my dumb brain sees koei tecmo and automatically assumes that is gonna be DLC, not an in game unlock
6 Likes
I climbed a fucking mountain in BeamNG Drive. By that I mean I downloaded a very large map with a huge mountain on it, and drove up the mountain path. Because it’s a user created map and not from BeamNG itself, there is a few…quality problems with the path. There were sections where the angle of the terrain was too steep and my truck would fall over or get stuck. I had to lock both differentials, be in low gear, and also force the transmission into manual mode so I could hold it in 1st or 2nd gear. The physics simulation in BeamNG is very good and so inching my way up this mountain one rock at a time was challenging and difficult. Several times I had to just stop everything and manually pull the truck up something that was impossible to do. It felt like Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy, except I was able to reset the truck and cheat a little bit.
23 Likes
6 Likes
played LITTLE BUG on my switch which i got for a dollar ages ago. it’s a pretty boring puzzle platformer, with the main mechanic being that you control a little girl who can only move left and right, and also control an orb that lifts her up and swings her around. not much is done with this mechanic in the short length of the game, and it becomes super meat boy like which seems at odds with the WHOLESOME GAME thing they have going on. overall very vapid, i ended up clicking through a playthrough instead of finishing it myself because it was tedious and boring
3 Likes
also played LOVE, another game i got for like a dollar. not to be confused with the nifty platformer, this is a puzzle game where you rotate a building around through time periods to try and piece together stories of the people who live there. is there a word for the aesthetic this game has? it’s like trying to be wholesome or rather, heartfelt with the stories and being really sentimental, like the opening even has some dude singing sadly over acoustic guitar. i almost stopped playing right there
the stories are things like someone taking the ashes of his wife upstairs to see the stars like they did when she was alive, or reconnecting a kid with his alcoholic father, it’s all really shallow oscar bait feeling kinda stuff
i actually really like the concept but none of the stories are interesting and too many puzzles are obtuse
7 Likes
Totally Reliable Delivery Service (PS4) - the worst experience i can recall having in any game recently. this was not like my adventures with dead-multiplayer-game brink (ps3) over streaming - that was fun and funny, despite the game itself mostly being pitiable. let me describe my nightmare
i open the game. never played it before, saw my brother play it on steam awhile back and it looked goofy and funny and wicked hard to control - A+++ facets imo. upon launching the game, you are given options to quick join (default option), host a room, join a room, or play locally. the online options seem to be emphasized and the cursor sits on quick play, which is the biggest button. ok, i guess this game is fine to just jump online. from the brief time i spent watching my bro play this, i didn’t even grok any multiplayer element, so this was surprising, but sure, i’ll bite - let’s go with the default and do quick join. i do so and the game rapidly loads me into a map. i’m given a goal to pull a joystick on a little package dispenser machine and then deliver a package to a dropbox a few feet away. cool, so the game tutorializes fine even if you’re in an online game.
i pull the joystick after getting my bearings, and a package spits out from the dispenser. i release the joystick and start to move to go pick up the package. controls are intentionally hyper-unwieldy, so i’m wiggling and falling down and it’s seeming like this game will be a pretty good time so far. before i can make my way to the package, it vanishes. i notice text in the corner where my delivery goal was now shows “delivery cancelled” with a little error sound. hm? weird. i try again. same issue. i keep trying, not sure if i’m doing something wrong - there seem to be little variations in how long before the package disappears and i get a “brr” sound and the text goes to “delivery cancelled”, so i think maybe i’m doing something wrong. do i need to stay inside this little red box around the dispenser? no… maybe…
while i’m puzzling over this weirdness, another player on the server blasts over into the area i’m at and starts running literal circles around me. ok, maybe you have to use teamwork, i think. maybe i’ve got to hold down the joystick and this other player has to pick up the package? so i pull the joystick again. to my surprise, the player immediately picks it up and elegantly dunks it into the dropbox, then rips off into the wider level again, leaving me behind. i have no idea what just happened. i try pulling the joystick again to drop another package, but i’m still getting the “delivery cancelled” thing constantly
suddenly, i am kicked from the server and a message comes up indicating i am “banned”. uhhh, ok? i try to quick join another game - maybe i just ran into some trolls or assholes! but now i can’t join any game. it loads for a long, long, long time, then it gives me “network connection not found” ??? i try to access the server browser, picking rooms at random and attempting to join. more network errors. try to host a game - nope. i cannot go online at all
now i’m really confused and upset. what happened? did i do something wrong? i go into a local game now, trying to figure out if i was doing something wrong. i spawn in the same area i was in in the online room. i pull the joystick. the box pops out. i walk over, pick it up, and drop it in the dropbox. no issues. no “delivery cancelled” shit.
i deleted the game immediately after this, because it is giving me serious emotional distress. am i banned from online in this game because i… tried to play it? i have no fucking idea, i refuse to ever open it again. it is really, really, REALLY bothering me. it made me feel like a small, helpless child. like, shit is traumatic. i really hate videogames sometimes
19 Likes
i downloaded Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX (copied and pasted that one) because it was downloadable on PS+
i’d only ever played the first Azure Striker Gunvolt on the DS a long time ago, and my memories of it were that it was competent, if not a bit unremarkable. i can’t remember too much about it, other than absorbing bullets and floating around.
