New 1CC!!!
This is NOT as free as I make it look. No way. Skip to 5:06 to see what I consider “the Play of the Game”.
15 Likes
Starting to dig into Amnesia: The Bunker and will post about it when I’ve had more time with it. But this patch note is really funny sounding.
7 Likes
I remember this Katamari thing from years ago. And after some reading it’s been around since 2011? Maybe they took it away and reintroduced it recently.
3 Likes
Ah weird, I recall something like it a while back but thought it might be brand new.
1 Like
You’re getting a ton of mileage out of PS+ Extra, huh?
4 Likes
got some cheap switch eshop stuff
HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED
the input lag on turning is TERRIBLE making this unplayable to me, do not buy
SONIC FORCES
i dont know what everyone was complaining about, this game owns. i love the stupid war plot they take WAY TOO SERIOUSLY and then they mismatch the dark tone with songs about the power of friendship and chilli dog jokes, it’s so stupid, i love it. plays well too! i played it on casual mode which probably helped. finished it pretty quick which is fine by me. also love how your mary sue OC character gets praised constantly by sonic and pals “wow you’re so cool!” “damn nice skills bro!!”
maybe it was patched a lot but i didnt really see any bugs or terrible design beyond the usual 3d sonic problems, but yeah, for the price i paid this was great
CARRION
gross metroidvania where you’re a tentacle monster and eat people, i love it though i wish the monster had more weight to it. the thing from Inside felt better to me, but i guess that wouldnt fit with the style of gameplay
i usually bounce off metroidvanias pretty quick because as soon as i forget where i need to go a lose interest, but this is more like fusion/return of samus where areas are largely self contained, and it leads you back to where you need to go most of the time so you don’t end up lost (very smart idea since you have no map). switching between forms can be annoying, but i like how there seems to be multiple ways to approach lots of encounters depending on the form you happen to be in at the time
10 Likes
it’s been great! i skipped out on basically 100% of the PS4/Xbone generation so everything last-gen is still new to me
i have folded and bought a few games, but i’m constantly spoiled for choice
making a big list now!
games i’ve played and loved on PS+ Extra/Essential:
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
HUMANITY
Vampyr
ZOMBI
Metro Exodus*
Metro 2033 Redux*
Returnal
Warriors All-Stars
Resogun
Outer Wilds
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Paradise Killer
Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition
Rain World
Tetris Effect: Connected
Gravity Rush 2
Everybody’s Golf
Balan Wonderworld*
Raiden V: Director’s Cut
Limbo
Hotshot Racing
Dead Cells
Warhammer: Chaosbane - Slayer Edition
Monster Energy Supercross 5*
Bugsnax
games which are not so great but i put time into nonetheless:
Far Cry 5
Far Cry New Dawn
The Messenger
Tchia
Mahjong
Meet Your Maker+
Immortals Fenyx Rising
games i haven’t played or have only dabbled with:
Chorus
Left Alive*
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Enter the Gungeon
The Last Guardian
Wreckfest
Control
The Evil Within
R-TYPE FINAL 2
God of War
Inside
Demon’s Souls (PS5)
Bloodborne
Deathloop
The Evil Within 2
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Scarlet Nexus
WipEout: Omega Collection
and a few i’ve enjoyed from the Premium tier:
Ridge Racer 2 (PSP)
Star Wars: Racer Revenge (PS2)
Kinetica (PS2)
Syphon Filter (PS1)
R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (PS1)
Siren (PS2)
Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4) [weirdly, some of the PS4 games in the catalog are locked behind the Premium tier if they are “remastered” - e.g. LocoRoco, Patapon, The Last of Us (PS4), Uncharted Legacy Collection]
i’ve bought a few games because… well, i’m a sucker apparently. nearly all retro bundles of games i have played before and have access to in other, superior ways!! but for some reason the PS5 is where i want to play everything lately… so
Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Edition (Ground Zeroes+Phantom Pain)
Castlevania Anniversary Collection (1+2+3+Super IV, Bloodlines, Adventure+Belmont’s Revenge, Kid Dracula)
Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood
Arcade Game Series: Galaga
Dead Rising Triple Pack (1+2+Off the Record)
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
Mega Man 30th Anniversary Collection (MM Legacy 1+2 (MM1-10), MMX Legacy 1+2 (MMX1-8), MM11)
* - game has since been removed from the catalog
+ - game was a PS+ Essential monthly freebie
9 Likes
PSN memberships were discounted and I’d let mine lapse, and I wanted to play at least Stray and Humanity, so I spent the extra $30 to get Extra and while I’ve only played a bit of Humanity and Tetris Effect, I think it’s been worth it already, at least for this year.
