceborne is having to use the clutch claw and doing Lance dirty. You need to commit a lot of skills to make Lance viable and then even with optimal play you're doing only average dps. Oh and and let's give late game monsters unblockable attacks so we could also remove the one thing that lance has over every other weapon, defense. So just a heads up if you're one of the rare lance players. Charge blade however, chefs kiss, by far my favorite archetype in Iceborne.
One, it's because it was designed for the Switch and based off the handheld version of the game, so they were working under stricter hardware limitations and could afford to sacrifice fidelity. This felt like a step backwards after we were spoiled by how detailed and vibrant World felt. The environments just felt more artificial and "gamey" where World felt like an actual place with real creatures interacting with each other in believable ways.
Two, it's because I don't much like the wire-bugs. They feel out of place in Monster Hunter because they're just a bit too OP and magical. I'm not a fan of the more fantastical elements MH has been introducing. I like the series being more grounded, and I felt World hit the balance nicely with the weapons and tools being fun and "anime" without being so over the top they break verisimilitude.
Both are minor complaints. Rise is still a great game and I did play it for a good while on the Switch, it's just not scratching the MH itch like World does.
It's based around a city builder where you build a settlement from nothing until it is reasonably successful, takes an hour maybe, then your queen commands you to leave it to go settle another.
Each settlement has slightly different creatures populating it (humans, fairies, etc), different set of production buildings available, and different natural hazards and resources. So it is a scramble to set up production, roads and trade routes to fit the circumstances.
You also select difficulty modifier per settlement, which adds more mechanics and complexity as you feel like.
Between each settlement you upgrade your citadel, unlock new buildings and modifiers etc for your settlements.
There's a lot more to it, but I hope that covers the important bits. :)
Just picked it up, never played other cRPGs or D&D but I'm really enjoying it! Not doing a lot of quests yet but just exploring. Combat is quite difficult to understand sometimes because it has so many rules I'm not used too, but I'd like to think I'm learning slowly.
The rest and spell slot mechanic is also quite interesting, as it forces me to not pick too many fights before taking a long rest. This is totally new to me 😅
For anyone interesting I'm playing as a human conjuration wizard and my party is Astarion (arcane trickster), Shadowheart and Lae'zel (battle master).
I've been on via vcmi lately. Something about homm3 just draws me in. Have you played any of the others? I haven't and have been wondering if they are similar or different but I have this weird fear that they will somehow ruin the special feeling I get from 3 and haven't looked into it.
Homm3 was something I played the demo of as a kid then in later life I rediscovered it and binge it once and a while. I bought heroes 4 and 5, maybe even 6 and they just don't feel the same. There's tons of threads on which is best and I have yet to see homm3 come in anything but 1st lol.
I'm just running the gog version at the moment, decided I'd go through the regular campaign so I can play the official addon campaigns I had no idea about until a year ago. I have all of those as well.
Used vcmi to play it on my phone once. Does it do anything better than the gog config on PC?
Help! I have a choice to make between Hades, Psychonauts 2, and Doom Eternal. What do you guys think? I'm more of a casual gamer but enjoy a bit of challenge (I liked doom 2016 a lot, but I was told eternal is harder).
Hades would be my choice if you're looking to be challenged. Give it a few tries on normal difficulty, and if you're getting your ass kicked it has a great casual friendly accessibility option to turn on a slowly scaling damage reduction that will eventually tune the game to your skill level. You can turn it off at any time, and there are no penalties for using it.
Psychonauts 2 is also a solid choice. Overall it was an excellent sequel and definitely worth playing, but if you're looking for a challenge look elsewhere. It's a casual platformer through and through. It's still a great game in it's own right, though IMO it doesn't take as many risks as the original Psychonauts and didn't quite hit the same emotional highs.
Hades is an amazing game that you can play forever. It is as challenging as you want to make it but to complete the entire story you'll have to play a lot.
Psychonauts 2 is a great platformer. Very good for casual play. The story is great and it's very funny.
