Currently Playing

[Raid]

I played War of the Lion on the PSP years ago. Absolutely cracking game.

The biggest criticism I've seen of this new version is that it doesn't include the content created for War of the Lions. That's largely irrelevant to me as I wouldn't know what was created for that version anyway, but it does seem a bit strange to actually remove content for a later edition.

[Hatredsheart]

If it ever came to pc I'd definitely give it a go.

It was released for PC (and everything else) yesterday.

To Steam!

[Lenny Solidus]

Sniper Elite: Resistance

After not doing much gaming of late due to other commitments, I decided to finally pull the trigger on Rebellion/Wushu's latest SE outing last night and yes...after just entering halfway through the second mission I instantly wished I had bought it earlier. Sniper Elite titles are very much in a league of their own with how they play, how they look and especially how they feel. Whenever you find yourself crouching around looking for the best targets to shoot while anticipating a masking sound at the exact right time - then to watch that singular poor bastard of an enemy explode in a wonderful array of slow motion cartilage blood muscle and bone instantly soaring and spinning through the air...is there anything truly more satisfying? How about a sudden random return to a hidden explosive you planted on a downed enemy some six minutes ago that now just took out two other overly curious enemies in one go?

Every. Single. Kill. Brings. Pure. Satisfaction. No matter how you set it up, regardless of how long ago you set it up, even. The game is purely intent on delivering, upon you, endless glorified OOF BET THAT HURT satisfaction...like a drug to your veins. I just can't get enough of it.

There's just something about being involved in the gaming spaces Rebellion provide us with that no other game of its type really matches, although I will immediately stress that they have a serious problem with injecting a decent looking antialiasing method into their games for some reason. You either get shimmer or stepping all over the fucking show and so as great as the rest of it can look (with RTX lighting now included) the overwhelming amount of jaggies really makes the game look kinda dated while with up-to-date lighting at the very same time. The thing is that it doesn't much matter that this particular outing looks a little less polished or a little cheaper made because the circular gameplay pattern of set it up knock it down is just oh so superb. Hell, just looking out across the mission area through the old binocs while the music plays as I work out my points of entry and execution strategies piece by tiny piece is enough to make me swell up a little, if you know what I mean.

Death by design in gaming is always fun, no complaints there. There's just something much more intense when it comes to SE kills, a silenced pistol to the cranium, a snapped neck, a knife to the gut, a grenade that triggers countless other demises all in the same vicinity. Not trying to make it sound completely unique to the series or anything, it just feels better to pull off, that's all. What we engage in moment to moment that draws us ever closer to those final few enemy stragglers last to kill at some irrelevant section of the map prior to extraction, feels good. Concerning that new Bond game, as much as I'd like it to play like the Hitman series I'd love it far more if it somehow surprisingly turns out that it can too be played like Sniper Elite - that would be tremendous.

Before I decided to purchase, I did take in several Steam reviews with talk of oh it's all just reused this and it feels like Temu SE that in comparison to SE5 etc etc, perhaps. But the gameplay and the intricacy of the map design, the enemy placements and the uh drug to your system thing - all these things combine beautifully to making it a worthy experience as well as they ever did in my opinion, and I'm only mid-way through the secondary mission Dead Drop - I'm hooked, that's it. I could easily spend 6-8 bloody hours on a map messing about with the enemies or setting myself set goals of how to proceed, and I'm already rewarded enough challenge aspects to complete as it is.

The most impressive thing has to be that the game shipped with no upscaling techniques at all, neither does it need it. And when considering just how far you are able to zoom into the distance as you can in these types of games they always have to be commended that the game engine allows you to do that with zero performance drops, none whastosever. And that's a refreshing change - great job Asura engine. Not so much on the AA side but hey nobody's perfect. I'm sure I will come across some issues here and there that might dampen my obvious enthusiasm but as of right now I don't really have many negatives to speak of.

Edit: I neglected to add that if you don't particularly like the look of the new main protagonist and wish to play as Fairburne Rebellion made the weapon and skins pack free...



