T w e n t y S i d e d
I’m still playing risk of rain 2 but I also started a game of Terraria with some friends. We just got up to post-mechanical bosses in master mode and it is pain and suffering.
What about you guys?
From The Archives:
Shamus Plays WOW
Ever wondered what's in all those quest boxes you've never bothered to read? Get ready: They're more insane than you might expect.
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Patreon!
Why Google sucks, and what made me switch to crowdfunding for this site.
The Best of 2011
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2011.
DM of the Rings
Both a celebration and an evisceration of tabletop roleplaying games, by twisting the Lord of the Rings films into a D&D game.
Just beat the final boss of Tears of the Kingdom, I am now spoiler proof!
I’m not yet…I will live in fear every day until I can finally get enough time to beat it.
I’m a bizarre specimen in that not only am I naturally immune to spoilers, I will DELIBERATELY go out of my way to spoil myself. Like, when I get a new book, the FIRST thing I do is flip to the back and read the last few pages so I can see who lives and who dies. I also commonly read a new movie’s synopsis on Wikipedia before watching it, and whenever new chapters of video games come out, I typically will immediately start looking for walkthroughs and strategy tips so I don’t accidentally do something wrong or destroy some crucial item that I need later.
I have no idea why I’m like this, but on the bright side, it does mean that online trolls can never, ever hurt me with their spoilers. XD
I don’t mind spoilers, and so for games I definitely look at walkthroughs to make sure that I don’t miss anything a lot of the time, unless you can’t really miss things. The only exception to this are movies and TV shows that I watch for the blog, since I want to watch them without having preconceptions so that I can comment fairly on how THEY work as opposed to how I might have expected them to.
What if I make up fake spoilers for you?
I post something like: “It’s so crazy that Ned Stark ends up marrying Cersie Lannister in the end, can you imagine? When’s he’s the one that killed Joffrey? I know that politics makes for strange bed-fellows (so to speak) but how does any mother live with something like that?”
And you read my “spoiler” and think you know how Game of Thrones is going to go.
Then: BLAM! Sean Beaned!
Been going through Nier, which is sort of a JRPG/character action/bullet hell kinda thing. Pretty fun so far, although some of the designs are cringe inducing. And the Replicant remake I’m playing is absolutely gorgeous, with a cool after the end aesthetic, similar to a Miyazaki movie or the newest Kirby.
Things clicked for me a lot more once I started leaning on the magic and playing it more like a bullet hell. It kinda felt like cheating for a lot of the early game so I minimized use of it, but for the bosses especially it’s clear it’s the intended mode of play, and a pretty fun one at that since you can just focus on dodging.
I know I’m like ten years late to the party, but it’s pretty fun, and I can’t wait to try Nier automata when I get there.
Completed my first run of Resident Evil 2 Remake!
I’m usually not a fan of horror things, but the original game is one of my main videogame-related childhood memories, so I have a very soft spot for it.
As everyone said when it came out, this remake is very good.
Also, I started The Council, a Telltale-inspired narrative game. This one distances from other narrative games by having an actual character build with skill levels, which impacts quite a bit how the scenes play out.
The game always tells you whenever a skill comes into play, even if it’s to point out a missed opportunity because you don’t have the related skill. (So, sometimes a scenes plays out normally but you get a reminder that there might have been something more, had you been an expert in something).
It makes the scenes feel a bit less natural (there’s no way your character could know about that missed opportunity since, well, he missed it), but it goes a long way towards making the player feel his choices and build are important.
If I’m thinking of the same game, I bought it ages ago to try to play but never got around to it, but the differences based on a different build makes it more appealing to me.
Last week someone mentioned that The Council is by the same studio as the game I’m playing (VtM:Swansong) and I can definitely see the similarities in the screenshots. I have heard conflicting opinions on it but I’m loving Swansong so far so it definitely piqued my interest in their previous game (it’s sitting in the backlog) so I’d love to hear more of your impressions.
I’ve just started it and I don’t have much time to play this month, so I probably won’t be able to give detailed impressions… for now, what differentiates this game from other branching-paths narrative games is the presence of pretty clear right/wrong choices and courses of actions.
If you miss too many clues or say the wrong thing to the wrong person, things will go worse. You won’t be able to change the main plot very much, I think, but when you’re choosing what to say the game gives a “what’s the right thing to say to this person in these circumstances without exposing myself too much?” feeling, while other narrative games give more of a “in which direction do I want the story to go?” feeling. Since the plot is based on intrigue and secrecy, it’s nice that the gameplay leans into that.
Started playing Dark Souls 2. Also bought Super Lesbian Animal RPG but haven’t gotten around to playing it yet.
Been playing Oxygen Not Included when I want to relax, and Enter the Gungeon when I want to feel like a badass.
ONI’s a pretty fun and light hearted 2D base builder, and is well worth the time, even if the temperature mechanics are absolutely obtuse.
EtG is a top down room-by-room action shooter rougelike/lite. Like a more freeflow and hectic Binding of Isaac, but with actual guns, and less child abuse due to religion overtones.
