Currently Playing

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Animalmother
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Animalmother » Thu Dec 15, 2022 12:31 pm

High on Life
The Rick & Mortyesque game with talking weapons and an insane amount of swearing. I was expecting this to be juvenile and shallow, which it very much is, but I am enjoying it so far. The combat is really basic and a bit repetitive (actually very repetitive) but when you have an Australian accented knife yelling gleefully as you stab someone it makes it fun. The dialogue you hear from npc's and on the various screens dotted about can be hilarious and there also seems to be a full movie playing on a tv
Spoiler
Tammy and the T-Rex with Denise Richards...never heard of it
There's some basic puzzles and platforming which the gun will often critique you on. I'd hazard a guess that this was originally going to be a VR game that got made into a full title as that's exactly what it feels like. Good fun so far but if it hadn't been on Game Pass I'd never have payed for it.

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Re: Currently Playing

Post by DjchunKfunK » Fri Dec 16, 2022 10:37 am

Pentiment

I'm not sure how I feel about this game, there are parts I really like and parts that perturb me. It's really interesting seeing how a community develops over time and how people's lives are impacted by your actions but the murder mystery solving feels a bit too random and out of your control. With the time limit it is quite easy to spend time doing things that don't lead you to a culprit and I get the impression that all suspects are equally guilty which kind of removes any real agency you have in solving the mystery and instead it becomes a case of just collecting enough evidence that you can finger a culprit and not have the game decide for you if you are unable to successfully accuse someone.

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Alan
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Alan » Mon Dec 19, 2022 12:07 pm

Street Fighter 6 beta
Praise be, I got into the second beta and its pretty great! Chun, my main since forever, seems weaker than she has in a while but its hard to know over one weekend. Juri though feels hugely buffed since SF5. I played her a lot in 4 and just couldn't in 5 so looking forward to possibly maining her in 6! Graphics are nice, animations are really nice, plays great and the new drive mechanics are interesting though I'm not 100% sold. Its so very customisable to where you can have a different control set for each character ("modern" controls can get fucked though!) and you can customise which characters or stages dont appear if you select random which is awesome! Oh and the stage you select is only seen by you, your opponent sees the stage they select so no stage trolling like the shitty beach one in SF5 which hides the feet in water. My only gripe really in the battle hub where you walk around an arcade playing classic Capcom games and sitting at back to back arcades to matchmake SF6 matches - its awful to navigate using an arcade stick and its functionality doesn't seem to be replicated in a menu system. I just want a button that says find ranked/casual match dagnabbit! Very looking forward to June!

Baba Is You
I posted a few months back that I started playing this but after that I dropped off hard. Nothing at all to do with the game but that I bought it on my phone and I really just dont play games on my phone much. Sitting on the couch with the Deck though, man what a game! I'm past where I was on the phone now and Ive not skipped any like I did with a few the first time round so I'm feeling confident and super fucking inteligimenter! Its such a satisfying experience to be flummoxed and have everything just twigs and fall into place. My only gripe is the map is kind of bad but you get used to it. I think it there might be a place in my top 10 of all time for it if it keeps up this perfect balance of frustration and triumph.
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Lenny Solidus » Wed Dec 28, 2022 5:11 pm

Gotham Knights

This is not an Arkham game, it was never developed as one advertised as such or intended to be taken as one. GK is essentially a four games in one style rpg set in Gotham, the stories for each character branch off in different ways while all still being tied together surrounding the very well realised dynamics of the collective bat family. If you ever hoped for a game based on either Robin, Nightwing Red Hood or BatGirl you can either stick to just the one as your primary like Batman with the Arkham games or mix and match at your leisure and all of them have different stats, combat styles and a very charitable amount of cosmetic items. I'm still very early into the story and I have already found the one Batgirl costume I would be perfectly happy to stick with the rest of the game, her stealth suit.

Like Spider-Man there are self-contained stealth areas, though you are given multiple access opportunities into a building occupied by criminals and can then take out enemies as and how you please unless you get spotted that is.

What Gotham Knights really is though is a very different kind of open world one night at a time well, crime fighting simulator. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to only go out into a huge sprawling neon lit city and prowl the rooftops looking for random elements of crime to take on head first and dip out of the area before the cops arrive, stopping bank robberies or preventing backstreet muggings you come across as you ride by on the batcycle *hearing the victims pleas in your earhole begging to be allowed to make it home safely. Here it is. Does it have the most alive feeling open world, definitely not, does it have the most dated looking or least interactive, again no.

Every single night you leave the Belfry a brand-new set of crimes and story beats awaits, but there are also plenty of completely randomised crimes going on you can simply stop and scan from a distance and choose to either ignore or intervene to build up the crafting elements you need to become more equipped for harder enemies and story boss fights. Most enemy engagements tend to have hidden or fairly obvious upgrade crates that you pick up to improve your arsenal, but enemies also drop them in lesser form depending how you take them out.

