I will never enjoy chris avellone writing, sorry. I don’t particularly like any of the dlc but honest hearts is the closest i came to finding one interesting. dead moneys dungeon design would be interesting if there werent speakers hidden everywhere that make your head explode. I do like that it punishes you for like, putting all your eggs in one basket, cuz if you go in without melee or survival skills youre fucked. Its the best anyones done survival horror in a bethesda style game
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I don’t remember it having writing, I just remember walking through a nightmare labyrinth where I had to seek out radios transmitting based on audio cues and I fuckin loved that. Give me more deathtrap dungeons
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It’s 100000x better than old world blues being like “do you like bullet sponge enemies respawning on top of you 24/7?” Fuck you." I don’t remember if this is actually true or not but i told one of my freinds once that the reason so many enemies spawn on top of you in that dlc is because I looked in the GECK and obsidian coded an invisible little man who follows you around so youre always spotted by enemies to punish stealth sniper builds but I also made up a lie about virtual todd howards removing all the DLC ammo from fallout 4 leveled lists without a mod to fix them so I can’t remember what’s true and what isn’t after all these years
7 Likes
i would like to forget the writing in dead money. like dog/god: the super mutant with DID
the nightkin treatment plot in new vegas and avellone’s sadistic edgy companion writing could not be more different
i guess it makes sense that alpha protocol is the asshole rpg
3 Likes
also it was really funny to have the DLCs tie into the main game when bethesdas plugin system doesnt really work good on consoles and plugin files cant really interact with the base games .esm. The only person who reacts to anything you do in the dlc is veronica after dead money and it’s because josh sawyer enabled something unfinished and snuck it into a title update. I remember boot lickers complaining they couldnt narc on Joshua Graham to Caesar
3 Likes
NFSU2 giving out paltry winnings per race even as they get harder, and better parts become available at higher prices. Progression curve all over the map. I feel like I should get more than $350 for hurling my car through the mountain passes. But also, it only costs $350 to totally trick out your trunk with DVD players. Game says I am only 20% done with the game, which feels wrong. God, how long to beat says twenty hours. This is a fucking RPG.
7 Likes
when i played new vegas, no matter what i did, whenever i entered the map for the honest hearts expansion, every character there was already hostile to me. so all i could do there was kill everyone and take their stuff
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I have discovered videogames the videogame
I have my Raspberry Pi + RetroPi hooked up to the little crt and it just lives on my work desk.
It has a slide show screen saver feature and I can set the slide show directory to the screen shot directory. Haha!! So now as I play games I screen shot interesting moments, bosses, logos, whatever and it becomes part of the screen saver. Im like pokemon snapping everything! Gotta have the best slide show.
So all day Im working and my video game memories are rolling past next to me on my cute little CRT. Controller ready for fun in any given spare moment.
Im avoiding rom decision paralysis by keeping the game selection down. Im avoiding genre staples or games that aren’t interesting enough. Im finding a lot of off-path stuff by surfing the translations on CD Romance. Theroy is that if a game was worth translating its prolly worth checking out.
Ive also been screen-shotting anime as a different way to enjoy it. Im stopping, frame advancing to get the perfect shot. I feel like Im getting the appreciation for the craft of it that I did as a kid by watching the same tapes over and over but Im doing it in a shorter time window.
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Specific game discoveries:
Dicing Knight on Wonderswan Sucks. I almost imported the console a few times on how fun it looked. Its not special. Sad day.
The entire Vectrix library is pretty naff, straight dustbin, dont worry about it.
Puzzle Link on NeoGeoPocket is pretty good!
You frantically draw lines between elements to match them. Then you match two “CLEAR” blocks to end the stage.
Brave fencer Musashi is as charming as I remember though often a little obtuse.
The release order of the Bomberman 64 games is very confusing. I have a rom marked simply Bomberman 64 that is a classic 2D bomberman. I cant figure out what I played years ago that had bombs you could inflate before you threw them.
Magical Drop Pocket is a legit Magical Drop
Racing Lagoon (psx) has terrible driving feel. It so lethargic? feeling. I may push through for the art but its rough.
