[Khellendros]

The release of the Mass Effect remasters made me pull out the 360 and start up Mass Effect 1 again with the intention of playing through the whole trilogy (I've owned all three for years but somehow never got round to playing 2 and 3 - no spoilers!).

It's funny how janky the original feels now, when at the time when I first played it I didn't think it was anything but incredible. It's also amusing how the 'romance' happens waaay faster than I remember. It's basically like: 'Hi.' 'Hi back.' 'So, I get the sense that we have really strong feelings for each other, want to make this a thing?' It's still good fun, though, and the world-building is still top notch.

[Morgoth]

I loved those games

[Mentalist]

Went through the last few areas of Grime over the weekend. After I killed the 5th boss and got double-jump, the game switched to being a hardcore precision platformer. Made my way to an ending area but instead of pressing the "move story forward" button, I unlocked the elevator back to the "town" area and started doing some more exploring with the new moves. The goal with these game sis always to uncover 100% of the map, so that's what I've been doing for the past few days. It's still pretty fun. I think I missed a few vendor items though, which is a tad annoying.

[Mentalist]

Wrapped up "Grime". Solid game, I'd say an 8.5/10, a bit too much precision platforming in the later half.

Still feeling the Metroidvania itch, so started "Catmaze", the earlier game by the developer of "Fearmonium". Pretty decent so far.

[Mentalist]

Wrapped up "Catmaze" last night. 16 hours to 100% the map and get the good (and surprisingly heartfelt) ending.

There's a surprisingly large amount of story in this game. And it's a really odd juxtaposition between a feel-good fairytale vibe and a very Witcheresque "just how monstrous ARE the monsters?" analysis. There are "clearly evil" entities here, but none of them actually revel in being evil- more like "hey, I'm an embodiment of a curse, it's my job!" or "lookit, I'm a spirit of disease, taking people is what I do". There are a lot of misconceptions and the 16 y.o. protagonists is frequently pronouncing how much more complex everyone's motivations are- and yet it's all playful enough to not be moralizing or preachy, and the characters involved are genuinely fun.

Gameplay is pretty good, map is fun to explore, and the combat system is based around using various familiars for melee and ranged attack, which offers decent variety, as diff enemies are best tackled by different attacks (some familairs offer 4- directions, others are much more powerful, but slower, etc). You also get the option to upgrade your strength stat pretty early on, and that lets you one-shopt most regular enemies, if combat's not your thing.

Music's pretty good, too. Basically, this dev (who also made "Fearmonium" ) is pretty damn good. looking forward tot heir next game.

Next up, probably gonna try to wrap up "Morbid: The Seven Acolytes". "Recompile" is out in a couple of days, so that's gonna be the next big August game.

[Traveller]

I've got pretty far with Subnautica, escape rocket pretty much finished as far as i can see, but I haven't solved the bacteria problem or the planet security one.

Also, this game is so buggy. I've lost hours when I've gone to save and it just crashes. More frequent though is getting trapped in structures that are laggy to appear, then pop into existence around me trapping me inside. No way out, just have to reload.

Got down into lava caverns now, activated a shortcut portal; need to sort the bacteria problem somehow though so I guess I need to go deeper.

[Mentalist]

Went back to Age of Empires II DE. Instead jumping into the new expansion's campaigns, started a custom one about the last heroine of Sassanid Persia, Apranik. As the Arabs are overrunning Persia, the daughter of a Persian General leads an exodus of rebels towards the Indus Valley to mount a resistance.

Pretty tough missions 1 and 2. The first one had a timed objective to defeat a faction in the 1st 15 minutes, which took a few tries; after that mopping up the rest of the map was fairly easy.

The second reqyuires you to gather as many units as you can in the opening 2 minutes of the game to escape the ruined Persia. The designer said you can't collect all the units, but I'm pretty sure I did, lol. Then you get a choice of several approaches to cross the map to get to the indus Valley. All the while, your food counter is ticking down, necessitating killing wild animals to replenish supplies, and each route has its own enemies. I chose the southern route, because you can recruit Indian villages if you bring them Relics, and there are 5 relics along that path. The other challenge were the occasional Arab Scouts that you have to kill as soon as they spot you, otherwise it'd trigger the Arab Army to come chase you down.

Took some trial and error, but I got there in the end. Scenario 3 is even harder, with the Arabs and their allies showing up a year later, and you needing to use hit and run attacks to destroy their economy to turn the tides.

