Yakuza 5 - still plodding my way through this utterly ludicrous over-stuffed Japanese soap opera. I've been playing Saejima's chapter for what seems like months. I've escaped from a prison, had a snowmobile chase, punched a bear in the face, spent weeks becoming a hunter, punched the same bear in the face again, learned how to carry bowls of hot ramen across slippery roads, and developed the ability to rip lamp-posts out of the ground and beat down enemies with them. It is, as you can probably tell, awesome.
Picross S4 - damn you Mr Party Hat, damn you I say.
The Lord of the Rings Online - still my favourite MMO by some distance, really enjoying this again and it's definitely had a glow up since the last time I played, it looks really quite decent considering its age. As usual I've steamed through to about level 20 then immediately been sidetracked by all the skirmishes, instances and other distractions that open up around that level. But I'm finding lots of new stuff to play that I haven't seen before, and I'm having a lot of fun.
Want
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles - not really new, not even really a Phoenix Wright game, but as close as we'll get to either of those things for a while and something I never really expected to be localised, so I'm all over this when it gets released.
As usual, nothing else, Game Pass plus backlog equals more games than I could ever possibly play.
Bin
I don't really want to have another moan about politics but we are fucked, aren't we? Johnson is untouchable. He could literally kick Dilyn The Dog from one end of Downing Street to the other and he'd still go up in the polls. Brazen corruption, easily disprovable lies, a craven press and an Opposition that's so used to fighting itself that it's forgotten what its purpose is. I'm actually envious of all you Scots, at least you have something to fight for and look forward to. England is lost.
The last poll I saw actually had the Tories down and Labour up. Amazing what a couple weeks of the papers actually reporting on what the Tories are actually doing can do.
To say that I'm dreading tomorrow's Holyrood election is underselling it. This needs to be a majority for Independence or the dream is dead. Even with a majority it's going to be years or arguments and bullshit and legal battles.
Play
Wipeout 3. It's still so good. Works great handheld too. Apparently my thumbs don't work as well as they used to though.
Breath of Fire IV. I played a little of this a long time ago (on my PS2 I think) and I enjoyed it but didn't get far and always wanted to return to it. I'm really enjoying it. Low poly 3D backgrounds with gorgeous sprites on top for the PCs, NPCs and monsters. Gameplay is very JRPG-by-the-numbers but I'm enjoying the post war world it's set in.
D&D. Now running this twice a week to try and finish the campaign before one of the players becomes a dad and takes a break from playing. The last few sessions have been pretty intense, the Tomb of Annihilation likes to screw over players. They just hit level 9 though so I think things will ease up for them from here.
Want
More time to run games. I have so many I want to play and the more I play the more ideas I have for others I want to run.
The 14th. I got excited when the preorder payment was taken from my account this morning…
Play
I've still got an insane amount of Hitman 3 to get through; I've started chipping away at the escalations here and there, and spent a good chunk of last night on the first two Patient Zero missions, which were a lot of fun.
Tabletop has been a bit hit-and-miss lately 'round these parts; our D&D5e game was paused to give the GM some prep time, but the guy running the CoC7e "one"-shot in the interim is a teacher and has been completely wiped out by unreasonable expectations from his school, and wasn't able to run the last couple of sessions. I managed to get most of a session of 13th Age in last week before the new parents in the group had to drop off, and last night's Expanse RPG session was abandoned last-minute because one of the three players couldn't make it.
Want
Time, so I can get back to Dragon Quest XI and Yakuza 7. They're at that "grind for the final boss" stage, so it's hard to get the enthusiasm up to dive back into them properly, but I would like to see the credits on at least one of them.
I'm about 80% of the way done with prep for a Monster of the Week one-shot/campaign intro, which I'd like to run at some stage, but I have no idea when I'll be able to fit it into the schedule.
Bin
Dentists. I knocked one of my front teeth out a couple of weeks ago and getting anything done about it has been glacial. Currently waiting for a referral for a consultation to discuss options.
The state of the world these days sometimes makes me think it'd be easier to just put myself in the bin and be done with it all.
