What Video Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Rudolph]

3 minutes ago, HeatedChocolate said:

I'd argue that the resurgence of classic-style shooters is something new unto itself.

Not to mention the renewed interest for FMV-style adventure video games, which now tend to be more convincing in their execution.

[MemeMind]

Im becoming addicted to Vermintide 2 and Darktide.

[BGreener]

5 hours ago, Gez said:

 

The problem therefore when an industry becomes concerned only with profitability is that they'll stop taking risks, they'll stop innovating, and that's when things just becomes stagnating and creatively bankrupt. This is a problem in the entertainment industry, especially movies, video games, and music. There's nothing inherently wrong with the tried-and-true, but if it's all that is available, then it becomes a soulless sameness.

I like to consider all this on top of how much videogames grew and borderline “exploded” in the last couple of decades. Even just regarding the Doom franchise itself, the dev team of the newest entry was at least 85 times what it was back in ‘93.

Edited December 6, 2022 by BGrieber

[ZethXM]

14 hours ago, Spooner5020 said:

And I agree that was totally wrong. The past years though I’ve had to tell myself that just because a certain studio or creator is involved with a game doesn’t always mean it’s gonna be a good game. Dead Space was one of those games that caught lightning in a bottle once. I mean Dead Space 2 was fine, but 3 I heard was all over the place. 
 

I learned my lesson after Naughty Dog released Last Of Us Part 2to quit trusting studios all cause their past games were hits. Also at least the creator is not blaming the fans for the game not doing well. If I’m correct he realized the game was released in a buggy state and is going back to fix it. That is more than what the creators of the new Saints Row would ever do.

 

It's important to know a little bit of historical context with Dead Space in particular, no offense if you already do:

 

Dead Space was a legendary franchise for coming out in a genre notoriously difficult to do well in and not just holding its own against Resident Evil at the zenith of its power, but by some measures exceeding it and carving a niche of its own with sci-fi used-future horror direction rather than urban zombie fic.  Dead Space 2 in particular was regarded as one of the greatest action games ever conceived, improving on the control and feel of the original and demonstrating an impeccable grasp of pacing and setpiece design.  The IP, as 'horror' games go, was an absolute house.

 

It is equally notorious for following industry trends to an ignominious end in the same broad arc RE took. And rather than see the mother of all saving throws Capcom threw with RE7, the franchise was just indefinitely shelved and the studio scrapped for parts.  The story was cut short, and the die-hard fanbase this multimedia juggernaut IP built was suddenly, unceremoniously thrown out in the cold for ten years.  They were done dirty.

 

It made fans of that franchise some of the hungriest motherfuckers on the planet for something to come along and do them justice.  It made them very exploitable.

 

11 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Dead Space 3 was fine too. My only problems with it, aside from requiring EA Origin (or whatever it is called nowadays) to run, were the (thankfully rare) half-baked combat with human soldiers, the puzzling presence of microtransactions (which you do not even need to bother with) and the way the Awakening DLC ended. A game like Resident Evil 6 is all over the place; Dead Space 3 is just not as tight as its predecessors. 

 

Dead Space 3 was where the formula really began to show its bones and fail to innovate, and the game had a lot of problems with publisher intrusion mandating stuff that hurt the game's design, pacing, and plot; like co-op areas, MTX grind mechanics, universal ammunition for a crafting system, little to no enemy roster change, and rote encounter design.  The character writing in particular is a lot more grating, bloviating, and hamfisted than its predecessors, with events proceeding because of people doing really stupid shit to make gameplay happen rather than anything at least varnished with believability.

 

All that being said, it's still kinda fun to go blast through with the goofy-ass weapons you can create.  It just turns into a slog near the end.

 

I played through the three mainline Dead Space games in preparation for The Callisto Protocol, and they still hold up pretty well, particularly Dead Space 2.  They're definitely older games with older sensibilities and everyone's been hoping for something to take them further. 

 

We'll have to content ourselves with the Dead Space Remake and its promise to make the Ishimura more of an open environment with an AI Director, for now.  I will say, that first 18 minutes they released the other day looks pretty fine.  Digging the retroactive characterizations.