[Obdigore]

Aptorian, on 08 August 2021 - 04:29 PM, said:

Finished The Ascent. It's an okay shooter but not great.

By the second half of the game I was looking for the game to wrap up but there's difficulty ramp ups that mean you need to upgrade the right weapons, for the right enemies, that means you'll be wanting to do lots of side missions. Felt more like a chore than fun by the end.

But the conclusion of the game is pretty solid cyber punk corporate warfare storyline. It's simple but I like it.

I would love to play a sequel where they learn from their mistakes in this game and create a more streamlined game, that makes for a better player experience.

It's a pretty small studio, and reaction to this game has been pretty good. Hopefully we're in for a sequel.

I can't play it co-op, there are so many bugs that pop up when trying to play it with friends. I hope that gets fixed.

[Traveller]

I've nearly finished Subnautica.

Weapon powered down, Rocket ready to go.. I just saw the trophies though and there are only two I haven't got, in places I'm sure I've been so I might have to get them before I leave. I have rarely, if ever, actually got 100% of trophies in any game as there always seem to be loads of hidden ones, but this time the bar is low!

The contant crashes have spoiled this game for me, I lost so much play time towards the end; sometimes I'd save to be cautious and it would blue-screen as I saved! That is some bullshit.

I kind of love it though, I might well play it again with a different base location, maybe actually use the Cyclops.

Or there's always the sequel.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 21 August 2021 - 07:23 AM

[Aptorian]

Started playing Hades again and have already made more progress in 6 runs than I did on the Switch version.

Made it out of the first area twice. Once with the blade, once with the bow and that apparently set all kinds of story stuff in motion I didn't see before. Now I've got new abilities and more lore to get into so that's cool.

Hades is very suitable for 10-20 minute runs with a podcast playing.

[Morgoth]

Traveller, on 21 August 2021 - 07:22 AM, said:

I've nearly finished Subnautica.

Weapon powered down, Rocket ready to go.. I just saw the trophies though and there are only two I haven't got, in places I'm sure I've been so I might have to get them before I leave. I have rarely, if ever, actually got 100% of trophies in any game as there always seem to be loads of hidden ones, but this time the bar is low!

The contant crashes have spoiled this game for me, I lost so much play time towards the end; sometimes I'd save to be cautious and it would blue-screen as I saved! That is some bullshit.

I kind of love it though, I might well play it again with a different base location, maybe actually use the Cyclops.

Or there's always the sequel.

Alas the sequel feels more like an expansion than a true sequel. Still, I loved it too. It didn't have anything quite as spectacular as finding the underground rivers for the first time though, but there were some spectacular moments in that game too.

It's such an incredible game, I have rarely been so relaxed playing as I was with Subnautica, and exploration is genuinely such a thrill.

For me, I am slowly hammering my way through Returnal. I've reached quite the turning point, and there's been some serious changes now, so I wonder where it'll go. I am starting to understand why one of the versions of me had gone so thoroughly insane early in the game.

[Traveller]

Morgoth, on 23 August 2021 - 06:01 AM, said:

Traveller, on 21 August 2021 - 07:22 AM, said:

I've nearly finished Subnautica.

Weapon powered down, Rocket ready to go.. I just saw the trophies though and there are only two I haven't got, in places I'm sure I've been so I might have to get them before I leave. I have rarely, if ever, actually got 100% of trophies in any game as there always seem to be loads of hidden ones, but this time the bar is low!

The contant crashes have spoiled this game for me, I lost so much play time towards the end; sometimes I'd save to be cautious and it would blue-screen as I saved! That is some bullshit.

I kind of love it though, I might well play it again with a different base location, maybe actually use the Cyclops.

Or there's always the sequel.

Alas the sequel feels more like an expansion than a true sequel. Still, I loved it too. It didn't have anything quite as spectacular as finding the underground rivers for the first time though, but there were some spectacular moments in that game too.

It's such an incredible game, I have rarely been so relaxed playing as I was with Subnautica, and exploration is genuinely such a thrill.

For me, I am slowly hammering my way through Returnal. I've reached quite the turning point, and there's been some serious changes now, so I wonder where it'll go. I am starting to understand why one of the versions of me had gone so thoroughly insane early in the game.

