whatchu playing now

so many ships still to unlock and haven't even touched advanced mode...

I've been playing Kingdom Of Amalur, a game that apparently lost the taxpayers of Rhode Island $75m, recently. I kind of hate myself as it's another massive Skyrim-style time sink, but it's quite good fun.

what IS advanced mode

i havent even begun boarding as a tactic yet

sorry "advanced edition"

As a reminder, FTL: Advanced Edition is a free content expansion for FTL. All current (and future) customers will receive this update regardless of where they purchased it. Prior to release, we will post detailed instructions on how to get the update from whatever digital vendor you originally purchased FTL.

http://www.ftlgame.com/?page_id=106

New systems (clone bay??), new race, new ships, just lots more stuff, and it was released as a free sort of patch. It's a toggle option when you start a game, you can choose standard or advanced.

I've been playing Kingdom Of Amalur, a game that apparently lost the taxpayers of Rhode Island $75m
― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Thursday, April 24, 2014 3:45 PM

ah yes the curt schilling rpg

oh yeah i'm playing dragon's dogma. i've given up on it twice before so i'm determined to finish it this time. the controls are lacking but it has some of the best gfx i've seen in an rpg. makes dark souls 2 look like shit by comparison anyway.

http://cdn.destructoid.com//ul/266639-curt-shilling.jpg

dragon's dogma was good fun, at its best early before everything becomes too easy, so i encourage you to not progress the story at all until you have been everywhere. one of the best and most unique things it has are the giant wandering monsters that really felt like epic fights, at least until my gang quickly got OP'd. helps if you resist the temptation of the broken pawns that are available early.

infinity wars + starbound

helps if you resist the temptation of the broken pawns that are available early.
― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, April 24, 2014 4:29 PM

what are the broken pawns. i've just been using the free low level ones and trading them in every so often. groups of bandits on the roads are still kicking my butt

i got one real early with an ordinary woman's name, Karen i am fairly sure, and her owner had limited her level but she had maxed-out, late game rare gear and was a total powerhouse

whatever the fighter class is. i got another midway thru with a more forgettable fantasyish name, also a female fighter.

Dammit, Fract really _is_ like myst. I can't find the symbolic to detangle the tune I'm supposed to play to solve the final puzzle in one of the areas.

Final Fantasy - NES
Assassin's Creed IV - PC
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX - PC
Castlevania: Rond of Blood - T16
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - PSX
Metal Gear Solid - PSX
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - PC
Metal Gear Solid 2 - PC

you livin' the life, Adam, respect

finished saints row 4
tried diablo 3 again - meh so spammy
maybe back to metro 2033

"Finished" Portal and Fez, loved both. Seems like there's still aftergame stuff for me to do, which is cool.

I'm a good way into the first God of War, and I can't be sure but I think I might kinda hate it. The brutal waves of super tough enemies are awesome, and some of the puzzles are pretty good, but creating Indiana Jones-esque deathtraps with a shitty camera and sketchy controls was the fucking worst idea ever. I've wasted so much of my playtime on failing to kill everything onscreen within a set time before falling to my death or being crushed or sliced up by shit that I can barely see in front of me that it's kinda become a chore for me to continue. I might just be hating the PS2-ness of it, though.

I've been surprisingly digging a lot of arcade-y stuff that I've gotten cheap from PSN recently. Super Stardust and Wipeout took me a little while to get used to but they're amazing once I'm in the zone. Just got Retro/Grade, which I haven't played much but which has an awesome conceit (basically a rhythm game disguised as a shooter that runs in reverse). The Space Invaders update also seems like good value.

This weekend, I hit 50% completion and the 100 hour mark near-simultaneously on Just Cause 2. Clearing a few areas in the game has become such a reliably perfect way to decompress at the end of the day.

kotor + bg2

getting myself psyched + ready for pillars of eternity i guess

xps I played GoW 1 for the first time... a year ago? Maybe two? Felt some of the same frustrations as you, but I'm still planning to truck on through to the others at some point. I can see how it all would've been far more impressive back in 2006, but some of those levels and dungeons are awfully designed.

What build you going for in KOTOR, Mordy?

i guess soldier guardian. tbh i'm kinda more interested in my bg2 half-elf cleric/ranger build (so OP apparently it's ppl's fave for soloing the game). (thought about playing a wild mage too.)

Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III

So BKIII is the Japanese version of SOR3 and it is WAY easier. This does not mean it is easy though, it only means it is possible to get through stage 1 without using a continue. American version of Streets of Rage 3 is one of the more difficult games I've ever played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VWsJPJ19DA

That level with the bulldozer is all-time unfair.

all that and he's beat by a girder

i love the energy meter for 'wall'.

i guess i only played Streets of Rage 1 & 2.

man why doesn't axel just jump over the damn walls

sor3 is weird. it seems like it admits to tactics then it doesn't really.