Edited December 7, 2022 by ZethXM

[Metal Barbie]

GTA 5, DOOM Eternal, Pokemon Scarlet, Metal Hellsinger, CS. 

[Rudolph]

2 hours ago, ZethXM said:

The character writing in particular is a lot more grating, bloviating, and hamfisted than its predecessors, with events proceeding because of people doing really stupid shit to make gameplay happen rather than anything at least varnished with believability.

Eh. I did not mind it. You have a bunch of average, traumatized people getting stranded on some god-forsaken planet; they are bound to act irrationally. 

 

My only real issue with the plot is that all of John Carver's character development - which is actually nicely-written when you get to see it - is locked in cooperative mode. Well, that and the decision to negate the base game's bittersweet ending by having the Awakening DLC end on a massive cliffhanger that was then left unaddressed by the cancellation of Dead Space 4. I hate it when that happens. 

 

I think the real stinker in the Dead Space series would be the Severed DLC for Dead Space 2. I did not get to play it because it was a console exclusivity, but I watched a Let's Play and was so let down by what I saw. Dead Space: Extraction deserved a better sequel than that.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Rudolph

[ZethXM]

2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Eh. I did not mind it. You have a bunch of average, traumatized people getting stranded on some god-forsaken planet; they are bound to act irrationally. 

 

My only real issue with the plot is that all of John Carver's character development - which is actually nicely-written when you get to see it - is locked in cooperative mode. Well, that and the decision to negate the base game's bittersweet ending by having the Awakening DLC end on a massive cliffhanger that was then left unaddressed by the cancellation of Dead Space 4. I hate it when that happens.

 

I mostly minded it because of the sudden emphasis on obnoxious interpersonal spats being what drive events for a pretty big hunk of the runtime, narrative verisimilitude or no.  Example, Danik is almost completely passive and just gets handed wins by the supporting cast's crises of judgment again and again, or improbable scene direction (how the hell did nobody make a sound during Isaac's dramatic revelation?).  Tiedemann made more sense to me as someone trying to do the right thing with what power he had left as shit hit the fan and triage had to be done.

 

Basically I preferred when Dead Space's events weren't so volitional.

 

And yeah, if you don't play co-op Carver's behavior and camaraderie with Clarke is downright bizarre to witness.  Either way him damning all of humanity, very much including Ellie, by handing Danik the Codex in a sudden 100% reversal of gears was silly.

 

All that being said, it just makes the game's plot action-movie dumb rather than utterly execrable, and there's still stuff about it I genuinely like.  I think the MTX and Co-op inclusions having a distorting effect on the game's design were far more damaging.

[Lemonzest]

Bayonetta 1 (Nintendo Switch!)

[Rudolph]

9 hours ago, ZethXM said:

(how the hell did nobody make a sound during Isaac's dramatic revelation?)

Isaac makes a lot of dramatic revelations throughout the game. What are you referring to specifically?

 

And I do prefer Danik to Tiedemann: the former is fairly charming in addition to being unrestrained by moral quandaries and personal attachments, which makes him a good foil to Isaac and his crew, whereas the latter is just a stuck-up asshole who needlessly antagonizes Isaac until the very end. Human villains in Dead Space have always been pretty weak as far as I am concerned, so I really did not mind Danik for a change; not that he is that memorable as far as villains go, do not get me wrong, but he is probably the only one I end up enjoying in the whole series.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Rudolph

[ZethXM]

9 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Isaac makes a lot of dramatic revelations throughout the game. What are you referring to specifically? 

 

Specifically the scene where they tap Rosetta and Isaac gets the info beamed into his head about the true nature of the Machine, the Moon, and the Codex.  The camera pulls in real tight as he mumbles to himself about it slumped over behind a shelf, and when he stands up Danik and his men have made it into the room through that loud-ass door, surrounded everyone, and put them at gunpoint.  All completely silently.  This after they knew Danik and his goons were wandering around the facility getting eaten by aliens and effortlessly wasted by Clarke and Carver.

