[Mentalist]

Veered off into unexplored territory again.

Now I got a pet shark to cross the water on. And a lighthouse guided me to a cave with a fire-sword in a stone. This game..... lol.

The patch seems to have fixed some of the quest bugs, at least I'm able to collect most of the Automaton skins now.

This is very much "open-world icon-clearing: the Game", but due to the fantastically weird and varied loot, and the zany crafting/customization options, going forth and clearing those icons, exploring the house wrecks, abandoned stores and gas stations is actually worthwhile. Experiment 101 got loot right.

[Aptorian]

Time for a Kittens update.

Been playing Kittens game for a few months now. It's an incremental management/upgrade game you can play on the phone or computer.

Knowing this was a slow game that would require dozens of game resets to accumulate special ressources and upgrades, I'd been playing strategically early on. I'd play for a week or so and then reset the game to get karma and paragon, first enough to buff my ressource production during the medieval ages, later to be able to buy metaphysics upgrades that carry over across resets. That would reset my paragon but everything begins to speed up as you reset and reset again.

Finally decided to just go as far as I could during the last week and it was mind blowing. Normally I'd stopped in the early space age but now I had enough buffs that I could zoom right into space, begin planetary colonizations and start massisve overhauls of my production. Things that would take you days to accumulate fill up faster than you can spend them. This is thrilling but mind you all this is taking place in pages and menus where you just click buttons when you have enough ressources.

Started cracking planets for uranium and fueling Unobtanium production, which I then used to generate antimatter which was feeding into an AI Core that I think is going to create an AI Apocalypse sooner rather than later. Got far enough into the game that my unicorn production exploded. I was generating thousands of unicorns per second, where it was taking half an hour at the start. This enabled summoning Alicorns from the heaven that I was sacrificing for Time crystals. I was feeding time crystals into my chronospheres which in turn meant that when I reset once again during the weekend, because my unicorn industry bottlenecked on slow Ivory generation, I could take roughly 17% of all the ressources and craftables I owned with me into a new game. That's a gamechanger. In a day I was almost back to the stage before the reset just a day ago. And now, with more double the paragon bonus and 4 times the religion bonus benefitting production I now feel like a kittens god.

I'm now at the point where I'm ready to dabble in black magic and refining Unicorn tears into Black Liquid Sorrow, so I can power up the Black Pyramids. I just bought my first marker and am contemplating making the first deal with the leviathans.

I am an unstoppable Kitten civilization.

[Mentalist]

I took the fortress of the samurai chihuahuas last night. it was pretty easy. I didn't want to fight the 2 waves of mooks, so I stuck them to my mucus bubble, rolled into a pond, popped the bubble and then jumped out. My character is pretty much the only bipedal that knows how to swim (or at least paddle until I run out of stamina and drown) and jump out of the water, so the mooks drowned, and then I talked the genocidal chihuahua general into surrendering.

Then I went and picked up the giant clockwork hand, which is a pretty cool way to get around. Think I'm gonna start focusing on actually hunting down the World Eaters now.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 09 July 2021 - 03:26 PM

[Aptorian]

Nearing the ending of Mass Effect 2.

I've done all the recruitment, loyalty and DLC stuff except for The Shadow Broker DLC which I'm saving as an epilogue.

First game I hooked up with Liara but since she's doing her own thing in the sequel, I decided to boink Garrus. It's every bit as fun and stupid as I expected. Garrus is definitely right for my Shepard.

Now for the suicide mission. Hope everyone lives.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 08 July 2021 - 05:56 PM

[Aptorian]

Finished the main Mass Effect 2 story.

It was about as short and sweet as I remember. That final "boss" was a pretty sloppy conclusion to the game. Not a lot of answers. No real build up and set up for the third and final game. Well besides a jarring jump cut to a bunch of floating reapers.

Playing this game 11 or so years later is an eye opening experience. I can still see why this game was so popular at the time, why it's still some peoples favorite game - But boy is it outdated in terms of AAA game design. You can sort of see how much the cost of production and thereby also quality, has ballooned over the years.

