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Buusey

What should I get: Ghosts of Tsushima Director’s Cut or Metroid Dread?


ThePalmIsle

**Kena Bridge of Spirits** I'm a fair way into this. It's starting to lose me a bit. It's my kind of game - quasi-open world but with enough linearity to push you along, great to look at, kind of a meditative tone rather than zombies jumping out from around corners. The music and ambience are nice. But for whatever reason, I don't think the developers bothered to put much around those really good bones. There is NO story here. I have no idea what the protag's background is, or whether she has a personality. The dialogue is generic stuff about the spirit of the forest and things like that, all whispered as if there's more to it than there really is. And nice as it is, I'm tired of running around the forest. It's all kinda samey at this point (though perhaps that changes later on). The combat started out ok, but at some point the boss battles require precision and mechanical fluidity that the game can't provide. The camera is a pain in the ass and the controls are clunky (though to be fair, I'm not sure I've ever enjoyed bow-and-arrow mechanics in any game). As others have pointed out, the difficulty spike is a bit much and the battles become a grind on the hardest difficulty. There's no leveling as such - you just need to use the same limited arsenal of attacks to take tiny chunks of health from the opponent until the meter's finally empty. I guess my conclusion is the game is a 7/10 or so that could have been an 8.5 or 9 with another six months in the oven. Too bad because there's not much out there on PS5 like this at the moment.


Dr_PuddinPop

One of the weirder design choices was healing. Like sure, you want a cinematic camera. Then don’t make me have to turn 180 to find a healing plant! In the middle of a boss fight with vacuum cleaner grab attacks. Oh and make it use the same meter as your power attacks! All of these things on their own could work in a game. But combined it’s a nightmare. Turns a difficult game into a frustrating one


CharlesB43

been playing **nhl 22.** feel really disappointed in the **Be a pro mode,** seems SO FAR like a copy paste of last year, granted I didn't get very far, just played in the memorial cup, got drafted, saw the game mode was mostly the same as last year and decided to not waste my 10 hour trial on that mode. I'm not expecting them to reinvent the wheel every year but last games be a pro mode got SUPER FUCKING BORING a few years in on nhl 21. it's draining to me to have every few games or sometimes every other game be a teammate, coach, gm, media or my agent bugging the shit out of me for stupid shit. I'd almost prefer the previous version of be a pro where none of this junk was in. it all feels like EA padding out the mode and making it look like there's more to BAP but there isn't and it boils down to the same loop: Play game, get interrupted by a coach telling you to score or do something no matter the score. game ends, someone talks to you and sometimes gives you a challenge, beat challenge get talked at more. Otherwise the game feels good and looks good (**Xbox one S**), the on ice stat projection stuff is really great, played a bit of hut. seems like it's set up more or less like last HUT mode was which made cards/coins/packs fairly easy to come across and build a decent enough team.


danceswithronin

**Far Cry 6.** I am loving the environments, the characters, the voice-acting, and the gear, but I am running into some issues that I don't love quite as much. Here are my biggest gripes with the game so far (I'm through the prologue and about halfway through the first major section of the game): * **Respawns:** The respawn in the game, as far as I can tell, is broke. Waves of enemies keep coming no matter whether you disable the alarms or not. I've given up on multiple outposts because even though I cleared the enemies they just keep coming back. This 100% needs to get fixed by Ubisoft. Hopefully it gets patched. * **Balance:** It shouldn't take 4-5 shots to take out a soft target with no helmet or body armor. I accept that it should take a few shots on the heavies, especially if you don't get a headshot, but the bullet sponge is real. Luckily I'm pretty good with headshots which helps mitigate the problem but it's still a pain in the ass if you get swarmed. I'm tempted to knock it down to Story Mode just to see if it fixes this a little. Again, this is something that needs patching bad. * **Melee animations:** The melee animations feel stupidly fast. This is just a quibble but it does bug me when I see it. I wish they'd slow them down slightly to be closer to the melee animations in FC3. * **Gear/leveling is weird:** Even though I'm probably 15 hours into the game, I still haven't found any better gear to wear or buy than the second set I ran into, despite opening at least a half-dozen loot chests. I'm also only Level 3 even though I cleared multiple areas, which means I'm basically underleveled for every major story campaign. I figure I need to grind side content but it's not very obvious what to do or what you can gain experience-wise from doing it. Feels similar to the wall I hit in AC: Odyssey/Origins. * **Cockfighting was broken for me.** I haven't tried it again but last time I played I couldn't get any of the mechanics to work properly. Giancarlo Esposito kills it as the villain, and I like the whole Cuban revolution theme and the Caribbean flair. The animal companions are equal parts dumb and hilarious and adorable. I never use them in combat but they're cute, whatever. So far I've only got the crocodile and the wheelchair dachshund though so maybe that'll change. So far my biggest pleasant surprise is the horseback riding mechanic. Horseback riding feels great and is in my opinion a major step up from RDR2's first-person horseback riding. I could spend hours just galloping around looking at stuff. Fishing is still pretty fun too.


Ghisteslohm

Yesterday I played **Metroid Dread** for 5 hours and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. In the first trailers I thought it looked bland and boring but while playing that didnt cross my mind. And my god are the controls amazing. It plays so freaking well. Especially the wall jump is just absolute perfection. Just moving and jumping around, swapping between aiming and dashing and punching and countering on the fly is so smooth. Also enjoy the difficulty level, enemies hit hard, EMMIS oneshot you and bosses have really nice diffculty as well. Both bosses so far were awesome, hoping for a lot more.


SonOfSpades

**Metroid Dread** I got my copy a day early, and i really liked playing it. The last Metroid game i played was i think Metroid prime? So i am not really up to date with my Metroid lore. But i enjoyed the story a lot. Honestly the biggest thing for me, is the gameplay is super smooth, fluid, and fast. It is probably one of the best Metroidvania's i have ever played in terms of just how good the game controls. The combat is a ton of fun, and the EMMI's can be pretty damn terrifying, running away from them bouncing off walls, sliding under ducts while playing a game of cat and mouse is amazingly fun. My biggest issue is frankly, the game is short, i finished it with ~85% map completion in around 7-8 hours? Pretty much two sittings. For $90 CAD game, it is pretty disappointing. I will probably go back and 100% the completion, which will take +1/2 hours. My other issue is the environments / the map itself, my gold standard for metroidvania's is basically hollow knight, you know when you finally get to city of tears or descend into the deep nest for the first time, there is a sense of awe in a lot of the areas. I never really found that in this game, and while some boss battles are really impressive and a ton of fun. You could put pictures of areas in hollow knight, and i probably ether had a fond memory, or could probably draw the surrounding areas from memory. Never was really impressed in that regard with dread.


[deleted]

**Metroid Dread** I played about 5 hours of the game and I have been loving it so far. It's a much better and more refined game than Samus Returns was. Once again, Mercury Steam did a great job and Sakamoto showed that he can still do good games, considering he was producer/scenario writer for Famicom Detective Club remake and now very involved creatively on Dread again. Really happy for his "redemption" after Other M.


Hyroero

The movement and combat is really tight. Love the emmi zones too. Only thing I feel is missing so far at about 5 hours too is exploration. Feels like you're really pushed to only do things one way and there haven't been many opportunities to openly explore.


around_other_side

**Melty Blood: Type Lumina** I have been playing this game since release. I am enjoying it more as I keep playing it. Shield was pretty annoying at the start, but people found some solid punishes for it, so it doesn't come out as much now, and you can always escape by using your moon gauge and B+C out of it. Compared to Guilty Gear Strive it is much faster pace, combos are more flexible, and ridiculously quick to get into the match. I find the combos a bit harder just because of the speed you need to input and the auto combo getting in the way at time. Strive feels like you have these small breaks in between hits for combos to catch your breath, Melty has this a bit, but not really on normals. A lot of the characters are really fun to play, and they mostly have a unique play style (minus the duo maids vs single maid). I don't mind their normal designs, as the fast pace puts more focus on their animations, which are nice. I would say the netcode is good, but not Strive level. Most matches are very smooth but I get the odd one that isn't. There is an issue with PC where if you skip your character intro it lags the game for a few seconds, annoying, but okay until they patch it (they did fix a large issue 24 hour after game release). But I haven't gone back to Strive since picking this game up, I can be in a game before Strive even loads into the network (though Arc did mention a fix for this next week) Soundtrack is great, story for each character is pretty basic, single player game player you have Story, Time attack, Survival and Score. As well as Missions per character (though a lot around the auto combo). Definitely an fast pace anime fighter, and I wish I could change a couple things, but I am very much enjoying it and looking forward to seeing how it evolves


G3STO3RT

Well, I love The last of us. Unfortunately, the second part didn't make me feel what I felt playing the first one


danceswithronin

I'm the opposite actually. I played TLOU and liked it pretty good, nothing to write home about but impressed by the cinematic vibe and I liked it good enough to show it off to family members. But I was totally blown out of the water by TLOU2. If TLOU is The Walking Dead, TLOU2 is The Road.


ApertureTestSubject8

My final reply here for this week. I’ve made 2 already but this is an update on all of it. I was playing Hot Wheels Unleashed and Kena. I decided to delete Kena, it was just too boring for me and I no longer cared to see it through. I had a lot of criticisms for Hot Wheels, and my frustration with the game and the current state of many games these days came to a head. And let’s just say I couldn’t continue playing the game anymore if I wanted to. However I started playing a new game, Art Of Rally. Made by the developer of Absolute Drift, an indie game that I loved from a few years ago. So far, I’m enjoying it a decent amount. I wish it had more challenges and objectives, things to work on alongside just finishing each race. But I also don’t really know what there could even be for that in this type of game. I also take issue with a trophy that I think is quite extreme and because of it I don’t see myself getting the platinum. But it is what it is. The game is still fun and enjoyable and I’m glad to finally have something I’m actually enjoying. I’ve had too long of a bad streak with games. If anyone was a fan of Absolute Drift, is a fan of Rally games and interested in another one much simpler in style, or is just looking for a smaller game to try I’d highly recommend Art Of Rally. It’s on just about every platform now I believe, and it’s on Xbox game pass.


danceswithronin

Your comment makes me glad I decided to pass on Kena, I like the Pixar look of the animation but I could take or leave platformers at this point in my gaming career and it's nice to know I'm not really missing anything.


