It's a beautiful game that I think does an excellent job of reinforcing the themes of connecting with people with an open world that is not there to be explored but to be overcome with others, in the most literal sense. Gameplay can feel like work, but I'd argue that is the point a little bit because if I hadn't struggled to climb a rocky cliff myself seeing a player created zip-line on the way back wouldn't hit quite as hard.
Oh, it was Death Stranding Luscan said was brilliant. Easy mistake.
Seriously though, it sounds like the sort of thing I enjoy.
I remember you'd always go on and on about how much you enjoyed baby jar ghost detectors. I was like, Jesus Brain, there's more to life than baby jar ghost detectors.
Oily whale carcases, for example.
Horizon Forbidden West… (you can set it so that machines drop everything when they die, so you don't have to faff with aiming at tiny bits of their armour)
…you fucking what? God damn it. Clearly I need to spend more time in options menus. 
Oh, it was Death Stranding Luscan said was brilliant. Easy mistake.
Seriously though, it sounds like the sort of thing I enjoy.
I remember you'd always go on and on about how much you enjoyed baby jar ghost detectors. I was like, Jesus Brain, there's more to life than baby jar ghost detectors.
Oily whale carcases, for example.
Who doesn't want to play a game which combines the radio from Silent Hill with Yoshi's Baby Mario?
Additional PLAY:
I finally got round to booting up that new RobertCop game. It's both bad in a great way and great in a bad way, and I'm loving it. The violence is excessive, the gunplay overpowered and repetitive, Robert himself moves like a tank (which in the FPS world means he's a shambling bullet sponge incapable of crouching or hiding behind scenery) and can punch someone halfway across a room, there's miscellaneous crime evidence EVERYWHERE (so many stolen wallets and incriminating photos) and you can issue tickets for expired parking meters. The acting is terrible, all the budget clearly went on modelling Peter Weller's jawline, and side missions involve things like 'Opening a locker for someone' or 'Carrying a drunk guy down some stairs'. It's just fucking marvellous. I want an entire Papers Please style game of Robbie manning a police counter, dishing out tickets to idiots who call their dog Fire or telling women with zero emotion that their missing son was found in a dumpster two hours ago. Solid gold.
I'm sorry… I had to share this particular bit, because I was howling at it. The most aggressive lesson in capitalism I've ever seen.
(Skip to 08:21)
I'm enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 much more than I'd anticipated, but it is fuckin grim so far. I'm really hoping to find some levity in a sidequest at some point, because damn.
Despite buying this months ago and putting two hours into it in as many months I finally got deep into Star Ocean: The Divine Force and am really enjoying it, despite how unpolished it is and low budget it feels at times. After Final Fantasy 16 all but threw out any and all RPG mechanics and IMO was worse off for it, this is giving me everything I wanted from that game and then some. It might not have top tier character writing and plot but it's at least somewhat 'original' in that it might be every JRPG plot you've ever seen but it's clearly not trying to be any particular piece of media other then itself, it's very similar in feel to a Tales game all things considered. (this is my first Star Ocean game too, but based off this and what I hear of the Star Ocean 2 remake, I think I know what this series is like now and I think I'm a fan)
The main thing I like about the game is the combat and the traversal, both of which employ an anti-gravity mechanic where you can fire your character through the air and then float down, both enabling you to cut massive corners in towns (and fly rooftop to rooftop collecting Things) and also fly right at enemies then circle them at the last second to trigger the 'blindside' mechanic for increeased damage multipliers.
Funny thing is I was considering dropping this game in like the first few hours, the fields you travel through are super uninteresting beyond the anti-gravity stuff and you have limited characters, but gameplay wise the later party members are so fun that I started to get into it way more.
Just to add another perspective on Death Stranding…
Play and Bin
Death Stranding. I played for 2 hours, according to the PS5's clock, during which time I walked up a hill and then back down it. Then, with my patience already wearing thin, I got stuck in Sam's room. Sam simply wouldn't stand up from his bed.
I Googled it, found a Reddit thread with someone else suffering the same fate.
"Did you try showering?"
"Yup, I've already showered."
"Did you definitely already take a dump?"
I have, if I'm lucky, an hour free per night to play games. This ain't the one.
stares in feltmonkey
I'm enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 much more than I'd anticipated, but it is fuckin grim so far. I'm really hoping to find some levity in a sidequest at some point, because damn.
It has some puerile light relief, but it's mostly boob, penis or poo related comedy. I think Cyberpunk does what it does astoundingly well, but when it comes to laughs I think you'll find more on a Jim Davidson DVD.
Just to add another perspective on Death Stranding…
Play and Bin
Death Stranding. I played for 2 hours, according to the PS5's clock, during which time I walked up a hill and then back down it. Then, with my patience already wearing thin, I got stuck in Sam's room. Sam simply wouldn't stand up from his bed.I Googled it, found a Reddit thread with someone else suffering the same fate.
