Now Playing (Video Games)

[Onhell]

Sales keep tempting me, but my backlog is just way too deep to indulge myself right now. I’m always tempted by on-sale indies...

Man, someone feels my pain! Pretty much same boat. I paid off my credit card and it is so tempting to rack it up again lol. Finished CoD III. Thinking of hitting the Far Crys, I have I and II on PC and Blood Dragon on xbox. Since finishing CoD III haven't played anything with regularity, but I do want to get to that backlog.

 

[Onhell]

So instead of tackling my backlog, I've been playing Bendy and the Ink Machine. It's a FPS that takes place in a Fleischer-like 1930s animation studio. I was drawn to it (pun intended) because of the art style, walking sim nature of it, but now that I'm playing it, it's a bioshock knock-off. I actually like that, but yeah, the audiologs, fetch quests and the like are VERY bioshocky. I also like that there is no quest marker or mini map. You have your objective, now explore. The levels are fairly small and you get oriented quickly, so backtracking doesn't feel like a chore. No idea how far in I am, just finished the first Quest for Alice Angel.

It isn't scary like Alien Isolation or even Little Nightmares, but I do get a nice does of tense stress and then release. So far not bad.

 

[Onhell]

Tackling the backlog. I had been stuck in the second to last chamber in Portal for.... 5 years. Finally made it past it and the rest of the game was a breeze, even the "fight" with Glados. Currently working through Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, very small game (for an Ubisoft game), having fun doing the tried and true collectathon, freeing garrisons and the 16 side missions. I think I've only done 2 main game missions, have spent the rest of the time doing side shit.

I noticed a lot of my backlog are horror games that I like to play in October, but if I wait until then I'll never get through them. I also have a few "big" games, so I queued up FEAR 2 and Neir: Automata to play next as I whittle down the ever growing backlog.

 

[Jer]

Sales keep tempting me, despite my own deep-ass backlog. I wound up picking up Red Matter 1 & 2 for PSVR2 for 30% off ($28 or so), and Arcade Paradise was down to $8, which passes the “it costs less than a Chipotle burrito” test, which makes it very hard to say no.

I’ve been slowly plugging away at Dragon’s Dogma II and Cocoon. The “pulling worlds in and out of other worlds” mechanic of the latter game isn’t anywhere near as revelatory as the reviews made it out to be, but it’s more of a sorting puzzle kind of thing, trying to figure out how to put worlds inside of each other in a way where you can collectively transport them where they need to go, then pull out what you need and use it in the right place, as each world functions as an object with a specific purpose when you hold it in your hand. It’s not a long game, and it looks like I’m about 80% done, though there are some modestly hidden things you can find and free to extend the overall playtime, it appears.

I’m still not sure exactly how I feel about Dragon’s Dogma II and its intentionally janky and chaotic combat. I think I like its really limited fast travel options, and things like not letting you understand the elvish language unless you have an elf with you to translate, etc. It doesn’t really hold your hand, and at times that can be exhausting, but I vastly prefer it to the opposite problem other games have of leading you everywhere by the nose.

Also funny, since my main character is Bruce Dickinson and my primary pawn is Adrian Smith, both in reasonable likeness, so everything that happens to them in-game takes on a metahumor element for me. Somehow both of them have wound up in leggings that don’t fully cover their butts, and without a top that falls low enough to cover their butts either, and that was purely based on using the best armor available for them at the time stat-wise…

 

[Onhell]

Sales keep tempting me, despite my own deep-ass backlog. I wound up picking up Red Matter 1 & 2 for PSVR2 for 30% off ($28 or so), and Arcade Paradise was down to $8, which passes the “it costs less than a Chipotle burrito” test, which makes it very hard to say no.