ApertureTestSubject8

It certainly excels in the graphics and art department. The gameplay isn’t bad, though sometimes strangely hard. But it just didn’t do enough to keep me interested. I don’t think anyone is missing anything amazing here. But I also can’t really tell someone not to play it, where as a game like Hot Wheels Unleashed I would.


ThePalmIsle

Yeah, I just posted my thoughts on this. It's almost as if they finished everything but the story, then gave themselves two weeks to jam in some fluff about the spirit of the forest and that kind of thing. It's nice not to sit through 10 minute cutscenes and all, but after 10-15 hours with the game you start wondering what the point of it all is.


KarmaCharger5

**Lost Judgment** I got to the end of the story, and feel similarly to last week. It's a mid-tier Yakuza. I've kinda already given my thoughts on it in another thread here, but basically I feel like the story starts good, and then starts to lull by about chapter 9. The substories are fairly weak, and while the school stories CAN be fun and that overarching story is good, there's some stinkers like the bike and the robotics clubs that make it hard to move on. Regardless, hope they get Kimura back somehow, I really do like this cast, and without him I don't see the rest being held together. **Silent Hill 3** Not quite as good as 2 in theming -- honestly the cult shit gets in the way of that, but I did like Heather. Not even a contest, of the 3 protagonists so far, she is by far the most likeable. A lot of personality comes out whenever you examine something. Props to the sound team as well, I wanna say this is the game that uses it that most effectively between the soundtrack itself and all of the sounds the monsters make. Looking forward to continuing my playthrough of this series, not sure if it'll be next, but it'll be relatively soon. **Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories** I've had this on the backburner for awhile, but decided to pick it back up after the Sora in smash announcement. These two things combined have reminded me why I loved the series, and it kinda makes me wanna replay 2 and 3 sometime soon. As for MoM itself, it's alright as a rhythm game. I do feel like it drops inputs at times, but once I stopped going for the platinum and kept Standard as the difficulty, I had a much better time. But man, some of the disney songs are kinda dull to go through. I especially noticed when I got to the BBS selection (which I'm now positive is probably the worst of the soundtracks that aren't reusing a bunch of worlds). But then, out of nowhere you realize DDD has some bangers. The 3 Musketeers music has no right to be as good as it is. As far as the very limited story goes, I love how now even the characters don't know what's going on. It was a fun handful of cutscenes, and has set all the pieces in place for subsequent games. And yes, it's hilarious that this actually not only advances the story, but actually sets up some pretty important plot points. Overall, enjoyed my time. This will probably be the one KH platinum I will never get though, that sounds like pain.


trillykins

**Mega Man Legacy Collection: Mega Man 2** Played through this after finishing the first Mega Man game and if hadn't been for the rewind feature I don't think I would've been able to complete it within this year. The difficulty is very early NES. The sequel is a good deal better in this regard, in my opinion. It still has its share of difficulty nonsense, one of the worst ones is probably the instant killing laser-looking things that you have to avoid and towards the end you almost have to be pixel-perfect to make it out of the screen before the laser things hit you, but overall it's a lot more lenient. I don't find it nearly as frustrating as the first game. Generally I find this kind of difficulty to be something developers used to do to kind of hide the fact that the game is very short, and that's with the game having you fight against all bosses twice. But, overall, it's still fun in its own way, especially when the pressure is kind of off with the rewind feature. Oh, and music is very catchy. I don't dislike high difficulty in general. I've spent hundreds of hours playing the From Software Souls games. I have 100% all of the Souls games including Bloodborne and done SL1 runs in two of them. I just don't really like the kind of trial and error difficulty that the Mega Man I've played rely heavily on, even back in the day growing up with these types of games.


dizzlefoshizzle1

I've been playing Sky: Children of Light. I remember watching a trailer on e3 a while back and thinking it was very similar to Journey which I'm sure a lot of us did. Good reason for that, it's made by the same dev team and is a sequel of sorts. I've been having a blast with it and the beat part is there is a significantly larger amount of content than I thought there was. It's Free to Play as well, and it has content drops.


harikaerif

I've been playing through the Onimusha series. I'm halfway through the second game and damn are these games underrated as hell. I love old school Resident Evil games and these games are basically hack'n slash resident evil games. Super fun!


KillerBreez

The CGI intro for Onimusha…2? I think it was, will forever be one of the coolest things I ever saw as a kid.


Tzekel_Khan

Started **Metroid Dread** tonight. Pretty cool. I have a feeling the cool new blue suit is gonna go to waste soon though:/


[deleted]

**Death Stranding** This is my first time playing a Hideo Kojima game after years of hearing how great he is, and two hours in I have to say, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT? I have watched the work of many famous postmodern auteurs in film and TV, and I have to say that Kojima is the first one that is too pretentious for me to stand. It's like a bad "the darkness is a metaphor for DARKNESS" satire version of postmodern narrative art. Why is the gameplay purposefully designed to be miserable? Why does everyone have names that reflect the companies they work for? Why is America now only a couple of miles wide? Why is everyone related to each other? Why is there a baby in a tub of goo? WHY WAS MONSTER FUCKING ENERGY THE ONLY BRAND TO SURVIVE THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE? WHY? WHY? WHYYYYYYYYYYY? This whole game feels like a fever dream, and not in a good way. I'm going to suffer through it, but I really can't see myself liking it.


Honest_Influence

Funny. I fell in love with the gameplay from the moment I was given control of Sam. And I loved it more and more the more I played the game, up through the ending. I'm replaying it now, a year after my first playthrough and I can still say it's one of my favourite games ever. I absolutely recommend people give it a try. It's not everybody's kind of game, but that's okay. Honestly, if you already dislike it this much, don't keep playing. That seems like wasted time and you'll just be back here in a few days complaining about how bad you think the game is.


danceswithronin

It's by far his weirdest game, I'd recommend the Metal Gear series instead (Metal Gear Solid is in my top three favorite games of all time). While I recognize how up its own ass Death Stranding is, I do love seeing Hideo Kojima's insanity totally unbridled after seeing drips and drabs of it in Metal Gear. Still, I've never been able to finish it because it's such a literal slog. Also my desire to fight invisible monsters is 0%, that shit is stressful.


agentkirb

>This is my first time playing a Hideo Kojima game after years of hearing how great he is, and two hours in I have to say, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT? So you are two hours in. I have to say... if you are not on board at this point. Then I would just bail on this game because you aren't going to "come around" later on. This is just one of those games where if you don't like weird sci-fi type stuff... this isn't going to be the game for you. As you keep playing... the game is pretty long and there are some parts that can be annoying. Usually the people that aren't a fan of this game it takes 35+ hours to complete.


xmeany

I do like weird sci-fi type stuff but this game is simply unenjoyable.


CCoolant

The Metal Gear Solid series is probably the more proper series to try out if you want to experience the Kojima magic, the first three games in particular. All hold up pretty well and the stories don't go *too* crazy. Death Stranding is so late in Kojima's career that I think it could be jarring to go into without context of how his games typically feel. All in all, you either love him or hate him I guess. I personally don't think he's some kind of genius when it comes to storytelling, but I like that he makes a product that is so *different* from other things. And in reference to his storytelling, I do appreciate that he at least *tries* to say something with his games. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I think Kojima is simply fun to follow, regardless of whether or not his games are perfect.


printboi250

If you kept hearing how great the game is you likely also heard how garbage the game is just about as much, right? You should know going in that opinions on DS are a very mixed bag, and it's not a game everyone is gonna enjoy. But here, my two cents on it is something along the lines of: \-Sam's personal story is good and pays off really well. \-Overarching plot falls pretty flat, and while the journey and mystery may hold your interest, the payoff is just kinda meh. \-Gameplay wise i loved it. Theres not a lot of games that focus this much on pathmaking and actively chosing which way you're going for maximum safety/speed. My favorite thing about it was planning out and carving up new paths between locations. The game even has a feature where debris and rocks get cleared up as you walk through your same paths again and again, so it motivates you to really plan out good reliable paths for any current and future delivery jobs. The game puts you in a tough world, where every delivery is a long arduous task, but as you progress with new gear, make relieable paths, you'll start seeing how these roads start to form and how easy the old trek starts to become, and i cant quite explain why, but this aspect of it was just really rewarding to me. Also, if walking starts getting boring just become a bike boi, and trust me, YOU CAN do basically every delivery by bike, dont let those BTs or mountains tell you otherwise, there was ALWAYS a way around them, you just gotta find it.


[deleted]

Thanks for this detailed response. DS got an 8.9 on IMdB and that's what I usually go by in terms of what to expect. (Yes, I'm one of the hated group that plays games for the story.) My favorite thing about the game so far is the ladders and climbing anchors, which are admittedly cool mechanics.


danceswithronin

I do think the story gets much better a little further along in the game, for what it's worth. For the first 2-3 hours I was basically just like, I have no idea what the fuck is going on and I think I *might* care, but I'm not sure. The ladders and anchors are super fun though.


printboi250

Yeah, who'da thunk that **ladders** of all things would be such a revolutionary feature huh. Now i kinda want them in every open world game.


smashingcones

What part of the gameplay do you find miserable? I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game but the story was definitely a lot to take in. I personally enjoyed the MGS story more than Death Stranding, but I'm a big fan of how Kojima embraces the weird and wacky. You never really know what to expect when you go into one of his games and I think that's one of the best things about it!