ME2 feels small in many ways. Everything is corridors and kill rooms. Every mission outside a handful of pivotal main story missions are short 10 minute affairs, with small conversations that in retrospect all feel artificially designed to check boxes for learn one fact about character history, learn one fact about character culture, choose one good or bad character interaction, etc. There's a lot of interesting writing in there but by modern expectations, the dialogue isn't really that good and the dialogue depth often comes off pretty shallow.

Basically I now recognize more clearly how streamlined ME2 was, how mainstream console game it seems compared to something like Dragon Age 1 and that the same time very similar to Dragon Age 2 - Just much more successful.

One takeway I have from ME2 is that I think that the characters on a ship and planetary exploration is a very good setup for a future EA Live Game. You can always add one more planet, one more starbase, etc.

[Maark Abbott]

 Aptorian, on 08 July 2021 - 08:56 PM, said:

Finished the main Mass Effect 2 story.

It was about as short and sweet as I remember. That final "boss" was a pretty sloppy conclusion to the game. Not a lot of answers. No real build up and set up for the third and final game. Well besides a jarring jump cut to a bunch of floating reapers.

Playing this game 11 or so years later is an eye opening experience. I can still see why this game was so popular at the time, why it's still some peoples favorite game - But boy is it outdated in terms of AAA game design. You can sort of see how much the cost of production and thereby also quality, has ballooned over the years.

ME2 feels small in many ways. Everything is corridors and kill rooms. Every mission outside a handful of pivotal main story missions are short 10 minute affairs, with small conversations that in retrospect all feel artificially designed to check boxes for learn one fact about character history, learn one fact about character culture, choose one good or bad character interaction, etc. There's a lot of interesting writing in there but by modern expectations, the dialogue isn't really that good and the dialogue depth often comes off pretty shallow.

Basically I now recognize more clearly how streamlined ME2 was, how mainstream console game it seems compared to something like Dragon Age 1 and that the same time very similar to Dragon Age 2 - Just much more successful.

One takeway I have from ME2 is that I think that the characters on a ship and planetary exploration is a very good setup for a future EA Live Game. You can always add one more planet, one more starbase, etc.

I remember in April 2011 when I was between jobs for three weeks that I sat and played Mass 2 on Insanity in my downtime. That was a fucking ride. Soldier actually makes it straightforward but still, was well happy with that one.

[Aptorian]

Any of you guys tried out Dragon Quest XI - Elusive Age boogaloo?

Just put in about 30 minutes, playing through the mini-prologue and setting out from your village - I think this game is incredibly rote and mediocre.

I heard a lot of good things about this game the past couple of years. I've never played any of the Dragon Quest games besides the first Builders game, so I was hoping I was going to love this anniversary title. But it's just so formulaic and outdated.

Young boy discovers he's the chosen one, he has a sacred mark on his hand that does magic stuff, he sets out on a quest to discover his destiny. And it's set it the most generic village that could have been taken out of any RPG from the past 30 years. Worst of all, this game was apparently made for the Switch and 3DS. THE 3DS! So playing this on a PC, everything looks flat and low texture resolution, vegetation is sparse, environmental details are super low, the characters look like they're cross eyed and they talk like they're from fantasy England. Nothing about this game looks good. It reminds me of the environments from Metal Gear Solid 3. Which came out more than 15 years ago.

I can't imagine putting 100 hours into a game that seems this unambitious. Is this seriously the most popular game series in Japan?

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 11 July 2021 - 07:53 PM

[Aptorian]

Ehhh. After all your praise of the series I went and found the games on Steam but I do not like the trailers at all. I am not into all the anime bullshit on display. A bunch of young kids in a military academy? Isn't that pretty much 90% of all Japanese fiction? The rest of course being tentacle porn.

I might try and get into Genshin Impact instead. That's also triggering a lot of my anime warnings but it looks and sorta plays like Breath of the Wild.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 11 July 2021 - 07:54 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Dungeon Keeper Deeper Dungeons has one glaring flaw that makes it notably less challenging in some places than it should be.

See, there's been a few maps where I have access to a spell that lets me destroy an enemy's fortified wall. And that means that I don't have to actually slog through trap filled keeps and stuff. I can literally break my enemy's house open, break a hero keep open and sit back as they do the work for me. Some levels have been made far too easy due to this. I'm told that a few more levels in and I get the real hard shit though so I'm holding on to my buttcheeks in anticipation.

