Started playing Prototype, and so far it's a lot of fun. I usually don't bother with these superhero-themed open world games, my last one having been the disappointing Infamous 2 way back on the PS3. But unlike that game, this one is a blast to play. I can't really say if it compared favourably to the newer Spider-Mans, but your powers are badass. If you hold the sprint button you can parkour over cars and run up buildings, you can "consume" others for health and to use their body as a disguise, you can grab objects and throw them at helicopters and hijack tanks, and you can upgrade Alex (the main character) to add an arsenal of even cooler abilities. I needed the PrototypeFix mod to make it playable, but otherwise it runs smooth and I can't really complain.
The one sore spot thus far has to do with the sound mixing, and the rather average-looking visuals. The character models especially aren't all that great, and the voiced audio seems to be very quiet. I have to turn up the volume of my speakers just to hear dialogue clearly, which is something I never had to do for other games. The volume settings are at their max in-game, so it must be an issue with the game itself. I regret not playing this sooner, because it seems to be a very underrated game indeed. Will see if my initial impressions remain consistent for the rest of the game.
I miss the early 2010’s edginess in games.
► Show Spoiler
Shame they ****** up Alex Mercer in Prototype 2. Worse heel turn I ever seen in a character that ruin what made him an interesting protagonist.
Decided to stop playing Prototype at the final boss. The game is enjoyable overall, but there are MANY moments, including the final boss, where it just throws a barrage of **** at you. The boss alone is difficult enough, but when you have marines gunning at you at the same time and helicopters shooting missiles at you which disrupts your combo every 5 seconds, it's even worse. The boss takes out a majority of my health bar in a single hit, which means I either have to get lucky and dodge all of these aforementioned attacks at the same time, or I have to run around the arena and absorb as many soldiers as I can to restore my health. This is not a quick process. It takes me minutes to get my health back to full, and all of it can be undone with a single attack from the boss. Then I have to repeat the process.
It's tedious and annoying to say the least, so I finally just gave up. I watched the ending on YouTube and called it off. It's games like this that could benefit from a remake, because it's close to being a 'great' game but falls short because of a poor design choice here and there. A shame it'll never get one, and even if it does, it wouldn't be good anywya.
After having played and beaten Condemned: Criminal Origins for the first time, which was fun and comes recommended by me if you enjoy horror games, I've started a playthrough of "Sudeki". An underrated action JRPG developed by a western studio, Climax, in the mid-2000s. It was a game I recalled playing at some point back then, but it remained a fuzzy memory at best and I was eager to give it a shot once more all these years later. And from what I've played, it's quite enjoyable and more fun than it's aesthetics would have you believe. The graphics have not aged very well, it's uncanny character models chief among them, but the action is solid and I like the fact that each member of your party plays differently. Tal is your standard hack and slash character, while Ailish (the hot girl on the cover) plays like an FPS. This is the first game I've seen that actually does this, and it reminds me of how foreign new ideas seem to be in the current market. I haven't gotten far yet, so I'm eager to see if any future party members are as drastically different.
Ironic that it took a western studio to make the first good JRPG. As of now, I recommend it.
Finished Ctrl Alt Ego, an exemplary Bri'ish imsim. Extemely polished, unique soundtrack where every object you inhabit has its own theme (which is a funny indulgence because you're not going to spend more than a few seconds in a lot of these things typically), mindscrew ending. It goes on a bit narrative-wise (it built up to what I thought was the climax but then there was a lot more to go and then it built up to another climax and there was more yet still, leading to aforementioned Gainax ending), but there's never a point where it goes downhill design-wise.
Playing The Long Dark, survival sim from ex bioware devs.
I tried playing the singleplayer campaign at first, but it was so bad I bounced after an hour. Then first character you encounter is your nagging ex wife who immediately starts bossing you around while refusing to elaborate on her agenda. She's also butt ugly.