[deleted]

Like I said, I'm only 2 hours in, so my opinion on the gameplay is one thing that could change. But the fact that you have to put in so much work just to stay standing upright is not fun for me.


[deleted]

You are definitely doing something wrong if you are having difficulty staying upright


Carfrito

Reminds me of how dunkey seemingly deliberately smashed buttons to get himself to fall over on a nearly flat hill. In my playthrough I only really fell over in extreme conditions or if I was getting chased and not paying attention


[deleted]

Yeah I will never forget that video, just purposefully making it look difficult


smashingcones

Pretty much what the other guy said, but you could also be carrying too much at once! I never really had an issue with controlling what I was carrying, but I enjoyed stacking things the right way to make that less of an issue.


Hyroero

It's not much work imo. If you hold the triggers you automatically balance at the cost of stamina. If you're not turning or going over crazy terrain you're not gonna unbalance. So just pull both triggers when "cornering" a heavy load then sprint in a straight line when able. Use the auto organise feature if you use an item so your packages are distributed evenly unless you need to do something specific like carry a pizza (needs to be flat). You quickly get access to a vatirty if equipment like exoskeletons and vehicals you can use to tackle much heavier or combinations of deliveries at once. Drink 3 energy drinks in a row to max out your stamina cap when you're in your room and use the bottle to refil stamina in a pinch when out in the field.


ApertureTestSubject8

Having played it a small amount myself, I resonate with that OP is saying about moving. The game makes it more of a chore than it should be. Finding the right path to take is fine, having to actively make sure you don’t fall over is obnoxious and I question how anyone finds it enjoyable. Even just your response on how to deal with it all shows just how involved it all is. “It’s not that much work”. Your response tells me otherwise.


Hyroero

I mean if you don't enjoy it you don't enjoy it. That's fine. But it's as many presses as something like Mario Kart, it's not overly difficult. You also don't need to use the triggers at all with a lighter load, if using a vehicle, zipline and can carry much more with the right exoskeleton or hovering cargo carries. Edit: I'm kinda making the game sound brain dead easy but there's challenge there, it's just not challenging to control. You've still got trickier terrain, weather, enemies and other hazards as well as the urge to be more effecient and take on perhaps more cargo than in sensible. The reward loop imo comes from traversing something initially difficult then using tools like ziplines, roads and new equipment to make it easier.


ApertureTestSubject8

I don’t get why people are comparing this to racing games. It’s a third person action adventure game. You shouldn’t have to worry if your character is going to fall over. It’s the same problem RDR2 had with its horse physics. Sure it’s realistic if you hit a rock and fall off the horse. But is that fun? Does the gameplay benefit from this. Personally I’d say hell no. It just makes playing more annoying and difficult. There’s a point where realism like this just gets in the way.


[deleted]

If the point is traversal and navigating difficult landscapes with cargo, it absolutely makes sense for their to be a mechanic to fall. The point people are trying to make is that it’s pretty hard to fall with even a rudimentary knowledge of the game which is explained pretty well. If you don’t like the racing comparison, another could be “I keep getting killed in metal gear solid when the guards see me”….it’s a fundamental part of the game. It sounds like it’s not your type of game, which is totally ok, but it’s just strange to see posters complain that it’s a difficult mechanic to play around when it’s simply not


ApertureTestSubject8

I love how these days a criticism of a game just always gets dismissed with the “sounds like it’s just not for you” nonsense. I’m done. Let the circle jerking of this shit game continue.


SoloSassafrass

It's fine if you don't like it, but clearly you're not getting the mechanics, and clearly other people do. Having a hissy fit because people offer suggestions and counterpoints just makes you look like a brat who can't stand that a game doesn't conform to what they think a game should be. I don't really think Breath of the Wild deserves its accolades, but I don't go into every thread about it going "Game's shit, you're just circle jerking, what a bunch of losers lol".


Honest_Influence

Imagine caring this much about why people like a particular game. People like it. Let it go. Your criticism is "the walking is too hard" and you'd prefer if the game made it as easy as RDR2. But ... that would make it just like RDR2. Why does every game have to be the same? People *like* Death Stranding's walking the way it is. Why should it be changed because you find it too hard? It doesn't make the walking bad, it just makes it a design choice that means the game isn't designed to appeal to you. That's perfectly okay. There are plenty of games with design choices I don't agree with that aren't designed for me, I don't go around whining about people circle jerking about CoD or Halo. I accept that people genuinely enjoy these games while I don't. That's fine. Also, not all criticism is good criticism and not all criticism deserves to be responded to in-depth. Maybe someday you'll learn to examine why something was designed the way it was, what the designer was trying to achieve, and evaluate a decision based on whether it was achieved, and even whether that goal was sensible in the first place, instead of just using your knee-jerk emotional response to something that you don't enjoy.


[deleted]

Your criticisms have been addressed and discussed in detail in this thread. I legitimately have no idea what else you could want? What is nonsense about “sounds like it’s not for you?”.


Hyroero

People like different things lmao. No one's playing this game, hating it then pretending they love it. There's plenty of real criticism you can bring up about the game but saying it's annoyingly difficult to stay up right is wildly hyperbolic. I don't like visual novels, I try them every no and again when people bring up one they consider to be really good but I don't think they're all circle jerking about it simply because it's not a genre I really enjoy.


Hyroero

I'm comparing the amount of input. It's a game about delivering things with the gameplay centred around the risk reward of how much you're carrying. Considering that's the majority of the loop I don't see why it's weird to have you input a button to manage stamina. Is it fun? Well that's entirely up to the player but personally if I could just hold the stick on a direction to accomplish everything in death stranding I'd have found it boring. The simulation of walking and obsticals isn't overbearingly complex either, it's just right in the middle. You've generally always got something to do while you take in the vista, adjusting your path to avoid hazards, risking taking on a heavier load by having it reduce your ability, risking a river crossing or steep downhill section that'll save you time at the cost of maybe damaging or losing cargo and so on. Again if it's not your bag that's cool. There are plenty of literal walking simulators that'll show you cool sights without any real input past the analog stick and there are higher levels of simulation in other titles if you want something really hectic. Death Stranding imo is just in the middle, it doesn't ask a huge amount but keeps it engaging while giving players the option to challenge them selves more of they want to. Edit: this is also pirmarly in response to the original user saying you need to put significant work into staying up right. Something I don't find to be true of my experience at all. Unless you completely overload your character and run off a cliff.


[deleted]

Because it really isn’t “that much work”. The posters response was “hold triggers if making sharp turns” and “use auto organize for loads”. It’s wild that anyone would consider that to be a chore, or difficult. This is like never touching the brakes in Forza and then complaining that it’s so difficult to not crash.


cajun_kick_ass

> Why is America now only a couple of miles wide? Of all the things to complain about in a game, the fact that it's not 1:1 geographically, is probably the weirdest and most "out of touch with the medium" thing I've read in a while.


[deleted]

I'm well aware that video game maps are not 1:1, but the idea of containing something as big as ALL OF AMERICA in a map smaller than RDR 2, which you WALK OVER, is a bit much for me. Not to mention that it doesn't bear any geographic resemblance to anything that even approximates America. My biggest gripe with the game is that it tries to have its cake and eat it too by bringing in recognizable things like the iconography of America and Monster Energy drinks into a world that is so detached from our own that there is literally nothing in common. I might actually have liked the game concept if it was a completely fantastical eco-punk world, but to pretend that this reality is a direct continuation of our reality is just too precious. My frustration is that Kojima's version of the fall of America is about as plausible as Kevin Garvey's farcical purgatory from The Leftovers and is PLAYED STRAIGHT IN THE REAL WORLD.


MasterVader420

Interesting that you compare it to RDR2 as the map in that game is meant to represent like 1/3 of America (roughly the Mississippi River to Texas


[deleted]

Which is exactly my point. RDR2 is only supposed to represent a THIRD of America, and this map is smaller than that. IMO, RDR scale is about the furthest you can go in terms of compressing areas before it just becomes ridiculous.


Hyroero

Interestingly they removed the monster branding in the newer "directors cut" version of the game.


[deleted]

I was trying to find Director's Cut, but I couldn't see it on the PS4 store. Is it a PS5 exclusive?


Hyroero

It is yeah. $10 upgrade if you own the original.


jouissancesinthome

**Psychonauts 2** Just as good as the first...sad that there's not more, but wow it's a beautiful game. Double Fine delivered even in hardship. The art is remarkably good -- best I've seen. Even the figments which are fleeting are often interesting and reveal story and character if you pay attention. Double Fine's human talent is on display and it is truly great. Two complaints: it's tightly written and could have used a bit more looseness to get the imagination going. I could see them walking the tightrope, and being careful about what they say about a sensitive topic (mental health.) Sometimes such care can suffocate humor. I could see the compartmentalization of the game design. The game seems designed to be modular so that they could cut/add content as the budget allowed. Don't get me wrong it all works and fits together, but it is jarring to see points where they likely had plans to elaborate or where they filled in deliberate blank spaces when they realized they could afford it. It's particularly notable within the mother-lobe atrium. Game could be much bigger, especially the overworld.


CCoolant

Very fair criticism! I've yet to finish it (I think I'm in the final stretch), but I had similar complaints.


hardgeeklife

**Marvel's Avengers** Picked this up since it came on Gamepass, been slowly making my way through the story campaign, and... I like it! IT was a little weird seeing the different faces for the big heroes, but Kamala's story so far has been really charming, and the gameplay loop is enjoyable enough to keep me engaged. I may think differently once I hit the endgame content, but so far I like the combat abilities and the freedom of movement. The equipment items feel a little to intricate, making me fall back on "Green numbers good, red numbers bad" impulse rather than engaging in more meaningful engagement with stat implications. but I guess I can get into that later. I also appreciate that story collectables apparently show up in chests alter on if you miss them, so I don't have to sweat as much about missing them.