You can also bet your arse I'll be picking up every new DLC mission there is for the game, when I find them at a reasonable price, of course. More new maps for a game such as Sniper Elite (any Sniper Elite release) is just a complete given as a direct extension of what you know you will already enjoy.

[eny]

I am so close to getting this myself, SE5 was pure joy, and I know this continues that vein.

[Sly Boots]

I played War of the Lion on the PSP years ago. Absolutely cracking game.

The biggest criticism I've seen of this new version is that it doesn't include the content created for War of the Lions. That's largely irrelevant to me as I wouldn't know what was created for that version anyway, but it does seem a bit strange to actually remove content for a later edition.

By the way, a mod came out yesterday to remove the 'burlap sack' filter they've put over everything, tested and it works, actually makes quite a nice difference to the graphics imo:

https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasyt ... escription

[Raid]

I actually don't hate the filter, but then I've largely been playing on a Steam Deck where it's less obvious.

I've mostly spent the last day or so levelling my party up a bit; I did the first Sand Sietch battle and got my arse handed to me, so went through some guides to learn more about party building and did some battles without Ramza in the party to get everyone to a vague parity. There's stuff that's buried in the codex that isn't remotely obvious (like the thing where all party members of the same class get a small amount of JP every time any one of them uses an ability, so it's beneficial to keep your party as squires and chemists for a little while before moving on to other classes). I was also struggling with my archer, who felt borderline useless because he's not able to shoot *over* anything unless he's up a height himself - I'm not sure if that's a limitation of crossbows (which are the only ranged weapon I have at the moment), and an actual bow won't have the same problem, but I've switched him over to a Thief for now.

Incidentally I have played a little on my desktop, and noticed that the game had been running at maybe 75% speed on the Steam Deck - the fix for which was disabling the system-wide max framerate limiter (a feature I'd long forgotten about, as I've not used my 'Deck for over a year). The framerate itself and all of the sound and music were fine, so I didn't twig there was an issue. It explained why I thought certain parts of the game ran inexplicably slowly.

[Sly Boots]

I think you're doing the right thing for now in levelling squire and chemist - something I returned to after ditching squire as soon as other jobs opened up. In particular, make sure to give everyone the JP Boost support ability, as it doubles the job points for every action and makes it so much quicker to learn new abilities etc.

My advice once you've done that is to check the job level requirements for unlocking each of the currently greyed-out roles and mentally plan out who you'll use to get them and which jobs they'll need to level a bit to do so. To unlock a really cool sounding class for Ramza I'm going to have to level thief to 4, which I'm not looking forward to as I tried the class a bit with another unit and disliked it intensely lol.

Monk seems like an insanely powerful class btw, my Ramza is maining it at the moment and it's just wrecking everything.

[Raid]

Oh I kept them as Squires only until they got the JP boost passive, they've all moved on now (though I might bring some back to get the Speed+1 boost too). My MVP at the moment tends to be my Black Mage, just for being able to hit multiple targets at once at range, and I enjoy working around the delay in a spell going off and the area of effect (same with white magic) like some sort of violent Tetris.

The Job System in this is far more detailed than in Final Fantasy 5, which is my only other experience with it. In FF5 you had to level a job to maximum before you could assign the active command from it to a character using a different job, but in this I feel like I'm constantly changing things around, which does slow it down a bit. In FF5 there some truly broken combinations, I'm only early in FFT but I'm hoping it gives you the same near-game-breaking power level by game-end.

[Sly Boots]

Oh I kept them as Squires only until they got the JP boost passive, they've all moved on now (though I might bring some back to get the Speed+1 boost too). My MVP at the moment tends to be my Black Mage, just for being able to hit multiple targets at once at range, and I enjoy working around the delay in a spell going off and the area of effect (same with white magic) like some sort of violent Tetris.

The Job System in this is far more detailed than in Final Fantasy 5, which is my only other experience with it. In FF5 you had to level a job to maximum before you could assign the active command from it to a character using a different job, but in this I feel like I'm constantly changing things around, which does slow it down a bit. In FF5 there some truly broken combinations, I'm only early in FFT but I'm hoping it gives you the same near-game-breaking power level by game-end.