After having what I personally felt was a lot of choice taken away by the batmobile sections in Arkham Knight it's a really refreshing take to have no forced vehicle sections and a spawning vehicle you can use when and how you wish or just stick to your grapple for the entirety. I get why many still compare it to Arkham, people wanted more Arkham. I myself wanted a change, or at the very least some form of diversion from the well trodden Arkham blueprint we have had for several games, and I am perfectly happy with the path taken here. Even the horrible UI you eventually just work with because it's so important for your character progression, but I am still hoping for some kind of rework in the future. It's much less linear overall but still delivers on all the story and character elements you would expect and I can say the characters if you are at all familiar with any of them from other form of media are all done justice.

The modern Spider-Man Insomniac game influence is clear and present and it works surprisingly well in my opinion. Combat wise I was not at all sold on it at first, but the more you put crafting into your build it really starts to come into its own with unique finishers attacks and weaponry. As there's no counter like in Arkham avoidance crits and heavy hits become key, even just utilising your surroundings properly can turn the tide quickly in your favour. Unlike Spider-Man areas don't suddenly become cordoned off when you enter a fight, you are free to move about as you please and take on the rumble down below as you please.

Many on Steam in the discussion threads will tell you the game is still fundamentally broken as shit, I can say that though not perfect it is now in a state that it should have been far more close to at launch and I have no 3090 running behind the scenes. I can hit an almost steady 60 frames with the occasional dips on the bike or traversing high above the city but they are both minute and can be pretty much be ignored. People trying to run the game at 4k at max settings on a 3090 and complaining the game runs like crap, well no shit. FSR has now been fixed and works very well on my 1060. Graphically I think the game looks great, I am often very surprised just how good it looks running on my PC with all the dense moving layers of fog and endless neon signs and with the map being two to even three times larger than any Arkham game before it.

So should you buy this game? It really all comes down to how much can you let go of your ties for another Arkham game, or even another Rocksteady game. Gotham Knights is much more diverse, more willing to just hand you the reigns and allow you to be let loose with those nights out on the prowl, for it to be your own experience then return back to base to use your winnings in preparation for the next night and so on. That's not to say there isn't a cohesive narrative because there very much is, it's just now spread out across four characters rather than just the one and you will get a slightly altered experience with each depending on who you choose to go out into the night with during that particular session.

My son paid £20 for Gotham Knights as a gift and quite honestly it has overtaken my time spent playing Miles Morales - everything that takes place in the city ramps up more and more every single time you leave the Belfry in a pretty cool way, it really does make you feel like you are going out into the night to cleanse the city at your own pace in your own way and with whichever character you feel like playing as with varying but equally fun and interesting play styles you cater as you go which is something I always wanted from this sort of game.

Sorry if this seemed a bit of a ramble, I recommend Gotham Knights but understand completely that it might not be for everyone. The pushback on the game might seem warranted because we are all sick of broken releases no question, but those still sticking to it being a completely broken mess are forgetting Arkham Knight was so bad it got removed from actual stores. GK isn't and never was in as poor a state as that game was.
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Raid
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Raid » Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:21 am

So my new Steam Deck has been well used over the last week, and for the first time in years I've actually been spending time perusing the Steam sale to find stuff for it.

Final Fantasy V: Pixel Remaster - I started this when it was released at the end of 2021, decided it was probably the best remaster I've ever played (sticking perfectly to what made the game great in the first place, giving it a graphical overhaul that still made it look like the SNES title it was but at a later point in the console's life, and doing a damned fine job of updating one of my absolute favourite soundtracks), but put it down after a few hours having been satisfied. Well I picked it back up as it's a perfect Deck game, and I've been playing it religiously since. It's just such a good blend of goofy story and enthralling character building which most would likely hate, but that hits my power-gaming tendencies perfectly. I have the remaster of FFVI ready to go, although it's a different experience (Final Fantasy is a series that partially reinvents itself with every release) so I'm not sure if I'll fall for it in the same way.

Vampire Survivors - It's even better with a gamepad than it is with a mouse and keyboard. I bought this (already having it on Gamepass) so I could play on the Deck as it was only a few quid and there's DLC for it now. It didn't even occur to me that you'd be able to throw the knife weapon in any direction rather than the cardinal ones, which instantly makes it even better (and it was a weapon I quite liked to begin with). It's really moreish.

Dead Cells - I bounced off this when it first appeared on Gamepass, but decided to give it another go. It still hasn't really clicked with me, my issue being that it just feels a bit repetitive at the start, with the only choices you seem to make being between using a melee weapon or a ranged one, with variants of each all feeling basically the same.

Wargroove - A charming little turn based strategy with well defined mechanics that appears to be reasonably deep, with plenty of unit types that all have their own little quirks. There's no randomness to any of it, you know exactly what the outcome of sending a unit to fight another will be as it tells you before you commit, allowing you to concentrate on your actual strategy. It is exactly how I remember Advance Wars, just in a fantasy setting. It can be a little slow to play, with some units having miserly movement ranges meaning that battles can take longer than you expect because it takes longer to do anything. I'm only a couple of hours in, I'll see whether this eventually puts me off.

