whatchu playing now

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

metro: last light
had no idea the wolfenstein remake is more then just "lol nostalgia", preview trailer got me intersted

xp yeah

just finished back to the future telltale game, it was pretty fun, but if it hadn't been for walking dead s1 i dunno if i would've had the patience. now i am trying to play sam & max penal zone and it is next-level inscrutable adv game :(

Did any of you happen to see this week's Steven Universe where Steven gets obssessed with this epic Pokemon/Final Fantasy-style Mini Golf RPG? Man, I would love for that to actually exist.

no but that sounds great. i also love the SU where garnet becomes transfixed with the meat beat mania arcade game

hah, that was great too!

ftl

Played a little "Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia" yesterday and holy crap am I addicted to these Castlevania games...

it's a really nice looking remake but i am still anti-remake and also several games behind on the new ones so maybe I'll play it in like 2030

the original has one of the best presentation styles in jrpgs. sprites in cute low poly 3d environments, dialogue boxes with expressive portraits. it's aged really well, hopefully this doesn't overwrite it in the pantheon

I'm torn whether to play thru the whole series again as they drop these but who knows where it ends? Crossbell remakes? By the time they've done all that is some bright spark gonna decide that Cold Steel needs an upgrade? I've not played the Liberl games tho because I don't really game on the PC any more so this is a godsend tbh

xp

gah

I’m on the usual CoDM and War Robots. Games I can play on my phone basically. Boring I know.

So is there somewhere we can discuss the incredible preponderance of creepy Nazi number names in these games right now? They are really out in force at the moment.

― recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Monday, 11 August 2025 06:42

It genuinely does seem like there’s a real toxic push from CoD in particular, eg. they have bots with the (numbers) that are frequently deployed. My belief is that they actually changed their rules for reporting other players due to my activity, for a brief while at least, to ping hateful names. But then they quickly loosened the rule and they clearly have an issue with these numbers, their bots use them and they aren’t diligent enough about hate speech in general but seem to have no problem filtering out the more conservative conception of “offensive” language in names. With WR on the other hand there is zero reporting system I’m aware of and for awhile they really had the most toxic content platformed that way. Guess they’ve cracked down on the literal speech now but the numbers are frequently recurring and tbh seem to often be associated with russian names. So my new rule is no russians and I’ve stopped playing any CoD game with bots named in that language too. I have in heated moments deleted both games repeatedly but it is like an abusive relationship since I have no where else to go, I inevitably come back. I just deleted CoD again because get this, I quit a game with a rus bot then the bot left, and then was replaced by a name with that one (number).

As I said if there’s somewhere better to spew this crap please let me know. And I’m wide open to suggestions for better mobile games but it has to be addictive.

*But then they quickly loosened the rule and they clearly DON’T have an issue with these numbers

I think the solution is to get into Balatro.

I'm really enjoying Trails in the Sky, it looks and sounds lovely of course but more importantly I was very unsure about the action/turn-based combat hybrid that I assume they've retro-fitted from the Calvard games (bought the first Daybreak) months back but haven't opened it yet, but in fact it works beautifully and is more or less intuitive

Closing bracket was misplaced there

Played A Space for the Unbound last week which also sounded lovely but damn it probably isn't the level of emo I ought to revel in

The John Mitchinson boss fight in that game is insane.

original ps2 vice city on pc emu, currently i'm at 98 percent. with Fire truck and shooting range missions left to do. Particularly difficult on pc with xbox gamepad as it's ultra sensitive and both these missions require the second thumb stick to be used accurately. so full hundred percent may never happen, sad face.

xp lol I had to Google that, but it's a beautiful game, albeit firmly in VN/walking sim territory

Finished Dead Space 3 after an extended break due to first Snow Beast battle. Had to restart the last chapter since my assembled weapons were close range and def needed a machine gun type setup for the final fight. More a reader than a gamer, so have a handful of bought games to consider next. Like what I’m seeing of Silent Hill f, which looks to be as creepy as Fatal Frame. I own two versions of Wolfenstein: The New Order, so maybe that, to drop the pile by two.

xp to myself, well I nailed it anyway

i've been doing a lot of "rule discovery" games lately, a lot of which are just images.

everything mentioned in this page
https://thinkygames.com/news/newly-added-to-the-database-a-big-batch-of-cryptic-rule-discovery-puzzles-you-solve-without-the-help-of-instructions

mentioned by one of those puzzles: bilattice
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2486430/Bilattice

also marty sears's new sudoku series
https://sudokupad.app/8opgiv0h40

Just finished dark souls 1!!!

this feels a bit andy mcnab-reader gaming but has anyone played elite sniper: resistance?

have to say i'm really enjoying the calm slow feeling of watching nazis from afar via binoculars, then shooting them all one by one with a sniper rifle.

hopefully i've sold it sufficiently. it has a very graphic cut scene if you get a headshot. but remember, they are nazis.

xp congratulations dEXter!

I bought a soft-modded PS2 recently for a steal; been playing Dragon Quest VIII and OutRun 2006 via SSD on that and having a ball. Sure, I could just emulate, but this is much more fun & interesting IMO. It's also a bit of a project because the optical drive isn't working, so I am going to take it apart and attempt repair (I have no idea what I'm doing but I've watched a few YT guides)

xp

I haven't played Resistance, but have played some Sniper Elite 4 & 5. Which seemed pretty similar. But good stealth games tbh! Had fun with them.

the sniper game where you could infiltrate other people’s games and countersnipe them (while they played single player, I think) looked fun

really enjoying the impeccable old school side-scroll arcade feeling of shinobi: art of vengeance. it's a lot of fun and a joy to play.

I started that game Evil West. It feels like a janky pre PS4 throwback, for better or for worse, but so far it is relatively enjoyable and definitely straightforward dumb fun.