VideoGame_Discussion

@PizzaTheHutt yeah The Medium was not very good. I played it right before it was set to leave GP on the XSX and if not for that 'play this now or never' vibe I likely would've given up too. But it wasn't super long and I didn't bother exploring much and just pushed through it. It was also very easy except for a few dumb instant kill things later on. It's another of those could've been great but just wasn't titles.

Finished up Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition. It had some glitches but it was good. Biggest glitch was people randomly falling from the sky on a few occasions. I'd give it a 7 out of 10. The only mission that really pissed me off is where you had to beat 30 straight enemies all wielding poison knives. Definitely worth playing if you like GTA style games, especially if you never played the original version on 360 or ps3.

sa330206 wrote:

Glitch or throwback to that XM commercial from 20 years ago?

https://youtu.be/a877EIVk4MQ

I really enjoyed 'Sleeping Dogs.' There's just that one damn achievement for getting ranks or whatever in missions that I just can't get because of the stupid scoring system.

Sleeping Dogs was awesome! Can't believe it has been 10 years already.

Like a Dragon! Ishin - 8/10

I was pretty excited for this to get a North American release after a decade. For the most part, it's standard 'Yakuza' brawling fare, in a wild west influenced Japanese setting. There are four styles: Gunman, Swordfighter, Brawler and Dancer. The latter is a mix of the first two, and it's slick to move around a battle with, but I've started to heavily lean into swordfighter. It helps differentiate the gameplay here from past 'Yakuza' games. The city is unique, though not the easiest to traverse, and there's still plenty of side activities to do.

This is also the first 'Yakuza/Like a Dragon' game to not use one of the Dragon Engines. It uses Unreal. The devs say the switch was because Unreal is better at outdoor daytime lighting, and sure, maybe, but I miss the Dragon Engine. Everything looks very close to what the Dragon Engine can produce, but slightly smoother. However, there are some graphical quirks, like textures still loading in when changing scenes or areas. There's a weird, heavy gradient shadowing in some low-light cutscenes that can be distracting. Menus also have a second or two pause when opening the main menu or navigating within it. Nothing game breaking, but these also weren't present when the series was using the Dragon Engine.

One off-putting thing is that, while this has no direct connection to the larger 'Yakuza' story, the same character models are used. It can be off-putting, but I read a review somewhere that suggested looking at this like a play, with the actors playing different roles, and that is a good way to look at it. I'm really enjoying this entry so far. There's just enough to have it feel familiar yet different from past games. I just wish the preorder steelbook had a more inventive design (and title on the spine).

Horizon: Forbidden West - Finally started this up and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. But...it certainly starts off really slow, Aloy is one of the most dull protagonists I can remember in a long time, and I've had quite a few clumsy gameplay moments.

Forgotten City is really good, free on ps plus extra/premium now, highly recommend it. Apparently a former Skyrim mod
Similar to Deathloop in a way (and tons others I’m sure but I played Deathloop recently), you loop and repeat same day while piecing together the mystery of the world
Some very light combat. If you strive to talk to every NPC and try to exhaust all conversational options, you’ll enjoy this, it really rewards that approach

It has 4 main endings, you can easily see them all even without replaying the game as long as you save strategically and often

Wanted to post in the Slay the Spire thread but it’s closed

I finallyyyyyy did my A20 Heart run with Silent, after months and months of mostly failure (a couple close calls but overall I was mostly dying in Act 2 or 3), and ruining my win/loss stats completely, finally did it

Now ill go back to Defect fot the first time in like half a year or so

DrizzDrizzDrizz wrote:

Nice! I just re-opened the thread

Vampire Survivors - 10/10

I can't imagine a better way to spend $5. This game is epic.

Far Cry 3 Classic Edition {} 7/10
This is a game I've had on my "to play...someday" list for years. At some point Ubisoft gave it away for free on PC but I just never got around to playing it on there (PC gaming is never a priority). But I saw this in the Ubisoft+ catalog on PS+ Extra/Premium and decided I'll finally give it a shot.