"Did you try showering?"
"Yup, I've already showered."
"Did you definitely already take a dump?"
I have, if I'm lucky, an hour free per night to play games. This ain't the one.
You point the camera at the door and press the button in the prompt. The people telling you to shower and have a dump are taking the piss.
Just to add another perspective on Death Stranding…
Play and Bin
Death Stranding. I played for 2 hours, according to the PS5's clock, during which time I walked up a hill and then back down it. Then, with my patience already wearing thin, I got stuck in Sam's room. Sam simply wouldn't stand up from his bed.I Googled it, found a Reddit thread with someone else suffering the same fate.
"Did you try showering?"
"Yup, I've already showered."
"Did you definitely already take a dump?"
I have, if I'm lucky, an hour free per night to play games. This ain't the one.
You point the camera at the door and press the button in the prompt. The people telling you to shower and have a dump are taking the piss.
A rule I've lived my entire life by.
Yeah, you can train your body not to need to…
Anyway, that's not important right now. I think it would probably not be a great idea for MPH to go back to Death Stranding. Personally, it got it's hooks in me really early on. I was intrigued by the way it looked, played, and felt right from the start. It's something you're either going to love or hate, and if that landscape hasn't drawn you in after a few hours, there's no point forcing yourself to trudge around it for another 50. Obviously the game changes a lot over it's course when you get vehicles and guns, but essentially you've got to want to spend time in that world.
I built all the roads. Doing that involves managing the resources, tracking down huge amounts of metal and ceramics. It was worth it, because it gave me probably the most satisfying and tangible reward I've ever had in any single-player videogame. I could fill a truck with resources and drive them from one end of the map to the other. The infastructure of the whole world was improved. My goals became much easier to achieve. By the end, my network of roads and ziplines was a thing of beauty. In order to achieve this though, I had to take my time, spend a lot of time in the world, and often spend days on end not doing anything to advance the plot at all.
I'm exactly the same in that I only have about an hour for gaming per night, but I actively wanted to spend time in that world every evening. I kind of miss it now I've finished it. If it hasn't sucked you in, you probably aren't going to have that same feeling, so it probably isn't worth spending the hours trying to "get it."
It's definitely got something. Some of the imagery is stunning (those 5 shadows floating above the ocean, phwoar), and the world itself is a sight to behold.* Going into it, I thought it might be 'slow TV, the videogame'. Lots of hiking across pretty landscapes, listening to Chvrches. Which it sort of is, but the hiking is so fiddly that it's not enjoyable. It's a walking sim that gets walking wrong.
I did actually go back to my bed prison, to see if I could leave the room. Looking at the door did nothing, sadly. I've scanned every corner of the room to no avail. Sam keeps looking down the lens at me, nodding in the direction of the door like a beardy Fleabag. So that's clearly the intended path, but for whatever reason the game's stuck. Maybe I do need to take a dump.
To parrot what everyone else says, I am glad this game exists. We've managed 10 forum posts out of it; it's clearly more interesting than Forbidden West or Gears of War 5. I just think my time will be better spent watching 'the cool bits' out of context on YouTube.
*It's also clearly Icelandic, which made the American schtick more disappointing than usual.
For me the interesting parts were moments like this and Felt's story about building the road. There's probably smoke and mirrors involved with fake players but as far as I'm aware Felt's contribution is added to another players game. I might be wrong but I'm fairly sure all structures can be finished off by anyone, makes me wonder how diluted an experience the 5 people playing on iPhone will get by comparison, either I'm fooled by the game and there's more AI made stuff than players and they'll be fine or those 5 players are going to form the deepest connection to each other ever….wait that sounds amazing actually! D:
Someone broke my network of zip lines by building a massive ramp right in the path of one of the wires. It was one that went up the side of a mountain, too. I had to trudge up there on foot. I demolished that stupid ramp and I hope it deleted it from their game as well.
Compulsory shits AND passive-aggressive ramp building? Well I'm sold.
Additional Play: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - the Kiryu/Ichiban team-up we never knew we wanted. I've only done the first chapter so far but it's very much like the last LaD game so far, Ichiban remains a lovable doofus and I've laughed out loud several times already. Great stuff.
Someone broke my network of zip lines by building a massive ramp right in the path of one of the wires. It was one that went up the side of a mountain, too. I had to trudge up there on foot. I demolished that stupid ramp and I hope it deleted it from their game as well.
It's thrilling stories like this that felt uses to snare people into committing time to Death Stranding.
It's a whopper of a game but you'll know if it's for you right as you hit act 3.