Lunar: Silver Story Complete - I always get sad when my RP2's battery runs out and I can't play this, it's such a nice RPG, even if the bosses feel super RNG to me. Actually blowing my mind that this has so many anime cutscenes.
Monster Hunter Rise - not very hard to fall down the rabbit hole of trying new weapons -> farming to make new sets right now. The last update gave us a new Sword and Shield with 100% affinity (guaranteed crits). So I farmed for that…then I farmed for Layered Armour tickets to make me look like I'm wearing the ninja Nargacuga gear and I'm really looking forward to learning Sword and Shield!
Want
Pokemon Snap 2, Mass Effect Remaster…but I think the one I'm realy looking forward to is Shin Megami Tensei 3 for some reason???
It's a really well liked game, however it's also considered a really hard game, (in)famously so, retweet this image of Matador I'm not actually going to post here to scare a SMT3 fan etc… (Picture…a matador…but it's a skeleton :o).
I loved the story and post apocalyptic feel to it, it's set in the aftermath of an event that Spoiler - click to show called the Conception, that wipes out humanity shortly into the game, shakes up the status quo really badly and creates a really brutal power struggle of certain individuals to create the new world and you becoming strong enough to fight for the side you believe in is where the traditional SMT routes of Law/Chaos/Neutral endings come into it, also something something war between heaven and hell. In between the start and end there's just demons (and Dante from DMC!) trying to kill each other and you for fun, ideology or nature even. I just think it does a really good job of that feeling like that's what is going on rather than you being told is what is going on I guess.
Combat is also great, it's not actually like Persona but similarly rewards you for hitting weaknesses and can severely punish you for not hitting them or missing entirely. It has similar Demon Recruitment and fusion as Persona 5 only they're not your 'familiars' they are literally your party members, so your team feels like your team. Buffs and stuff are important so choices also feel important, because again, the game is brutal.
I think it came out at a nice time too honestly, that era of good PS2 games/RPGs, and it was iirc the first fully 3D MegaTen game at the time and it being as good as it was has sorta' given it that 'FF7/FF10' status to it imo. I hear the remaster has an easier mode now which is great, but I think this is still one of those kinda' obtuse games so you might still need a guide for some dungeons.
Ah, I think I'm getting it day one actually. Might try fight for Law this time.
They did make SMT4 and SMT4:Apocalypse and despite always wanting to get round to them I never did somehow, and honestly I think I'm done with the 3DS unless I somehow happen upon a new 3DS XL or something, so that's that. A shame too because the games actually looked and were said to be really good, they went back to sprites and static image look for battles as the original SNES games had, so there's the whole classic throwback element to them. They had some pretty fucking rad demon designs actually…
(The skull/bull face is genius imo)
But never fear, I'm sure something will eventually come from the Shin Megami Tensei 5 on Switch teaser they dropped on us like 4 years ago, it will come out on the same day as Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4.
Tokyo Mirage – Dungeon-crawl goodness that's perfectly suited to Switch. It's fun, breezy, and bonkers. I think I prefer this to Persona 5; it takes itself less seriously, and has less… everything. In a good way.
Persona 5 – Went back to this on the strength of Tokyo Mirage. I was in a pyramid, but had completely forgotten why. Like Tokyo Mirage, it's crying out for a handheld version; somewhere you can pick up and play ten minutes without committing a day to one of its labyrinthine dungeons. It's clearly an excellent game, I just wish there was less of it.
Golf with Friends – Now in 120fps because, obviously, you need that competitive edge in crazy golf. This is a mainstay of our online sessions.
Ghost of Tsushima –An incredible swansong for the PS4, and just drop-dead-gorgeous on PS5. I'm beginning to think it might outstay its welcome – I thought I was nearing the end but instead the remaining 70% of the map appeared – but so far it's been flipping brilliant.
Want
My hero of a baby to carry on sleeping 10 hours every night, so I can keep updating these threads.
A Switch Lite. The regular Switch is a heavy, creaky bugger, and most of my time with it is handheld right now.
