Currently Playing

[Mantis]

I replay it every couple of years and the additional stuff like fast forward speed and no encounters do remove a lot of the tedium from the gameplay elements that haven't aged so well.

It's still my favourite game of all time though alongside 9. The characters, story, background artwork, music and just general atmosphere it all creates together are what make it for me. The materia system is still a favourite of mine too.

[Raid]

Sadly the version I'm playing doesn't have the fast forward function I don't think (it's the Steam version from ten years ago). There are fan patches that may add it (the only thing I know for a fact they add is higher res models and backgrounds), but as I'm playing on the Steam Deck there's a really convoluted method to get that installed and working which I haven't bothered with.

I actually don't rate the soundtrack all that highly for this so far, and that's with me taking into account the Steam version's subpar midi music. It's all a bit slow and foreboding, frankly. I love the game's main theme that plays on the world map as a piece of music to listen to out of context, but as a map theme that's frequently interrupted by battles, it's far too slow. Compare it to FF6's Terra's theme (the map music for the first world) which has a very similar atmosphere to it, but still has an upbeat tempo that works better in context. Contrasting it with the SNES soundtracks, two of my absolute favourite OSTs, it's all a bit uninspiring. Also the Gold Saucer and Shinra March tracks made me want to tear my hair out by the end, given how long I was forced to listen to each. It probably still has the best boss battle theme of any game in the series though (though I think 6's comes close).

I guess that's part of the problem I have with this; I'm comparing it to Final Fantasy 6 which feels very much like a precursor to this in style. It has the same magic-punk theming to the world, a very similar atmosphere (at least comparing the early sections) a similarly large roster of characters, but the sprite-based graphics and chiptune soundtrack just hold up so much better. Granted, the version I just played was the modern pixel remaster which did come with some quality of life improvements, but I first played both 6 and 7 back in the early 2000s (I doubt I got more than half of the way through each) and felt much the same way.

[Mantis]

If the PC version you're on is using the original PC soundtrack with the really bad MIDI I would highly recommend you find a mod that replaces it with the PS1 tracks because the quality between them is pretty stark. That said, it is quite a slow of foreboding soundtrack in general, but then that's why I like it so much. The music you hear in Midgar when you're exploring the slums is so miserable and oppressive, it fits the theme perfectly with all the people living in scrap metal shacks and old industrial reactor pipes. There are moments of beauty scattered among the tracks, but largely it's a moody soundtrack to match the pretty sombre setting.

If you think Gold Saucer was bad just wait until you get to the Temple of the Ancients.

[Raid]

If the PC version you're on is using the original PC soundtrack with the really bad MIDI I would highly recommend you find a mod that replaces it with the PS1 tracks because the quality between them is pretty stark.

I have a feeling that either this has been fixed for the Steam version in the intervening years, or the Steam Deck's midi soundfont is so similar to the Playstation's that it's difficult to tell the difference.

F1 '22
I played this using EA's free trial last year when the game was first released, and though I enjoyed it at the time, there was a software stability issue so bad that it was impossible to make it through even a short race. The game appeared on Game Pass last week and it seems like it's been fixed. It's a really solid game now, and other than a few hitches getting it to launch properly in VR, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I've started a career mode which gives you the option of first doing a GP2 season which is what I've gone for. The second race of said season is Monaco, and despite my years of owning sim racing gear and a VR headset, I've never actually driven around Monaco before. That the game lets me do well enough there to win a race without ever feeling like it's on rails is I think a triumph of the physics engine and controls. Obviously I'm using my VR sim rig which is what most would consider "a bit fancy", so I'm not sure how much a gamepad user would get out of it, but for me it's a perfect blend of forgiving controls while still nailing the atmosphere of the sport and what I imagine the feel of open-wheel racing to be like for someone with actual driving talent.

[Snowy]

“A bit fancy”?

Master of understatement as always there Chris

[DjchunKfunK]

Sonic Frontiers

I was quite enjoying the open nature of this game, just pootling around the world doing various activities, collecting the collectables and occasionally playing more traditional Sonic levels. Then I had to fight an end of level boss. The first one was a bit of a pain mainly because you go into Super Sonic mode which drains your rings instead of you having health. The game doesn't tell you this before the fight so the first fight I had about 30 seconds to beat the boss as 1 ring equals about 1 second. I failed and the game restarts you in the arena with 0 rings so you need to run around collecting the amount you think you will need in order to give you enough time to beat the boss. On top of this you are flying around in the sky and the camera really can't handle it so it was a rough time. It only took me a few tries though and then I was off to the next island and back to having fun.