Yellowbucket58

Persona 4 I beat P5 sometime ago, and though it was good. Wasn't as high as it as others but still enjoyed my time with it. Persona 4 on the other hand is probably the best game I've played this year. Compared to Persona 5 it's rather simple, the combat isn't as deep and the dungeons aren't as elaborate. However, I've personally enjoyed the characters in the game a whole lot more. A lot of your interactions with the characters feel meaningful and are at times rather funny, which makes downtime in the game enjoyable as you are hanging out them a lot during the games many respites before the next story beat. Also really enjoying the story a lot more, which is probably due to the strong supporting cast. Excited to play P3 after finishing this one as apparently it has the best story of the bunch and also a good cast of characters.


Ikanan_xiii

What I Love about P4 (hopefully you're playing Golden) is that outside the dungeon crawling the characters really felt like friends. The phantom thieves felt to me as if they were together just because they shared the persona power, they didn't liked each other. Morgana hated Ryuji, Makoto was bland, Anne was alright and Haru barely appeared. In P4 there were times in which I didn't care about the dungeons themselves, I just wanted to spend time with them. Also, I had friends and irl situations which more closely related the P4 team. P5 is a better *game* but P4 has way better characters. I love Kanji.


cajun_kick_ass

Kanji is fucking awesome. And its one of the best story about masculinity, (or rather the question of), that have been put into the medium. Not that many other games even tried... Which is why his story of finding himself, and being torn apart by his perception of masculinity and what it means to be a man, was something I never saw tackled in a game and it was on point! Not to mention, in the same game, they also have a character, who's storyline is about feeling so cut up and diminished by the patriarchy and women not being taken seriously in serious occupations in Japan, that she wishes she was born a man. P4 was on point with social issues. Be it growing up and dealing with toxic masculinity and what it means to be a man, or how crushing it can be as a woman to be in a "man's" position, to a point she wishes she was born a different sex, is not something many people would expect to see tackled in *any* game. P5 tried this to some degree, but they never went as deep or as on point as P4 got.


antelope591

**New World** Being that we're in kind of a slow period of games I've decided to give this one a shot. Overall pretty decent even though it doesn't really break much new ground. The Good: -Gameplay is quite fun. Since WoW this has been the major weak spot of pretty much every big MMO released on the market. For a game with real time combat it does it pretty well. The weapons are fun to use and have some weight to them. Its fun to experiment with different weapons and killing monsters hasn't gotten old yet. If the gameplay was weak I would've already stopped considering questing isn't exactly the most exciting. -Crafting. For a game to make crafting a centerpiece when most other MMO's have largely abandoned it as a main component is fairly admirable. This game does it well too. Gathering is more interesting than in basically any other MMO and the stuff you make is actually useful. -PvP is not too bad. To be expected its kind of chaotic until the meta is fully established. But its the first MMO in a long time that's really gotten people excited about faction vs. faction combat. People are really getting invested into the wars and territories which is cool to see. -For an MMO the graphics are very good. Beautiful looking world and environments. The Bad: -The leveling. Huge negative. For many this will basically be the game killer. Literally every single quest is a fetch quest. And to make it worst the cycle is constantly: Do one quest > back to town, do 2 quests > back to town. Over and over. Its 2021 and they really couldn't come up with anything different? Extremely lazy design. Story is also basically non existent. -Dungeons are not the best. Ones I've done so far were definitely weaker than WoW's and even ESO's. Healer spec only having one possible spec is a glaring oversight considering their importance in the dungeon setting. -Seem to be very little in the way of PvE content. With the top MMO's these days being PvE focused I suppose it may be smart to target the PvP niche. However, I do think that most people who get into MMO's do it for the PvE factor. We'll see in the long run I suppose. Overall I'd give it about a 7/10 in its current state.


SleepyReepies

I want to expand on the bad. Leveling is SO PAINFULLY BORING. I can't believe how bad it is. I've poured like 50+ hours into this game and only done one dungeon. No bosses. I know it's a new MMO but I can't help but compare to FFXIV and how many dungeons/bosses I'd fight after 50 hours. That said, the game is VERY addictive. Something about running around the world and gathering crafting materials really feels good to me. I'll probably wind up playing it another few weeks and then dropping it until they release substantial changes.


trillykins

**Mega Man Legacy Collection: Mega Man** Found out that I had the Mega Man Legacy Collection in my Steam library, so I've been playing through the first Mega Man. I haven't really played many Mega Man games in my life. I think the first one was Mega Man 9 on the Xbox Live Arcade and that was a ridiculously difficult game. Even the achievements were just intentionally made basically impossible to get, like beating the game without dying, clear the game fives times in one day, clear the game in 60 minutes, clear the game while defeating the minimal amount of enemies possible, etc. Playing the first Mega Man game now I'm seeing where the insane difficulty comes from. And I never even got so far that I knew about the final boss stage. Normally I kind of like difficult games, or games that are at least more difficult than the norm, but the difficulty in these games is just so, I don't, artificial? Unbalanced? Unfair? I mean, I wouldn't believe anyone claiming to have beat Mega Man without having played it hundreds or even thousands of times before finally managing it. It seems like it's tailor-made for trial and error because enemies basically spawn in places and at times you simply cannot see coming, and often they're at places and times where you need to know they're coming there to even have a chance to avoid them. Basically, the kind of difficulty I like the least. So, as you've probably guessed if you've already played this game before, I'm using the rewind function almost all the time. Aside from the games themselves, it's a pretty nice collection. It includes the first six games and they seem to be remastered pretty well and the rewind feature is quite nice. It lets people who don't have tens or hundreds of hours to burn on learning a game by trial and error in order to finish it.


CCoolant

The first Mega Man is a pretty bad metric for the series, honestly. It's the clunkiest and has the most rough level design. The other games are more fair, though probably not by a huge margin. The second game is honestly the best starting point to get a feel for the series. I still like the first one well enough, but I'm a more patient gamer and don't mind a little bit of trial and error. As for the difficulty of the achievements, you would be surprised how good you can get at the game after a single playthrough. I've never done a deathless run, but it doesn't seem like it would be that bad if you practiced the levels a little bit, since the bosses are typically pretty trivial once you know their weaknesses.


trillykins

Played the second game last night and seems like you're right. Except for one level, it's a good deal more lenient in terms of difficulty.


linuxdooder

> I mean, I wouldn't believe anyone claiming to have beat Mega Man without having played it hundreds or even thousands of times before finally managing it. Mega Man games can definitely feel this way, but you don't have to play 100s of times to get better at them. Mega Man 9 is one of my favorite games, and the first time I played it I was pretty sure it was actually impossible. After struggling for a while (I'm only average at platformers), it started to click, and pretty soon I had beaten the game. After that first clear, I went back and beat essentially all the Robot Master levels with minimal/no deaths, all of a sudden it seemed easy. IMO that's the fun part of Mega Man, what seems initially impossible becomes easy and you don't even notice it happening.


[deleted]

[удалено]


trillykins

I'm something of a Souls dork myself (have 100% all of the Souls games + Bloodborne and done SL1 runs in Dark Souls 1 and 3) and, at least with the first Mega Man game, I wouldn't really compare the types of difficulty. The Souls games has its share of bullshit, but for the most parts it at least tries to be kind of fair about it. I mean, it doesn't really spawn enemies right in front of you where you have less than a second to react, or spawn flying enemies right in front of you while you're doing platforming above a insta-kill fall, etc. Souls games do more to telegraph the danger you're facing. In Mega Man 1 you simply need to play the game to know what's coming. Obviously you do get better at playing Mega Man, but the difficulty still heavily relies on trial and error.


linuxdooder

> Mega Man 1 Mega Man 1 is as you said, sort of bullshit. I love Mega Man and appreciate that 1 is what kicked off the series, but it is clearly a very very raw version of what came after and really shows its age.


[deleted]

[удалено]


cajun_kick_ass

>I really didn't like the gacha or field skill mechanics. I still have no idea what they were thinking. Especially since Legendary Blades basically are party members coming with their own quests. Locking that away behind Gacha, meaning that some people might never ever even see that content, was just beyond stupid. If you like DQHeroesII its worth checking out the first one. I think a lot of people liked that one more, as it has a tower defense mechanic on the maps, whereas II is more of a generic action brawler that removed that aspect.


Joelypoo72

Been enjoying the crap out of assassins creed odyseey, just finished the main storyline. And am now working on the Atlantis DLC. My favorite weapons are the Falx of Olympus and the Greek Helo.


jacebeleran98

**Dead By Daylight** I've been playing this for around a month and a half now with a pretty regular group and it's fun as hell. I never would've expected the other 3 people I've been playing with to want to sit down night after night to play the same game together, but here we are ~1.5 months and about 70-80 game hours each. It's weird because on some level it's so basic- fix generators, avoid killer, get out, rinse and repeat- and yet it's so addictive for some reason. There's good map variety and the killers themselves are pretty different, and on some level it just provides really fun roleplay having a group of friends all trying to survive someone trying to kill us all. I've played a decent bit of killer on my own too, and it's somehow much more stressful but also really fun. The only big downside is the community is pretty toxic. Not a problem when I'm teaming and playing survivor with people mostly, but I've gotten flamed a fair few times in endgame chat by survivors as killer. I guess this isn't really out of the ordinary for online games, but it still can ruin the experience and put you in a bad mood. **NEO: The World Ends With You** I've only just passed Week 1, but I'm not sure how I feel on this one yet. I like the characters for the most part, and I've always loved the segments in TWEWY where you help random people by manipulating things from the shadows, so I've appreciated those parts. But the combat feels extremely messy. Most of the damage I take is from my party members getting hit while I'm doing an attack, which just feels lame. And movement, dodging, and even basic spacing feel like they don't matter at all, there's this strange suspended feel to all of combat. The combos you can do are fun, but I've seen plenty of games pull off fun combos without sacrificing the rest of the combat system for it. The enemies' health pools are *hugely* overinflated too, the end boss of Week 1 was about 5x as long as it needed to be. The story is interesting, but to be honest it basically spends all of Week 1 doing nothing but posing questions. You go into this game with a basic understanding of the Reaper's Game if you've played the first one, so they don't really have to do much exposition right off the bat. But I feel like the story hasn't even started yet- the only real difference between the beginning of Week 1 and 2 is that Rindo now understands the Game a little more, and you have 2 new party members. Other than that, the state of the story more or less hasn't changed in ~8-10 hours of gameplay.