One thing about the Far Cry series that you gotta give them credit for is that the graphics are so good (except for that one awful port on the Wii in 2006, there was nothing good about that game). I've never played Far Cry 3 on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, but I did watch a comparison video before I began playing this and apparently the 360/PS3 game ran at 720p and barely could reach a steady 30fps a lot of the time. This updated "Classic Edition" for PS4 and Xbox One though is pretty much a direct port of the game PC players had already gotten in 2012.
Still, there are parts where things get funky, such as grass sticking up through the floorboard of a vehicle as I'm about to get in it. There are also times where I've shot an enemy or animal and then turned my attention somewhere else, then I go back to grab loot from the enemy or skin fromt he animal and their corpse had vanished (once in a while that would happen with vehicles too if I walked too far away).

As far as audio, that's good too. The music, the ambiance, sounds of the wildlife, it's all top notch.

The game does feature item/supply crafting, which I will never hesitate to hate on when games include this crap, but this is one of the games that at least does it right, and by "right" I mean it is just a few simple button presses and you don't have to hunt down a special table to craft stuff at.

As per usual with Ubisoft games, it's a big open world and perhaps bigger than it needed to be just to fit all these damn collectibles in. I am not bothering with that nonsense, I'm doing my best to just get through the story mode.

Overall I think this is a far better game than the first two. And though I feel like I've had my fill of open world games, I do like exploring in this one. It's pretty cool seeing the wildlife interact with each other. One cool moment happened where I was running from a group of enemies shooting at me, I hear one of them start screaming and I turned around to see it's because he was being attacked by a freaking tiger. It wasn't a scripted moment or anything, it just happened. I also like how every situation can be approached in stealth or run and gun style.

Ink & Paper: DoodleCut {} 6/10
I saw this while browsing the eShop and the hand-drawn art style caught my attention. It turns out it's like a Qix clone, which is a game I have a bit of nostalgia for because it was the first GameBoy game I owned, and for a while it was the only GameBoy game I owned, so I played it a lot as a kid. But times have changed and I didn't wanna pay $5 for this because you can download mobile games for free that have more depth to them than a Qix wannabe would. But the devs released the game with a 90% off sale, so at 49¢ it seemed much more reasonable.

Not much to say about this game. It's a Qix clone and I got what I expected out of it. It's certainly less fun now than it was when I was a kid. which I often find to be the case when I revisit many games I liked from the 80s and 90s and is the main reason I try to avoid letting nostalgia play a role in my purchases. But still, I feel I got my 49¢ of enjoyment out of it at least. You can't even buy a pack of gum for that price anymore.

Oh, and the music. I don't like it. It's kinda catchy though.

Sonic Frontiers is el terible. Who thought this was a good idea? 4/10

Paranormasight - This was developed by Square Enix and is reminding me a little of the Zero Escape games. It uses a similar flow chart and has some puzzle solving, though the game mostly involves reading. Had me stumped for awhile early where you actually have to mess with the settings menu to deal with one of the other "curse-bearers". The Storyteller also messes with you early on when he asks for your name. Really interesting so far.

A Plague Tale: Requiem - 8/10
I'm on chapter 4 now and it's pretty much more of the same from the first installment, which is fine to me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! The graphics looks great too on the Series X and I'm not sure why some folks are complaining about the framerate on consoles because it looks smooth enough for me, but that may be because I am playing on an OLED with V.R.R. enabled. I hear without it, there's a lot of stutter and dips.

Split/Second {} 8/10
I remember renting this on Xbox 360 back when it first released, and I enjoyed it. Revisiting it now, I think I might be enjoying it even more. I'm really surprised the online servers are still up, though I only got matched with one other person and I couldn't race because it tells me I need to download some additional content in the PS Store, which I don't think is possible on PS5.

