all the constraints are so fucked up, yet i don’t think i’d finish anything without them
2 Likes
Played this on 3DS and I loved it, I wish there was a sequel or someone would rip it off
2 Likes
cpu kage in arcade virtua fighter 1 can and will timer scam you on both rounds
8 Likes
bonus credit for the konami score
3 Likes
Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly (PS Vita) - otome VN. soundtrack is very nice and the writing is as good as i’ve seen in a game like this. curling up in bed with such a game is a very pleasant experience. the butterfly mini-game is also actually very enjoyable, at least on the vita touchscreen. not sure how well it holds up without touch on the PC port, etc. you drag your finger around the screen to lock on to rapidly escaping butterflies, and then press cross or a “shoot” button on the touchscreen to wipe out all the locked-on butterflies. more butterflies cleared at once gives you more points. nothing crazy, but a nice little diversion from the novel.
lots of nice QoL stuff - full text log, ability to go back to earlier messages and re-hear the VO, all kinds of auto-play and skip options, and most importantly, the game uses a flowchart system so you can easily go back and make different choices without doing too much savefile juggling.
i’ve heard the game gets depressing later on, looking forward to it. have not played too many games of this type, but this one appears to be quite good.
6 Likes
I played through about half of the half life alyx noVR mod. it’s pretty janky, there’s weird stuff with collision and movement, and there is a key bound to noclip because you get stuck in geometry so often. all the fiddly 3D puzzles are also stripped out. despite all these changes, I’m surprised at how well it works and how much of the original experience feels more or less intact. it’s different and maybe doesn’t feel quite as special as playing it in VR, but I’m glad that this exists. enemy health, AI, and ammo/health drops have all been tweaked to make the combat more engaging and it more or less works… if anything some of the combat sets are notably more difficult than playing in VR.
I don’t know if I can recommend it if you’ve never played it in VR, but if you’re okay with it being kind of fiddly and just want to see to environments and sets and all that it’s pretty good. definitely interesting to compare to the VR experience though.
3 Likes
So in Rhythm Thief the main villain (or perhaps the real main villain’s lead henchman) is a supposedly resurrected Napoleon Bonaparte, his body being stolen and resurrected is the opening cutscene. This is what Napoleon looks like:
I feel like giving Napoleon a blonde beard is either the character designer really feeling themself in terms of “just fuck it” energy, or an amazingly unsubtle clue that perhaps you can’t actually resurrect the dead in this universe.
4 Likes
Wartales is awesome. I won’t call it darklands 2 even though it does scratch that itch because it hits the exact same balance of like being an RPG and just wanting you to exist in that medieval world. there are quest lines in the regions you stumble into but there isnt really a main quest to discover like darklands, though I think I’ve only ever finished the main quest in that game once or twice despite 100s of hours (it takes a lot of work, OK!!)
the coolest thing about the game is that you have a camp and everyone has to work so youre assigning like the camp cook to the cooking pot and shit so your guys need less food every time you rest, my tinkerer scavenges spare parts at the workbench, and you get to design the layout of your camp and move stuff around. everyones gotta be a miner or a woodcutter or a fisher or something, it reminds me of doing work in darklands based on your characters professions so you can afford the inn. you can also get animals (the more ponies you have the higher your carrying capacity + movement speed is on the map) and theres accomodations you can build for them to make them more effective too along with gear like saddlebags and horseshoes, so no ones left out!
i captured a bunch of boars and we fattened them up for about a week because you get a fuckload of meat from waiting. it dips off after like 10 rests but i had physically too much boar meat to carry and had to stash a bunch of it in a chest I deliberately havent taken the loot out of so i can store stuff in it. the game lets you build trading posts or some shit later you can staff with companions (???) to store stuff or you can also store them at roadside shrines but I haven’t seen any of that shit so im using this trick for now.