Disgaea 5 Complete - I reckon there's probably a really deep, engaging RPG in here, but the presentation is vile. I knew it was going to be... quirky, but the first character you meet tries to hypnotise the protagonist into loving her, declaring herself the "Overlord of Gorgeous" and expecting every man to be her love slave. Then when you're introduced to the unit recruitment system, you find that the male and female versions of each unit are all different, with the males typically being better at fighting and the females better at support. Blech. It made my skin crawl, and this is the first time in 15 years I've ever had to request a Steam refund.



I've got Star Renegades, a rogue-lite turn based RPG ready to go, but I do want to find myself a good strategy RPG, as I think it's a perfect genre for a handheld. I do have XCom: Chimera Squad which Prey generously gave me a month or two back to start, but I get the feeling that's going to be better with a mouse and keyboard. I gave Hades a quick shot too, but haven't really had the time to delve into it properly.

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Alan
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Alan » Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:32 pm

I find your Disgaea disgust quaint because I decided to try and get into some shmups other than Ikaruga, Rtype and… 1942. Deathsmiles was highly recommended and on the character select screen you’re met with….
Spoiler
Image
….and now I feel I’m on some kind of watch list.

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Raid
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Raid » Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:37 pm

I suspect you've got me beat on anime-game creepiness, but one of the very first prompts that I got when it finally gave me control of a character some 15 minutes in was to dress the affection enthusiast in a bunny costume.

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Sly Boots
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:33 pm

Can't stand games like that. I don't want to tar all anime games with the same brush, but there seems to be just so much creepy anime shit on Steam these days.

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Animalmother
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Animalmother » Mon Jan 02, 2023 10:10 pm

Are anime games with that sort of shit in them made predominantly for a Western audience?

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DjchunKfunK
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by DjchunKfunK » Thu Jan 05, 2023 10:52 am

The stuff in Disgaea is mostly played for laughs as you get further into the game, so the character you describe gets ridiculed a lot and it is meant to be subverting anime tropes in that it is a women who is trying to do that not a man.

As someone who spends a lot of time trudging through the Steam new release list there are plenty of "western style" porn games as well. I think it's less about appealing to a Western audience and more that anime is easier to draw/animate and make look OK than 3D models. So you hear and see the anime stuff more because people would rather watch cartoon porn than some janky 3D models going at it. :D

I do find that there can be a bit of moralising about anime games that isn't always applied to western games. Not to say that there isn't a bunch of anime porn on Steam which is part of the problem, everything is seen through that lens. So anything with a booby anime girl gets seen as porn but the same character in a western design whilst also rightly questioned isn't always seen in the same way. There is nothing different between that character eVol posted and Quiet in MGSV, both are designed to titillate.

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Sly Boots
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:27 am

My point wasn't differentiation between east and west, it was about sheer volume. It feels like every week the list of newly released games on Steam is 80% anime creepiness/porn.

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DjchunKfunK
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Re: Currently Playing

Post by DjchunKfunK » Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:55 am

Sly Boots wrote:
Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:27 am
My point wasn't differentiation between east and west, it was about sheer volume. It feels like every week the list of newly released games on Steam is 80% anime creepiness/porn.
I think that is more perception than actual fact possible warped by the fact that porn games often appear in the top new release charts. Every month I go through all the games listed as coming out for that month on Steam and whilst there are a fair few porn games the majority are not.

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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Raid » Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:59 am

DjchunKfunK wrote:
Thu Jan 05, 2023 10:52 am
The stuff in Disgaea is mostly played for laughs as you get further into the game, so the character you describe gets ridiculed a lot and it is meant to be subverting anime tropes in that it is a women who is trying to do that not a man.
Fair enough. I think it's pretty likely that I overreacted to be honest, I didn't realise until later in the day that I was in a pretty foul mood. I'm tempted to give it another chance because I really haven't been able to find anything that will scratch that same gameplay itch.

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Re: Currently Playing

Post by DjchunKfunK » Thu Jan 05, 2023 2:13 pm

Raid wrote:
Thu Jan 05, 2023 11:59 am
DjchunKfunK wrote:
Thu Jan 05, 2023 10:52 am
The stuff in Disgaea is mostly played for laughs as you get further into the game, so the character you describe gets ridiculed a lot and it is meant to be subverting anime tropes in that it is a women who is trying to do that not a man.
Fair enough. I think it's pretty likely that I overreacted to be honest, I didn't realise until later in the day that I was in a pretty foul mood. I'm tempted to give it another chance because I really haven't been able to find anything that will scratch that same gameplay itch.
Maybe take a look at Symphony of War.




I think Sly has played it.

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Re: Currently Playing

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jan 05, 2023 3:08 pm

I have! Enjoyed it a lot :)

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