Humanity is really, really good (and not entirely unlike a game I made myself, tbh). I think I’m gonna enjoy drawing it out over a few months of short play sessions. The mechanics are simple and elegant, but already very cleverly used. Looking forward to seeing all the places it goes. The overall aesthetic and weird story framing really complements the Lemmings action.
Tetris Effect is pretty! I like it! I haven’t quite figured if it’s anything more than pretty Tetris but I’m also not sure it needs to be much more than pretty Tetris, since Tetris is great and I like things that are pretty. But I’m also probably more likely to boot up Tetris 99 if there’s nothing else going on.
Oh yeah, I also played a few minutes of the Demon’s Souls remake and having replayed Demon’s Souls not that long ago kinda hate it.
I installed a ton of shit and hope to actually make enough use of this to justify the $30, not to mention the $500 I spent on this fucking machine for some reason.
8 Likes
I think this was my favorite Sonic game in a while tbh, it’s so exuberant and ridiculous and yes, I loved having all those characters tell me how great I’m doing over comms.
3 Likes
Yeah, I didn’t circle strafe until Doom, I think. : ) It probably DOESN’T do anything useful in Wolfenstein 3D but it’s sort of easier to aim that way sometimes vs turning with the twitchy pad control while stubbornly death-clutching R2 (Run) in this PS3 version and also it’s just fun to imagine the blazing hip shots. ^_ ^
2 Likes
Demo
Even with
there’s still a nuclear flash on every hit
so I can take Toxic Crusaders off the list! Which is now empty, whew.
1 Like
One of the nice accidents from Sony not being able to perfectly mimic Microsoft’s big service moves is that PS+ has a comfortably different catalogue from Gamepass. Gamepass feels like it predominantly has the bigger titles that make waves through gaming communities but PS+ has lots of old b-games that many people just don’t get around to playing at release. So there’s value in both despite Sony’s service technically being a cheap imitation.
The day GamePass gets the Koei Tecmo Warriors and anime RPGs catalogue though, it’s over for Playstation.
5 Likes
Played the latest version of 30XX (hi @isfet) for about 45 minutes. Renewed impressions shortly before the release out of Early Access:
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I did an Ace run (he’s the sword boy)
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Still feels good to move and shoot
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Sound design is really good
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Music is so-so - not sure if it’s just from lack of familiarity but I don’t feel like it matches the highs of the 20XX one
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The new level generation is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, it feels more like Megaman X - enclosed environments, good platforming challenges, enemy placement is usually on point. On the other hand, I liked that 20XX was wide-open chaos with less prescribed routes. I really liked that many of the environmental challenges could be circumvented through the right augments/powers.
- Other level notes: They’re easier to read than when this first came out in early access, especially some enemies. The levels also have many more small branches, and lots of gimmicks. The gimmicks are good, usually!
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The enemies are pretty good, the bosses are pretty good. Nothing really blows my mind. I haven’t fought all the bosses, either this run or in previous runs.
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It looks very, very good. Detailed and well-animated pixel art doesn’t do much for me anymore but this all comes together in a very nice package. It’s pleasing to look at.
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The writing is actually bad. I don’t feel like this is a surprise.
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There are lots of very confusing/overstuffed parts:
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Ace’s energy seems to recharge, but under what circumstances, I am not sure. It doesn’t seem to be related directly to taking damage, killing enemies, moving through rooms, etc. It just…sometimes fills up and other times does not. I don’t understand this.
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There are nine different button combos for Ace’s special abilities. You only start with one (on the Y button), but the second one I got was invisibly mapped to “Down + Left Bumper.” I had to check the start menu to find this out, otherwise it looked like it just disappeared. I remapped it to “Left Bumper”
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There are statues one can contemplate that start challenges. These are one-room enemy gauntlets where you have to avoid damage to get the best rewards - simple enough. But once a room is cleared, it instantly teleports you to a different room to fight more enemies. It’s very fucking disorienting, and it happens two times. I don’t like it.
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Maybe I’m just a dingus but one of the first augs i encountered had the description “Trades Power damage for energy!” and I could not for the life of me figure out which direction that went. If you want to guess, I’ve spoilered the solution: It turns out your power damage goes down, but you get more energy. That was what I guessed, but it was a real close one in my head.
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An early aug says “At full Corruption: cast Powers with Corruption instead of NRG!”. I don’t have any idea what corruption is though.
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Sometimes after defeating a boss, you get a new move from their moveset. Sometimes you get a new move that is not from their moveset. Sometimes you get the choice of a move OR an aug OR some nuts. I can’t tell what the criteria is for any of this, or if it’s just random.