I caved, I was weak lol. got a couple of games, but the biggest sale was actually on the Xbox Series X. I know... stupid, but it was a quasi smart stupid. I basically got it 30% off at 18 months interest free. I got it because it might be the last console with a disc slot (I still have 3 games physically that I play occasionally, plus CDs, DVDs and Blu Rays), and because I want to buy Alan Wake 2. Currently I only have one game that was specifically made for the X/S which is Control. I have a few others that were "optimized." So far I really like it, much more than the Xbox One, which I still consider a step down from the 360 in several ways. The X is basically a One on a shit ton of steroids, but it boots up way faster and it has a neat feature called "Quick Resume," which even after you turn off your console, when you boot it back up and select the game you were playing it boots it up exactly from where you left off.

Considering it was my giant purchase of the decade, aside from Alan Wake II, The System Shock and Alone in the Dark remakes, I think I'll hold off on buying games for a while unless they're deeply discounted (say one recently 90% off, but still resisted).

 

[Jer]

Atari Buys Intellivision Brand, Ending ‘Longest-Running Console War in History’

Atari acquired the brand of long-time rival Intellivision and the rights to more than 200 games from Intellivision Entertainment.

variety.com

Well, that was…unexpected.

I’d still love to see an exhaustive Intellivision emulation package with all of the first-party and Activision games included, speech module emulation, and authentic controllers someday. Probably a pipe dream, but I have such great memories of gaming on my Intellivision back before Nintendo dumbed everything down for over a decade.

 

[Jer]

Finished Cocoon, and I will admit the puzzles got a little more interesting at the very end, getting about 3 worlds deep a few times, but they never fully wowed me. And the game is pretty short. I’d say it’s worth $5 tops unless you’re really into aesthetic experiential stuff, in which case it might be worth up to $10.

I’ve actually been doing most of my low-key PS5 gaming via remote play on my phone using a Backbone One, which works surprisingly well for games that don’t require low latency or reading lots of small text, e.g. puzzle games. The audio glitches occasionally, but otherwise the experience is quite good. I might even consider upgrading to a PlayStation Portal if they ever get a meaningful discount, as I might have enough of a use case for one, and having the full controller and haptics experience would be nice…

 

[Jer]

Started playing Unpacking, which is more of an “indirect narrative through light game mechanics” title rather than any kind of actual game; but so far it’s pretty effective for what it is, evoking those feelings of nostalgia and possibility while unpacking the main character’s stuff for every major move of their life.

There’s a minor puzzle aspect since you have to find appropriate places for all of your stuff (or apparently an alternate reward for placing literally every item inappropriately), but mostly it comes down to seeing which items the person has kept, added, or ditched at each of these milestones, and having some agency in how much significance to give to each one.

Still plugging away at Dragon’s Dogma II, where I recently got out of a bind when I was stuck super far away from civilization with my camping kit trashed, so I had to hoof it all the way across the map with no rest, with my max HP continually draining and draining. Got that sorted, though, and I finally got Adrian Smith a top that properly covers his exposed buttocks, so there’s that.

 

[Jer]

Played through the first episode of Vader Immortal on PSVR1. I was afraid it would be pretty brutal going back to a PSVR1 game after getting used to PSVR2, but this was actually a really good-looking game by PSVR1 standards with nice production values all around.

The first episode was really short, perhaps just an hour, and a lot of that was exposition and simple traversal; though you do get your hands on a light saber before too long, and then things get more interesting. The saber sounds and feels exactly right, and the block and strike mechanics work well. The blaster deflection is a little wonkier, as striking the shots away is straightforward, but reflecting them back at a specific target seems to work best by holding the saber straight and just shoving it in the direction of the enemy, which feels weird in practice.

The episode ends with a big multi-enemy light saber fight (as you’d expect), and it’s effective. I guess there’s a lightsaber dojo mode with a bunch of challenges that you can do in addition to the story content, but for now I’m just going to play through all 3 episodes in the story mode before trying anything else.

This game was massively overpriced when it was originally released, but $10 for all three episodes seems about right to me, so I’m glad I finally picked it up at that deep discount.

 

[Jer]

Looks like Sony is currently running a promo where you can get PS5s for $50 off and PSVR2 systems for $100 off when you buy direct from them, which brings the entry cost of a PS5 + PSVR2 platform down to $850 + tax.