Hit the endgame of Octopath 2, which was a step down from 1. 1’s final arc made me say “you know, I probably should have seen that coming”. 2’s is a mix of “saw that coming” and “that’s cheating, game”. Anyway, I’ve reached the final boss, and since I never beat 1’s final boss this is probably the end of the road for me.
I loaded up Bravely Default 2 for a couple of seconds, that means I can talk about it now right? That game’s got nothing going on storywise (was hoping for a twist, but I think I’m past the point where that would have happened), but the Job system and fight mechanics are some of the best I’ve seen. (I think FFX-2’s Job system is slightly better, but Bravely’s acquisition is the best. You only gain access to a Job by defeating a master using it, which really hypes the Job up.)
Bravely 2 is very hard. There were six storyline fights I had to redesign my team around, and a couple more close calls. It’s the counterattacks; enemies get a ridiculous amount of counterattacks. Counters when you attack, counters when you defend, counters when you heal someone. I don’t know how you beat this without the Ignore Counters skill. Then one boss has a desperation move where they hit your entire party like ten times in a row. The only way past it I could see was having someone Jump offscreen right before he did it. I stopped playing after spending like three hours fighting a single optional boss I wasn’t prepared for. (And then I found out I saved over the file where I’d killed it.)
Due to a number of other things I needed to do, I didn’t play any game this past week. I DID pick up the third edition of the Arkham Horror board game, but haven’t even unpacked it yet. I think I’ll try to get more of the expansions before I try it out, as the store I managed to get it from only had one expansion in stock and the only reason I played and ran the PBFs for the second edition is because I went nuts and bought all of the expansions without even having PLAYED the game, and while I wasn’t that impressed with the base game I LOVED the mechanism in the Kingsport Horror expansion — which focused on encountering different areas — and that is what allowed me to get into the game as a whole.
I finally cracked open Subnautica after all this time. Died a lot because some of the basic survival materials were somewhere I’d never thought to look. So I worked out my frustrations in Beat Saber and that went a lot better!
Did you find cool custom maps for Beat Sabers? I used to have wonderful ones for Baba Yetu and Happy Together.
I use bsaber.com to download new levels and I have a few I really like! There’s a version of “Spooky Scary Skeletons” I enjoy playing, and here’s video of me playing “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff” with an avatar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB2dOb536EI
But a lot of the custom levels are for Expert level players, and I’m simply not that good yet.
I also am Subnauticalizing. I highly recommend building some beacons and carrying them around with you. I keep finding interesting things, either on my own or due to a temporary quest pointer, and then utterly failing to be able to find my way back to that spot ever again…
I started Subnautica twice, both times got to the point where I need to go into the deep where it gets dark and never returned to that save. I have a vague recollection that there may be a way to re-enable at least the pod beacons from some menu but I may be mistaking it with playermade beacons.
That’s really good advice. I haven’t yet gotten far enough to need them, but I can see how easy it would be to get lost once I have the little jet scooter.
Since you mentioned Beat Saber, are you playing Subnautica in VR?
Simplex
Not yet, because I wanted to see what it was like on flatscreen first. But I might try it that way now since people are convincing me to go back.
2/3 or so through Death Stranding. It is confirming a lot of things I already knew about myself as a gamer: I love games that make you plan and consider logistics; I prefer my games to have developer-guided goals and story rather than being find-your-own-fun; and I have a massive attention span. If I were to turn on my critic switch and focus mainly on the story, I think I would find it fairly dumb and nonsensical. But the story is serving the important purpose of giving me the why, since I don’t particularly care about delivering packages or “collecting likes” for their own sakes.
At any rate, it has immersed me enough that I am doing half-hour-long sidequests not because I need the likes but because I don’t want my man Charles Khan to miss out on getting his important shipment of resins and I’m heading that way anyways. Always a good sign when my decision-making becomes a role play rather than just “I need to finish this quest so I can finish this game”.
Still on Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I finished my angel run, including the Inevitable Excess DLC, which is actually pretty cool and original when the story gets going. These days I’m trying create a mod for it. It’s pretty tough to get into, and story mods are almost impossible to do unfortunately, but it’s good C# practice.
I started playing Gears Tactics a few days ago. For some reason, the first thing it does, after an accessibility options page, is to play an unskippable ad for Gears Tactics. You know, the game you’ve just downloaded and are trying to play. I can’t imagine what the thought process was behind that decision.
Once it lets you play, it seems pretty fun so far. Gears of war universe, Xcom gameplay. You get three actions per turn instead of the 2 in Xcom, and firing doesn’t end your turn so you can fire twice, or move into position, shoot and get back to cover. Overwatch requires setting up a vision cone so you can be tactical about where you’re guarding, and if you have two actions left when you activate it you get two shots at moving enemies.
