Malazan Empire: The game I'm playing is... - Malazan Empire

Malankazooie, on 19 February 2022 - 11:21 PM, said:

Horizon thingie West? Looks pretty great.

This post has been edited by Tapper: 20 February 2022 - 08:24 AM

Could be an angry birds game?

The gondola ride down was really cool. Saved two dumbasses in a mine. I'm not jiving with the new water system yet (I think I need a breathing device). Places are also blocked off so will have to come back. Helped a cook with a recipe. Read a tip that Survivor skill tree should be focus early on. I guess I'll give it a look. I've been adding points to Warrior (and one on Hunter). Mostly been exploring around. Read another tip that you should not get all exploring-minded early on, due to the story missions rewarding you important gear that gives you access to those blocked routes. So I think I'm going to focus on the story and try to resist the temptation to fall back into the "see what that is about" inclinations. Liking the new focus capabilities when you scan a machine.

Man, I forgot how well this game series is at creating organic moments of battle choreography. Those 'holy fuck' moments that make it a stand out from other games in their class. So Aloy is helping a friend from her past (you guys who know, know). He's being accosted by a couple of Bristleback machines. I join the fight and am tagging these husky sumbitches from afar with my bow. They alert on me and one charges. I dodge roll to the side and speed around the bowl of fighting ground that is the setting. I aim my bow again and focus but see that this big boy is charging me. I catch, real quick, a glance the the other way and see his brother is charging at the same time. This is where the magic happens. I dive/roll right between them and spin around with my bow and engage slow motion focus. I find my targets have crashed into each other and one as reared up leaving those lime green canisters on his haunches perfect targets for my arrows. I let loose and canister explodes and acid goes flying. Phew! what a memorable sequence. HFW (and predeccesor HZD) provides so many of these moments. And I think with HFW the minutia of the parts you can attack on the machines is even more detailed and available for damage more so than HZD. It's quite the video game achievement.

Been checking out some of the Steam NextFest games; mostly metroidvanias so far. "Kingdom Shell" is a ton of fun.

Also, pre-loading Elden Ring.

Triangle Strategy is fecking awesome. If someone had told me GRRM had had something to do with this rather than Elden Ring I would've believed them.

Got a week's vacation. Splitting my time between Destiny and Horizon 2.

The new Witch Queen expansion is good. I love the new aspect of forging your own weapons and leveling them up. I liked the story campaign but the actual payoff/conclusion/set-up for next year is really weak. The show down between us and Savathun was anticlimactic. Hopefully more is expanded about Savathun in the coming seasons.

Also trying to like Horizon 2. On the surface this is a big, beautiful and interesting video game but I'm feeling the same misgivings as the first game.

The characters are well written and well animated but the by the numbers way you interact with everyone is dull and tedious. There's a conversation wheel but there's no choices or branches. Just canned conversation that feels like a chore after a while.

Lots of settlements to visit but nothing about it feels organic. They're just NPCs standing around. There's no local story to explore.

The mechanics are expansive and diverse but it's to an extent that it actually feels messy and overwhelming. There's dozens of weapons but I can't really compare them because they all do different things. I suspect I should just focus on their color level and not upgrade greens - It results in me mostly just using my hunting bow and spear.

I kind of just want to drop the game and play Elden Ring instead but I'm not convinced I'll enjoy it. I want to hold off till the next payday at least.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 14 March 2022 - 07:59 AM

Still playing Triangle Strategy, which is getting better and better and better as it goes along. I've seen complaints about the amount of dialogue and story sections but these are a major plus for me. As a long-time fan of the Fire Emblem series I was extremely disappointed by the between battle nonsense in the most recent entry, Three Houses. By contrast I'm finding the between battle sections in Triangle Strategy completely absorbing. The characters are great and the story is fantastic - and very ruthless.

H-O-L-Y . S-H-I-T guys! Horizon Forbidden West! There is an interlude data dump that is going to shoot your head off your shoulders into the stratosphere! Oh, and btw, I've only defogged probably 1/3rd of the map. Fukin' A man, fuckin' a.

By interlude, do you mean the big story reveal during your first cauldron/base story mission or is it further in the game? There's definitely some mind blowing choices early in compared to the threat of the first game.

Tunic released today. Put in 30-60 minutes earlier.

I think it's a bit more souls games than Zelda for my taste but it is quite good. Made it through the Eastern forest. Not sure if I'm supposed to descend into the lower forest next or defeat this big mean guard captain.

Beware. There's spooky spiders in the lower forest.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 16 March 2022 - 07:33 PM

Played more Tunic. This game is really engrossing.

I turned off the stamina mechanic in the settings and now fighting is easier and thus less daunting. Instead I can focus on exploring and that's where the real wonder of the game lies. I love the way the game is Schweiz cheesed with hidden pathways, shortcuts and loot.

Aptorian, on 16 March 2022 - 07:32 PM, said:

*crosses Tunic off list of games to buy*

This post has been edited by Serenity: 17 March 2022 - 12:53 PM

Tunic is free on Gamepass for those interested.

I've played a lot more Tunic the past couple days. I've come to discover this isn't just a mix of Zelda and Dark Souls. There's also some Fez in there.

There's a hell of a lot of weird stuff in there that you can't decipher but have to sort of figure out. I was stuck for a while and was randomly flipping through the manual pages I'd collected and suddenly I see a hint - a hint that every where I've been, I've been able to do a very specific thing from the start, a thing that suddenly opened a lot of opportunities.

The amount of mysteries and discovery in this game is wonderful. Go buy Tunic. It's going to be on a lot of top ten lists this year.

Started replaying Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. It's one of my all-time favourite games, along with IX. I first played it on Switch in handheld mode, so playing it now on pc on a 27" monitor at 1440p with everything maxed out, supersampling at 'high', and at 144fps is quite a difference

I also picked up Nier Automata (again) in the Steam JRPG sale. I think it's the 4th time.

Aptorian, on 18 March 2022 - 04:09 PM, said:

*adds Tunic to list of games to buy*

More progress on Horizon Forbidden West. They've really upped their Cauldron game in HFW. There is quite the variety now in how they finish. In this latest one I solved it was really cool what transpired. If you've done it, you know what I'm talking about. And dang, there are a lot more machine types. Some of which, right now, I make sure to give wide berth.

Also, the Tenakth tribe look ridiculous.

4th time lucky, NieR Automata has taken over my life What an amazing game. And the Steam version is finally running perfectly.

Been putting in an hour here and there into "Flynn: Son of Crimson"

It's decently good fun, and brainless enough for my current state.

Anybody want to venture a guess at what video game I started playing this weekend?




I'm irked though because I had to pause playing HFW and ER because my console's disc reader crapped out, so I got this game above on digital download version. Hopefully this place that repairs electronics can fix the problem, otherwise I'm SOL with continuing on with HFW and ER, unless I get full digital copies.

If you're playing Grand Turismo, that's a weird looking car.