I can't do it now because I have too many games atm but I just remembered I want Nier:Replicant after watching some streams of it, it looks like a really good remaster. If you hated Automata I can't see how a game with worse combat and more jank will change your mind but you might prefer the story and characters (and music but Nier ost is great either way) like I do.
Would also like a remaster of Drakengard 3, but will never happen.
Me and some people at work have put together a tutorial and learning resource pack for making a Mother style game in GameMaker Studio. It's a big tutorial with 9 hours of video and 300 pages of written stuff that explains everything you might need to know to get rolling making actual real honest to goodness videogames. You can get a 30 day trial of GMS2 and full, free access to the tutorial here. https://www.yoyogames.com/en/tutorials/little-town-gamemaker-education
If you're a teacher, have kids, know kids that want to make games, or in fact want to make videogames yourself, this is a fantastic resource and I am extremely biased but we really nailed it with this one.
I was talking about GM the other day, after we announced Game Builder Garage. Really made me miss tinkering and getting stuff to work… I fell off when the enforced purchase for GM2 came in, as I was only entertaining myself and no plans to release anything I'd made. Might have to look into it again.
Can I take a second to appreciate the fact there's a world ending event at the end of Lunar like all JRPGs except this time the shopkeeper tells you you can have as much as you want for FREE? I've never seen that before.
Not done this yet, so on top of the ever-present Isaac and Sea of Thieves…
PLAY Undermine - A nice little roguelike that has a fair amount of depth. The level of having to replay stuff just to save up enough gold to get a little further is a tad overdone, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. It's in Game Pass, if you're interested. Call of the Sea - Also in Game Pass. It's very pretty. First-person point and click with puzzles that vary from easy to 'Oof, my brain'. Pretty decent.
WANT The new Mario Golf - Because it's Mario Golf.
Oh yes! Mario Golf. I'm quite interested in that - we've been playing Everybody's Golf on the PS4 recently and Mario Golf is probably the closest thing to that. Kind of depends on how much stuff it's got in it really but assuming it's decent I think I'd be well up for that.
Also keeping an eye on that Game Maker Garage thing - not sure if at 12 my boy will be a bit old for that but it looks interesting and the Labo system it's based on was pretty clever.
Oh yes! Mario Golf. I'm quite interested in that - we've been playing Everybody's Golf on the PS4 recently and Mario Golf is probably the closest thing to that. Kind of depends on how much stuff it's got in it really but assuming it's decent I think I'd be well up for that.
The Speed Golf mode looks really fun, and they've put Story mode back in like the awesome Game Boy Color game. That's enough for me.
Also keeping an eye on that Game Maker Garage thing - not sure if at 12 my boy will be a bit old for that but it looks interesting and the Labo system it's based on was pretty clever.
I'm a 43-year old 'adult' and I want Game Maker Garage. I'm lucky, because work has decided it's such an important title that I'll get a code free (that happened with New Horizons too). It's definitely not just for young kids. The things people are going to do with it will be awesome. We're not talking Dreams level of insane, but if the Miitopia demo is a sign of how creative people can be with a small amount of tools, this is going to blow that wide open.
Oh, that's dangerous. How far back does it go? Is it just stuff you've played on the Series consoles or does it include Xbox One and 360 results? I dread to think how much time I've spent on Rock Band over the years.
Given I usually only get to play in sorry bursts in the evenings, I was surprised to see I've spent over 3 days on Hitman 3 – which doesn't include the 2 days I spent on Hitman 2 on Xbone or any of the time I put into the PS4 version.
I am tearing through Aria of Sorrow at the speed of fucking light it feels like, it's super fun don't get me wrong but I predicted me getting lost more often and squinting to see parts of the map that weren't outlined with a wall. I really, really like this game's gimmick and how it relates to the story of the game. Is there much more satisfying then absorbing a monster's soul through his gaping chest wound and then using it as your own power???
I also tried Rondo of Blood on PS4, my first time meaning my only previous experience with Richter Belmont is the legendary opening of Symphony of the Night. It's really good! It's not a metroidvania it's level based if that's more your bag. It feels like the NES games on the PC-Engine or whatever this was on. I'm super excited to reach the Dracula fight though I'm expecting the legendary exchange won't take place.
