games you played today 12 times the fun and the excitement!

King of Posters
1818

I woke up from a 3 hour slumber at the inn and started grinding again. Some lady in the lobby gave me a quiz on the local royalty, which I would have felt bad failing, because this is one of those Elder Scrolls games where you play a CIA agent. At this point I had more than enough money for a horse but I decided to do two honor duels posing as the proprietor of the tavern I was staying at because it seemed easy enough work and I thought it was kind of funny he needed me to help him save his skin a second time because he serially cannot keep his dick out of other men’s wives. And naturally the guys he keeps cuckolding are hiring mercenaries, too. I like that I made a solid 2000gp in like, 8 hours getting involved in low stakes bullshit and hustling drunks at the bar. A lot of randomly generated drama in this town…

To make a long story short, I bought the horse, and only at a 118gp markup after I haggled him down which is great because the merchants in this town hate my fucking guts and pay like shit for items. I got a mod to name my horse because I think this should be a feature in all games where you have a permanent mount

image
image1920×1080 157 KB

now I can travel to guild/dungeon quests while I wait for orders to come down from on high, and it’s good to have a horse for when I inevitably have to actually make my way to the city of Daggerfall proper, which looks like it’s almost three days straight of travel from Gothway Garden

13 Likes
1819

HERETIC: SHADOW OF THE SERPENT RIDERS

This is a tricky one, because (with the exception of the last few), I think the levels in this expansion are much more interestingly designed than those of the base game.

The fourth episode is basically just fantasy dungeons and I think has the strongest architectural level design out of all the episodes, and the fifth episode is full of fantasy structures… castle things. These are decent too.

They tend to have more interesting challenges and aesthetics than the original episodes, and are fun to work your way through. They often have the same problems as the first three episodes, but they are more detailed, dense, and have a greater sense of mystery as you explore them. BUT.

Boy howdy, do they throw too many enemies at you! And too many STRONG enemies. In spaces often not suited for fighting them at all. And it’s still mostly fighting groups of one or two different enemy types at a time (which is a good thing since few work well as a group).

It goes to show that the base game wasn’t designed for these kind of combat encounters. It gets easier after the first couple levels once you get some weapons and items, but it can still be quite rough… I found that simply running from (or cheesing) the big enemies they throw at you was the best tactic, and probably the only way I finished it without cheating. Just felt like a waste of ammo trying to take them on every single time.

If they added new enemies that were actually designed for the kind of counters they wanted, then this could have been very different! But it’s just new levels, literally nothing else was added.

The first level of episode five is NUTS, I kinda loved it. But the last few are infuriating switch hunts where I got lost for ages because you have to shoot some walls to progress and I had no idea. Sneak peek of Hexen bullshit, I guess…

The final boss is also just a bunch of the highest level enemy in one arena, it’s quite anti-climatic and pretty easy since you’ll have plenty of weapons and items to make quick work of them by then.

So yeah, while the level design on an architectural standpoint is an improvement (except for the switch hunt levels), the combat design is often tedious and a bit of a slog. I still enjoyed myself overall, but I should note I played on normal difficulty, and didn’t do that pistol start stuff (I never do that).

9 Likes
1820

I finally got a package for one of the rarer preppers in Death Stranding 2. I promptly fell down a mountain and broke it. 10/10 Video Game Stuff

11 Likes
1821

I think “Post Naval Trauma” may have knocked down my opinion on Bungie’s oeuvre more than any other level. I think I ran through that whole thing about 10 times before I actually read the instructions on the terminals. Your oxygen slowly depletes and it’s already low from the previous level, so you spend the entire first quarter of the level frantically trying to find an oxygen panel, and then run around doing shit forever until the labyrinth ends and it’s onto the next one.

I think if I had stopped with the middle of Marathon 2 I would have probably come back with a higher opinion on the series but really this is just…obnoxious level design. Sandy Peterson’s Quake levels were better than this. Normally I’d be like “here’s how I’d improve this” but really I’d improve this by having the whole development team sleep at least 6 hours a day, eat at least 2 meals of not pizza, and get one shower a day. I call this the 621 rule and it’s for pros only. And like, maybe actual playtesting. Even the spoiler guide says to edit the save file to give yourself more oxygen at this part of the game.

I can see early beginnings of the Bungie ethos which might have gotten tampered down under Microsoft but let loose during the Destiny years in a lot of the raid designs. Lots of “do a bunch of things perfectly without dying with a strict time limit, that you’ll have to go back and do AGAIN”.

I think the game’s art and story are compelling enough to keep pushing through, maybe with cheats, because some of the more abstract levels are really interesting. There’s a lot of cool mechanical design with the decorations in some levels.

6 Likes
1822

I should point out Infinity wasn’t made by Bungie, but Double Aught… it was new company made by some Bungie people, plus they hired some map makers and such… which explains a lot of why the game is like it is

1 Like
1823

Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium might be the first instance of dreaded Mario Sounds. It is not the bike '94 game I’ve seen in Super Famicom bins that I thought was excitebike but I am not finding evidence.

Wrecking Crew '98 scares and confuses me.