 

It's cinematographically pleasing, it's well executed!  I like it for that.  But it's a cheap win.  Danik does the passive opportunist villain "waiting for the hero to figure out the puzzle" schtick a lot and it just feels so terribly rote.  And the plot has to hand him the cutscene competence to hold people at gunpoint and take his wins while Clarke and Carver can eat bullets all day before and after those scenes.  I just think they could have furnished things a little better than how they did to make things move.  Danik and his forces aren't remotely intimidating or even competent; they feel like a determined Clarke or Carver could just shoot them all then and there if they cared to.

 

9 hours ago, Rudolph said:

And I do prefer Danik to Tiedemann: the former is fairly charming in addition to being unrestrained by moral quandaries and personal attachments, which makes him a good foil to Isaac and his crew, whereas the latter is just a stuck-up asshole who needlessly antagonizes Isaac until the very end. Human villains in Dead Space have always been pretty weak as far as I am concerned, so I really did not mind Danik for a change; not that he is that memorable as far as villains go, do not get me wrong, but he is probably the only one I end up enjoying in the whole series.

 

I prefer Simon Templeman's scene-chewing Bond villain performance as Danik, sure.  Especially replaying it a month ago and paying attention to the writing of his fanaticism.  Comes off different these days.  But I also have a lot of appreciation for Tiedemann's restraint, and the general restraint of Dead Space 2's character script. 

 

There's a very... I dunno, signature curtness and clippedness of DS2's dialogue interspersed with pauses just a little lengthy that I always found interesting. It's as if the writers wanted to allow the oppressiveness and hopelessness of the scenario the space to leak through and speak for itself.

 

Tiedemann was actually an understated, maybe even underwritten character.  Much of him is bound up in the setting of the Sprawl rather than told to you.  He doesn't really have time for Clarke, but Clarke insists on surviving and threatening to initiate Convergence, and that brings them into conflict.  Then you find out later he was acting against his superiors, hinting at the Unitologist uprising that eventually rolled around in DS3.

 

Generally agree that the human villains were pretty weak in Dead Space, which I don't mind too terribly much, but Danik is at least a giant ham, so he's fun, and Tiedemann is notable to me for kinda defying a lot of the Resident Evil tropes of other villains like Challus Mercer.  As far as we can tell, he really is the upstanding official he claims to be, it's just that the government/religious conspiracy has machined events to pit him against you.  He probably should have taken Clarke more seriously midway through the game, though.

 

Sorry if I'm like, choking this topic with dead space discussion.  I uh, really like that series.

[Rudolph]

I guess we can agree on the fact that Dead Space 3 could have been better. :)

 

Another reason why I am disappointed that Dead Space 4 was cancelled is because the developers reportedly planned on expanding on Dead Space 3's spaceship graveyard exploration, this time as Ellie making her way back to Earth. That would have been interesting to see.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Rudolph

[ZethXM]

16 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I guess we can agree on the fact that Dead Space 3 could have been better. :)

 

Another reason why I am disappointed that Dead Space 4 was cancelled is because the developers reportedly planned on expanding on Dead Space 3's spaceship graveyard exploration, this time as Ellie making her way back to Earth. That would have been interesting to see.

 

For what it's worth, my issues with Dead Space 3 aren't nearly as grave as my issues with RE6.  I just felt like it took a turn I didn't like too much.

 

And yeah, it would have been.  The space graveyard was the strongest part of DS3 for me, because I feel Dead Space's "brand" is strongest when it's using space and devices designed for space in its setting.  I appreciated Tau Volantis's homages to The Thing and At the Mountains of Madness, but it was less interactive and evocative.

 

One thing I noticed about DS3's progression was rather than DS2's tight focus on a long, linear nightmare sprint, you had a kind of loop of entering derelict, locked-down facilities/ships and opening them up, establishing yourself in them against whatever had been lurking there all this time, and then moving forward along with the plot to the next colony base.  A series of tiny Ishimuras, if you will.  I always kinda liked that, and would have welcomed more of it in a DS4.