I like doom eternal better than doom 2016 only because it has more of a rock, paper, scissors feel to the combat than 2016. Meaning you will perform a lot better switching your weapons to fit the enemy. As opposed to 2016 where you can just use whatever you feel like.
I remember being lost as to which act was which as I got closer to being 40 hours in, and still wasn't sure what act I was in. Turns out, that's still act one and they are very clear when the next act starts :)
Picked up Control again. Had a couple people get me interested in Alan Wake 2, and I'd already played through half of Control earlier in the year before I lost interest. I'm more into it now. Not planning on playing the first Alan Wake, but I'm playing the crossover DLC in this right now.
I didn't really care for the first Alan Wake. And I kind of liked Control but wasn't crazy about it.
But man Alan Wake 2 is fantastic.
Also, if you like the concepts in Control, particularly about the objects, you should check out the miniseries The Lost Room which I suspect inspired it a lot.
I finished Control and immediately fired up AW2 and so far I'm exactly with you on both, heh. I didn't know how good AW2 was going to look, right up there with Death Stranding and Cyberpunk 2077 as some of the best-looking stuff I've had on my PC.
The series is an interesting rec, I haven't seen Peter Krause in anything other than Six Feet Under.
Just got to Act III in Baldur’s Gate 3, and god damnit is it good. I played and loved the original 2 games when they came out, but I didn’t have the time to devote time to it when it came out on consoles in the summer. Glad I waited, and even more pleased that it lived up to the hype (and then some)!
I also started the Valhalla DLC for God of War Ragnarok, and it’s OUTSTANDING. it’s a great palette cleanser in between BG3 or if I just want a short play session since the runs are only 20 minutes or so. The Roguelite formula is perfect for GoW, and I’m really hoping more AAA games try something similar to extend their lifespan. I highly recommend checking it out.
I'm playing Barotrauma and Lethal Company lately. Both very fun coop games. We need more coop games, I don't know why devs don't make them as much anymore
Still playing Zelda: TOTK. Loving it but the game is so massive and I don't get much spare time to play, so I may have to pass the save file on to my future children to complete.
I feel like the combat wasn't necessary since the puzzles and exploration felt like the main focus of the game, but at the same time, I don't know how they could have made the environment feel dangerous without the threat of death. There was a puzzle later in the game that did require you to injure yourself, but I don't think that would have worked as a replacement for combat in the rest of the game, and being present throughout the game would lessen the impact of it in the short moment where it is actually necessary. Also, the guns were very neat looking, so that is an additional upside to having combat.
Even though this sounds like a lot of complaining, I don't think I could come up with any other criticisms, as pretty much everything else about the game felt perfect. I don't think it is the sort of thing I will play again, but it will be something I will think back on more than most other games.
I just started this as well... i was so lost forthe first few hours, not the controls, just what am I meant to be doing? I have 2 mission logs, I don't know what any of the guns or powers do and I'm meant to start collecting them?
You sort of just learn. Learn what the guns do, try and start collecting the ones that work for how you want to take out enemies, kill the big named characters for their powers and eventually build a load out and a stable of knowledge of how to kill the bosses such that you can eventually do a full run through and kill them all in the same world state.
I love Deathloop for what it is. A rogue like only to service the story but the best part imo is the pvp. As you said the enemies aren't varied and are meant to be just an inconvenience unless you get swarmed. Having someone invade your game to ruin your run was a great idea only marred by the fact that the networking is not good and constantly rubber banded depending on the distance between the both of you.
I played it a bit on Gamepass. It feels like it has the bones to be a great time loop game but doesn't seem to put it all together.
Im glad i went in blind and turned off the map markers but at some point I realized I wasn't having fun exploring and figuring out the events in the loop. Like you said the enemy variety sucks and I don't like being randomly invaded when I'm trying to map things out.
It's a victim of EA's marketing team - it's a much better game than its reputation would suggest, yet it never delivered due to all the hype that was created before the release.
And it taught me to ignore the marketing stuff and just wait for the release to check on the game and not my overhyped expectations.
ooh yea the pilot, it took me aback for a sec when she frist spoke.