You may have already done this, but it's worth keeping Ramza in his squire class a bit longer as his unique mettle ability tree has some really nice stuff, like self and ally buffs, debuffs cleanse etc, which are pretty cheap to grab too.

[DjchunKfunK]

It's been a while since I posted something in this thread but I just wanted to highlight Where Winds Meet.

This is a free to play third person action wuxa game that is a bit AC, a bit Sekrio and a bit Ghost of Tsushima. The UI is a mess and the translation is patchy but it looks incredible, the combat is a lot of fun, has some great boss fights, is packed full of things to do and the world just feels fun to explore and be in. Monetisation wise it's all cosmetics, alongside a battlepass and I've not seen anything else pay wise. Well worth giving a butchers.

[Lenny Solidus]

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was for me the ultimate 'game that got away' back upon its release in 2019, sometimes certain games can just rub you the wrong way no matter how much you try to enjoy them. Seeing everyone else enjoy it so much as a dedicated Star Wars fan myself left a very bitter and quite lengthy so taste in my mouth as over the duration of two to three years I'd return to it trying desperately to crack the code, it never came.

Survivor I could tell almost immediately was going to be a very different experience, rubbing my hands with glee that I had indeed cracked the code finally...it just took a completely separate game for it to finally happen you see. Firstly Cal himself no longer felt like a little toy I would dangle around a set hoping he would act out my commands, secondly I had full control of the camera as when it comes to tps titles I much prefer a closer option and the very first fifteen minutes I could instantly tell wow they did it, this is what I wanted Order to be in a nutshell. While I still am firmly of the belief that a much more linear structure for the duration would benefit what it is Respawn want to pull off with this series the often Tomb Raider like swinging plus force power control crack accessible physics controlled puzzling and adventuring is of course always superbly realised and puzzles are never overcomplicated enough to stop you dead in your tracks from making progress. The much improved customisation aspect located in typical loot boxes also see a great improvement over the here's a different coloured poncho of the original too, it didn't take long at all to get a very sweet looking Jedi cloak that I could quite easily stick with the rest of the game, plus a Mad Max looking bushy beard and new cool pommel for my ls.

Graphically, Respawn have created a beautiful set of worlds to openly explore and I can say quite firmly that all that usual sense of visual 'over design x10' that Unreal tends to serve up in heaps for once truly lends itself to the game so well this time around. Everything from rock formations and dense foliage to open areas all look more carefully hand crafted than what I'm used to, that weird but visually appealing Star Wars mash up of so many old and new surfaces cobbled closely together really sets the tone. It's honestly a visual treat everywhere you venture and Cal himself thanks to now having way more variety in both looks and clothing you can finally make him look like the Jedi you always wanted. Of course, all of this new visual splendour comes at a very heavy price - which I shall get into soon.

Gameplay wise then combat for me feels like a true 2.0 overhaul over the floaty terribly animated janky execution of the original, I've already had some of the coolest visual engagements I could ever have hoped for and we are talking just with regular grunt troopers gangs taking me right back to how Jedi Outcast once played out in my mind back in the day. There's honestly so many both small and more significant improvements in this outing that I'd take up too much time listing them all, point is the overall experience is now one that I can finally experience just like everyone else at my own pace and yes sure there are some caveats including overall performance I will delve into in a second but the game itself is very solid indeed. It's overall just a more joyous more refined experience, not purely just frustrating like the original came across. I now have a world I look forward to unwrapping piece by little piece and I know some might say "It's really not all that different from the first Dave..." to which I say perhaps, to you. For me, the fact I'm making any kind of worthwhile progress means I have now cracked the code that eluded me for so long and while that might not last too long I can at least find ways to put hours into the game without dreading loading it up, I can at least find some solace in that currently at least.

The grapple is of great use especially making for more than just double jump mayhem, allowing an even further reach is always a welcome idea. So all of this exciting new adventuring, combat, story, loads of great lore, secrets and Cal himself being the fantastically well written character that he is I genuinely can't praise the step up made here that have taken me from loathing the series with every ounce of my being back in 2019-2021 to fully and quite thankfully finally fully embracing it. Great job Respawn, optimisation pickings aside that is.