I think after you get past the stage where you are fighting kangaroos and evil dominatrix clowns they just figured they could get away w that.

Played 2-player Hyperstone Heist for the Genesis last night. Got to Super Shredder and then we died and we were out of continues! The music in that game is incredible. Orchestrated speed metal.

i'm still playing bg2.

eu4 always with the eu4. genovese colonial empire.

wish i could get into eu. each time i load it up there are like 300 tutorials

if it helps you still won't know what the fuck is going on if you sit thru the tutorials

Sadly not as into Mirror's Edge as I'd hoped (hinges way too much on barely-disguised quick time events, which fuck that). Surprisingly way more into the first Metal Gear Solid than I expected (tough but mostly fair, cutscenes and dialogue that are reasonably well-written and not totally perfunctory, generous with the game saving, and the controls and camera, while occasionally obnoxious, are better than those on a lot of the PS2 games I've played). I still haven't been able to get past the first boss yet, though, so we'll see how long my admiration lasts.

is there some kind of amazing online tutorial that will teach me how to play?

there is a lot of user and wiki content so possibly but i'm not aware of anything myself. i think you just need to start playing it with the expectation that you won't know what you're doing for a long time. start with france: raise a big army and start some beef. you can go a long way with them without having to worry about some of the more arcane stuff for a while and you will pick up a good foundation in manpower/supply, tech advancement, diplomacy, religion. you can dip your toe into trade and colonies if you want but you'll still be able to do plenty without. and you'll have the immediate objective of unifying france to get your teeth into, which definitely helps the transition into the sandbox. you'll always have something to do with them and that is certainly not always the case elsewhere.

have any of you played crusader kings 2 and can you take the same approach there? tried to get into it but get caught up on figuring out how levies work and what a demesne is and somehow the game had me entering into an affair with my own wife

ftl

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

Aria of Sorrow is incredible. Are the GBA Metroids this good?

Harmony is cool too, if only because the lead character is dressed like anime Santa Claus.

I remember the GBA Metroid I played being awesome

this is gonna make me sound like a crazy person but i've gotten into watching lets-plays of EU4 and i don't even own a PC. they're weirdly soothing?

any you'd recommend? esp for newbs?

there's a youtuber by the name of shenryyr2 who i gather is some kind of god at it. he doesn't really do tutorials but a lot of the rhythm of it comes out via osmosis.

my general sense is it's just not a 'for newbs' game, you just kind of have to keep jumping in at the deep end until it clicks

jeez, just had a click around that guy's YT, he is nutso. if i had infinite hours i would watch the lot. but yeah, as a learning experience you probably already need a foundation to get anything from someone like this.

Aria of Sorrow is incredible. Are the GBA Metroids this good?

yeah he's also endearingly/annoyingly ignorant of actual history & geography

i just wanted some cool flowing graphics of a map shifting slowly over time while i did other shit.

xp

*checks england ca. 1650* "a republic? england went republic? wtf, that makes no sense"

was that cromwell? idk I'm too lazy to wiki at the minute

I'm having trouble trying to find useful wiki/walkthru pages because apparently this new Alpha release for PS5 changed a bunch of things. I'm of the understanding Zeds are only slowed by barbed wire/spike traps (fuck, they were mass scaling the high fence topped with wire into the trader compound to swarm me yesterday after I made too much noise wrecking a test house I made).

They can SWIM, so moats are no good.. I was thking slow em down and potshot them from a barricaded roof with a rifle but I havent tried yet.

Oh and this game is the worst for giving one survival/someone's breaking into my house nightmares btw :(

well not a moat like a water hazard, more of a deep trench where they can't climb to you. You can make drawbridges.

then a ladder into a high tower yes, has to be roofed because eventually annoying birds become a part of the blood moon party.

we had spinning blade turret thingies, got to be powered though. spike traps are good for slowing them down.

I'm still at the "how the fck do I make anything" stage tbh. We chose to fortify an existing house rather than make a base, but the game gives no tips on how to get into its sub menus, apparently I can make shapes instead of cubes (like slopes and things for stairs) but I cant work out how lol. Cant even work out how to make bullets.

On pc i have to hold down a button, but just quick google for console:

The shape of blocks can be changed by pressing and holding the Reload button (R/X/Square) while holding the block you want to place. Then, select the Shape option from the radial menu that pops up. Almost every building block in the game can be modified this way.

and bullets require forge skills, they took me a while to understand.

It took me long enough just to understand cooking with grills and pots. Once you learn it though there's quite a heap of stuff to craft.

One thing I don't like, and not sure if it's changed with the big update, is the only way to learn stuff is by reading magazines. It takes forever.

