[Tiste Simeon]

Aptorian, on 23 April 2023 - 01:41 PM, said:

Abby did nothing wrong.

You take this those filthy words back!

[Mentalist]

Afterimage is out. And its soooo pretty.

also, pretty tough.


But the whipsword is an awesome weapon.

[Traveller]

I'm playing Forbidden West.

I loved Zero Dawn, thought I'd finally give this a shot. I'm in two minds about it so far.

For some reason the highly saturated colours and absolutely evey detail being in such high resolution made me feel nauseous on resolution mode, so I've had to tweak it a bit. It doesn't make me feel weird now but it still doesn't have a 'natural' look to it; the sky and clouds and water effects are amazing, but there's something artificial about the landscape that is still jarring to look at. High resolution doesn't necessarily mean realistic - nobody sees everything in bright HD all at the same time.

Also after playing so many survival games recently it seems strange when characters don't have to sleep or rest or anything, they just run about for ever! Even Days Gone has a good rest option.

I'm starting to get back into it though, picking up the weapons and doing a few challenges to warm up. Looking forward to finding some big machines now.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 27 April 2023 - 05:47 AM

[Mentalist]

Beat the main boss of Ghost Town in AfterImage. My reward is a whistle that can make a giant flying fish take me across the lake towards where I need to go.

I originally thought this boss was invulnerable to physical damage, because she was a ghost mage that kept filling the screen with huge AoE magic attacks. But apparently she just has a shield that breaks after a few combos.

The game (Afterimage) is split into zones, each has a level number-what I presume to be recommended level. Since I'm constantly trying to find hard to reach areas and backtracking each time i get new traversal power, I'm obviously over-levelled for where I'm at now. But at the same time, the only area I could go that wasn't locked off fully was 20 levels above me, and things there tended to kill me in 2 hits- and this game has loads of contact damage.

I can't get over how pretty the game is. I found a new merchant and cleaned out his entire stock. I also got to see that I only have like a quarter to a third of all the possible gear, so there's loads more to collect.

EDIT May 1st: this game reminds of Blasphemous. Not aesthetics or setting, but level structure wise. There's the same level of abstractions that's absent in more grounded titles like Hollow Knight.

Also, loads of mini-bosses everywhere. Spent a few hours to finally kill that bird angel thing- our first fight gave me double-jump, but it ran away. Now I tracked it down for Round 2, and got triple-jump for my troubles.

The game is incredibly vague as to what I'm supposed to be doing , other than fulfilling the quests for all the travelling cooks. But it's fun, and level completion numbers keep going up, which is enough for me atm.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 01 May 2023 - 04:46 PM

[Aptorian]

Played around 30-60 minutes of Redfall yesterday. Played up until you unlock the fire station.

I won't call the experience bad per say, it's just aggressively mediocre. As I heard a reviewer say, this is a great PS3 game.

How on earth it was made to look and play like this in 2023 is baffling. It's like playing a 20 USD indie game, where you'd praise it for trying to be so ambitious, despite not having the ressources of a AAA studio. Only this is made by Arkane! Published by Bethesda! It's unreal.

It will serve as a good podcast game until Zelda comes out. Here's hoping that Tears of the Kingdom's performance isn't worse than Jedi: Survivor.

[Maark Abbott]

Picked up Stardew Valley properly whilst I was sick.

Put almost 100 hours into it in two weeks, help

[Morgoth]

it's an amazing game. I still pop into my farm now and again. It's mostly fully automated, so I don't actually need to do much.

[Aptorian]

I can't wait till the Star Dew developer releases Haunted Chocolatier. Hopefully we don't have to wait five years.

[Maark Abbott]

I finished Dread on stream. I have never eaten my hat so hard. I was wrong as fuck about this game; it just required a mindset change.

It's not [i]quite[i] as great as Super, in my view (the endgame collectibles hunt is much more egregious in Dread) but besides that I have very few legitimate complaints about it, and there is very little I would actually want changed.

I will be starting the Prime Remaster soon, probably on Monday.

I am also starting Cassette Beasts tomorrow - looks like a combination of Pokémon, retro vibes and mixed together with monsters doing the Fusion Dance. I've heard it's good so I hope it lives up to that.

And yeah Stardew is astonishing for a lot of reasons. The main reason for me is that at least initially it was just... one dude with what I assume based on tileset is RPGM. One dude fresh out of uni, and now he's at like 22 million copies sold. God tier game. It's not quite in my top five - but it's damned close and there is fierce competition at that level for spots.

