Played through both Wolfenstein The New Order and The Old Blood (The Old Blood for the first time). The New Order is still one of the best FPS campaigns ever put together. The Old Blood is fucking bullshit slog. The last boss is basically the giant zombie version of the Mass Effect 2 last boss. Not only are you fighting the upper torso of a 100 foot tall super zombie, but normal Nazis are pouring out of the crevices and instead of being terrified at this ultra zombie that just murdered their bosses, they all focus on you. That's so fucking dumb. The Old Blood sucks and I swear, every third cutscene ends with BJ looking up and a random falling brick knocking him out. It happens 1100 times.
This is the only good thing about Wolfenstein The Old Blood (and Mick Gordon's soundtrack in general):
This is the only good thing about Wolfenstein The Old Blood (and Mick Gordon's soundtrack in general):
God damn, so I'm giving FF15 another chance, since I really didn't care for it the last time I gave it a shot. I just don't care about Nightboy, Speedy, Flames and Sword. So far, for such a simple story, I'm like teflon to it. And the sad, pathetic shit with Cindy is nauseating. Filling up your car at Hammerhead? Here's a 20 second cutscene of Cindy bending over your car washing it. Jesus Christ, there's already SOOOOOOOOOOOO much time wasting filler, which I guess is all modern Final Fantasies.
It's still good and totally worth a play.
I'm finally playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I put it off because I wanted to rent before buying considering its divisiveness among Dark Souls/Bloodborne fans.
And I love it. It's hard, of course, but it suits my play style. Definitely buying.
And I love it. It's hard, of course, but it suits my play style. Definitely buying.
I am playing Ys 8: Somethingamosa of Dana Plato.
This is...good. Super fast paced combat that is a bit spammy but I'm enjoying expanding my village, opening up more of the island. I'm legit enjoying this weird port of a Vita game. I don't give a hoot about the characters, but whatever, I like this game more than FF15.
This is...good. Super fast paced combat that is a bit spammy but I'm enjoying expanding my village, opening up more of the island. I'm legit enjoying this weird port of a Vita game. I don't give a hoot about the characters, but whatever, I like this game more than FF15.
Huh. Ciri's universe-hopping abilities brought her to The Sims 4.Still hooked on Sims 4. Genetic lottery gave me this. All I did were the lashes and eye makeup.
That's a crossover I didn't see coming.
Dave
Staff member
GasBandit
Staff member
SO. Much. NECK.Still hooked on Sims 4. Genetic lottery gave me this. All I did were the lashes and eye makeup.
She looks like a Kroger advertisment!
So I've started playing Days Gone, a PS4 exclusive open world "zombie" game. I put zombie in quotes because these are not the undead variety but the fast living 28 days later variety.
I heard a lot about this game when it came out, most of it negative, but I was able to find it for cheap and I gotta say, it's actually really good. You play as a biker with a motorcycle, and keeping your bike fueled and in good working order is just as important as keeping stocked on guns and ammo. The story has been surprisingly well done, and the open world survival aspects actually work really well and make for fun gameplay. Whereas most games of this nature take a very bleak tone (the last of us) this game manages to remain hopeful, and that's a welcome change in the genre.
I heard a lot about this game when it came out, most of it negative, but I was able to find it for cheap and I gotta say, it's actually really good. You play as a biker with a motorcycle, and keeping your bike fueled and in good working order is just as important as keeping stocked on guns and ammo. The story has been surprisingly well done, and the open world survival aspects actually work really well and make for fun gameplay. Whereas most games of this nature take a very bleak tone (the last of us) this game manages to remain hopeful, and that's a welcome change in the genre.
This is very much one of those situations where the critics didn't "get it", mostly due to years of zombie fatigue in the industry. It didn't help that Red Dead 2 has come out less than a year earlier and basically did everything this did, but better. That said... yes, this deserved a lot more credit than it got and I know more than one friend of mine was surprised by the reviews after playing it. It's not perfect, but it's solid... the story isn't AMAZING, but it's competently done and has some at least one good twist in it. All the acting is great. Really, it's most interesting feature is the motorcycle aspects (both maintenance and upgrading it) which is deeper than Red Dead's and the crafting system it stole from The Last of Us makes making items on the fly easy.
I really hope it gets a sequel and that the sequel hits harder. This game deserves more love.
She almost made the cut for Welcome to the Ballroom.
Playing Streets of Rage 4 on the Switch. Never really played the original trilogy as I was a SNES kid so can confirm that you don't need the nostalgia for the earlier games to enjoy this one. Also the old 16-bit versions of the characters are in the game. This is the type of thing that you used to be able to unlock by playing the game but are now only available via pre-order bonus or paid DLC - except here they are unlocked by playing the game. As they fucking should be.
Never mind. To hell with this game.
... I mean, I'm not going to stop playing of course, just that it stopped being nice to me.