Had a quick look at Paradise Killer hoping for some Danganronpa-style visual novel fun. Turns out there is a very fine line between "this is a quirky and unusual setting and I am intrigued to find out where this is going" and "what a load of fucking bullshit, what idiot came up with this crap" and after half an hour this is firmly on the wrong side of that equation. I'll give it some time…
Yeah, I found this one quite difficult to get into (and in fact, I never did). Any substance it has is buried under an avalanche of style, to the point that even navigating the (unnecessarily complicated maze of an) environment was too much effort.
It's another remaster Luscan won't be impressed by, but I'm really enjoying Shin Megami Tensei:Nocturne Remaster. It's made it look a bit nicer but it's nothing major, they did some cool balancing things and let you choose what skills demon inherit in Fusion now (yes, you had to roll randomly for it back in the day… [/boomer]) but it's still basically a PS2 game.
Game is both archaic and still holds up somehow, on the surface it looks like a by the numbers PS2 RPG that its little brother series, Persona, left behind with a slew of QoL and gameplay improvements. But in actuality it's kinda'…free of some of the stuff Persona limits itself with in the name of accessibility?
The game basically expects you to build your entire team by yourself, your party members aren't using Persona, they ARE the Persona and you will fuse them and change them regularly as opposed to just the main character's. The main character himself even gets skill points at level up and you make a build by choosing where to spend them. It makes combat and planning way more personal and if you're okay with the legwork of it all, it's actually really fun in its own right, if not slighty unfriendly to navigate.
There's little 'story' to speak of, just tons of atmosphere. After the opening events you get very few cutscenes and the story is told almost by having your walk through the post-apocalyptic fallout to mini event to mini event, I don't think even Persona 3 was this sparse overall. Again, this works in the game's favour imo even if you will go from PS2 era dungeon to dungeon to dungeon with no 'town' in between, you feel more isolated and lonely because of it. (It's like, "you were expecting to find a town to sleep in some inn after these sewers? Everyone's dead mate")
Have to reiterate though, it's not a forgiving game, there's an easy mode now but I can't vouch for it since I haven't tried it (and never will, the hostility is part of the atmosphere for me!), but Normal will absolutely kick your ass in places if you don''t know what you're doing.
Speaking of remasters, I've been playing Day of the Tentacle Remastered. I did actually play and complete this but as that was back in 1994 I've forgotten everything about it apart from the solution to one single puzzle, which turned out to be quite useful in the end.
It really is a masterpiece, isn't it? Although adventure games have had a bit of a comeback in recent years, they tend to be more episodic and Telltale-esque in nature, where narrative is prioritised over puzzling. Day of the Tentacle, though, is a huge knot of overlapping puzzles set in three iterations of the same environment and it's absolutely superb. It's not afraid to let you have multiple puzzles on the go at the same time - although there's a sequence of events, it's quite possible to solve later sections before earlier bits and then you get a great rush of things falling into place when you finally crack it. Plus, it's genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, and it's been given a really superb remaster that preserves everything that was good about the game originally while bringing it gently up to date.
The only thing that makes me sad is knowing that this is pretty much the pinnacle of the genre. Well, I guess it's between this and Monkey Island 2.
Full Throttle's good but it's a lot more linear and narrative-based, it's not really the same sort of puzzle sandbox as DOTT.
Grim Fandango's very stylish but just a bit too obtuse.
Sam and Max hasn't had a remaster. Monkey Island 1 and 2 have had remasters but they're pretty hideous.
I'm sure someone out there is making games like this but they're hard to find. Thimbleweed Park wasn't particularly good. Anyone played Lair of the Clockwork God?
I was enjoying it until it took a sudden turn into high-precision twitch-platforming. Got irretrievably stuck and annoyed, and haven't been back since.
I was enjoying it until it took a sudden turn into high-precision twitch-platforming. Got irretrievably stuck and annoyed, and haven't been back since.