[Aptorian]

Played an hour or two of Genshin Impact the past couple days.

Like the first time I started the game up on the PS4 back in... november?..., I am impressed with just how good the game looks and how well the gameplay seems designed, despite being free to play. It looks and feels like a fully realized AAA Open World RPG, that's brazenly stealing much of the good stuff from Breath of the Wild and various other big open world games and RPGs.

The game is pretty systems heavy so to start with I just let Paimon, the cutesy flying gnome, take me through the intro instead of trying to make heads or tails of the dozens menus full of equipment and powers and items and craftables, etc. There's so much stuff. I keep opening chests that vomit out weapons and food and lore items and other weird stuff I can't even identify. There's also some kind of premium currency thing going on that I can't quite parse yet. My character is levelling up and growing stronger, but I think certain upgrades, or maybe just stronger team members, are locked behind some kind of "wish upon a star" gotcha system - Where you spend a certain amount of currency or star stuff for the chance of summoning a new companion. Or something like that. At the start of the game it doesn't seem relevant but since everything has a star rating I'm assuming by the late game, you'll be gambling on getting elite characters you can change between.

Apparently through out the game you'll meet people you can team up with, or summon with money, but instead of building up a group, you run around with like for example Final Fantasy, in Genshin Impact you're just playing with one character that you can instantly switch out with any other character you own, so I might be fighting some goblin with my main dude one moment, then press right on the d-pad and then turn into a ranger lady the next and start firing arrows at some sniper goblin on a tower, etc. Seems like a smart enough system. I also believe there's some kind of synergy between the kinds of elemental or magical attacks your characters can perform, that I might be able to string together for massive damage.

The anime stuff is tuned juuust right, so that I don't get too annoyed with the weirdly dressed infantalized characters and instead the world just seems quaint. My tolerance might wear out sooner rather than later though.

Overall very impressed with this game in the opening hours.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 13 July 2021 - 12:46 PM

[Malankazooie]

I had snagged Shadow of the Colossus off PS+ games of the month, shit, it must have been over a year ago now. I jumped in last weekend for the first time. SotC still has that magic. The impact of coming up against that first Colossus still strikes awe. But damn the wonky controls and camera are so noticeable now. I guess it's part of the charm and strengthens the nostalgia, but it takes some patience and acceptance in order to get back into the groove of playing.

[Aptorian]

Played around half way through Halo 4.

It's better than people give it credit for. The criticism that the whole Didact, Librarian, Composer nonsense is half assed still holds true but storytelling was never Halos strong point. I still have no idea whether the human race in this game has colonized two planets or a hundred and whether they have an empire or they're basically just lucky to be alive. I assume you're supposed to read books or webcomics connected to the game but how many people actually does that? They do these abrupt little story vignettes when ever you find anonymous looking computers but it's a bizarre idea to tell a story through easy to miss collectibles.

The gameplay is fine and I think the addition of forerunner weapons is much needed. I'm especially having fun sniping the digital forerunner baddies. There's a variety of energy sniper weapons in this game and it's really satisfying seeing alien heads exploding in orange electro goop.

It's funny though, as I've been playing through the story I feel like they've pretty much done the Force Awakens trick in Halo 4, of recreating the first Halo games structure. You crash land on an alien planet after being attacked, you mess around until you discover this place is bad, then a third faction is revealed, and now you have to hurry to stop the baddies before the whole universe comes under assault.

Anyway, Halo 4 is enjoyable and best of all I still feel an emotional attachment to the flimsy relationship they built up between Master Chief and Cortana. The story isn't great but some of the dialogue hits you right in the feels. "Don't make a girl a promise you can't keep..."

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 July 2021 - 11:56 AM

[Mentalist]

Dipped into Biomutant for a few hours last night, did a main quest to get one of the 4 boss-fighting vehicles fixed up. Took me around the map to a few previously closed locations, as well as introducing me to characters I've I've already met, b/c I specnt 60+ hours ignoring the main quest and just exploring stuff.

Fighting the giant turtle underwater isn't anything spectacular, but it handles all right.

[Malankazooie]

Jumped into Fall Guys season 5 last night (this new season 5 just came out this week). It's been awhile since I played, so not sure what some of the previous seasons new features are about (i.e. squads?). I'm liking the jungle motif of season 5 and the new courses. Those Rhinoceroses (Rhinoceri?) really cheese me off, but they are a fun addition. They're pretty easy to avoid though, tbh. Fun course though.