"Hello my dear ex husband, i know it's night and it's storming outside and we're in a sparsely populated Canadian north, but you're the only pilot out there. You must fly me to that notoriously dangerous place. You must do it right nao. No, I will not explain why I need to get there. You're asking me what I was doing all this time after we separated? I will nota answer your questions, instead I will shift the subject of conversation to the fact that you reek of alcohol. You piece of **** ******. You have a small peepee. This is why we no longer together". Then, after your plane crashes somewhere in the wilderness, she just runs away, leaving you to die. And once you recover from your wounds and arrive to the nearby settlement, you encounter the second NPC - a bossy and bitchy old woman who somehow survived in this frozen hellhole all alone for years. Naturally she berates you and then sends you on some stupid fedex quest, and you can't say 'no'. And you also can't skip dialogues for some reason.
Thankfully the sandbox survival mode is entirely free of this **** - it's just a good old 'man vs nature'. The world is pretty huge, all of the locations are hand-crafted and very fun to explore, you can't see yourself on a map so you must learn the layout of the world using visual landmarks. In addition to the usual 'tiredness/hunger/thirst' meters, you must also manage your body heat by wearing multi-layered equipment and being good at starting fires/cooking food/brewing teas. Clothing can get wet (you'll have to dry it in front of a fire) or ragged (you'll have to repair it), food can get spoiled, fire is pretty difficult to manage so you'll have to learn the optimal way of expending your fire-starting resources (i.e. matches, tinder, different types of firewood, coal, etc). You can hunt wildlife (rabbits, deers) and catch fish in ice-fishing holes, in addition to meat you can also harvest pelts/hides/guts/fish oil. Animals don't just die immediately, but if you wound them seriously enough they will run away and bleed to death somewhere else, so you will have to track them down by following a trail of blood / hoof prints in the snow. Drinking melted snow without boiling it may give you dysentery, on harder difficulties if you only eat canned food you can get scurvy. Wolves are a serious threat if you don't have a weapon, an unsuccessful wolf attack will ruin your clothes, cause you to bleed, and give you an infection to boot. The weight capacity is not unlimited, so you must also manage your inventory by leaving heavy stuff at your homebase and travel light. And if you're hiking while over-encumbered, uneven terrain may cause you to get a foot sprain.
The game is very good at maintaining this 'early stage in an RPG' feel where your character is weak enough that every little item you find feels like an upgrade.
Finished Guardians of the Galaxy. It was a nice distraction, kind of telltale with combat. I actually enjoyed the combat. But it was of course terribly modern gameplay-wise. Levels all very similar setup, illusion of choice, illusion of challenge etc...
Last edited by 1998 on September 16th, 2024, 13:21, edited 1 time in total.
Aside from Eyeswhend Dhale I was messing around with X-Chronicles, a mod for X-Com. The idea was the classic veil of magic being torn away in modern times and fantasy creatures running amok along with some classic x-com elements, but I stopped because I did it wrong and I noticed that progression seemed to be slow, really slow. I'll probably try it again soon now that I have a better idea of how things work since I liked the concept.
Decided to end my playthrough of Sudeki, about 3/4s of the way in. I'm being forced to do an unnecessary and tedious box puzzle, while the sound of literal radio static is blaring through the speakers. I assume they wanted to give the impression of rain or a thunderstorm brewing overhead, but their choice of audio is ridiculous. It's just as well, as the game was beginning to lose steam during the second half anyway. An opinion many players seem to share.
For what it's worth, this is still the best JRPG I've played. What it lacks in plot and melodrama, it makes up for it with a fun combat system and a tight pace. The game is only around 10 hours long apparently, yet it accomplishes everything a 100 hr JRPG sets out to do which is just hilarious. A shame this game wasn't as well polished as it should have been, and the lack of any sequel means it's rather abrupt ending (supposedly) will forever go without a conclusion.
Started a playthrough of "Days Gone", a Sony Cinematic Slop™ game. Despite how badly these games are meme'd on nowadays, and despite the corporate logo on startup literally being a carbon copy of Marvel's, it seems pretty decent. It's not a sort of game I haven't already played before, being a standard third-person action game with crafting, but for what it is it seems quite fun. It helps that you're playing as a masculine white man and not some strong womyn or gay POC. I'm actually shocked the game exists because of it.
I only just started so I'm holding my breathe for some poz down the line.
Started a playthrough of "Days Gone", a Sony Cinematic Slop™ game. Despite how badly these games are meme'd on nowadays, and despite the corporate logo on startup literally being a carbon copy of Marvel's, it seems pretty decent. It's not a sort of game I haven't already played before, being a standard third-person action game with crafting, but for what it is it seems quite fun. It helps that you're playing as a masculine white man and not some strong womyn or gay POC. I'm actually shocked the game exists because of it.