I think the pacing was perfect. From starting out to base building to getting vehicles just as you need them, the game rewards a methodical approach to exploring, and feeds you just enough material to keep you going without a ton of inventory faffing.
I had a room with fabricator plus about 6 lockers, it lasted the whole game.
And the deep exploring was more survival-horror than anything else, which was a nice surprise.
I'd really consider another play through at some point.

[Maark Abbott]

Friendship ended with writing a novel series

Now Stellaris is my best friend

[Bapop]

Playing the remaster Spider Man game that you get together with Miles Morales. Feels good to be webbing around New York again. Last time was in the Spider Man 2 tie in on PS2. Did not know that there were so many different suits for the guy

[Mentalist]

Went back to Apranik, finally. Beat Scenario 3. It was actually fairly OK, once I turned the game speed down to "slow" and played without panicking. I was able to use my starting resources to upgrade my starting troops, build a few trebuchets, and go beat down the Lybians before they could become a threat, while planting a Castle at home to defend and sending some elephants to protect my trading partners. Methodically wiping gave me a decent resource boost, which was nice. I began to plan the attack on the Hepthalites who were raiding my trading allies, but here I almost hit a snag, because the Persian Army that's allied with the Arabs decided to attack my allies, instead of breaking against my own base. Things were touch and go for a bit because of that; but I managed to reinforce and then crush the Hepthalites and take the fight directly to the Persians. Destroying the Arab Wonder in their base made them my allies, and also made them the limestone for future Arab attacks, allowing me to focus on raiding and crippling their economy. My Persian allies almost got overrun in the end, but having reduced the Arabs' ability to produce siege and use Camel units, my glorious Paladin squadron was able to ride to the rescue just as their Town Centres and Castles were about to collapse. Then it was just a matter of wiping the Arabs' production buildings and then the final objective.

Scenario 4 has me seeking asylum in Ethiopia before invading Arabia and Persia from the West. There's actually a lot of content being made about the Arab expansion, and the nation's that tried to resist it, such as Nubia and the kingdoms of the Maghreb. Loads of cool stuff to play, if only I had the time...

[Malankazooie]

Bloody hell the brain/muscle memory chaos. Switching from playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla to Ghost of Tsushima (Iki Island expansion) has been humbling. In GoT, I've chopped at my horse more times then I am comfortable admitting. I'm glad you can't kill your horse in Ghost of Tsushima. And I've wasted so many kunai because my brain is telling me light attack is R1 - AC Valhalla - which maps to throwing weapons - Ghost of Tsushima.

[Aptorian]

You should send a support ticket to abstergo. There must be something wrong with your animus.

[Malankazooie]

I did, and I tried to escalate it to level red (critical/urgent). But they started asking all kinds of questions - "how many customers are impacted" / "How much revenue will you lose?" / "what services are still functioning?" / "are your business' core operations up and running normally?"

I hung up and decided to wait for the weekly patch. Rolls out every downtime window - 2400hrs. Friday to 2400hrs. Sunday. Will get back at it Monday morning. Better be fixed.

[Mentalist]

Made my blitz through Africa happen. It`s pretty tough, since your position is pretty open, and there are 3 (later 4) enemies sending waves at you, while you`re trying to build up your fledgling resistance and do some raiding of your own, to secure more and more resources. I ended up having to crush the African nations of Makuria, as well as the Axumites (who initially gave me shelter, but then kicked me out) in order to control their sweet, sweet gold supplies. Alexandria was actually pretty poorly defended and crushing them was manageable; but subsequent raids into Arabia were a pain, as I had to build up a navy, and my heavy Paladin force was great at razing enemy bases, but it was having obvious problems facing the Arab camels; however, by that point I had an overwhelming advantage in resources, as well as a trade route to Axum`s market for infinite gold, so that helped.

The last mission has you going back to Persia to seize the capital, and then you need to build a Wonder while defending against 3 strong enemies in a city that has almost no walls. it`s about as fun as it sounds, on the 1st try.

[Aptorian]

Been playing some Psychonauts 2. It's pretty good. It feels like a very faithful sequel to the game I played over a decade ago. Lots of funny characters and good writing. Cool levels and setpieces.

Only thing that feels like a fly in the ointment is that the controls and game feel is lacking somewhat. The way you switch between abilities and use them is a bit confusing and cumbersome and the combat feels bad. Dodging attacks and attacking just doesn't feel responsive enough.

That aside I am enjoying the game. Happy that Double Fine succeeded in bringing Psychonauts back.