I still really like Aladdin Genesis, even with its bullshit. Maybe because of it.

6 Likes
1824

Absolutely because of it. I’ve heard your cackles as I deal with so much Mega Drive bullshit of a similar ilk.

3 Likes
1825

it is a very easy 1cc though. i did it almost by accident!

i think the biggest problem it has is the same as earthworm jim: too much animation and too many unique platforms meaning you’re never 100% sure of exactly where your character is or needs to be

6 Likes
1826

quite sure we’ve talked about it before but are you playing the final cut version with all the extra stuff this time? amazing thing

it is a really great version of excitebike tho

6 Likes
1827

Oh my god I think I’ve played this game for hundreds of total hours and I don’t think I’ve ever done any of the random townspeople quests. Daggerfall is such an all timer

3 Likes
1828

I started doing it to build rep with commoners so they would be less mean to me and tell me where stuff is more. When I came into town every other person talked to was like OH A DARK ELF WHO WANTS TO WORK THAT’S RICH

4 Likes
1829

C-Smash VRS:
finally got around to give it a first spin, and i finally understood what made me fall in (and out of) love with the Playstation Brand™®©

it is a wonderful time capsule of celebrating style first and foremost, with deceptively easy intro, but ramping up quickly to make you wanna beat your last high score in just one more try — all traits that made them Wipeouts unforgettable.

Also loving those short glimpses of wacky space dudes doing nonsense whenever you come back from one of your space trips.



Ridge Racer 2:
gotta go fast, and sideways :officersonic:

3 Likes
1830

My favorite thing with Spider-Man 2 doing the Venom/symbiote suit thing is how it’s angling for “we’re gonna go a stretch to make Peter unlikable, and you’ll prefer Miles as the moral center of the story” and like…yeah y’all did that with Spider-Man: Miles Morales, thanks.

(Miles really is so much more enjoyable than Peter)

2 Likes
1831

It is indeed! Need shorter stuff after Death Stranding. I got stuck for 20 minutes at The Escape and was doing worse and worse till I gave up for the night.

For Megadrive Monday I might do that stage and see how many times I die for Texas Flood Relief.

1 Like
1832

Getting a little farther in Astro Aqua Kitty, and this game sure likes to wear its influences on its sleeve. The robotic fish are out of Darius. Third boss is pretty R-Type, being a worm that erupts from one of three holes in the room to fire ring shaped bullets. I don’t hate that there’s a health bar(even if it does give a kind of euro feel), maybe because it’s an exploration game at least as much as it is a shump.

I think the first one is a lot more charming, but this is still a very enjoyable game.

3 Likes
1833

Having been stuck on Jafaar for 20 minutes and giving up. I am impressed.

1 Like
1834

dolls nest is very good to me so far and i was pretty much over the moon on reaching the hub and finding a giant girl with a speech impediment who crafts new clothes and hair for me.
you may have read this already but it pretends to be armored core but is actually souls. maybe that was ac6? someone get me a ps4 so i can play that. but that’s fine. it has a very nice nihei megastructure rendition. it has tiny(?) girls with moé voices who speak very typical souls lines and the contrast is jarring and funny but also just totally works for me. it’s by nitroplus and my mom is asking me to collect all her body parts dracula style so she can be revived, i’m sure there’s nothing nefarious about this. my mom is probably nice. even tho she keeps reminding me i was made to do this one thing only. even tho she really emphasizes i need to do this “at any cost”. ok mom, geez, i got you one eyeball already no need to hound me. it was in the possession of a police tank so i have to assume mom’s in the right. anyway good game.

this is what i look like without the robot parts. i loved getting an actual puffy coat and clothes that don’t flip up to show my panties all the time so much i forgot to take a screen fully geared up ready to commit violence

24A5E6~1
24A5E6~11536×864 218 KB

13 Likes
1835

i have to admit the presence of a big slide in the storage deck of citadel station was not too hard to believe but i just can’t accept that shodan would call me on the telephone to say “nice jump, insect” when i used it as a ramp to leap across a gap

5 Likes
1836

I actually enjoyed a tactical challenge in Pokemon Ultra Moon today.

Pokemon used:
Grass Owl #3
Weasyl thing
Pelican
Lopunny

Opponent: Mimikyu totem with backup.

I had to give attack enhancing items to each pokemon. Then it was:

Lopunny (foresight → quick attack to destroy decoy) → weasyl thing (super fang) → Pelican (to tank hits and get off two water type moves) → Grass owl #3 (spirit shackle to finish Mimikyu → spirit shackle to finish the ally pokemon)

I lost twice before this but knew there was a way without grinding and found it.

3 Likes
1837

Apparently the game’s inspo was armored core 5 on top of obvs the souls elements. You can read up on it with this interview. I appreciate for the true nitro heads that they had zizz studio do the score for the game.

Speaking of Nitro+ there’s this vn that’s coming out real soon that screams early 2000s era nitro+ inspiration with the art, the action packed urban fantasy story and that they also have Zizz studio composing it. Do check it out and support it. Chunniges almost never sell well.

4 Likes