I only just started so I'm holding my breathe for some poz down the line.
Days Gone isn't a sony walking sim game afaik, it sold really well when they ported it to PC.
Started a playthrough of "Days Gone", a Sony Cinematic Slop™ game. Despite how badly these games are meme'd on nowadays, and despite the corporate logo on startup literally being a carbon copy of Marvel's, it seems pretty decent. It's not a sort of game I haven't already played before, being a standard third-person action game with crafting, but for what it is it seems quite fun. It helps that you're playing as a masculine white man and not some strong womyn or gay POC. I'm actually shocked the game exists because of it.
I only just started so I'm holding my breathe for some poz down the line.
Days Gone isn't a sony walking sim game afaik, it sold really well when they ported it to PC.
Yes and still Sony refused to greenlight the second game.
Started a playthrough of "Days Gone", a Sony Cinematic Slop™ game. Despite how badly these games are meme'd on nowadays, and despite the corporate logo on startup literally being a carbon copy of Marvel's, it seems pretty decent. It's not a sort of game I haven't already played before, being a standard third-person action game with crafting, but for what it is it seems quite fun. It helps that you're playing as a masculine white man and not some strong womyn or gay POC. I'm actually shocked the game exists because of it.
I only just started so I'm holding my breathe for some poz down the line.
Days Gone isn't a sony walking sim game afaik, it sold really well when they ported it to PC.
Yes and still Sony refused to greenlight the second game.
I think it didn't do too well on the consoles. But the blame for that should be put at the feet of Sony, not the developers, for not understanding the wider appeal it would have on PC.
Days Gone outsold the newest Horizon game on PC, by a significant margin(factor of 6x+ total units)
Also, I recall one of the lead guys who worked on it saying it was profitable, and that was before the PC release at all.
And while these sites aren't totally accurate, they're semi-accurate(esp. with games not at the extreme ends of low/high sales), putting Days Gone not too far behind the Spider Man remaster: https://games-stats.com/steam/?publishe ... ishing-llc
Days Gone also has a very long tail that hasn't even begun to taper thanks to word of mouth:
Again, contrast to Forbidden West:
It's entirely possible Days Gone will end up outselling God of War if the trend continues.
Last edited by rusty_shackleford on September 19th, 2024, 08:07, edited 4 times in total.
I actually bought the game on release and it was a breath of fresh air. A straight white man with his white wife, his best friend is white. Gameplay was pretty nice too, the bike felt great to drive around. Hope if a second game comes out, it won't be pozzed but I doubt it
Started a playthrough of "Days Gone", a Sony Cinematic Slop™ game. Despite how badly these games are meme'd on nowadays, and despite the corporate logo on startup literally being a carbon copy of Marvel's, it seems pretty decent. It's not a sort of game I haven't already played before, being a standard third-person action game with crafting, but for what it is it seems quite fun. It helps that you're playing as a masculine white man and not some strong womyn or gay POC. I'm actually shocked the game exists because of it.
I only just started so I'm holding my breathe for some poz down the line.
Days Gone isn't a sony walking sim game afaik, it sold really well when they ported it to PC.
It's not a walking sim, you're right. But I personally always saw it as belonging to the same family of "Cinematic Games" developed by PlayStation. It was also frequently used in comparison to other games like God of War and Horizon. These games tend to look very similar, so I thought they played more-or-less similar too. But finally playing it for myself, I can see that it's been misjudged. Even the game's director is pretty based as he called out woke reviewers for giving his game lower scores, and he was subsequently fired from the studio. It looks to me like Sony wanted this game to fail.
I can see that it's been misjudged. Even the game's director is pretty based as he called out woke reviewers for giving his game lower scores, and he was subsequently fired from the studio. It looks to me like Sony wanted this game to fail.
I've never played it as it's not my cup of tea, but I'm aware that game journos shat on it for things like the relationship between the MC/wife along with people I trust saying it's rather good, so I'll shill it to anyone who is interested.