[Mentalist]

Beat NG+ levels in AfterImage, need to play through that area now with my main to get the true ending.

[Maark Abbott]

Fuck me the Prime remaster is goated. Only issue is they did something to the power beam's coding and it's kinda bad to use now.

[JPK]

Maark Abbott, on 16 May 2023 - 07:06 AM, said:

Fuck me the Prime remaster is goated. Only issue is they did something to the power beam's coding and it's kinda bad to use now.

So it wasn't just my memory betraying me then. I thought the power beam felt a bit off but it'd been ages since I'd played Prime so I wasn't entirely sure.

This is really making me want 4 to see the light of day. Don't get me wrong, I love pretty much all the Metroid games but there's just something that hits different for me with the Prime series

[Mentalist]

The new expansion for Age of Empires II is out. Bringing all the AoEI assets into AoE II scenario editor, among other things.

RIP, life.

[Dolmen 2.0]

Tiste Simeon, on 23 April 2023 - 02:32 PM, said:

Aptorian, on 23 April 2023 - 01:41 PM, said:

Abby did nothing wrong.

You take this those filthy words back!

This. I'm here for this right here.

[Aptorian]

All Abby did was right a wrong and take out the trash.

[Tiste Simeon]

I mean I haven't got to the point where I'm playing as her yet but the flashback scenes with Ellie and Joel going hunting etc is renewing my hatred!

[Bapop]

Beat Sekiro just now Now to try out NG+ to see if I have a shot at the platinum or should move on...

[Maark Abbott]

JPK, on 17 May 2023 - 03:35 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 16 May 2023 - 07:06 AM, said:

Fuck me the Prime remaster is goated. Only issue is they did something to the power beam's coding and it's kinda bad to use now.

So it wasn't just my memory betraying me then. I thought the power beam felt a bit off but it'd been ages since I'd played Prime so I wasn't entirely sure.

This is really making me want 4 to see the light of day. Don't get me wrong, I love pretty much all the Metroid games but there's just something that hits different for me with the Prime series

My understanding is that because most new players will default to RT for shooting, they made it so that you can do a crotchet beat rhythm on it to get power beam shots out rapidly, but the flip side is every beam (bar Ice) requires at least two shots to start charging and two shots BETWEEN each charge. The ice beam ROF is low enough that it doesn't happen to it.

Got AM2R for some point in the near future.

And as to Cassette Beasts, I'd describe it as a 1980s Pokémon Digimon fusion with elements of SMT (battle system + punching God). It has enough cool unique mechanics to keep it feeling fresh, and the type system is really interesting in that using certain moves against certain monsters will actually do stuff, i.e. if you use poison on metal the metal monster gains contact damage as a buff, or if you use air on a plant type it'll uproot them and make plant type moves less effective if they use them. It's well worth a play.

[QuickTidal]

My STARDEW VALLEY save on my PS4 was about 1/4 into the main story, but finding time to sit in front of the main TV was tough....so a few months back I repurchased it on Switch (giving me WAY more freedom and time to play)....but of course I had to start over on my Switch (which is fine)....so I'm only in late summer of my first year, but I feel like I'm concentrating on the Community Centre more this round right off (having only just discovered that an icon blinks in your inventory if you hover over it and it needs placed in a Bundle...oh and that you can check what each bundle requires from your menu and don't have to go there to check....I was clearly playing on "stupid" mode the first time! LOL) and diving straight into romancing the ladies (and once again I've gravitated to the manic pixie dream girl Emily....although I admit to trying too make her sister Haley not hate me and think me dirty), and I've upgraded my tools sooner this time and gotten the kitchen the moment I had 10k gold, and the larger backpack too. Basically my first try at playing on my PS4 was a practice run that made me a smarter, better player of this game.

And I still love it, and it's still the most relaxing and enjoyable time.

I loved it so much that I googled if there was plans to make a sequel....only to discover that Eric (ConcernedApe) has been quietly working on THIS since 2020



Whic looks amazing and look! Junimo's! That means it's the same world/universe a STARDEW! I'll be getting that one day and date of release for sure!

[Aptorian]

I'm definitely looking forward to haunted chocolatier. Last I heard it was still far from finished.

I guess when you earn a bazillion dollars on your last game, you can take all the time you want.