Ray Tracers (psx) is a hoot of a driving game but its very bare bones.
Deep Duck Trouble on game gear is pretty good for a gamegear game and a platformer.
Tails Adventure is a bit of a mess. Tails Sky Patrol is too brutal and visually a little confusing.
Sylvan tale is way better than expected. Its just a really sold game so far. The art is excellent. I feel like the game gear was a little under utilized. Prolly due to its shitty battery life.
Star Ocean and Metal Gear Solid on gameboy color are illegally good looking.
Die Hard (pc engine) has a real fun couple of scoot n shoot levels and then I get stuck in some sort of cyclical color changing puzzle stage and I play till the timer runs out. Could be more fun in there if I ever get past it.
Atomic Robo-Kid special is basic but has charm in all its little animations.
Ghost Manor (PCE) is inscrutable but has some charmingly pulpy art, strange rules that are fun to figure out and platforming that is awkward but mostly not unfair once you know what its up to.
Yo Bro has a very similar appeal if you wanna be a skateboarding bear instead of a kid running from ghosts.
Mizubaku Daibouken is like what if Bub and Bob in Dream Land by way of Marvel Land.
Double Dungeon is what if dungeons but turbo speed. Dungeons of the sake of dungeons, dungeons all the way down to more dungeons.
16 Likes
Could you elaborate more on Racing Lagoon (I was also considering to try it) and Brave Fencer Musashi (seen from point of view of 2022)? Thanks!
2 Likes
Finished Earth Defence Force 6 and despite Modern Video Game Misgivings (one forced walking level is bad enough but SEVEN???), I’d call it the best EDF since the vita port of 2 (which is also on Switch!.. in Japan only). The games are WAY less foreigner friendly then you’d think trying to work out what all the guns do but Spike Cannon, Wing Diver Only, Final Destination is enough mindless fun for 150+ missions. Also this seems WAY more generous with item drops than previous games in the series, like you are RAKING loot in around the half way point which is a nice sensory feel and adds to the variety.
7 Likes
friendship ended with Tetris 99, Tetris the Grand Master is my new best friend. I will laugh so hard if this ends up being my only platinum trophy on PSN (I got 5/6 trophies in my first two games)
10 Likes
I need to play more racing lagoon to really like “review” it I dont have more than a few hours into any of these.
So Im judging the game based on the first race which might be designed to suck. I got really close to winning a few times but lost to minor mistakes. At first I was losing the whole thing by like corner 2 because I hadn’t learned to think ahead far enough. You have to start doing things way before they need to happen and you cant really respond to sudden changes or miscalculations.
I think I have certain expectation from only driving with a wheel for years and not having played something trying for simulation but falling short.
But no matter what it felt kinda bad.
Brave Fencer Musashi is tight and easy to control with occasional fiddlyness in aiming. It uses the analog stick for free rotation but you seem to snap to the 8 directions when you let go. The enemy power absorption thing is pretty fun. The voice acting, art and design are all charming. It feels limited and dated in ways that are rarely annoying. It lacks a map and compass so you really have to learn your way around and recall where to go from memory which I haven’t minded most of the time. You have to be trying things all the time to discover the game and avoid friction. It feels refreshing in the face of modern highly directed game design. I think by being less designed it feels more like a place. Towns folk have daily routines they follow and that you can effect by saving trapped townsfolk. I tripped over the day cycle a few times until I discovered the nap function that lets you force the passage of time (its the Select Button). The tiredness mechanic means your exploration loops are limited in length which seems fine so far.
9 Likes
As a Racing Lagoon stan, I agree with all of this. The driving physics have always sucked. Racing Lagoon is much more about its vibe and attitude than it is about being an actually solid driving game.
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This gives me hope. I shall dive in with new determination.
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this is definitely bomberman 64, i just looked up the manual and it has bombflation for sure. sounds like you have a weird rom to me.
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i’m going to ruffle a few feathers here, but: elevator action returns is really good
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aaah ok. I think I got an english patched 64j
1 Like
14 Likes