so iX (is this…a play on X? like are they taking the piss or something?) feels really good to play. it feels like a really well constructed post-Mega Man X4 game, like what i perhaps would have wanted from the series, as opposed to the direction it took with X5 (less so) and X6 & 7 (moreso). the movement feels really good and they made some qol improvements to it that, on the one hand, i’m used to doing it the hard way so i don’t care, but on the other, it’s more relaxing to not have to hit a lot of buttons in succession constantly to play the game well. for example, after air dashing, you can have it automatically turn on your air boosters that let you float down. it’s the kind of thing i’d have done manually, anyway, so hell, why not just do it automatically, right?
this applies to combat, too - if i were playing as Zero, i’d be hitting some combo of dash+slash+jump or dash+jump+slash in quick succession, as a way to quickly plow through enemies and not have to stop my movement. in this, the dash is incorporated as a way of breaking an enemies guard, after which, you are launched into a floating state and can unload a lock-on weapon on the enemy.
it definitely makes the experience less intense than regular MMX, but maybe things get trickier later on. still, it’s fun.
that said, i think the hardest part of playing this game is going to be dealing with being forced to interact with a half-naked child in between every mission. there are other children in the game who are not half-naked, but the one who is is the one you talk to the most, as she hangs out in the hub (contained in a menu system). it’s just like…why? why does this have to be a thing?
10 Likes
Turned Ys 8 off two minutes in when a guy introduces himself as “Katthew”
15 Likes
Death Stranding Director’s Cut (PS5) - only played the prologue so far. i rave about triggers and haptics in every game with a decent implementation - this game has one of the better ones. does anyone know if the PC version supports the dualsense? this controller and game go together really well in my very brief experience thus far.
Far Cry 5 (PS4) - @Tegiminis convinced me to give this an earnest try. enjoying it more than i thought i would so far, way more than new dawn.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 (PS4) - delightful in many ways (running around in first-person feels great lol), but the beginning is excessively slow. just let me get to the point, game!! come on!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Special Edition (PS5) - astonishing how bad the character models look in this game coming from anything else on the platform. the rest of the game looks a lot better than it did 10 years ago (lighting is vastly improved), but the NPCs continue to look absolutely dreadful. i don’t know how much i’ll play this but i was curious how far the game had come. i never really spent all that much time with this game because i kept waiting until i had access to the DLCs which I didn’t have on PC back when I actually cared about this game. so, idk, might spend some time on it. i’m curious about the fishing minigame you can do with one of the creation club mods, at least. anyway, the opening still sucks and takes forever and there’s hitching and framedrops in this sequence EVEN ON THE PS5 lmao (rest of the game is fine… only the intro has these issues lol). the creation engine is truly a replenishing gift
5 Likes
Sadly no. I don’t think any PC game has DualSense support 
2 Likes
that’s a real shame. while the adaptive triggers can be overwhelming and they can trigger my RSI, i also happen to think they (and the haptics) in the dualsense are some of the best innovations in controller technology of late - i really do love what they can do for a game
1 Like
oddly enough the pc version of deathloop does support the dualsense haptics and triggers
2 Likes
Ooh I should try that. I’ve never experienced that trigger tech even though I’ve had a DualSense since the beginning.
1 Like
Hot Shots Racing!
Played through everything once in 2 player, got top 3, 90% of the time and it was just a blast. I never figured out the game with the grippy cars, cars with a lot of focus on drifting however were a ton of fun, especially in the cockpit view. I just stayed sideways as much as possible trying to chain drift boosts. It feels like the right way to play. The detail level on some of the city stages is really impressive. Having low poly means you can put in a lot of buildings and billboards.
Multiplayer this game feels twice as good as solo, unless here is some mechanic I wasn’t grasping that really opens it up.
8 Likes
Doope??
Is this related to Yann Tomita’s “Doopee time!” ???
10 Likes
“wait they meant rat plague literally???” - me playing dishonored for the first time in 2023
i don’t care about anything else, watching those two guys get devoured by rats rules. goty 2023
EDIT: this outsider guy…seems like he might be bad news…
(this is me hoping to be entertaining to those who know what’s coming)
10 Likes
What’s the opinion about Disaster Report 4? Is it a good specimen or the former games are better?
1 Like
Both, in my opinion. The former games are better in some ways but 4 is also great. If you’re only going to play one, Raw Danger might be a good choice. But 4 isn’t redundant if you like the formula and it has its own charms that are not present in the earlier games, in addition to some archaic design mentality and maybe overpromising in what it’s trying to do.
Disaster Report 4 was my favorite game from whatever year it came out.
6 Likes
The problem is while Disaster Report 4 is Disaster Report 4, Raw Danger is Disaster Report 2 AND Raw Danger.
4 Likes