Star Wars Frame rate Survivor

Though I don't want to purposely make issue of this aspect of the game to this day the consensus is that the game still retains that thick air of being severely unoptimised and here's me demanding everything I can of my little 'ol 3050 even using DLSS 3 and results are so all over the place - I can't even give you a reasonable I'm getting XX fps for the most part, it's just very inconsistent, and you feel it rather considerably from point to point. No I won't enter into a typical Unreal Engine 5 rant because I knew what I was letting myself in for given the performance feedback out there, that's not to say the Frostbite engine exists and would have been more than perfect for this style of game if you ask me. I can say that during interiors ie caves stations I can hit as high as 90fps, and it's genuinely a fantastic and responsive experience with impressive looking texture work all around you but quite often I find I experience that strange visual artifacts you can get where edges of the screen show white blocks as the camera turns and the world renders itself, it's seriously quite the distraction.

Once I enter the worlds more open areas though I literally see the game drop down to what can best be described as Switch level graphical presentation on display just to maintain a modicum of smoothness to keep it above 60 frames, and I've grown to accept that, the game is involving and entertaining enough to keep me playing regardless having now put in a little over eight hours of play. The fact I'm even managing over 60 having read a good amount of Steam reviews seems like I am extremely lucky.

My one wish would be that Respawn take out all the additional and not required UE5 engine extras it is too often burdened with and taken a leaf out of the Arc Raider devs approach, making for a far more scalable and lighter hardware demanding release. I'm not using any form of RT and that demand remains the same - far exceeding what it should be.

So yes, I've already played more of the inevitable sequel than I did of the original over a period of many months and consecutive re-attempts - that can only be a good sign right there.



Love you Turgle!

Edit: I'm currently on the 'Open The Forest Gate' mission.

Edit 2: Managed to track down a mod on Nexus mods that enabled frame generation for the game, now getting 100 frames with some minor screen tearing. Enjoying it even more now.

[Mantis]

ArenaNet announced an update for the original Guild Wars to add some little bells and whistles in order to get it running on Steam Deck last month. It came out a week or so ago, so I dipped back in for the first time in probably 15+ years (account recovery to disable 2 factor authentication far better than Amazon and absolutely rapid incidentally).

Man this game was special. Incredible campaigns, great gameplay that felt like just the right pace between tactical and skill-mashing, a really cool 'deck building' system with the skills, multi-classing, amazing PvP, great art and music. It was nice to run around with all the old characters I spent so many hours on but I think it's been just a little bit too long for me to get back into it now. Bringing up the account age stats showed I've already played 1650 hours on it (800 of which on just my main character), so I feel like I've very much beaten that game now and don't really want to go back to start any new characters or continue farming top rank items. It's really cool that they're still supporting it though and the population on the servers is still really healthy, it was an absolute vibe seeing so many people running around the cities so thrilled to be playing again.

Anyway, off the back of that I reinstalled Guild Wars 2, an incredible game in its own right for being just so different compared to every other MMO and it does so much stuff so well. But ultimately I bounced off the sequel and never even finished the first campaign, let alone bought into the 10+ years of expansion content. I was really disappointed at how much of a departure from the first game it was when it came out that I think it sullied the whole experience a little bit for me. So much further down the line and I am really enjoying my time with it now.

[Alex79]

Despite having an infinite backlog of games to play, certainly more than I can realistically play for the entire rest of my life, I decided to restart No Man's Sky the other week. I've already put 30 hours in to this playthrough and got 'further' than I've ever got before, my some margin. I have a terrible tendency to play 10-15 hours before abandoning the game and have done this at least six times before, but for whatever reason this time I have stuck with it. I think it's because I'm playing handheld on Switch 2 and don't have to settle down in front of the TV to get some time in.

Ever since I've owned handhelds I've dreamed about a big open world I could dive in to at any time and there's nothing quite like exploring the infinite realms of space for half an hour in bed before going to sleep. The biggest redemption arc in videogames really is an excellent game nowadays. Enjoying it a lot.