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There’s a whole new system replacing the four pieces of armor from 20XX called Core Points. You start with 10 and can increase this, and you can activate or deactivate any number of armor pieces as long as their cost does not exceed your max Core Points. HOWEVER when picking core parts, it doesn’t tell you how many points they take. So you could pick something, then not be able to use it. And even if it did tell you, you would have to back out of the reward menu, go to the start menu to check your core points, then back out of that and go back to the reward. It’s all very annoying. Like, just don’t let me wear two helmets, you know? I hate this system entirely.
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Nina has a whole system where she can combine powers, I guess - I messed with it in an earlier version but didn’t this time around. Anyway, to me it just added more overhead. It’s a neat idea but I didn’t like fiddling with it.
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Overall it feels good to play until I actually have to mess with any of the myriad systems that are weird, kinda of time consuming, confusing, slightly annoying, etc. I personally think that this is a consequence of developing a game with and for your existing fans, but what the heck do I know. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for this. But it just feels like a chore to play rather than a joy.
Maybe I’d find it more enjoyable once I put some more time into it, but I really don’t feel like it’s worth it for me.
EDIT: OH I fUckinG FORGOT that it doesn’t tell you what the permanent upgrades do. I guess you’re just supposed to guess?? I thought this was an early access issue but we’re almost out of early access!!
10 Likes
the purple charge upgrade + special weapon capsule in flame mammoth’s stage in mega man x is so brutal to get to
feel like it is nearly frame-perfect for both the dash+jump as well as the wall-jump on the block, and then you have to be immediately mashing so you don’t fall off. if you fall off after breaking any of the blocks you have to restart the whole stage!
i keep getting cocky and thinking i’m gonna just nail it right off but it really is quite tough
15 Likes
Hadokens are always worth the blisters
6 Likes
i discovered you can brute force the rules because it doesn’t let you create illogical ones and i thought i could get by in this game without learning anything but whoops i kinda figured out what the brute forcing was doing so i accidentally learned something
i did finish like 2000 puzzles this way though
3 Likes
yeah the further you get, the less possible it is to successfully brute force new rules into place
2 Likes
Giana Sisters : Twisted Dreams (DEMO) (PS3)
Appears to have been delisted since I downloaded it back in the day.
And yes the demo’s title on the XMB or wherever does have a space BEFORE as well as after colon. I don’t know if that was someone making a typo, or was it someone trying to allude to dual worlds separated by space?
The full game is still in the PSN store,
currently for $14.99, same price as Steam (although it was on sale for $2.99 on Steam a couple days ago, with no corresponding PSN sale… Does anyone bother putting PS3 games on sale anymore?). Hopefully the Steam version has better performance than this PS3 demo, which doesn’t run great. The Steam version DOES have a demo still available.
Anyway I played through it–the PS3 demo I mean. You have infinite respawns at checkpoints so it wasn’t really hard, sorta. There are some annoying spike-filled pits
to wiggle through near the end, then it rips you off by stopping just as you get to a big boss. Oh well.
This is one of those platformers
where you toggle back and forth between two states of the world / yourself to get past obstacles. Because we all love toggling.
The framerate is a very unsteady 30fps. Vsync seems to be off and there is horrible screen tearing
–and the controls still aren’t very responsive.
The dual worlds are detailed as heck,
so, at least you’ve got that and the half-Chris-Huelsbeck dual-world soundtrack thing, which is probably okay I guess, I don’t know, I was too busy hating on the toggling and the poor performance.
According to Huelsbeck The Hilarious Story About How The Great Giana Sisters Got Its Title - Chris Huelsbeck - YouTube , the “Giana” name came from '80s pop-ish Italian singer Gianna Nannini; I hadn’t heard of her because I’m an ignorant American but apparently she rules a lot Gianna Nannini - I Maschi - YouTube .
The Giana Sisters games apparently have quite a history Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Wikipedia , going back to being a SMB rip-off C64 Longplay - The Great Giana Sisters (warpless) - YouTube pulled from stores after pressure from Nintendo, forward a little to the company going bust and the programmer dying after a DS version (maybe they’d patched things over with Nintendo by then?).
Wikipedia also said the original game’s soundtrack was one of the most popular game soundtracks of all time The Great Giana Sisters (C64) Full OST - YouTube and it does seem to go pretty hard. And yep people have put Twisted’s OST up as well Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams Soundtrack (OST, 26 Tracks incl. Rise of the Owlverlord) - YouTube
9 Likes
is this easier to get to if you do the stage with the lava still on?
1 Like
i legit have so many memories of this exact point and how brutal it is
3 Likes