Also, it looks like the free VR mode DLC for RE4 Remake was released and somehow I didn't hear about it, so I'll have to be picking that one up the next time it goes on sale. Then I suppose I need to play through REs 0 through 4 (not exactly in that order) if I'm going to be doing it right...

 

[Vaenyr]

Also, it looks like the free VR mode DLC for RE4 Remake was released and somehow I didn't hear about it, so I'll have to be picking that one up the next time it goes on sale. Then I suppose I need to play through REs 0 through 4 (not exactly in that order) if I'm going to be doing it right...

According to recent rumours, RE 0 and Code Veronica are getting remakes. Isn't that far fetched a guess, since they're running out of older games to remake, so these two ones would be fairly obvious.

 

[Jer]

According to recent rumours, RE 0 and Code Veronica are getting remakes. Isn't that far fetched a guess, since they're running out of older games to remake, so these two ones would be fairly obvious.

Yeah. I already have the RE0 remaster, and hilariously the Dreamcast original of CV, which I never got very far into at the time. And the remakes of 2 and 3.

 

[Jer]

Finished all 3 episodes of Vader Immortal on PSVR1. Each part was an hour or less and had a mixture of traversal and fighting, with at least one set piece battle. You gain basic force powers in episode 2, which opens things up a bit. The final battle against Vader was kind of anticlimactic, unfortunately, but there were other interesting bits strewn throughout. Glad I only paid $10, but it was definitely worth that amount.

I also went back and played through the first 9 lightsaber dojo levels, which put you in different combat scenarios that are more involved than most of the story mode fights. I was actually working up a sweat on the last few levels I tried, deflecting blaster shots while parrying saber droids and the like. This mode does have a bit of the “only one member of the enemy mob attacks you at one time” disease, though maybe that will change as I get deeper into it.

The levels give you up to a 3-star rank. You lose a star each time you take damage or go past a predetermined time marker, so you need to be quick and precise to keep all 3 stars. Some simple bonus content like extra lightsaber colors and dojo environments are unlocked based on your star count, and each episode’s dojo has 40 levels, so that’s a decent amount of extra play time if you want to 3-star everything.

 

[Edington]

IN THE FIRST AGE, IN THE FIRST BATTLE...

Are you flippin' kidding me, where did this come from!?

A sci-fi dark fantasy FPS with metal, a buzzsaw-shield, a gun that fires crushed skulls and a giant mech punching giant demons in the face.

I also notice the battlefields seem to be very open, wide and flat, emphasising more ranged combat than Eternal's up close and personal approach, it seems this will be more than just Eternal in a different era. I am shooketh and very excited.

 

[Onhell]

IN THE FIRST AGE, IN THE FIRST BATTLE...

Are you flippin' kidding me, where did this come from!?

A sci-fi dark fantasy FPS with metal, a buzzsaw-shield, a gun that fires crushed skulls and a giant mech punching giant demons in the face.

I also notice the battlefields seem to be very open, wide and flat, emphasising more ranged combat than Eternal's up close and personal approach, it seems this will be more than just Eternal in a different era. I am shooketh and very excited.

Def excited about that, and the Gears prequel.

Since I'm just laying around recuperating from surgery (doc said no exercise for at least a month), I've been playing a lot. I decided to get Game Pass Console and started with Wolfenstein the New Colossus. I'm loving it. I've missed some collectibles, but it's a fairly short game (already on chapter 3 of 9) so I think I'll do a collectathon run once I'm done. Or while I do the alternate timeline. on the waiting list is Wolfenstein II and Youngblood, as well as Atomic Heart, Lies of P, Mass Effect and Crysis trilogies. If I like the Crysis games enough I might get the remastered trilogy to own. There are a few others, but those are the ones I'll play in the next month.

I figured I might as well take advantage of my medical leave/summer vacation to play stuff on Gamepass as when I get back to work it becomes a waste of money and I own plenty of games I can play to relax if need be. My brother and I have been playing NHL18 and Vampire Survivor which keeps releasing DLCs and expanding the base game. Can't say enough great things about this game. The simplicity of the game loop makes it a great time killer, it's fun and insane amount of weapons and characters makes it replayable as hell.