[Aptorian]

You reminded me Sky is on the Switch.

Played 20 minutes this morning. It's sorta reminiscent of Journey. Very minimalistic, very atmospheric and mysterious.

Not sure how much game there actually is to it, you can tell from the control and interface, that the game is made for phones and tablets. So far I've mostly just run around lighting candles, jumping off stuff and interacting with spirits.

[Malankazooie]

Played a little bit of Black Ops 4 (got it off PS+ games of the month). The last Black Ops game I played was Blops 2. I enjoyed it, as well as the first one. I've never played 3.

Anyway, Blops 4 feels thin and hollow to me. There's no single player story, correct? But even multiplayer (which is what sells these games) feels disappointing compared to my experience with the first two Black Ops games. I don't know what they did with the guns, but the meaty pounders that pack a punch no longer have that feel. So I don't know where they were going with this approach, but I can only guess they wanted to make the game play more twitchy and run and gun? Which I think basically filters the player experience into landing on a select few gun types (that rewards the run and gun style). From my experience playing so far, that seems to be the case. Some of the maps from Blops 1 and 2 are back (ha! Nuketown, Soviet version!), but I've found the maps to be disappointing overall as well. The specialist class thing is annoying as well. I just want to build a load out with the lethals and tacticals I want to choose. Maybe I'm missing something? (I've just barely scratched the surface, so maybe the variety of options opens up?) I hope they got back into form with Cold War (which based on reviews it seems like they may have), because I want to play that eventually.

[Aptorian]

Finished Halo 4 and started Halo 5.

Halo 4 was fine. Not a bad game but a very safe game, a very narrow vision, from a new developer.

Halo 5 seems like a big step up. Hard to believe these two games came out on the same console. It looks much better, more detailed enemies, better lighting, much more mobility.

Only two missions in but it seems like Halo 5 has a lot more confidence.

Edit: I just realized part of what I like about Halo 5 is that the Spartans now play like a Titan from Destiny. The environments in darkness even feels like the Hive parts of Destiny.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 22 July 2021 - 05:35 PM

[Mentalist]

Got 3 of the World Eaters. Once I took down the 3rd tribe, I got the option to force the rest to surrender, so I tok it, cuz taking forts is.... meh.

pimped out the hoverboat, the dragon head is wicked-looking.

I feel I'm wrapping up the game, but with close to 90 hours, it feels appropriate.

Loads of cool indie games coming out this month and the next, so kinda looking forward to wrapping this up and catching up on some shorter games. That is not to say I don't like it, since every time I start playing it, I spend like 2-5 hours, because I like criss-crossing this world, without resorting to fast-travel, cuz everything is so pretty!!

[Traveller]

I put Red Dead Redemption 2 back on for the first time in.. years?

Managed to get into a fight within about 2 minutes while I was running through the controls - some guy in St Denis didn't like the fact I had a gun out, and suddenly there are lawmen crossing the street and firing at me. I was just trying to pick my hat up and I ended up having to kill a load of them before riding away with a huge bounty on my head.

This game looks so pretty and there's so much going for it but I'm only 40% into the story and I think it's going to stay like that.

I think I prefer short, interesting indie games to these sprawling epics these days.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 24 July 2021 - 03:22 PM

[Aptorian]

 Traveller, on 24 July 2021 - 03:16 PM, said:

I put Red Dead Redemption 2 back on for the first time in.. years?

Managed to get into a fight within about 2 minutes while I was running through the controls - some guy in St Denis didn't like the fact I had a gun out, and suddenly there are lawmen crossing the street and firing at me. I was just trying to pick my hat up and I ended up having to kill a load of them before riding away with a huge bounty on my head.

This, coupled with no quick travel options when collecting pelts, is what ruined the game for me. It's a game about outlaws and you can't walk down a street without bumping into somebody, getting a fine and being harrassed by cops untill you pay off the fine. I had to just stay away from the big city for this reason. You can't even rob somebody on a deserted road with out some dude a mile away seeing you and magically giving the law men a perfect description of you.

Also the story was garbage.