games you played today: winning eleven

[Tulpa]

SB had a whole thread about Total Annihilation successor, Zero-K

Zero-K

This opening post is a love letter to Zero-K because it is one of my favorite games and it is critically underappreciated relative to its quality. If anyone is interested I will use later posts to dig into the nitty gritty of the game and specifically what is magical about it. Zero-K is difficult to describe. It may be the best RTS, or unplayable, depending on your disposition. Zero-K is unapologetic for the steepness of its learning curve, its bottomless pit of complexi…

[hellojed]

After playing more of Fumes I would say it’s the spiritual successor to Vangers but with much more combat. I did an escort mission with a bunch of friendly NPCs and the firefight was pretty chaotic. The demo opens up a lot more but you have to die in order to unlock the rest of it, which is why I thought the demo ended after like 5 minutes.

The world is semi procedural generated, so there’s no “map” per se you drive to arbitrary locations where fights and missions happen. Your upgrade garage is a roaming truck that you have to honk at to get them to stop and let you on.

[Tegiminis]

Total Annihilation, Zero-K, and Beyond-All-Reason all rank highly in my personal canon of RTS games. Supreme Commander 1/2 slightly lower, Planetary Annihilation below that. They don’t have super good campaigns (except Zero-K’s, which is fantastic) but they get by on being more macro than micro and have a wide variety of strategies even as compared to something like C&C.

[MintyJuffowup]

@VastleCania

[azurelore]

hrm.

…

don’t think i’ve happened to do this since the concept was introduced 20 years ago

the only real meaning to get out of this is, azure enjoys actually playing this game more than anything she’s touched in two decades

apparently

[Grandpa]

Decided to take a break from Picrossing and have gone back to my neglected Yakuza 4 save.

Finished Akiyama’s portion of the game and am past the incredibly short first two chapters of Saejima’s part.

It’s been a while since I started the game, so once again I find the way they absolutely crank your experience out of the gate really funny. Like two fights in and I’ve leveled up several times.

That said! The pattern I’m realizing is that…anyone who isn’t Kiryu isn’t very fun to play as? I was just getting the hang of Akiyama, who I could sort of brute force my way through some fights with his sheer speed, but Saejima is so slow, and even though he can tank some hits with his charged attacks, that prison guard could break through most of them.

Also didn’t need that scene with Haruka…c’mon Kiryu you gotta be a better dad than that.

Guess I gotta be ready to sorta Metal Gear my way through the streets, is the gist I’m getting from these NPCs on the streets.

I did laugh at how if you try to go into the karaoke center Saejima just says “not for me” and turns around.

[Mikey]

@Rudie

Total Annihilation

My absolute favorite RTS of all time!

[winkerwatson]

Haruka has the best combat in the series outside of kiryu and majima

[Felix]

well in 5 yes. 4 is p flimsy

[aislesgrises]

wow. heretic. huh. it really is kinda just ok.

[shnozlak]

@aislesgrises

wow. heretic. huh. it really is kinda just ok.

This is also my experience. Its fun to turn people into chickens or cast the bouncing spells in multi player. Used to play a map that had chicken sized holes you could run through to escape getting stomped.

[iguferon]

heretic doesnt really feel right unless your using a tome of power which is kind of weird since its a consumable. however the music is really good though especially with an awesome soundfont

[winterk]

Brotato: does what it says on the tin.

[Grandpa]

Oh wow, Saejima’s chapter just kinda blows by, huh?

Probably doesn’t help that the last short bit of it severely restricts your ability to go around town.

Guess I won’t see the vast majority of his side stuff til I beat the game.

[captainlove]

It’s weird because I remember Saejimas stuff in 5 being the best. In 4 all I remember is the cutscene with all the revolvers

[Cerium]

Live action scenes in Pirate Yakuza the worst things in the entire franchise, eyes turning 90 degrees staring through my nose bridge just to disassociate from them.

New gen musouisms more fun than first glance but luckily it ended before they overstayed their welcome.

[parker]

did they figure out how to add a no random battle item yet. everytime they switch engines it takes them like two games to get one back in.

[Cerium]

i wish

[Felix]

happy with a bunch of Steam Next Fest stuff I’m trying, including sb-adjacent and sb projects Skin Deep and Price of Flight, and Kaizen’s Mascot thing is pretty irresistible. honestly a pretty solid stream of releases right now

[GherkinForce]

I can’t remember how long it took me to realise the bear hunting plotline wasn’t the main story, but it was quite a long while