There’s also an achievement for not noticing that one of your characters’ grenades do healing rather than damage, and healing an enemy. ask me how I know
Still can’t play games right now(had to sell my Switch a couple weeks ago to cover unexpected expenses sadly), but I’m convinced that I’ll be upgrading to an OLED and playing totk eventually. I’ve been seeing all exploring and building and stuff. The game looks soooo fun.
Got bored with Diablo 4, so now I am replaying Arcanum for the nth time.
Recently played Far: Lone Sails.
Bit lighter on the substance, but very great atmosphere, and short enough that it’s rather basic game-play doesn’t overstay its welcome. Very cool and unique little indie title.
I’ve heard the sequel, Far: Changing Tides was a huge improvement, but haven’t gotten around to that one quite yet.
Also found a cheap copy of Silent Hill: Downpour.
Man~, what a rough game on the tech level. Even all these years and ONE patch later, it makes my PS3 chug. And the combat against the basic freakin’ enemies is a complete chore, full of stuns and dodges even from THE most basic enemies.
Seems like it has some genuinely cool atmosphere & story, though. Seems like an intriguing idea, that you’re playing an escaped convict that just happened (or “happened”) to find himself in Silent Hill.
Elden Ring I started a new character and this time I will NOT be a wizard. STR build is the best build. Also I’ve been running Steam Engine Simulator to get the water boiling achievement because some times games give me too many achievements and I think: “you know i got 80% of them I bet I could get the rest…”
Diablo 2: Resurrected. I keep switching between the new and old graphics and I keep finding that I like the old look much better. I think the main reason is that the old graphics leave a lot more to the imagination which helps sell the atmosphere of dread and gloominess. With the new graphics, everything looks crisp and goofy.
Also, I really hate how the new graphics have desaturated all the corpses in the environment, especial the ones in the Rogue Monastery. I have absolutely no idea why they would do that. The only thing I like about the remastered graphics is the fact that you can see the monsters from further away – you don’t need to fully enter a room before you can see that it’s infested (although that does somewhat run against the game’s light horror theme).
Although everyone seems to like the new look, so I’m in the minority once again :D
But other than that, I’m having a blast with my Necromancer. I’m up to Act II and after I’m back from vacation, I’ll gladly continue playing.
I finished my playthrough of all Rusty Lake games.
They are so weird. I do like the weirdness but the puzzles are sometimes obtuse and the ARG elements do not really help either. Rusty Lake Hotel and The Past Within were really fun. Most of them were okay. The white room was a real slog. I would definitely recommend them but do not expect them to be great masterpieces.
I also started GTA5. I try to avoid open world games at the moment as they do not really go along with my daily routine. But a friend said we could play a bit in Co-op. To me the game is just not great. The art style feels weird with the high graphics going on. Also it feels really slow and unresponsive. The UI is sluggish and unintuitive. Worst of all the game is so mean spirited. It wants to be funny and satirical but it just does not work. At least for me. Also sometimes it feels a bit preachy in its satire. As clunky as games like Saints Row (3/4) or Sunset Overdrive can be, they are at least fun and creative. Maybe I should go back to an older GTA game. I do not know. Maybe I just need something a bit more fun and colorful in my life than what GTA has to offer.
I also started House of Da Vince 3. The controls are clunky as ever but it is at least somewhat interesting to me.
Maybe I should restructure my living room again to suit my VR setup again. It is still a bit of store room from getting my new desk. But VR in this heat wave we had does not sound like a good idea.
My week has been dominated by Far Cry 3 and Total War: Three Kingdoms.
Far Cry is fascinating because of how much it clearly *wants* to say something, but can’t bring itself over the finish line. Three Kingdoms on the other hand is…probably the best Total War game? It managed to make both layers of the game really fun and compelling.
I finished Prey (2017), though I’d been basically in the end-game for a while and finishing up some sidequests. I’d accidentally spoiled myself on the very major twist at the end, and while there are definitely some problems with it, I think it mostly worked for me? It was a very fun game, and I see why people might want to replay it, but I think I’m done with it barring picking up the expansion.
With that completed, I’ve moved back to League of Legends for end-of-split playing. If I can win three in a row I’ll be back into Platinum for the first time in a few years (I rarely play ranked), but I have to get past that anxiety in the next 5 days.
I’m giving Afghanistan ’11 a try, but so far I’ve only gotten through the tutorial. It feels like it’s going to be a game that’s very easy to shoot yourself in the foot, because there are a lot of things that need planning ahead, like delivering fuel and supplies to units in the field. A few mechanics do seem neat, though.
Am currently switching between two games:
One is Aliens:Dark Descent, a very pleasantly written stealth game. And a solid proof that getting a good writter who enjoys lore and setting does wonders for a game. The other is Stellar Tactics, an openworld turn-based tactics w/real-time space combat (which is 100% easily avoidable). This one is still in early access, but devs continually work on it, so new content still appears, and the procedurally generated quests system is solid enough for a LOT o replayability. There is also a solid story to this (zombie plague slowly gaining sentience and some sort of ongoing recursor war).
Playing through the Final Fantasy series before I crack my copy of FF16. Finished 1 and 2, just booted up 3