As a huge fan of the Atelier Ryza series (and I will always advocate for the Ryza games if you want a comfy RPG to spend time collecting and making stuff) I decided to try new free to play Gacha game Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator on android (but it is on Steam too) and my God, it's absolutely gorgeous and competes with Honkai Star Rail visually, on par with Ryza itself. Unfortunately that's where the praise and similarities end because it's the most anti F2P gacha I've played in ages, you have so much stuff to farm and so little resourses to do it with that you either spend money or take an obscenely long time to do anything.
Also, the main defining feature of the Atelier series is alchemy, whereas alchemy in some games is a minigame at best, in Atelier it's a whole process, it's a huge part of the gameplay loop and story, in Ryza you can make gear so OP it breaks the game, imagine an RPG series where the 'Item' command is potentially the avenue to most powerful tools you have and not simply the healing item option. In this you are limited to 6 RNG Synthesis attempts a day, that's a staggeringly low amount even for a series not based on this one mechanic. If you make a dud item, you still wasted a try, you can't keep trying. Item synthesis is not only purely RNG but also RNG based on who you have rolled from the banners, you can't make specific builds if you don't have them.
Finlly, they said this isn't a spin off, but a mainline game 
. Imagine calling it that when you butchered the main mechanic of the entire series! This game has End of Service written all over it.
Is very pretty though.
As a huge fan of the Atelier Ryza series (and I will always advocate for the Ryza games if you want a comfy RPG to spend time collecting and making stuff) I decided to try new free to play Gacha game Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator on android (but it is on Steam too) and my God, it's absolutely gorgeous and competes with Honkai Star Rail visually, on par with Ryza itself. Unfortunately that's where the praise and similarities end because it's the most anti F2P gacha I've played in ages, you have so much stuff to farm and so little resources to do it with that you either spend money or take an obscenely long time to do anything.
Also, the main defining feature of the Atelier series is alchemy, whereas alchemy in some games is a minigame at best, in Atelier it's a whole process, it's a huge part of the gameplay loop and story, in Ryza you can make gear so OP it breaks the game, imagine an RPG series where the 'Item' command is potentially the avenue to most powerful tools you have and not simply the healing item option. In this you are limited to 6 RNG Synthesis attempts a day, that's a staggeringly low amount even for a series not based on this one mechanic. If you make a dud item, you still wasted a try, you can't keep trying. Item synthesis is not only purely RNG but also RNG based on who you have rolled from the banners, you can't make specific builds if you don't have them.
Finlly, they said this isn't a spin off, but a mainline game
Is very pretty though.
I loved the first Ryza on switch, and I'm keeping an eye on the second game on PS5, but it never seems to go on sale.
It's the only Atelier game I've played, but that gameplay loop is like crack.
Ryza 2 really is more of the same but what changes they make all add up to it being better I think. Ryza 3 sounds quite intimidating but I'm sure it's more of the same objective improvements, hopefullyevent triggering is changed though lmao. And these games are notorious for hardly ever going on sale BUT I did buy Ryza 3 and Sophie 2 for £50 last night, calling that a minor dub. (Won't be playing either for ages I just went on impulse after seeing what the gacha did to the alchemy system 😳)
Additional PLAY:
Tekken 8 on Xbox for just 21€ from eneba only four days after release? Oh, go on then.
Has anyone else Played Interaction Isn't Explicit? I think maybe it's PS5 only. Not really a game, more of an interactive YouTube video essay on different bits of game design, where it'll add and take away abilities and mechanics relevant to the concepts it's describing.
It's an interesting idea - but not very polished, unfortunately. The art style is quite abrasive, the UI is too minimalist and doesn't stand out from the gameplay, and the controls are by turns too twitchy and horrendously sluggish, which makes combat much harder and more frustrating than it should be - and it has quite a lot of combat.
It's made me Want to play Museum of Mechanics: Lockpicking.
Infinite Wealth has a Pokemon Snap-style minigame called Sicko Snap where you trundle around Hawaii on a trolley bus taking photos of perverts frolicking in the bushes. GOTY 2024 already.
Japanese games have come a long way. In Yakuza 3 you'd have been the guy in the bush.
The game does clearly observe that at the end of each run of the minigame, you are the one with an entire camera roll filled with pictures of semi-naked men.
I've never related to a game so much.
I'd love to take a look at Infinite Wealth, but I really need to finish Cyberpunk first or else IW's inherent goofiness will make Night City an even more imposing and unwelcoming place to return.
I just don't know whether to tidy up more of the sidequests (at least the ones with the characters I like don't hate) or beeline the plot and be done with it…
BIN - Sorry Bri, but it looks like Spec Ops: The Line is being erased from the face of the earth. Good thing we all already finished it, right?
I suspect that if anyone still cares to play it they'll be able to find it.