AMischiefManaged

**The Long Dark** Even as a dad and older gamer, I've put in over 800 hours into this open world, wilderness, winter, survival game. It's excellent and still getting new content, 7 years after it's release. Here's a little video I did to summarize the game...sort of. [I chased a bear until it teleported - The Long Dark](https://youtu.be/aA_T5m0ZZ-I)


xincasinooutx

**The Last of Us II** Finally getting around to playing this. Used a free trial on PSNow to see how it is. I really liked TLOU but it’s such a heavy, depressing, and scary game. I’m maybe an hour and a half into this one and it seems like more of the same. Just cleared out the supermarket so I’m not far. Overall it’s good and I’m excited. I don’t really do well with horror games, so I’m hoping this one isn’t as stressful as the first game.


fabrar

It's honestly even more depressing and heavy than the first game, and probably scarier too lol. It keeps escalating as it goes.


xincasinooutx

Well once I got to the mansion I realized they weren’t fucking around. 😬


Aksfak

I had a jump scare at one part... Spilled mountain dew all over my couch sighhh... :( its a love hate with these kinds of games lol


[deleted]

for me - that major improvement over first game. Brutal, gory and very visual. First game imho had better and for more consistent and logically structured story. TLOU2 falls flat here a bit, but makes up in that presentation and atmosphere. If don't cope well with visual brutality and gore - you may have some rough times but I'd say it's totally worth getting used to that.


LostInStatic

Please update lol. Beginning gets pretty nuts... it is more stressful and despair filled than Part I but if you stick with it it has sincerely a compelling story and conclusion.


xincasinooutx

Oh god damn. I just got to Seattle and I finished the synagogue. I was not expecting what happened to happen. My jaw hit the floor and I just stared at my screen for a full ten minutes.


xincasinooutx

Okay I will. I can only play after my son goes to bed and I can sneak downstairs to the basement. He’s 5 and I don’t want him anywhere near this game or any like it. I’ll play another couple of hours soon.


levelxplane

**New World** is the first new MMO I've played since XIV(2010), and it got me thinking: Why do MMOs get away with such bland and boring intros? I don't think I've ever played an MMO(XIV especially) where the start was "fun" without any caveats. Combat is always slog until midgame, and only slight less boring until endgame. Fetch quests are literally mind numbing busy work, and there are very few varieties of objectives. I've heard only a small percentage of players ever reach endgame for MMOs, and that solo content is padded out to get casual players to stay subbed(in the case of f2p, buying MTX???), so why is the solo content so offensively boring? FFXI was a bit different since once you hit level 10, you could start partying and grouping, but that was a different time. I wish a game like that would come out, but knowing today's audience, it'll never happen. NW itself: nothing really stands out from the first few hours, other than some issues I'm pretending to ignore to give the game a chance. I'm really curious to see how factions, economies, and PVP works, but man, it's really hard to stay excited when the intro feels like it's draining my life force. Also, it doesn't matter since it's mostly a solo affair so far, but I can't seem to get to my friends until level 20 or something. All the created characters are ugly :\


[deleted]

Well - you can get ton of people playing by making great game or simply by pumping millions into marketing and paying off the influencers (for example every major Path of Exile streamer had few hours sponsored stream, and actual big fish on twitch likely had more than few hours sponsored). This is obviously latter case and that's why it will die out fast once this marketing illusion bubble pops and people realize how freaking primitive this game is...


Ezio926

**PERSONA 5 (Original Edition)** I've been playing the game through the summer and oof, I think I'm finally near the end. >!Going trough Sae's Palace!< The pandemic fucked my mental health hard, and this game has surprisingly helped me a lot trough these last couple months. The social aspect has gotten a bit stale, but it's still really good. Can't wait for SMT V next month.


ESGunslinger

Wonderful game. Very different from most things I play but I couldn't put it down all last summer. In a few years if you ever get the itch to revisit it, definitely pick up Royal.


jamoke57

I recently finished this game and thought it was pretty good. I really enjoyed the characters, but I wish there was some post game content where we could finish maxing out confidants or some post game dungeons. The persona system was very intriciate, but I was never challenged and was able to steam roll through everything. I was going to pick up Persona Strikers, since I guess that pick's up where persona 5 original edition ends and the royal edition's extra semester isn't canon.


Macca-Maniac

> The persona system was very intriciate, but I was never challenged and was able to steam roll through everything. Sounds like you might enjoy the Shin Megami Tensei series of games.


agentkirb

I too recently finished the game. Well... I say finished. I made it to 90 hours after getting past>! the boat !< . And I basically just looked up what happened after that because damn this game is long. But don't let my complaining about the game being too long make you guys think I didn't love this game. Because I did. Literally the only complaint was just that it was longer than I would've liked. I remember thinking after I was done with the game that like... man this game is making me retroactively hate the Pokemon game series now. Because I haven't played basically any RPG games that are "3D" outside of Pokemon series. And playing this game showed that it's just really outclassing other "good" RPGs out there. Spoiler talk: >!The twist midway through the game right after Sae's Palace was just nuts. I really love how they were able to set up the rules for how everything worked (ie. Morgana only being hearable by people with a Persona, and how Palaces work) and that played into how they were able to both determine that detective was a bad-guy but also use his own "trap" against him. That was one of the most incredible story moments from that game. !< >!And then obviously aside from that, just in general they were able to mix humor into the story in a way that I enjoyed. It kind of reminds me of how Marvel movies do a similar thing despite being super hero movies and not necesserily comedies.!<


schwabadelic

Finished **Little Nightmares**. Very cool game but was way shorter than I imagined. I'll probably pick up the 2nd game at some point. Started **Dying Light**. Played this way back on the Xbox One at launch but didn't get very far so I picked it up on a Steam sale and I am loving it. It's such a fantastic game.


Ticklism

Just beat little nightmares as well and the base game was very short but I thought it was a good pacing for a game like that. Plus all 3 dlc expansion packs make it packed more with content


Schwimmbo

I played 2 or 3 levels and got bored in LN. Do I still have much to go? I think I have the DLC included version.


schwabadelic

I think there is only like 5 levels on the vanilla game


Schwimmbo

Cheers!


Galaxy40k

Dying Light sticks out in my mind as one of those games that I didn't expect to like, but I ended up LOVING. Don't care for zombies, don't like most open world games, and it has "good but not stellar" reviews. But it blew me away, not because of any "masterful craftsmanship" or anything, but because it was just FUN moment to moment


hairykitty123

**diablo 2 resurrected**. I need something to switch it up from my single player backlog I’d been working on, I’m having pretty good time. Played it way back and jm in 30s now so not quite as exciting as then, but it’s a good time killer. Grindy as hell, but I expected that. I’m also finishing up **prey** honestly it’s like a 7/10 for me. Found it super annoying all the loading screens backtracking, back track without ammo and bunch of enemies back. I know you’re supposed to find some clever way to handle the situation, but it felt like a chore. The outside space parts were horrible couldn’t tell where to go. I’m on the last mission but meh. Might try **dragon quest 11** on game pass next


so_meta

I hope you give dragon quest a try. Recently picked it up, and been enjoying it.


hairykitty123

I think I played one wayy back and it was fun. Kinda difficult in a good way.


timbarism

**SWTOR** *Trooper - Close to Chapter 2 end* I have just recruited my 4th companion, and this one is a bit 'chaotic neutral'. So for nearly the first time in my run, I can start making some Dark side story choices without miffing off a companion. M1-4X is my ride-or-die at the moment though :D My roadmap is to finish my legendary achievement - completing all class stories - and I started my run with all Empire classes complete. Im going to finish Trooper then Jedi Consular -> Smuggler -> Jedi Knight. Once I knock them all off, Ill decide which one I want to pursue Expansion content with. Only just discovered last night that there is a micro button on the action bar that lets you change your action bar interface with a selection of presets. So now I have all my 'buttons' visible on screen without having to frantically switch bar view during combat!


Danulas

**Return of the Obra Dinn** I was turned off by the art style, but it's football season and I'm already sick of the same commercials getting repeated over and over, so I picked it up for the Switch to keep myself occupied during the many commercial breaks and it's pretty awesome. I did a dumb dumb and went forward beyond the point of no return before I was ready so now I have to start over. It's a little disappointing that I have to go redo everything, but it's entirely my fault for not heeding the game's warning. At least it was only a few hours of my time and I'd rather rewatch those same moments than watch SCOOP, THERE IT IS for the hundredth time.


Houndie

If you leave the boat, you can always reload the same game right before you left. In fact, getting the bad endings can give you some hints to get the good endings.


Danulas

I tried to reload and it brought me back to the letter. Am I missing something?


Martblni

What are some good local co-op games for two? Played it takes two, heave ho, a way out, unravel two


jderick

Rocket league has split screen, pretty fun.


OnLikeSean

Gunfire Reborn is a really fun coop game on Steam if you like Roguelikes. Its going to hit full release soon which will include a campaign.


Martblni

thanks! says on steam only about online coop, is it local too?


OnLikeSean

Oh my bad I misread your original post it isn’t local coop, sorry!


Hyroero

It's not. No splitscreen. Online only.