Just tried the free demo for LIBERATED. I wanted to love it because of the comic book aesthetic and presentation. Unfortunately, once you get past that, it's a bog-standard 2D game like Another World or Flashback.
The cutscenes are presented like a comic. You hit a button to move onto the next "panel" until you're taken to a level. And then...that's it. The comic book style ends, save for some Batman 1966 style lettering over sound effects.
I went into it blind, expecting something akin to maybe the Sega Genesis game Comix Zone. Where you move to another section by jumping panels. Or maybe do more with the comic book setting. But it's just another 2D game with nothing really to offer. Gonna un-wishlist it, sadly.
The cutscenes are presented like a comic. You hit a button to move onto the next "panel" until you're taken to a level. And then...that's it. The comic book style ends, save for some Batman 1966 style lettering over sound effects.
I went into it blind, expecting something akin to maybe the Sega Genesis game Comix Zone. Where you move to another section by jumping panels. Or maybe do more with the comic book setting. But it's just another 2D game with nothing really to offer. Gonna un-wishlist it, sadly.
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So I encountered what is almost certainly an amusing bug in my latest Dwarf Fortress game.
Every now and then I would find a pile of abandoned goods somewhere on my map, which would inevitably include some "wagon wood", which meant the pile of stuff came from a caravan's wagon. But why would there be a wagon's worth of stuff, as well as the wood from the wagon, in a random spot near my fort? I figured the most likely explanation was that some hostile wild animal had attacked the caravan and destroyed a wagon, leaving the wood and the trade goods on the ground. Except there were no reports of any fights between wildlife and the caravan.
Oh well, I figured I'd chalk it up to another one of DF's unexplainable quirks, and move on.
But today I was reading up online, and came across a possible explanation for this phenomenon. You see, wagons are considered living creatures in the game's code. This is what allows them to move around the game world. The latest version of the game added a bunch of extra thoughts and emotions to living things; this was to give your dwarves much more nuance and subtlety in their personalities and preferences. In particular, dwarves can sometimes be overcome by horror if they see something frightening, such as a dead body. A dwarf that's overcome by horror will stop whatever they're doing and go into a mini panic attack, and will need a bit of time to compose themselves before they'll do anything useful.
Other living things, such as other races and even animals, can suffer from these panic attacks when they're overcome by horror too. And as it turns out, so can wagons. Except apparently wagons aren't coded to have emotions, including panic attacks, so they react to horrible sights by literally falling apart.
So apparently what happened was a trade caravan came to my fortress, one of the wagons moved into sight of the corpse of an animal or an invader, and went "oh my Armok that's horrible" and then collapsed into a pile of logs.
Every now and then I would find a pile of abandoned goods somewhere on my map, which would inevitably include some "wagon wood", which meant the pile of stuff came from a caravan's wagon. But why would there be a wagon's worth of stuff, as well as the wood from the wagon, in a random spot near my fort? I figured the most likely explanation was that some hostile wild animal had attacked the caravan and destroyed a wagon, leaving the wood and the trade goods on the ground. Except there were no reports of any fights between wildlife and the caravan.
Oh well, I figured I'd chalk it up to another one of DF's unexplainable quirks, and move on.
But today I was reading up online, and came across a possible explanation for this phenomenon. You see, wagons are considered living creatures in the game's code. This is what allows them to move around the game world. The latest version of the game added a bunch of extra thoughts and emotions to living things; this was to give your dwarves much more nuance and subtlety in their personalities and preferences. In particular, dwarves can sometimes be overcome by horror if they see something frightening, such as a dead body. A dwarf that's overcome by horror will stop whatever they're doing and go into a mini panic attack, and will need a bit of time to compose themselves before they'll do anything useful.
Other living things, such as other races and even animals, can suffer from these panic attacks when they're overcome by horror too. And as it turns out, so can wagons. Except apparently wagons aren't coded to have emotions, including panic attacks, so they react to horrible sights by literally falling apart.
So apparently what happened was a trade caravan came to my fortress, one of the wagons moved into sight of the corpse of an animal or an invader, and went "oh my Armok that's horrible" and then collapsed into a pile of logs.
GasBandit
Staff member
I recommend trying Gnomoria. It makes for a nice compromise halfway between Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, with a mostly intuitive graphical interface (no ascii to decode).
It's funny to be replaying games on PC that I played on my Xbox. I can't figure out if I'm just better now at Bioshock Infinite or if the mouse/keyboard combo is so much more accurate that I don't miss, but I'm about four hours in and I don't think I've come close to dying once. This is the first time I've wondered if I'm playing at the wrong difficulty level.
There's a Steam version of Dwarf Fortress in the works, with actual graphics and an improved UI. No idea when it'll be ready, but the dev releases sorta-regular updates on his progress, so he is working on it.