This. I liked the idea of the platforming much more than the implementation - kind of wished they'd stuck to straight puzzling. It's very funny in places though.
Also agreed about DOTT/MI2 as peaks of the genre for me. MI2 in particular - at the time it felt like the best game ever (might have been…) - the characters , the humour, the animations, the iMUSE soundtrack was so immersive. Things we take for granted these days </oldman>. The final voodoo potion took much younger me forever to figure out, although I got there eventually… In terms of point n clicks, I have a soft spot for the Indiana Jones games as well, but I think looking back their appeal came from the characters/setting and they never felt as revolutionary as MI2 did.
Point-and-clicks (most of which aren't literally point and click, but you get the idea) I've enjoyed in the last few years:
Obduction – from the guys who made Myst. Thematically very similar to Myst, no Lucasarts-lols.
Broken Age – Tim Schafer's crowdfunded adventure game. Some people didn't like this; I did.
Call of the Sea – Cthulu-inspired tropical island mystery.
Tales of Monkey Island – Telltale's crack at the MI franchise. I really enjoyed this, and I think it was one of their last proper puzzle games before they went all Walking Dead on everything.
Tangle Tower – iPad murder whodunnit with a lot of personality.
But the Lucasarts games were in a league of their own. I've never found anything quite as good.
I was enjoying it until it took a sudden turn into high-precision twitch-platforming. Got irretrievably stuck and annoyed, and haven't been back since.
This. I liked the idea of the platforming much more than the implementation - kind of wished they'd stuck to straight puzzling. It's very funny in places though.
Also agreed about DOTT/MI2 as peaks of the genre for me. MI2 in particular - at the time it felt like the best game ever (might have been…) - the characters , the humour, the animations, the iMUSE soundtrack was so immersive. Things we take for granted these days </oldman>. The final voodoo potion took much younger me forever to figure out, although I got there eventually… In terms of point n clicks, I have a soft spot for the Indiana Jones games as well, but I think looking back their appeal came from the characters/setting and they never felt as revolutionary as MI2 did.
I don't think any game (perhaps DOOM 2016 comes close) matches Tf2 for the absolute blissful gaming flow it creates. It is a ballet of violence. After playing a lot of Apex (and steadily getting worse for some reason) I retreated to the MP here to try to practice more CQC and I've become addicted. Everything about it, how it feels through to how it looks, is magnificent. In shooter terms the connection you feel between your avatar and the environment is unrivalled (on either pad or MK).
It has the flow and pace of (a better) Mirror's Edge coupled with a brilliant set of weapons that feel visceral and weighty. The Titan/player map design and switching remains inspired. Outplaying an opponent always feels good (especially when you plan a route to intercept them in 3D space and pull it off). And seeing a death cam is a great way of dispelling the sense of "how the fuck did you kill me?!?!" which permeates Apex at times. Here there's no excuse - you literally get a video of you being shit to review. But it really is the sound design I think that tips it over the edge. It sounds like a war going on, but the positional cues are perfectly embedded in it. It gives information but also ratchets up the drama alongside the spectacular visuals.
I went from Titanfall 2's multiplayer to Apex and the lack of wallrunning, sliding and double jump just felt like I was missing a limb. Bounced off it really hard :(
Point-and-clicks (most of which aren't literally point and click, but you get the idea) I've enjoyed in the last few years:
Obduction – from the guys who made Myst. Thematically very similar to Myst, no Lucasarts-lols.
Broken Age – Tim Schafer's crowdfunded adventure game. Some people didn't like this; I did.
Call of the Sea – Cthulu-inspired tropical island mystery.
Tales of Monkey Island – Telltale's crack at the MI franchise. I really enjoyed this, and I think it was one of their last proper puzzle games before they went all Walking Dead on everything.
Tangle Tower – iPad murder whodunnit with a lot of personality.
But the Lucasarts games were in a league of their own. I've never found anything quite as good.
I really liked a lot of Obduction, but never finished it due to the ludicrous loading times (on PS4) when you transported between worlds. There's a bit late on when there's a puzzle that needs a lot of experimentation with combinations of settings across 3(?) worlds and I just lost the will… Plus there was a particularly egregious mine cart maze. Still, lots of Mysty fun apart from that, and probably much more accessible on a decent SSD of some sort.