Also you can recruit wild animals from local prisons to join your party and maul people, they dont listen to you until you get an archer and make them a beastmaster, and half the ones you can get are alcoholics so they get depressed if theres no booze when you eat. Luckily, because this is the greatest game in the world, you can cure them of their affliction by having them abstain from drinking for 10 rests. my partys probably talking about how AA is a bunch of bullshit around the campfire i bet
8 Likes
@physical mentioned Titanfall 2 in passing and made me go “damn, that was a good game. I should play it again” and holy shit. I don’t think I appreciated it enough the first time… masters at the top of their game. The traversal and level design and guns are all absolutely top notch. Every time I want to try some piece of shit game just to feel like I’m staying on top of the medium or whatever I should slap myself in the face and replay this instead
14 Likes
I had a month of Game Pass about to lapse so now will try to fit in 5-6 PC games in the next month on top of my PC Engining. First up was Citizen Sleeper which I was pretty certain I wasn’t going to like and I was right. It is very good though but faces the desperation between money/food/medical care in a collapsing infrastructure on top of random hardships and boons symbolizes by percentages and dice rolls is not my idea of a great time.
2 Likes
Broke apart my DS5 pad to repair an X button that refused to play More Elden Ring. That it happened during the Maliketh fight had me convinced it was afflicted with Destined Death, however following a small alcohol wipe later (while avoiding tearing tiny ribbon cables on the PCB) it was good to go
Before summoning the spirit to perform such repairs (because Failure=£60) I found myself picking-up an old Breath of Fire III save that was only an hour old from a new game start (from 2019). The skill system is a little awkward (or just grindy) but I did appreciate the amount of flexibility and customization allowed for different party types before running point with a self-healing, mutant sentient onion that Hulks-out with a mean Rekkaken
Also nice to enjoy sprites that are casually smoking; coin toss between either Sailor Frog with Pipe or Gangster Hound with Cigarette as my favorite in-game animals with habits
8 Likes
I played Shadow of Memories and what it does with time and how things get changed because of the player’s action is very nice. The early PS2 aesthetics and acward dialogues make it also charming.
It’s definitely a nice curiosity to play and it lasts only a few hours.
I played the PSP version, on my Vita, and it’s really well executed.
9 Likes
I don’t think I’ve ever played anything as despair inducing as trials of osiris in destiny. it’s a 3v3 first to five rounds wins pvp mode. if you die you’re dead unless a buddy revives you. the thing is if you win seven matches in a row you get to go to a special clubhouse. but what you’re actually doing is just flipping a coin each time on whether you get paired up with killers or clowns. here’s how it goes for me: go on the longest losing streak in history cause you’re bad at the game, finally eke out a miserable hard fought win and see a single little tiny checkbox out of seven appear on your ticket, then lose again. play long enough and eventually you’ll be lucky enough after that one win to win a couple more, but somewhere by game 3-4, you always get paired up with two people doing constant shoulder tackle dashes out into the middle of the arena just to get instantly vaporized, immediately lose 4 rounds in a row but let’s try it one more time and see if it works.
even the wins don’t feel good cause you know you’ve just nudged a boulder slightly farther uphill, but I have some mel gibson-esque love of self-torture I guess so I keep playing
9 Likes
yeah i will simply not trials, i know my ceiling intimately
2 Likes
my trials experience back in the day was either getting farmed by zoomers on console or farming zoomers on pc, very funny to see they still haven’t put some kind of skill based matchmaking in nearly a decade on
2 Likes
I’m convinced this and every other modern game is just rigged for a controller now. mouse and keyboard never seems to give me any advantage, even in the games I can actually win at sometimes like mw2 or fortnite. in fortnite the pc icon just got a reaction of puzzled amusement by a bunch of kids one time. and my sister, on ps5, is always higher on the leaderboards. she says it’s just because she’s better than me but no, that can’t be it. I’m sure when they finally invented crossplay they did the math to balance controller vs mouse but erred on the side of the controller, that’s got to be what’s going on here
2 Likes
i haven’t tried it on kbm but i get the feeling fortnite’s controller aim assist is extremely generous? i don’t think i’m enough of a master markswoman to casually plink dudes in the head with ARs at sniping range as long as i don’t auto fire but fortnite is happy to help me
3 Likes
maybe the assumption is that trackpad and other touch interfaces have largely replaced the mouse outside of the die hard old guard of pc gamers?
1 Like
aiming is one thing but i’m totally incapable of doing any kind of advanced movement tech on a controller
like going from bunnyhopping in quakeworld to contorting my hands into weird shapes to do titan skating in destiny 1 was brutal
2 Likes