I bought it a while back on el cheapo too, and it's not terrible, but Jesus does it have it's annoying bits. The checkpointing is dreadful. I'm sick of getting instagibbed in some deathtrap I wasn't paying enough attention to only to end up like a KM away 20+ minutes of gameplay ago. I'm not going to explore the same areas again because that's fucking terrible.
And so far, I hate everyone. Both starting camps are the drizzling shits. A fascist prison or libertarian dipshits. COOL.
Also, Boozer, you're not allowed to complain about going stir crazy 45 seconds after I leave you in the tower for the first time. It's been 45 seconds.
I gave Quantum Break a second chance recently. The first time I tried playing it, I was turned off by the 20-mimute live action cut scenes and the lackluster combat.
But you know, I'm nearing the end now and really digging it. The combat VASTLY improves along the way and the story is super engaging.
Let's put it this way: before, when I realized a combat section was imminent, I roles my eyes and wanted to get it over with. As I got new powers, I became GIDDY with excitement to blast away enemies with time powers.
I'll be honest, I did skip the live action cutscenes. And it doesn't seem like I honestly miss much since they were mostly focused on secondary characters. But I did get into the main story. I love a good time travel story and this is definitely one.
I realized I was engaged when I saw a long line of boards with a timeline of plans and events that the character used with foreknowledge of the future. And that I was nearly compelled to stop and read every minute detail. I didn't because I lost patience. But still: impressive.
I honestly only wanted to play it to see how it would look with the graphics turned all the way up, given my newly upgraded PC and I'm glad I did.
I'll probably look into getting Control, by the same developer, when it's on sale on Steam.
But you know, I'm nearing the end now and really digging it. The combat VASTLY improves along the way and the story is super engaging.
Let's put it this way: before, when I realized a combat section was imminent, I roles my eyes and wanted to get it over with. As I got new powers, I became GIDDY with excitement to blast away enemies with time powers.
I'll be honest, I did skip the live action cutscenes. And it doesn't seem like I honestly miss much since they were mostly focused on secondary characters. But I did get into the main story. I love a good time travel story and this is definitely one.
I realized I was engaged when I saw a long line of boards with a timeline of plans and events that the character used with foreknowledge of the future. And that I was nearly compelled to stop and read every minute detail. I didn't because I lost patience. But still: impressive.
I honestly only wanted to play it to see how it would look with the graphics turned all the way up, given my newly upgraded PC and I'm glad I did.
I'll probably look into getting Control, by the same developer, when it's on sale on Steam.
Control is a bit more... restrained. It still has lots of cutscenes, but they aren't giant length ones. Usually.
GasBandit
Staff member
So there's a Multiplayer mod out for Rimworld now.
Dei and I gave it a shot last night. It has some sync issues (as in we have to stop and re-load the game every hour or so), but for the most part it works. Pretty entertaining. Except I'd pretty much all but forgotten how to play Rimworld so the first half of the night was me mostly struggling with the UI and watching Dei do stuff.
Also the game she started for us to play literally consisted only of a pawn version of her, and a pawn version of me. It took like 4 days (with no interference from either player) for them to spontaneously start knocking boots and get engaged. I mean, you put a guy and a girl alone in the wilderness with nothing but a horseshoe stake for entertainment, yeah, I think it's kind of a given that would happen.
Dei and I gave it a shot last night. It has some sync issues (as in we have to stop and re-load the game every hour or so), but for the most part it works. Pretty entertaining. Except I'd pretty much all but forgotten how to play Rimworld so the first half of the night was me mostly struggling with the UI and watching Dei do stuff.
Also the game she started for us to play literally consisted only of a pawn version of her, and a pawn version of me. It took like 4 days (with no interference from either player) for them to spontaneously start knocking boots and get engaged. I mean, you put a guy and a girl alone in the wilderness with nothing but a horseshoe stake for entertainment, yeah, I think it's kind of a given that would happen.
To be fair, Quantum Break was originally meant to be part of the Xbox One's launch as being a media center, with original shows. That got squashed, but the developer still had these episodes filmed and ready to go. I don't think what we got was the original plan.
I finished the game this morning. The final boss was incredibly aggravating. The ending was overall pretty overwhelming, though, honestly.
figmentPez
Staff member
Zelda themed Sudoku, complete with item collection and dungeon gimmicks.
OOT Randomizer* Sudoku
It's really fun. The interface is decent, I thought it did a good job of theming each of the "Temples" (for example: the Shadow Temple has all of one number's clues as fakes.)
*The Sudoku is not actually randomized, it is just inspired by OOT Randomizer.
OOT Randomizer* Sudoku
It's really fun. The interface is decent, I thought it did a good job of theming each of the "Temples" (for example: the Shadow Temple has all of one number's clues as fakes.)
*The Sudoku is not actually randomized, it is just inspired by OOT Randomizer.
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