However boss 2 was ten times worse. I went in with max rings this time, around 455, and after going through a chase sequence I was flying through the air chasing a leviathan style enemy. Again the camera was not playing nice and onto of that there were particle effects everywhere making it quite hard to see where I was going and dodge the projectiles. The aim was to parry an enemy attack and then attack them whilst they were stunned. In between getting knocked back by rockets and missing parries because the timing is all over the place, I slowly drained away all my rings and failed the fight. By then I had had enough and had no desire to run around collecting 455 more rings and then sit through the chase sequence again only to have the pleasure of fighting the camera, controls and particle effects to try and beat the boss again.

I wont be playing any more, which is a shame. Each new island nicely changes up the kinds of activities that you are doing to get the collectables and unlock the Chaos Emeralds. It's nothing spectacular but it was a fun time.

[Animalmother]

Did they even play test that I wonder? Sounds like a great way to make people give up on the game out of frustration.

[Abs_McBain]

Sonic Team did set things like pop in distance settings on the Nintendo Switch to all platforms, i'm guessing they just didn't have the time to address all the fixes or gameplay woes reported from Q&A.

After grabbing the Steam Deck i've now been more motivated to go through my backlog. Thought i'd start with Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, which is such a fine place to start, a RTS with a console like controller.
But seriously the amount of fine tweaks and multi-layered controls and setups you can do on the Deck is bewildering. It plays pretty darn well! Well okay some glitches in the game happened (the Ashoka Carrier blew up without any audio explosions in the cutscene), but i'm half way through the game and i'm able to respond quickly without taking major losses from slow inputs or whatever.

Controller layout customisation is getting a bit addictive now. I've setup Deus Ex just right, now I wanna try and see if I can get all of the original Rainbow Six's commands on the controller.

[Raid]

The only deep dive I've done into the Deck's controls menu is in FFVII. You can set key macros to very precise timings, meaning I can press one button and the control will be held for exactly 450ms, exactly the right time to win the basketball game at the Gold Saucer, allowing me to cheat my way through one of the most aggravating RPG settings I can remember, because how in the hell is someone supposed to be able to hold a key for that precise an amount of time when there appears to be no margin for error?

[DjchunKfunK]

Diablo 4

Put a good chunk of time into this today and after a poor initial first impression I came away more positive than I thought I would be. I think in general the game has some pacing issues early with a lack of loot and a skill system that rewards you for putting points into the same skills rather than branching out early. This meant I used mostly just two skills until I hit around level 15. It also has a bunch of weird design choices like mapping heal to Q and skills to 1-4 instead of the other way around, you can upgrade your healing flash every ten levels but you need to go to a vendor to do it and spend some resources which seems like pointless busy work and finally the loot.

This is where I had my biggest issue early. Blizzard have talked about giving players less pointless loot and more cash as drops, in D4 this manifests in a situation where you hardly get any loot. Open a chest and some coins and health orbs will pop out, kill a boss and you get a couple of blue drops. Early on this lead to me bee lining the content as your reward for exploring and killing stuff was more likely to be coins than the possibility of some nice shiny loot. However once I reached around level 15 things got better, yellow and orange drops were dropping with really cool modifiers and I was doing more quests in quick succession that the smaller amount of loot drops were less noticeable. It still sucks to get to the end of a dungeon and have a boss drop two blue items but this feeling had lessened.

Another big factor for my increased enjoyment was that I switched to a controller. I think it is a game that has been designed with the controller as the main way to play the game. There is a lot of emphasis on positioning and dodging attacks, especially in boss fights and whilst this is possible do with a mouse and keyboard it feels a bit more clunky. It also just feels easier to pop off all your skills and dodge around with the controller as all the buttons are in easy reach compared to having to use a keyboard.It all feels a bit more kinetic as well with some of the skills packing a nice punch due to the sound design.

So I come away from my first day with the beta optimistic but with concerns. The early game is too slow and I might have just got lucky with legendary drops so the loot system could come to be an issue once again but it feels really nice to play and the presentation is top notch.

[Sly Boots]

I don't know why, but I've never really gelled with ARPGs like Diablo etc, I've tried a bunch of them (D2, D3, Torchlight 1&2, Grim Dawn to name a few) and probably the one I put most time into was Titan Quest way back when, but even then I never finished it. They just don't seem to sustain my interest beyond a couple of hours.