Really fancy Call of the Sea, looking forward to playing that at some point.
I went from Titanfall 2's multiplayer to Apex and the lack of wallrunning, sliding and double jump just felt like I was missing a limb. Bounced off it really hard :(
There's rumours of a Legend that will have Tf2 abilities, but this has been a perpetual rumour for years. The time limited Halloween mode had parts where you played a creature with identical abilities to Tf2 and that was fun, but you could see how it would cause balance issues. The high mobility Legends like Valk, Horizon and Octane do offer a bit of that feel and watching Albraleilie pull off some of the insane shit he does with Valk shows something mobility based that you couldn't necessarily do on Tf2, but it's hard to argue that for all Apex' strengths it doesn't come close to Tf2's flow.
Apex's audio is also, charitably, complete dogshit.
Point-and-clicks (most of which aren't literally point and click, but you get the idea) I've enjoyed in the last few years:
Obduction – from the guys who made Myst. Thematically very similar to Myst, no Lucasarts-lols.
Broken Age – Tim Schafer's crowdfunded adventure game. Some people didn't like this; I did.
Call of the Sea – Cthulu-inspired tropical island mystery.
Tales of Monkey Island – Telltale's crack at the MI franchise. I really enjoyed this, and I think it was one of their last proper puzzle games before they went all Walking Dead on everything.
Tangle Tower – iPad murder whodunnit with a lot of personality.
But the Lucasarts games were in a league of their own. I've never found anything quite as good.
I really liked a lot of Obduction, but never finished it due to the ludicrous loading times (on PS4) when you transported between worlds. There's a bit late on when there's a puzzle that needs a lot of experimentation with combinations of settings across 3(?) worlds and I just lost the will… Plus there was a particularly egregious mine cart maze. Still, lots of Mysty fun apart from that, and probably much more accessible on a decent SSD of some sort.
Really fancy Call of the Sea, looking forward to playing that at some point.
Yeah I gave up on Obduction on PS4. Picked it back up on PS5 and the SSD is a gamechanger. Loads are reduced to a few seconds, most of that just giving the fancy particle effect a chance to play.
Additional PLAY The Wild At Heart - Free on Game Pass, but I remember chasing this for publishing purposes many moons back to no avail. It's very pretty in a stylistic cartoon way, despite a few framerate issues when things get busy. Half Pikmin (you command groups of tiny creatures to do your bidding), half Luigi's Mansion (the main character has a backpack vacuum to suck things up) with crafting thrown in for good measure. It's nice! Bit slow, but with scope to explore and not do the task at hand. Will plug away at it.
Knockout City – EA's volleyball 'shooter' – is surprisingly good fun. If, like me, you thought it looked a bit naff from the trailer, doomed to empty servers in 3 months, give it a go. It's free on Game Pass for a week or so, but worth the money if you want to keep it.
Visually it's… let's just say the devs have been playing Splatoon. A lot. With tracing paper to hand. But the gameplay is very much its own thing, and I think it needs to be applauded for finding a new, genuinely fun gameplay loop.
You basically run around Splatoon maps in teams of 3, picking up volleyballs and lobbing them at the other team. You can catch balls thrown at you by tapping LT at the right moment, pass balls between your teammates (which powers them up), and even turn yourself into a ball to be lobbed by a teammate. For me, the stroke of genius is that your throws lock on to enemies, which allows you to pull off some absolutely hilarious, physics-bending trick shots. And it's pretty easy to catch balls fired at you, too, which leads to some incredible rallies that have more in common with an Olympic ping-pong final than volleyball.
It's more polished, more inventive and more addictive than I ever thought it would be. (It's also reliant on teamwork, so find two friends to see it really shine.)
This did tickle my fancy. I'll have a go, though I doubt it'll stick (I did try to get into Splatoon with a group of passionate workmates, and only lasted a few weeks… competitive stuff isn't really for me).