[Rudolph]

Sooo, back to games we are playing! :P

 

Now that I am done with Fallout 3's Broken Steel (which was a nice epilogue to the main game), I have moved on to Point Lookout and I am relieved to find out that it is set on a large STALKER-esque map rather than a series of claustrophobic corridors! I was going to say that Bethesda surely must have learned from Operation Anchorage, but then I realized that Mothership Zeta (the other linear DLC) was the last DLC to be released for Fallout 3. Unless each DLC was assigned to a separate team, I just cannot imagine why the developers were thinking there.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Rudolph

[Technicolor]

Wolfenstein 3D (1992) these days. I could never complete episode 6. I got stuck in map 2.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Technicolor

[Daytime Waitress]

Taking a break from Risk of Rain 2 for a bit.

Had a hilarious run with two buddies, must've been well over two hours, where we got a few red drops early and that snowballed, so we began steamrolling every single map, dropping elites and even bosses before they'd even spawned in.

Headed to the final level because we were tired of picking up items.

Dusted the bosses' first form, obliterated their second before they could even move... and then promptly died when they siphoned our items.

C'est la fukken vie, boys.

[Lippeth]

Just played through Portal RTX on my crusty dusty 2080 Super and had a great time. I never actually finished it before but it was a lot of fun. Then one of my friends started playing Elden Ring again so I jumped back in for the conversation. It's fun to text back and forth between encounters and adventures.

[Rudolph]

I finished Fallout 3's Point Lookout and now I have moved on to The Pitt. I know I am repeating myself here, but I am so at a loss as to why Bethesda would release these two amazing pieces of download content between two incredibly mediocre ones. 

 

Anyway, so far, The Pitt is excellent: like Point Lookout, it feels very much like a Fallout experience while still managing to feel unique. Walking through the oppressive streets of the Pitt and then venturing into the Steelyard for the very first time gave me flashbacks of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. Chapeau!

[hybridial]

Triangle Strategy

 

I'm quite into it, I'm not a big one for Square Enix's games traditionally but this and Tactics Ogre I have to say demonstrate some positive changes that might end up in me playing more of their games. 

 

 

[Rudolph]

There. I did it. I have finished playing The Pitt and by extent Fallout 3 as a whole.

 

I have to say, that Free Labor quest had me on the edge of my seat and I honestly wish it was not the final one: I would have loved to see the conflict between the Raiders and the Slaves go on for a bit longer, maybe even involve an attempt to negotiate a cease-fire or something. Oh well...

 

Still, kudos to the DLC for offering what is easily the most challenging dilemma in a Fallout game so far! Previously, I have never felt bad for picking one option over the other, since there is always an objectively good solution and little incentive to pick the others, since they usually involve being an asshole just for the heck of it. However, here, I could not help but feel bad for picking what is still in my opinion the morally preferable option. :S

 

Incidentally, as far as I am aware, it is also probably the first time where the villain is neither a huge asshole nor a genocidal maniac.

 

I can only hope that New Vegas as a whole is like that!

Edited December 11, 2022 by Rudolph

[Daytime Waitress]

6 hours ago, hybridial said:

Triangle Strategy

 

I'm quite into it, I'm not a big one for Square Enix's games traditionally but this and Tactics Ogre I have to say demonstrate some positive changes that might end up in me playing more of their games.

 

The "gaudy lighting plug-ins merged with 16/32-bit sprites" aesthetic that Squeenix are shooting for with practically every title these days makes me personally want to blow chunks, but I'm curious as to what gameplay changes/quality of life stuff would make you sit up and take notice. Why these two over, say, the original Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics games?

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

6 minutes ago, Daytime Waitress said:

The "gaudy lighting plug-ins merged with 16/32-bit sprites" aesthetic that Squeenix are shooting for with practically every title these days makes me personally want to blow chunks

This. I think it's ugly as hell.

 

"FFVI ReShade 2022 MAGIKA INSANE Realism Preset! Download in Description!!"

[MrFroz]

The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The arcade game.