But I'm still enjoying the single player stuff. And whoever owns this IP cares enough about leaving the online servers up and keeping the game on PS+ Premium, but why can't they just give us a sequel? It wouldn't even need a big budget, just give us more of this. It was such a cool idea that I'm surprised some indie dev hasn't taken it and put their own spin on it.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I think it was published by Disney

Yeah it's Disney, which answers the question of why there's no sequel. Online always annoyed me, because your rank went up and down by your position finishing a race, and it was always much harder to raise your rank than take a hit with it. I think the only achievement I need in 'Split/Second' is getting the top rank (a 20 I believe), and I would get close, then finish, like third, and my rank would go down a few. It was frustrating. Plus, there's virtually no way to catch up if you're too far back.

DCGX wrote:

Blue shells are bad though.

benstylus wrote:

Sure, but with 'Split/Second,' if everyone is on the same skill level, it's the environmental triggers that are meant to shift advantage, but if you're too far back for one reason or another, those (and most shortcuts) won't make a difference. Basically, if you screw up or get screwed at the beginning of a race, there's no hope to being competitive.

I replayed through S/S last year and absolutely loved it and felt it held up extremely well. Really great game.

Ridge Racer 2 {} 8/10

I've always had mixed feelings on the Ridge Racer series overall. I've not played all of them and only consider myself a casual fan of the series, but of the ones I have played, some of the entries are good (OG Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer 3D), some are just average (Ridge Racer 64/RRDS) and some were pretty damn bad (Ridge Racer Unbounded).

This one definitely goes in the Good category.
Sometimes I'm just in the mood to play a good old fashioned arcade-style racer, unlocking better cars as I progress, and without having to worry about tinkering around under the hood to upgrade parts of my current car. The Ridge Racer games usually allow me to do just that, no upgrading nonsense, just pure racing. And the racing in this one is fun.

The game handles well too. I don't know how it controlled on the PSP but I never was a fan of that little nub anyway.

They did a decent job touching up the graphics on PS4/PS5. One issue I have though is the UI just takes up too much of the screen. Your only options are to deal with it, or turn it off completely with the select button. I would've liked a middle ground where I can at least see what place I'm in and how much nitro I have stored up, and turn off the rest.

NBA 2k15 remote play via Chiaki.

Coming off of NBA2K13…15 feels bad. My biggest complaint is I’ve noticed the comp nerfs my team when ever I play top rated teams like Lebron James’ cavaliers. All of a sudden no one can make a free throw or lay up. Lots of loose balls in 15 and shooting sucks. I think ima shelf this after this season. 6/10.

loztdogs wrote:

Steam Deck Chiaki or Windows app?

@Kommie I’ve used Steam Deck Chiaki but I happen to be playing on my Switch with the Hori split pads.

loztdogs wrote:

Do you get random white flashes or graphical glitches? No matter what settings I try, there's always some flash/green artifact or glitch.

Kommie wrote:

Never experienced that on either platform.

loztdogs wrote:

So I assume you never messed with any of the settings then? just installed it and played with no tinkering?

Been playing Dishonored 2. I really love this series. Still pretty early, finished chapter 3, but i’m fully engrossed

Kommie wrote:

Yup, fired it up out of the box. No tinkering.

loztdogs wrote:

They just keep getting worse every year after. 16 was decent if I remember correctly. But 17-22 is garbage. With each year becoming worse than the year before. I skipped this years because why bother at this point.

I bought NBA 2K22 after not playing it since 2K16 and I didn’t see the need to continue forward. It maybe played a little better, but they’re all basically the same and the micro transaction crap was just too much.

I've recently been looking at EA Basketball games on the Sega Genesis.

The nostalgia for Lakers vs Celtics and the NBA Playoffs is real

I hate all the new career nonsense in the newer games.

Recore Why am I suffering through this /10

Game's always sort of been on my radar since it was one of the very few exclusives from early on and then it came to GP so I've had it installed on my large external drive on my system for like 2+ years. Well M$ has a challenge to earn an Achievement for Women's month from some games with leading ladies and Recore was one, so on a whim I finally started it and sort of got sucked in b/c there are redeeming elements but it's also largely crap. First holy cow it is blown OUT with the colors/brightness/HDR. I started it on my OLED and XSX and took the brightness to as low as the game would allow and it was still so bright when you're out in the sands. But later on there's a dungeon in the dark and it was hard to see b/c of how dark it was. It's like they turned the HDR up to 11 or 14. Add in that it plays with colors a lot - the foes are largely in the 3 primary colors and you want to match that to deal more damage and visually this game actually gave me a headache in my last session.