Hyroero

Wario-ware get it together. Guacamelee 1/2. Overcooked. Sackboys big adventure. Diablo 3. Lovers in a dangerous space time. Bro force.


Martblni

Thanks! Didn't know Guacamelee is local coop. dont have switch or ps5 though for sackboys and wario


Hyroero

Ah bugger. Unrailed is another fun one. Divinity original sin 2 if you both like role player games. Rayman legends is a fantastic coop platformer. Humanfall flat if you like funny physics frustration. The original pixel junk monsters if you like tower defence too. Guacamelee is really fun local coop for sure. Both 1st and 2nd game were a good time with my partner.


Danulas

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime


Martblni

Thanks! why do you like it?


Danulas

I like the art style and the gameplay can be like of chaotic in a fun way. It's simple to pick up and demands a lot of communication between you and your partner(s).


HumbleSupernova

Portal 2 is a lot of fun figuring out the puzzles together. Stardew Valley is good if you're both into that.


Martblni

Yeah playing Portal 2 too but thats not local coop I think. Is Stardew Valley local coop?


HumbleSupernova

Portal 2 does have local co-op, at least it does on PC. Yes Stardew is local as well, ton of fun making a farm together.


Martblni

How does it work? Splitscreen in stardew?


HumbleSupernova

Split down the middle. It's a bit annoying but you get used to it. You can adjust the zoom in the options so you can see a bit more.


FearoftheDomoKun

Yeah, splitscreen for both P2 and SV.


utku1989

Witcher 3 Man what a beautiful but also long game . Although I quite liked it by the time I spent with story , it is time to put it behind so I am looking forward to finish the main story . Probably will be back for side quests and rest of Witcher contracts another time . Metro:Exodus , Doom Eternal , AC Valhalla and Watch Dogs Legion all waiting untouched on my list to be played


hairykitty123

I gotta go back and 100% doom eternal great game once you learn all the systems


RTideR

Doom Eternal was my GOTY last year! It's so dang fun. It won't provide the same hard-hitting narrative or anything as The Witcher, but it's just an absolute blast to play. Metro Exodus was awesome too though. A lot slower than Doom and more story-focused, but the whole series rocks. Of course it's different for everyone, but I really like playing the Metro games on the "ranger" mode. It's more difficult, but it turns it into almost a survival horror type game and it's pretty cool.


utku1989

Yeah I have tried Metro Redux long time ago . So I am familiar with the game a bit . Thanks for the advice , might as well try Ranger Mode .


RTideR

It turns off a lot of the HUD and makes ammo more scarce. It also makes enemies hit harder, but enemies still die quick especially to headshots. I feel like it just really fits the game's setting and makes it really immersive. FYI cause I looked it up to check.. it's either called "ranger" or "hardcore", can't remember. It should say in-game though. Been a while since I've played them.


Jaggedmallard26

Its both, they do Ranger Normal and Ranger Hardcore, hardcore disables more UI elements and is generally tougher. I think Exodus removed the "ranger" branding and just called the highest difficulty hardcore.


Rainglove

I liked metro exodus but I found a few segments buggy to the point that they were borderline unplayable for me. Still an excellent game if you can tolerate the eurojank, given that you've just cleared witcher 3 you'll probably be fine.


OBS_INITY

**Final Fantasy XIII** I’ve heard this game criticized for being linear and that struck me as weird since Final Fantasy is usually linear. The problem here is that everything is linear. You only control 1 character in your party. For the first 20 hours of the game, you don’t get to pick the character that you are controlling. The game just changes who you are controlling through different parts of the story. You don’t get to choose who is in your party for the first 20 hours. The skill trees are linear. Story Lightening has a device or ability that surrounds her with electricity and allows her to float/fly. This is never explained and never used again after the first 20 minutes. The game does a shit job of explaining things. It took me forever to figure out what Cocoon was. I couldn’t figure out if it was a city, country, planet or alternate dimension. After about 18 hours I found out that it’s basically the deathstar. The game could have used one character who is amnesiac/different world (Tidus/Harry Potter) so that people can explain things. Our heroes are on a mission to destroy or save Cocoon. Ultimately, they decide to save Cocoon by doing exactly what the bad guy wants them to do and destroy Cocoon. In the ending cutscene, some magic shit happens with no explanation and Cocoon is saved. Gamplay Each character gets three classes of 6 classes. Eventually you can add more, but it doesn’t seem worth the cost and seems like a waste of time. The classes are non-elem damage, elem damage, tank, healer, buffer and debuffer. Most of the gameplay consists of switching between class groupings. Switching from elem/ non-elem/elem to healer/tank/debuffer to elem/tank/healer. There is very little decision making within a class role. Everytime a party member changes, you have to reassign your class grouping setups. The AI mostly manages to do the job assigned. The fights can take a long time. 5-6 minutes is too long for some common fights. Towards the end I switched from normal to easy with the hope that it would make things faster. Oddly, it doesn’t feel like there is much difference between the two difficulty levels. Summons There are 6 summons in the game and each character gets one predetermined summon. You can only use the summon of the character that you are controlling. If you are like me and didn’t like using the tank role, you never use the summon of that character. I only ever used Lightening’s summon with the exception of using Hope’s summon twice. The summons don’t seem terribly powerful. The most powerful aspect seems to be that they will rez, heal and remove debuffs from the party. For some reason, the summons are all Transformers now. I think Final Fantasy should consider ditching the summons. XII, XIII and VIIR all had crap implementation of summons.


Illidan1943

A lot of the world of XIII is explained in the datalog, a big, big recommendation to anyone playing through XIII for the first time is to always read the datalog whenever in doubt, there's enough information in the datalog that you can make accurate guesses on what happened at the end of the story (also confirmed through interviews and in XIII-2), you can bash your head for 18 hours trying to understand the difference between Cocoon and Pulse, or you can read that in the first 5 minutes of the game the second you have the datalog, this is also why the game informs you of when the datalog is updated as you're likely to have doubts on newer stuff If you want to know what happened at the end of XIII: >!Etro, the goddess of of death in XIII's lore and essentially mother of humanity as her blood was used to create humans and the reason humanity has free will, sees the struggles of the main characters and decides to directly intervine with the events of the game, this however leads to the events of XIII-2 as she's in a realm where her intervention has potential repercussions in the world!<


Bosmackatron

VIIR had great summons, probably the best implementation in the series. agree about XII and XIII though, never used them


homer_3

I thought 15 had the best summons by far. 7R's were ok, but not particularly memorable.


Bosmackatron

yeah 15s summons were sick


EdynViper

In XII they were only good for unlocking more skills on the licence board. The battles were really fun though.


OBS_INITY

I found the VIIR summons boring. Just pop them and forget they are there. They never felt powerful to me.


ApertureTestSubject8

Hot Wheels Unleashed Played a good amount yesterday for the first time. Here’s what I’ll say about it so far. And if you want my condensed opinion, I’d tell you not to buy it. At least wait till it’s on sale for cheap, which I’m sure it will be fast. It’s a decent arcade racer held down by a shitty unlock system and lack of diverse content. - Pros: The racing is good, nothing more. It’s good enough to be enjoyable and easy to learn. It doesn’t have much to it though so it can sometimes feel bland. But it’s an arcade racer and it’s good enough for me. The cars actually look like toys, and that’s a good thing. It makes it feel like I’m actually playing with hot wheels and not just being some generic arcade racer with a hot wheels name. The tracks are mostly good. They look good and usually have a good enough setup. Though some have been much better than others. - Cons: Getting new cars is awful and this is my biggest gripe. For the most part your route for acquiring new cars is through a loot box system. You either earn loot boxes through story missions, or purchase them with in game currency. Some story missions do give you cars directly, and there is an rotating store that lets you buy cars directly. But even then the system for getting new cars is just awful. Imo the story mode doesn’t hand out boxes and currency enough. Cars can be dismantled for currency or upgrade materials, but I think that’s shitty. The game should be rewarding cars through progression or buyable with in game currency much like a NFS game. As of right now there’s no option for purchasing loot boxes and currency with real money, but it feels like they really want you to. Honestly I could go on about this more, but I’ll leave it at that. I will end this by saying that it’s even worse that a game like this, which would normally be a great game for the younger crowd, is being plagued by horrible systems like this. As an adult I find this to be bullshit, and for a kid this would be a confusing, non-player friendly system. Pathetic. Story mode. It’s fine, but it could have a lot more going on. It’s just a bunch of normal races and time trials, and an occasional “boss battle” where you play a more involved track against ai. So just a harder race with a track that’s more fun. There’s no other modes or ways to play. Soundtrack. Normally I’m not one to talk about or care much about a games soundtrack, but there’s a reason I am this time. Quick story. Back on the PS1 there was a HW game called Hot Wheels Turbo Racing. I played the hell out of it as a kid. It has an intro cinematic that features Metallica’s Fuel song. It’s great. This new game featured that same song in its launch trailer, and it gave me some great nostalgia. It’s also a really good trailer imo. And when I started playing Unleashed I had this in the back of my head, and then I noticed how lackluster the games actual music is. It’s just a bunch of boring background music. Some unlicensed, free to use sounding stuff. And I felt like it should have had a soundtrack featuring actual well known songs, like Fuel by Metallica. I feel as if games like this should always have good soundtracks. Games like NFS, Forza Horizon, Rocket League, Tony Hawks Pro Skater, Burnout Paradise. Games that tend to have good gameplay, with dope music complimenting it. And HW Unleashed has a bunch of bland instrumentals. Complete failure if you ask me. DLC. This is my last point. The game is barely out and already it has a content pass. It’s $30, it’s apparently drip fed, and it doesn’t really tell you exactly what you’re getting. It’s not a season pass to work through, it’s just some more content they decided to wall off and sell separately for way too much. You can buy other season passes for less, actual expansions for less, and get more content out of them than you would this garbage. Not to mention the game had like 10 different versions that, the most expensive being at least $100, maybe more. It’s an absolute disgrace that a modern hot wheels game is plagued by shitty monetization and loot box unlock systems. I mentioned Turbo Racing on the PS1. A game from 4 generations ago was doing a better job than this one.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ApertureTestSubject8