I don't usually look for games, rather i take a note when I see someone playing and then browse for it later when bored. I just last year took mass effect as a franchise even though it was on my radar for a long time.
Finished a durge run on BG3 honor mode last week so I'm quite burned out playing single player games ATM. So just bouncing around the Finals and Overwatch 2. Actually my old COVID gaming group got together to play Warzone since they reverted the movement back to the old MW19 I just might buy MW3 just to save my sanity of leveling the guns. I think that's the main purpose of the MP versions of COD, just a guns leveling pass for the yearly weapons drop.
Won a giveaway for Returnal so I'll be playing that this week.
Other than that I've been giving Fallout 4 mods a go since the Fallout London release date was revealed. So far I've played Bleachers which I couldn't stand, an Enclave one that's surprisingly good and Sim Settlements which is jaw dropping tbh.
LOOOOOVE Returnal. First game I played in my computer that had full, perfect Dualsense support. I wish more games did. It is improved in many other dimensions by the controller alone. ….i don’t even have a PS5 hahaha
The game uses the controller in reality cool ways, I was tempted to just use M/K but you don't really need to aim much either so controller works really well.
I've spent close to 20 hours in Jedi: Survivor. It runs surprisingly well on medium with my 1060 6GB, getting 30-40 fps except when in the desert. The game itself is really fun, an improvement on basically every aspect of the first one.
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I've played it at least 100 hours and still have no idea how anyone survives a scenario besides the default shelter one, took me a long time to even figure that one out.
Just finished playing Hogwarts Legacy. The last main quest was a bit of a stretch imo. I mean "The House Cup" where you have to reach level 34 before you are able to enter it. I was getting a bit frustrated I had to grind for that...
Now I can take something else from my queue. Maybe Firewatch, or Thief.
Because that youve mentioned divinity original sin 2, I think you should also check out pathfinder wrath of the righteous. The game is currently on sale and I think that the characters in this game are amazing. I had a crpg itch around a month ago and now I'm glued to this game.
got a handful of games in the steam sale, and I'm currently about halfway through bugsnax - it's really enjoyable so far. planning to start either hypnospace outlaw or the new ultrakill update after.
The wife got me bg3 for Christmas, I'm very much enjoying it on my deck. Working through path of exile acts again, currently middle of act 7, decided to take a break for some don't starve together which the d&d group plays when someone doesn't show up, with happened a lot this holiday season.
Finished up the God of War Valhalla DLC (which was awesome), and now I'm playing through Little Nightmares 2. Almost done with it. Short but really good!
I bought Greedfall on a sale just before BG3 launch. Went through BG3 and Phantom Liberty, now I finally have some time to catch up and I'm having fun. Love the setting, the plot is interesting, the NPCs are okay. Sure, it's not on the same level as those two but it is to be expected given the studio size.
Overall it's a solid game, worth checking out, especially if you get it on a sale.
Slowly making progress in Dave the Diver, which is quite entertaining.
Worth the purchase? I've been on the fence, trying to decide.
Also collaboratively playing The Sims 4 with my wife, and I’d forgotten how fun that could be.
Always love the previous version of The Sims, but The Sims 4 seems to go backwards design wise as far as how every house is its own loading screen room, etc. Also the cost of trying to buy everything so you have a complete game is just so outrageous.
I play for a few hours most nights but I will say that the devs come across as so inept it is equally fun & frustrating. When the teamwork just naturally works there is nothing that can beat it but the amount of bugs and performance issues majorly let it done.
The gifted game 20 minutes till dawn that epic gave is quite fun, but less crazy than the original vampire survivors, I like the characters at least and that they put an auto-aim option.
Up to 50 hours in it. Feels like a chore sometimes, when the runs don't end with a bang, but with a slow steady growth or last spurt of opening a cache, they could improve the audio or visuals there.
The progression is unnecessarily slow, would have been ok with a 40 hour experience instead of a 100 hour one.