I moved to playing on a smaller Hisense set where my X1X lives b/c the XSX wasn't popping achievements and that seems to be an 'issue' with the game. It's maybe worse with HDR on there, but that could be the TV, but I also just did a section that looks like 80's Tron and where you need to do some rubbish platforming and killing of enemies where the instant pull mechanic was in use a lot and that did some very bright screen flashes and it was very frustrating, so I'm sure that's where my headache came from... Then to top it off after wanting to tear my hear out I finally reached the end and went to the interface thingy and... instead of it being the multi-use thing, it teleported me to the beginning of the area... and I didn't unlock the fast travel point after that section, so I need to repeat it. If I didn't have a headache I think I would've smashed something - flarking HORRIBLE design choice - why the flying F would I want to go back to the beginning without it granting me the ability to return to where I suspect most folks will at least have some frustration in completing. So Stupid!

Game has some other issues like the camera, the lock-on being nearly useless (it switches very easily to a different enemy) and just too much going on at times, plus some other minor bugs. The version I'm playing has the DLC included that gives you another companion bot that's a mini tank you ride like a quad - it helps with traversing the large open sections of the map, which is nice, but then there are some chase activities you need to do to progress in the DLC's story and it does NOT control all that well for them.

I really should take a break from this especially since I now need to redo the last section that was frustrating trash. I oddly have a desire to beat this so I think I'll finish it, but it's not very good and I don't know why I'm punishing myself. I do like the story some and the lore.

I liked Recore but can understand why it’d feel like a chore. It just reminded me of having Mega Man elements with switching different weapons for enemy weaknesses. I can understand why it’s redundancy didn’t net it a sequel though.

@TalonJedi87 there's some good stuff in the game for sure - it's kept me playing and most of it I've enjoyed. But the annoying crap doesn't go away and especially in the tower 'climb', floor 2 can Suck it (not looking forward to having to replay that - and then a few more). 3D platforming when you're way up in the air (or there's just no ground below) and needing to advance like 50 feet and land on a 3' square platform in wide-open space with all sorts of obstacles wasn't great - especially when some of the designs felt pure BS or there was bad collision detection. Also the camera got too close to you at times in those sections. I liked that they added the orange circle under your feet so you could somewhat tell where you'd land, but the camera liked to be more behind you and not angled down enough to even show that circle. Also using the spider-bot to try to attach to those rails and the camera not showing that either was annoying.
I guess 75% of my gripes are around the camera and lock-on's weaknesses. Other 25% might be the blown out HDR or mixing, I like that it's not Gears of Grey but the sand areas are way to bright and the dungeons are darker but then the fights can deliver too much light and flashes.

I generally liked Recore but honestly don't remember it much at this point. And after putting it down for a few weeks when I came back I had no idea what to do. So I would say stick with it until you beat it or just drop it entirely.

But what I remember most was trying to get this one collectible. It was a sequence of traversing between tall platforms sticking out of sand. There was only way to do it, if you failed it was a long way back to the one place you can climb up to start the sequence, and each platform was barely half a pixel close enough to the max distance you could actually make. So it required perfection. This is literally the only thing I think of when thinking about this game besides diff colored enemies.

KeyWe (PS5) - 7/10 - I've been playing this with my son and it's a lot of fun. There are some collision detection issues from time to time, but in small doses this has been a great couch co-op game. Certainly not as maddening as Overcooked! It does require a lot of teamwork and it's been neat to see how his little brain problem solves and how he gives instructions.

Ive started playing The Quarry. Im enjoying it, but visually it is very distracting. Very weird animations, people look odd, lots of visual artifacts and 30fps. Really wish this had the performance vs fidelity options.