It does! esp because if you're sharing a map with a mate, if they get to a place before you and clean out the mailboxes and bookshelves, theres nowt left to find haha. I also assumed the books worked like they do in something like... I dunno, the Sims, where the books were for certain levels or recipes. Turns out no, you just gotta read everything you find until it shows the icon that says "you already read this".

XP doesnt seem to have any impact on RP skills? I gather that was a major change in the recent update.

Tactical Breach Wizards is as great as everyone's saying it is: sharp zings and nice puzzly tactical mechanics.

The “people who aren’t bored of Ubisoft open world games”/“people who aren’t bored of Star Wars” Venn diagram must be two tiny circles with a minuscule intersection at this point. But I’m in it, so I’m planning to play Outlaws this week.

I forgot that was out soon! I never got deeply into Ubisoft games and as long as it’s not super Jedi heavy I could be game. I overplayed those Jedi Survivor/Fallen Order games a bit

it does look appealing to me since i don't really play a lot of Ubisoft or Star Wars games, tbh! let us know how it is

7dtd is sucking me and my bf into a complete TIME SINK HOOLLLLLEEE

now that the DS games have a proper rerelease, it is time. i am going to play through all 7 of the "metroidvania" Castlevania games. and also Bloodstained.

i've played the first hour or two of aria of sorrow before, but otherwise i am going into this blind with no preconceptions.

Astrobot is very good

I've seen two separate posts saying holy shit has Sony realised that the path to the future is making Nintendo games?

congrats to the PS5 on finally having a game

I was pretty bored with Play Room (the demo that comes with the PS5), it's the new game still worth getting?

its basically just a full game version of that so probably not

I have heard people rave about Play Room, but I don't think I'm that into 3d platformers (or maybe From games have just traumatized me, lol). It seems very close to what 3d Mario games are like these days, though?

the levels are more linear than 3d mario from what i've seen. i guess 3d world is the mario comparison point

I've seen two separate posts saying holy shit has Sony realised that the path to the future is making Nintendo games?

this has been the Sony theme for the last few years, where they realized they've hardly capitalized on any of their properties existing as standing intellectual property despite owning a film studio and other ventures. so we've had a Gran Turismo-related movie, Twisted Metal tv show, The Last of Us tv show, and a handful of others coming down the pike

their synergy is still not so hot in that there hasn't been a Twisted Metal video game for over a decade, but they're trying! the thing that I kept seeing cited was that Luigi's Mansion 3 was a b-tier spinoff in the Mario franchise and it still sold more units than nearly any Playstation game because Mario as a franchise is just massive. so we get Horizon Lego sets and a tie-in spinoff game, etc.

they half-assed so many "Playstation Universe" attempts and I think the executives just didn't believe in it. The Infamous games were well-received at the time, and they just let that die on the vine and haven't released one in a decade. Seemed like an easy pick for a spin-off, but:

In 2009, Sony had chosen screenwriter Sheldon Turner to adapt Infamous into a feature film in a seven figure deal. Brothers Ari and Avi Arad were hired to produce, and Sony executives Matt Tolmach and Jonathan Kadin as handlers for the studio. Turner told The Hollywood Reporter he was excited that the game had a "big idea and a character arc", which he believed was "the future of gaming".[18] He believed the game was essentially "a love ballad to the underachiever". As of 2024, no updates on the film adaptation have been made.

someone at the top just didn't believe video game spinoffs or platform synergy meant cash in the bank

they were making a twisted metal game for PS5 and cancelled it

figures. they also recently un-launched some team shooter game that they simultaneously released on PS5 and PC after a long development cycle and will probably retool it as a freemium thing. Helldivers 2 was crazy popular with some of my coworkers for a bit and despite some hiccups in judgment, that seems to have been a cross-platform success

I’d say that’d be a property to monetize, but it’s basically an extra parodic Starship Troopers

Ah no I don't think they specifically meant Nintendo characters or games, more Sony (or affiliated studios) making PlayStation games which are well reviewed, use controls well, no microtransaction or live-service service - they've made the shit out of the game and you play the game the end. I've seen a few "Fuck, do I need to get a PS5 now?" comments

they spent the whole ps4 gen making single player action-adventure games, the switch to live service focus is recent (and horribly ill advised as they just learned after launching (and then unlaunching) one of the biggest flops of all time)

they’ve had studios doing that a long time? Sony’s published games have never had any of that shit front and center

their thing is that few of their franchises, proportionately, are all-ages and they’ve been heavier into action/adventure than anything else

remember killzone and warhawk? me neither.

I played the Rugrats game that's free on epic right now. This must have been someone's passion project. It's a tribute to Super Mario Bros. 2, licensed from a 90s children's TV show, with both an HD mode and a Gameboy Color mode. I am baffled and I also enjoyed it.

I've been deep into Caves of Qud all year, what a fantastic game

utopia must fall