whatchu playing now

i'm playing octopath traveler for the first time. I got bored with most of the story scenes -- the ones involving children are the worst, so mawkish -- so I've been skipping them. I finished all the chapter missions. Now I'm onto the side stories which I hear lead to a final dungeon.

Master Key - completed
Save me Mr Tako
Void Stranger

Three monochrome games with Gameboy aesthetics. Master Key is Zelda, Mr Tako is Kirby. Void Stranger is something new -- a sokoban-like game with a real story and some cryptic puzzles that aren't fully clued. I peeked at spoilers and apparently I am just starting the second phase of the game. I don't want to look up more.

Credit where credit is due. Square took the worst game genre of all time (ubisoftopenworld), threw money, nostalgia, (subjective) a lot of heart at it.... and ended up making a good game!!!

Ff7 rebirth, for those not playing along

thank you i was about to ask

lego harry potter games with my daughter. I hate them.

Condolences. They're so bad

the distance between save points is absolutely fucking criminal.

you hate lego games or harry potter?

either way, yeah.

you hate lego games or harry potter?

yes. (it's not an xor.)

the only other one i've played is lego star wars back when it first came out, i remember definitely not enjoying it that much and i thought the mechanic of smashing everything up to get coins was weird.

Ha.

A friend of mine recommended Shadow Gambit, pirate-the Ed stealth tactics (w/crazy powers?). Sounds fun, but I've got many more hours of Elden Ring ahead of me.

I am super addicted to Unicorn Overlord. Great game.

The mechanics for a fairly complex strategic combat system are there in all the ways you can program your units, but I appreciate (at least in the first several hours of the game) that you can coast on the default settings of your recruits while you’re wrapping your head around the rest of the mechanics. Can see this getting extra interesting later game or on higher difficulties when you gotta start delving into that stuff.

I normally bounce off of tactical RPG’s, can get too punishing too quickly for my strategy-deficient brain. And I get stressed over perma-death mechanics (absent here, thank god). But this one got its hooks in me immediately.

Looks and plays beautifully on the Switch too.

Gonna grab that eventually for the backlog at the right price, sounds good.

Needed some co-op fun for a friend's stay this past weekend, both successes - Death Squared, a cute indie 2D puzzle game with 80 levels, really solid. The other was It Takes Two, which I loved, though it's large enough that we only got through maybe 1/3rd of the game. Epic scope for a weird fantasy adventure about two adults turned into animatedolls and working through their divorce, loved that someone got a chance to even make this swing.

i played Strange Horticulture. it wasn't very impressive as a puzzle game, mostly just a lot of cross referencing information in a slightly clunky UI, but it didn't outstay its welcome and i enjoyed identifying all the plants.

Finished the DLC and game proper of Bioshock Infinite and am in this weird “I didn’t/did get what I wanted from the experience” mood. Honestly appreciate Levine’s world and the empathy involved in working through the racism and classism, but the DLC result is more a “small victory” win than a “we have triumphed and changed the world” completion, which, granted, was addressed in the DLC. Weird feeling, in that I want more of the world, but with a more substantial imprint on it. Curious how Bioshock 4 will further the experience.

Probably not helped by shifting into Dead Space 3 and immediately hating the combat.

1000xResist. Not fun play for me (walking sim, visual novel, wonky camera + not knowing how to get to a certain place = motion sickness), but when the story (high concept SF) gets going, it's superb.

Currently playing Wo Long, the combat isn’t particularly deep, the AI allies are hopeless and I have 500 pieces of equipment I have no particular use for, but it’s fun. It’s basically just more Nioh, albeit a bit easier.

Approaching 200 hours with Unicorn Overlord, circling in on the end. This is a polished jewel of a game, masterpiece imo. Won’t be for everyone, but for the people it is for, shit will take over your life.

shapez 2

I have no idea how it came up, but my bf installed 7 Ways to Die on the weekend and I found myself intrigued enough by it that we went to the trouble of installing PSRemote on my laptop, so I could contol the PS5 in the other room from my PC (that took a LOT of swearing and frustration... whole nother rant there). And then we found ourselves immersed in it for an entire Sunday and got NOTHING else done. Its like some weird amalgam of Valheim, Minecraft, and... I dunno, Rust or something? The combo of "survive zombies tower defense" with Fallout style "make stuff and trade stuff and explore" really ticked boxes for me. Admittedly we went in and turned all the levels up to "make this easy as possible without going completely into creative mode" because the game really doesnt make it easy to learn how to do stuff, the tutorials are minimal.

I assume you made it to the first 7th day, did you get to 14th etc? They get a lot harder so level up quickly.

Yeah I play it a lot with my friend. Admittedly I've kinda reached a point where I can see the cracks in the repetitive gameplay style but my mate likes to make us play on tough mode so it's a bit more frantic. Some of the larger buildings are nuts.

I have a solo game where i've turned off the 7th day blood moon cycle an just enjoy the survival crafting and building parts a bit more.

(and i assume you are talking about 7 Days to Die )

fun thing to do is destroy walls of the big buildings and watch them tumble to rubble.

Oh crap yes I meant 7 Days haha. And no, we dialled up (down?) the difficulty so that it'll be 30 dyas before the blood moon, so I'm yet to experience that bit. Learning curve and all that. We will prob have to restart a few times til we get better. I havent even tried building my own base yet, we're holed up in the A frame lakehouse on the default map.

Yes you'll generally just fortify existing places at first, until your tools become at a level where mining is much faster and more pleasant to be honest.

We always go for the trench/moat defense.

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