I looked into what they complained about, specifically with regards to how the characters behave… and it looked completely normal to me. I recall one review saying something along the lines of "nobody acts like that", and comparing the cutscenes I watched to what I've experienced, they absolutely do.
I have to wonder if these people think biker culture is just something that was made up for TV series like Sons of Anarchy.
Trying Daggerfall. Decided to dump mods on it despite it being my first play through. So far it’s charming and fairly engaging, even though I might want to remake my character and merchants keep trying to Jew me down.
Trying Daggerfall. Decided to dump mods on it despite it being my first play through. So far it’s charming and fairly engaging, even though I might want to remake my character and merchants keep trying to Jew me down.
I need to create a mod that brings back infinite horse clopping and earrape water.
Going back to EET, trying to figure out how to squish IWD2 without screwing up the clogged up modlist that's currently on it.
____________________________________________________________________________________ +++ An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded +++
Finished a replay of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the time first time in over 20 years. I had forgotten everything except the gist of the story so it was almost like playing it for the first time. I had misremembered it as being pretty forgiving, and while it's less opaque than the NES titles and less bloated then A Link to the Past, there were still parts where I was incredibly aggravated trying to figure out what I was supposed to do to progress (even with the in-game hint system) and some parts at the end where it gets pretty demanding in terms of timing. So unfortunately not as good as I remembered and I suppose there aren't any great 2D Zelda games (I remember being even more frustrated with the Oracle games which I'll be replaying soon enough). The ending hit me as hard as it did the first time, so there is that.
Started a playthrough of "Days Gone", a Sony Cinematic Slop™ game. Despite how badly these games are meme'd on nowadays, and despite the corporate logo on startup literally being a carbon copy of Marvel's, it seems pretty decent. It's not a sort of game I haven't already played before, being a standard third-person action game with crafting, but for what it is it seems quite fun. It helps that you're playing as a masculine white man and not some strong womyn or gay POC. I'm actually shocked the game exists because of it.
I only just started so I'm holding my breathe for some poz down the line.
Days Gone isn't a sony walking sim game afaik, it sold really well when they ported it to PC.
Yes and still Sony refused to greenlight the second game.
Shame I expected it to be the typical Sony cinematic walking simulator last of us slop. Instead I get a surprising good story with a fun zombie horde gameplay that reminds me of the opening scene in 28 weeks later dial to 11.
Finished with Demon's Crest? I had no idea where I was supposed to go, i just kept clicking on areas on the overland map that seemed like hot spots, and within an hour I got to a boss who seemed surprised to see me so soon. After I beat him, it gave me an ending even though there were a bunch of abilities and stones I hadn't picked up. I guess you're supposed to revisit levels and unlock new areas you weren't able to explore previously, but I really wasn't liking the demands of the levels and how spongy the bosses were, so I'm fine with the ending I got. Gotta say I liked the GB game better.
Finished with Demon's Crest? I had no idea where I was supposed to go, i just kept clicking on areas on the overland map that seemed like hot spots, and within an hour I got to a boss who seemed surprised to see me so soon. After I beat him, it gave me an ending even though there were a bunch of abilities and stones I hadn't picked up. I guess you're supposed to revisit levels and unlock new areas you weren't able to explore previously, but I really wasn't liking the demands of the levels and how spongy the bosses were, so I'm fine with the ending I got. Gotta say I liked the GB game better.
Playing BGEE with difficulty and story mods installed. Montaron died to an Ogre club to the face, Xzar died to Kobold Commando arrows, Xan died to a Revenant ripping his paralyzed guts out. SCS makes the game pretty brutal!
Playing BGEE with difficulty and story mods installed. Montaron died to an Ogre club to the face, Xzar died to Kobold Commando arrows, Xan died to a Revenant ripping his paralyzed guts out. SCS makes the game pretty brutal!
Playing BGEE with difficulty and story mods installed. Montaron died to an Ogre club to the face, Xzar died to Kobold Commando arrows, Xan died to a Revenant ripping his paralyzed guts out. SCS makes the game pretty brutal!
Either SCS or vanilla, BGEE by itself is trash.
SCS is a blast, it's like playing a new game. My list of dead companions is going to be long by the time I make it to SoD. Just did the bandit camp, had 2 deaths as I didn't expect them to gather forces and charge me.