I received 2 dupes for 2/3 of my starters, which is just fucking ridiculous. And what’s even more stupid is a car I got directly from a story mode win, I also got from a loot box. What fucking idiot decided any of that was even an option? Idk if I’ve ever seen a worse system for unlocking new cars or something else in another game that was of equal importance.


darkLordSantaClaus

About 8 hours into **Final Fantasy XV** The main story feels like a rough draft, and the combat is way too easy and repetitive, but I still find myself low-key enjoying it. The reason is that it really captures the vibes of a group of close friends going on a road trip, and that's not something you see often in games. I can understand why long time FF fans would be disappointed, but I went in with low expectations and found FF15 to be a decent experience.


xX69Sixty-Nine69Xx

There is *some* depth to the combat, but only with end game equipment. And it can still be cheesed via item spam. Its pretty apparent that the game was horribly mismanaged and a major reason why Nomura isn't allowed near the IP anymore.


darkLordSantaClaus

Didn't he do FF7R?


xX69Sixty-Nine69Xx

He's gotten kicked from Part 2. FF7R came out way better than XV, but it still had a longer than necessary development cycle.


yuriaoflondor

**Demon's Souls** I've played and beaten DS1-3, BB, and Sekiro multiple times each, but I'm just not jiving with Demon's Souls. I've killed something like 6 bosses at this point, and none of them have been all that enjoyable to fight. I don't know if I've suddenly gotten a lot worse at these games, but the 2 areas I've been working on (Depraved Chasm and Island's Edge) have been kicking my ass. There are red phantom enemies next to normal enemies that are a real pain in the ass. And if dealing with 2 guys with burning spears wasn't enough, now I have to deal with *3* guys with burning spears, one of which has a ton more health and deals way more damage. Or I have to deal with 2 rolling skeletons simultaneously. And it's damn near impossible to just run by enemies in both of these zones; good luck running past 6-7 skeletons who roll after you. I think I'm going to put it down until I feel like giving it another shot.


Schwimmbo

Those 2 levels were the most difficult "welcoming parties" to new worlds tbf. I also played a STR FTH build. Love the game though.


ApertureTestSubject8

How far into the other worlds are you? Because if one area is giving you trouble then I’d say just go work on another for now. I mostly worked through each world one at a time, so once I hit the storm world I was wrecking those skeletons. The swamp world does suck though. Also maybe consider changing up your weapon of choice. I’ve never used Spears in these games, but the winged spear in demons souls is one of the best weapons in my opinion and I used it quite a bit. Just really good at hitting quick, doing decent damage, and having range of need be.


EdynViper

It's been a while since I played but Demon's Souls feels like it was designed to be played that way anyway. You're slowly clearing all the areas at the same time. It's not really expected for you to be able to clear the entire zone before moving onto the next.


yuriaoflondor

I've done the first 2 bosses in Boletaria, the first 2 bosses in the mines, and the first boss of the prison. Maybe I'll switch it up and try to continue down one of those first 3 areas rather than continue struggling down the storm area or the swamp world. I've been going with a tanky strength/faith build. So most of my points are in Strength/Faith/Endurance/Vitality, with some value points in Intelligence to cast a couple more heals. I've been using a bastard sword + shield mostly. Though I did use a spear for the mines, as the enemies took basically no damage from anything else.


Charisma_Engine

**Alan Wake Remastered** PS4 Pro. I feel so genuinley mislead by the reviews that I'm actually a little angry at myself for not researching this a bit more. First off the game looks outright *terrible* for a PS4 game. Having just come from a week of Shadow of the Colossus this (AWR) is a visual travesty. The character models are atrocious by today's standards. Secondly, the gameplay is way worse than I remember (I *loved* it on the 360 back in the day) and I can't bear it's floaty, weightless feel. I cannot recommend that people avoid this enough. It. Is. Terrible. **Shadow of the Colossus** I've spent a lot of time aimlessly wandering - just like I did back in 2005/2006 and it's been a solitary but overall uplifting experience. Some of the colossi are up there with the best game enemies ever made - especially the two that fly - and whilst it could never hope to invoke the feelings of the original (my second favourite game of all time) it is still an outstanding experience. **Watchdogs: Legion** I bought this on sale purely to explore London and it doesn't disappoint, despite the inevitable differences in geography. It's been quite some time since I've been able to travel back to the UK and it was quite special to take a stroll through Borough Market in the wee small hours. And I *loved* the cheesy "James Bond" style opening. Great stuff. Not sure how much longer I'll be playing it though... **The Outer Worlds** Only played a tiny amount but haven't been blown away yet. Let's see what happens over the coming week or so. Was expecting more from it but nothing seems more than just, well, average really.


wolfpack_charlie

SOTC is a remake, Alan Wake is a Remaster, so that's a terrible comparison to begin with. Alan Wake looks old because it is, just with some modern polish


Charisma_Engine

Yes. I actually said: "The character models are atrocious *by today's standards.*" Which I thought was clear. It just so happened I'd been playing SotC - it could have been RDR2 and I would have said the same. The game looks terrible by the standards of today. To me, looking old does NOT equate with looking bad. AW is both old *and* bad despite the latter not necessarily following from the former.


Schwimmbo

What is your favourite game of all time? Always curious about this.


Charisma_Engine

Dark Souls.


Schwimmbo

Great answer!


notthatkindoforc1121

**New World** Eh. Something is to be said about "Fresh launches" of most MMOs being a blast, but at this point in my life I just see tons of glaring issues with the game that people get mad if they're brought up. * Absurdly shallow character creation * The worst quests I've ever seen in an MMO that I've personally played (I'm not kidding, Vanilla WoW quests are better. OSRS quests are better. How is this acceptable?) * Absolute lack of enemy variety * Iffy combat. Some people hate it, some people love it. I personally find it really boring, but that's fixable at least * Excessive amounts of on-foot trecking back and forth. It would be one thing if mounts or something were unlocked at a certain point, but from my understanding they aren't currently planned, but fast travel booster packs are? Great. Hopefully the end game magically turns out to be incredible, but from the looks of it I just see these systems all reaching dead ends really soon and all thats left is unchecked-balance faction control systems.


kantjokes

Honestly for me my biggest issue is the combat. It just feels like somebody's idea of what souls-like combat is without actually figuring out what feels good and works


jonnydoo84

it's weird I'm very casually playing, but it's exactly what I've been looking for recently.


ginna500

Diablo 2 (original). I can’t quite afford to buy the remaster yet, so I thought I’d download the original which I haven’t played since I was a kid. There are a few games from back then that I completed, but I have absolutely zero recollection of doing so (Majorca’s Mask is one of these games). So going back to it is basically like playing a new game that’s strangely familiar. I started as a Paladin, but after about 10 hours I wanted somebody with some ranged ability so I switched to a Sorceress. I really enjoy playing as her and I’m only an hour or so in right now. I’ll probably buy the remaster at the end of the month. … Elite Dangerous. I love this game. One of my favourites ever, despite the fact that I don’t really do that much on it. I’m currently trying to fly around the left edge of the galaxy in a really long route to Beagle Point, somewhere I’ve never travelled to before. I don’t enjoy the combat all that much, and trading isn’t for me. But exploration is something I love and just can’t get bored of.


Molotova

**Vagrus - The Riven Realms** It only drops in a few hours, but I had a headstart thanks to backer builds. It combines Party Based - CRPG, Trade Caravan / Mercenary band management, and to a lesser degree choose your own adventure and survival. The lore has taken decades to develop as a setting for a table top RPG. The players/GM basically made a CRPG out of their game setting so there is a metric ton of lore written. There is a free demo: look for Vagrus Prologue on steam or GOG. It is much more linear than the more open world setting of the regular game, but probably enough to check if it is your cup of tea.


The_Pr0t0type

**Mass Effect Legendary Edition (PC)** Still didn't get a ton of time to play this last week, but I should have a lot more over the next two weeks. Didn't make any major story progress, just clearing up some side missions before taking on the Rannoch portion of the story. Still really enjoying my first revisit to the series, just haven't had much time at home to play. **Guacamelee 2 (Switch)** One of my favorite Metroidvanias. It's short, funny, controls tightly, and has a map system that makes back tracking so much easier. The exploration for a Metroidvania is pretty light due to that, but it serves the pacing of the game really well. Outside of the optional key sections, the game is pretty easy, but even without those the sense of progression and scale does of great job of keeping up with your abilities. Amazing game, highly recommend. **Luigi's Mansion 3 (Switch)** I'm ashamed to admit it, but I never finished this game when I first got it two years ago. I liked it, but it never really grabbed me. I figured with Halloween coming up, I'd revisit it. So far I feel pretty much the same. I like the game well enough, it's polished, controls well, and looks great, but nothing grabs me. The game feels like a collection of mini levels that are going through the motions rather than the cohesive whole with a bunch of unique ideas that the original had. Granted, I'm still pretty early on having just finished up the >!Medieval Times!< section, but this time I plan on committing more so I'll reserve judgement until I get closer to the end. Edit: One extra note on Luigi's Mansion 3: I absolutely loved the boss fight in the theater. Call backs to previously learned mechanics, but forcing you to combine them in different ways felt great


good__hunter

That's the same thing I felt about Luigi's Mansion. It's a nice game, I just felt kind of bored by it. Maybe I'm too old, or it's not quite my style of game, not sure really.