[Wrathbone]

Diablo 2 is my jam. I wouldn’t say I care enough about it to fully understand why 3 never grabbed me in the same way, but I guarantee loot is something to do with it. If the loot system in D4 isn’t as simple and rewarding as it was in D2, I can’t imagine it’ll be for me.

[Raid]

I think I can understand wanting to get away from the loop of just picking stuff up to sell. I played a lot of Diablo III, it's probably in my top 10 games in terms of total hours, and you don't really manage to ever get away from picking up the blues and yellows because you need the money, even at end-game. There are so many gold-sinks that you still need the income to improve. It means you're required to portal back to town every five minutes to clear your inventory. It's much neater to just give gold and gems, making the loot that you actually want to look at more exciting.

[DjchunKfunK]

I think I can understand wanting to get away from the loop of just picking stuff up to sell. I played a lot of Diablo III, it's probably in my top 10 games in terms of total hours, and you don't really manage to ever get away from picking up the blues and yellows because you need the money, even at end-game. There are so many gold-sinks that you still need the income to improve. It means you're required to portal back to town every five minutes to clear your inventory. It's much neater to just give gold and gems, making the loot that you actually want to look at more exciting.

Games have shown that you can avoid the trips back though, ie Torchlight. I don't think the extra gold instead of items is a terrible way to go but on top of that there are just a lot less drops from the bigger monsters and bosses. I did another dungeon just now and the boss dropped one yellow, that was it. I'm sure people will argue that the fact that each dungeon in the openworld has sigils that you get for completing them the first time is a kind of replacement but considering they are all class specific I'm still getting next to nothing for my character right now, and when playing alts there wont be those sigils to unlock as they are account wide. If it feels bad when you are doing story content I dread to think what it will be like doing end-game stuff, unless they just scale things up then.

[Lenny Solidus]

Rainbow Six: Siege

So, returning to a game I'd long since forgot that I owned.

My team starts on the attack side, and we are situated on the always fun but tense plane runway map. I make my way to the plane's exterior and start looking for entry points for me and my team when out of bloody nowhere I'm instantly shot dead. Somewhat startled, I'm instantly of the mind that one of the enemy team managed to get a sneaky angle on me and took me out with a well versed sniper shot from who knows where. Not thinking anything else of it, I continued to view my team who eventually went on to win the round, minus myself. Little did I know I had actually been TKD and not spotted the blue on blue notification.

The next round my team is on defence, I pick my main which is and always has been Castle and begin to put up wall defences to aid my team. Right there and then I get surrounded by three of my own team and a voice comes over the comms saying "You, say you love BBC - right now". Not having my mic enabled, I then begrudgingly swing my mouse left and right in abject defiance, big mistake. All three of them open fire and kill me. My own team just executed me, and I've not even worked out my controls again yet.

The next round comes and once again we spawn outside on the tarmac and concerned they are instantly going to TK me once more, I leg it to the plane ladder and climb right up. The BBC dude then comes over the mic once again stating "If you don't love BBC you can't be on this team" and he begins to climb the ladder below me to my position and once he reaches the very top and my direct pov, I shoot him in the face. I know, pointless and escalating, but something deep within me got great satisfaction from it as he lost his shit not expecting retaliation as his lifeless body falls to the floor. He drops the bomb so one of his mates goes to pick it up as the dude I just shot goes verbally ballistic over comms and I notice two of my team have the almost exact same name and may be brothers - or something. The none dead one comes over comms "Don't shoot me, my bro" as he retrieves the dropped bomb. "My brother is an idiot". I may have just entered a growing family feud, but then both opened up on me the second game - just because I said I wasn't particularly a fan of BBC.

We both enter the plane at different points and make our way to the bomb and as we eventually meet up I turn a corner and get direct line of sight on him and can tell enemies are all around us, I manage to take out two enemies, and we are good to plant then right as I think he's going to do so he turns to me and shoots me dead. Sure, I asked for that one. But now he has to 2 V 1 and naturally he fucks it all up and my team loses.

Final round and the 100% expected happens, all three trap me in a corner throw insults and shoot me dead. I'm absolutely fine with this. Then it happens...

Player XXXXX has been removed from the match by BattlEyetm
Player XXXXX has been removed from the match by BattlEyetm
Player XXXXX has been removed from the match by BattlEyetm

I win, bitches.

May not have even been a ban or anything, I just found it hilarious.