 

After two decades without knowing that it was even possible to play it on PC, I found out that you can emulate it with this.

[HeatedChocolate]

Got Noita working on my computer in architecture class, don't have any assignments there so I've been messing around, still fun.

[hybridial]

10 hours ago, Daytime Waitress said:

The "gaudy lighting plug-ins merged with 16/32-bit sprites" aesthetic that Squeenix are shooting for with practically every title these days makes me personally want to blow chunks, but I'm curious as to what gameplay changes/quality of life stuff would make you sit up and take notice. Why these two over, say, the original Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics games?

 

Well, I'll say this about the visuals first, I wasn't too impressed with Octopath Traveller. It's overly harsh bloom effects practically hurt my eyes, but I think with this game and what I've seen for the Octopath sequel they worked out some of the real issues like that with the style. I guess it will not necessarily be for everyone still but Triangle Strategy compared to Octopath is a massive improvement for me. 

 

Next up, what I said has nothing to do with the original Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. I've never had the option of playing either of those games in the past. I would almost certainly have liked them, but you know, they never came out in Europe till the PSP and I never owned a PSP. I did have a GBA at one point so I played Tactics Advance a bit. Not one for emulation either as I'm very annoyed by any compatibility/performance issues at all which are always inevitable with emulation. But I would certainly be all over a Final Fantasy Tactics Reborn which I imagine has to be under strong consideration right now. 

 

So Tactics Ogre Reborn is just a quality remake of an older game with effort put into it, and if the same effort got put into other 16/32 bit remakes of games I never really got the chance to play I'd be up for that. Triangle Strategy being a proper new game however is more of a strong indicator to me that Square Enix has finally hired some really good artistic talent to do that stuff. I like Amano's work like anyone else but you know, past FFVI he only really ever did some cover artworks, and his involvement isn't very high. But most of Square Enix's output to me FFVII onwards was very visually generic, a lot of money thrown in but not much class or style. And I've traditionally never liked Final Fantasy but even I must admit XVI's painted artwork is a breath of fresh air over what they've been doing for years now. 

 

I guess the irony is, Square Enix is improving at that stuff, whereas Fire Emblem, a series I never really got into but I loved a lot of the 2D artwork used throughout the series... until recently, where Engage specifically is fucking tripe in terms of that stuff. Completely sold out to being the most generic anime shit. 

 

JRPGs rely a lot on the character concept stuff, portraits etc. even if they're not necessarily used in the game (that generally depends on the game) but that stuff is where the personality will come from and it's been a big part of why I strongly dislike a lot of big name JRPGs, most by Squaresoft/Square Enix. It's a big deal to me. 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by hybridial

[MrFroz]

Far Cry 3. Played it on the PS3 not too long after it came out and completed it, now I'm doing a second playthrough of it on PC. Really curious to play Blood Dragon afterwards.

[Rudolph]

43 minutes ago, MrFroz said:

Far Cry 3. Played it on the PS3 not too long after it came out and completed it, now I'm doing a second playthrough of it on PC. Really curious to play Blood Dragon afterwards.

I did the opposite: I first played Blood Dragon and that convinced me to get FarCry 3. Ultimately, I ended up preferring the former over the latter.

[MrFroz]

Playing Dota 2 right now. I have never payed for it, but with the current winter season I was able to get a free month of Plus. I really like some of the stuff I earned so far.

[Rudolph]

I am taking a break from Fallout. I started playing Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition, but found myself struggling to concentrate on the game since it involves a lot of reading and I figured it would not do it justice to play it while listening to podcasts or videos anyway.

 

So instead, I installed Evoland: Legendary Edition, which I got for free a while back. Pretty cute and fun, but it  offers little in terms of game options and developers also seem to have forgotten to add a way to exit the game. :S

[Sena]

Replayed the Hotline Miami duology over the weekend. Still top tier games, except that one Pardo level with the Colombians, I still hate that one.

[SFFlowerBoy]

Been playing doom 3 again. Honestly I like more on my second playthrough than the first. Really good game even if the shotguns spread hurts my soul.