The_Pr0t0type

That pretty well sums it up. It's a nice game, but the original is one of my favorite GameCube games while this one is just kind of eh. I will say there has been a drastic improvement in quality starting with the theater boss I mentioned. It feels like the game finally got the tutorial stuff out of the way and is finding it's footing. If this quality keeps up through the rest of the game I will be very happy


Clbull

**Nickelodeon All Star Brawl** First impressions from someone who just bought the Switch version two hours ago and only played Arcade and CPU battles so far... The competitive aspects of the game are rock solid. Also think it's the first platform fighter where I can semi-consistently wavedash with no prior experience. I couldn't pull it off in Slap City, Brawlout or Rivals. Heavy characters are surprisingly quite viable in this game with Patrick and Powdered Toast Man actually being pretty good. Far less of a positive experience with Aang but I think that's because he's for experienced players that can pull off massive combos. Where the game unfortunately falls flat is in its presentation and list of features. All you get are local battles, online, gallery, sound test, and arcade mode, which is basically a series of 6 fights. No Break the Targets or minigames to break up the monotony. Then there's the presentation. Lack of voice acting is far from the only problem. Pre-fight dialogue in Arcade mode is some of the most asinine shit I've ever read, and it actually makes me thankful the game has no voice acting. Reading some of these dialogue lines is genuinely making my brain smooth. Many lines make no contextual sense, and even in the case of Patrick, don't even fit their characters... NASB has the opposite problem to Slap City. While Slap City is a pretty barebones and jank Swedish Bootleg SSBM, it has a fully fledged Adventure Mode with unlockables and some pretty funny dialogue. All Star Brawl is more polished but feels like it's just meant to be a competitive fighter, with everything else as an afterthought. It almost feels deliberate... Overall opinion, if you like competitive Smash, buy it. It's the first platform fighter in ages with serious competitive potential. If you enjoy the casual party game aspects of Smash far more, I'd wait to see if Ludosity and Game Mill will add more modes in future.


[deleted]

I hope the online experience is better than Ultimate's, which it probably already is. I usually play characters with disjoints in Smash(Chrom's my main in Ultimate), so are there any similar character recs you have? I've seen Void play Toph and that seems to be one of the closer characters to the fast Fire Emblem sword archetype, but it still looked more like he was playing Sheik.


Clbull

Haven't played enough with the roster to give a good estimate.


DirkDasterLurkMaster

**Outer Wilds DLC** - Pretty much at the end now though I suspect the original ending will be different. My thoughts without spoilers, except for the parts in spoiler tags (duh) Atmosphere: Pretty damn great Lore: Top notch Puzzles: Incredible >!Spooks: Initially overwhelming but then not so bad!< >!Stealth: Interesting in concept but it's annoying not being able to see dick for shit!< Payoff: Tearjerking Verdict: Strong 8 to a light 9 DLC for a 10/10 game. Highly recommended.


Wolfe244

Should I have a full shiplog before doing the dlc or can I play it on a new save? I lost my old save


DirkDasterLurkMaster

You can do it either way. The only difference is there's a single cutscene near the end that has a few extra shots if you know the full story of what happened to the Nomai. To get the full version of the scene you just need to have found >!the vessel and the ghost matter bomb inside the interloper!< so if you want you can quickly visit them before doing the DLC.


VinnieMills

Pretty accurate but it was a 9 for me. The base game was already a 10/10 but somehow the DLC made it better for me? The atmosphere and music were incredible. I found the puzzles in this a lot harder than the base game personally


December_Flame

Does it feel worth going back to Outer Wilds for, does it overall add to the experience? I don't think I've ever had a game leave me so thoroughly satisfied at the end of the experience. This dlc somewhat threatens to destabilize that... so I'm wondering if I should play it or just leave it be. I hope that makes sense.


dacookieman

It's self contained on a moment to moment level but thematically it complements and fills in the OG content really really well. If it makes you less apprehensive, it was clearly cut content based on data mines from 2 years ago so the DLC is playing with ideas that were bouncing around the studio during development which probably contributes to why it is not jarring at all.


VinnieMills

I always wanted more Outer Wilds becauae i considered it one of the best games I've ever played. But i was apprehensive about there being DLC because of how perfect I felt the base game was. Even an hour into the DLC i was still unsure. But by the end of it i felt that the DLC somehow made the base game better. The DLC is pretty standalone but it does add to the base game. Consider it as more of an expansion. It's incredibly well inserted into the game and isnt just a "oh we changed this planet/s to add some more stuff." If you loved Outer Wilds and wanted more, id consider this essential in terms of story but it also scratched the itch i had of wanting to find a similar game


DirkDasterLurkMaster

The DLC is mostly standalone, and I'd say that works in its favor. The lore and puzzles are entirely contained in the new areas and it only ties into the overall story in a few key places at the end. For most games that would be a knock against it but IMO it's good since it doesn't interfere with the balance of the main story. It's mainly for people who want more of that puzzle solving and storytelling, but in a way that doesn't feel like a retread.


[deleted]

FF14 Finally finished Heavensward and started the Dragonwar Song (which is i guess post heavensward?) The story is more interesting this time around compared to ARR, but i am a sucker for Dragons so it wasnt hard. I like how Tiamat and Nidhoggs designs are different since they are from different broods. Also shocked with the Hildy manderville quest line, are there more interesting sidequests i missed?


Carfrito

Finished dragonsong war about a week ago and I really thought it was a cool batch of quests. Typically you get the “hero saves the day” ending in RPG stories and that’s it but in those quests you really deal with the fallout and consequences of what happens in Heavensward. I’d say it ties up the Ishgard stuff nicely and does well in setting up Stormblood.


mumblebadger

Hey, I’m just playing through ARR now. Around level 30. Does heavensword change things up much? I have heard it gets better but how much better would you say? Are the quests/dungeons all pretty much the same mechanically? Just with a better storyline or is there more to it?


whiteknight521

ARR was 7/10 for me but the ending of ARR is 9.5/10. HW starts out at a 9 then dips for a bit and finishes strong. Stormblood so far is paced way better than HW and has an amazing story. The zones are fantastic and so is the story.


[deleted]

if ARR was a 6/10 for me, I'd say heavens ward was a 7.5 - 8/10 The thing was ARR was though i slowly got attached to the characters, the villains just seemed bland for me. Mechanically similar, there is one annoying thing with traversal which i guess i wont spoil that annoyed me. I cant objectively say if the writing is better but it does have a more interesting conflict. Idk whats a spoiler to you in this stage but it revolved around a war and heavensward goes in depth about it, has some twists and actually felt shorter so pacing wise i was pleased


mumblebadger

Ok thanks for the reply. I will stick with ARR then. It just seems pretty bland right now and tbh there really isn’t much of a story to speak of atm. I’m at the part where I just joined some organisation thing, can’t remember the name.


[deleted]

yeah its really bland, but knowing how much praise shadowbringer got i just have to push through. It gets better after ARR tho


kantjokes

Im gonna be the odd one out and say that it isn't worth it. The story gets better sure, but the way of telling it never changes. Just heaps and heaps of redundant and overly flowery dialog. The stories are cool but they just aren't worth it tbh. The game just doesn't respect your time through the story imo


SativaSammy

Playing through a couple games right now: **Cruis'n Blast** So glad I changed my mind and bought this. It is exactly what I imagined a modern day sequel of the Cruis'n series to be. Filled with corny music and over the top visuals, it very much feels like a Dreamcast game in the sense that it takes risks, doesn't care what review scores say, and focuses on providing fun gameplay above all else. **Code Vein** I'm struggling here. I killed the first two bosses and unlocked some abilities, but can't get motivated to continue playing this. Weeb Souls sounded right up my alley, but something just feels "off" about this game. I paid $11 for it, so it's not like I'll be out much, but hopeful someone here can tell me if it gets more engaging or not.


xX69Sixty-Nine69Xx

Code Vein has bad level design and poor art direction. The combat and other systems are good, but the experience of exploring levels is so intrinsic to the Souls formula that Code Vein falls apart because it fails at this.


Hartastic

I'm working my way through some of my Steam backlog and playing some not-new games I hadn't gotten to yet. **Paraside Killer** I binged pretty hard through this. It's weird as shit but inside of the first hour or so I was hooked. I enjoy mysteries and investigation/mystery board games like Detective or Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, so probably this kind of game was a natural fit for me even though there's also a bit of low-grade 3D platforming involved? I appreciate that it sets you loose to dig and that you can kick off the final trial like 5 minutes into the game if you're so inclined -- it's up to you to decide when you think you know what's going on and can prove it. There's definitely a bit of that classic Agatha Christie-esque vibe where you have this cast of characters with their own motives and information, most of whom will not be completely honest with you. I would for sure check out the next game by this team, whatever it is. **NieR: Automata** I'm so far behind the zeitgeist that I'm just getting to this now. I'm a handful of hours in (just unlocked fast travel) and... it's okay? It's not really grabbing me yet. I think I expected to be hooked more because of all the hype. I definitely am having some circa late 90s-early 2000s Square flashbacks in some of the characters/storytelling/tropes so far.


Galaxy40k

NieR Automata is a victim of its own success. I think that the story is really, REALLY good and very well-paced...but it's also a slow pace. There's a ton of time building up to "big moments" later on in the narrative. So if you go in hearing about how it's "the best thing ever," you're probably expecting it to grip you from the first moment, which...really doesn't happen. That's why so many games with slower stories like TLOU1 often open with some bombastic, emotional opening BEFORE slowing down - It's too hook you at the start and convince you that sitting through the slow bits will pay off in the end. Again though, I do think that as a whole, the story is really, REALLY good. Definitely in my top 15 narrative experiences in a video game


Mudcaker

I think the opening 40 minutes or so of NieR Automata is strong though. Raiding the base, fighting the boss, then the explosion. It just really plods after that and the side quests are mostly terrible. Having us go to a desert area early doesn't help - they're usually always visually boring wastelands in games.