What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sumez]

Characters were alright, I liked the dopey lawman and world-creators. I guess i kinda respect how balls-out sequel based the story is? Auldnoir music was top.

Surprisingly the sequel does very little to address all the stuff that's just left open in the first game.
Well, at least not until like the 11th hour kinda postgame sort of stuff.

[Blinge]

Oh. Is the sequel better btw?
think i'm regurgitating your point from months ago Sumez but yeah in one I found the sliding, the running up walls and changing gravity to any surface was cool... but ultimately I rarely did any of it because it's easier to just fly where you wanna go.

[CIT]

Gravity Rush is something you fall in love with for its setting, characters, atmosphere and general charm as you fight a pitched battle to the death with the controls. It's basically Sony's Jet Set Radio.

You hit the nail on its head. The feel of the game really reminded me of Dreamcast and Xbox era Sega. Although I didn’t find the controls too bad, tbh.

[Sumez]

Oh. Is the sequel better btw?

It's better, but suffers from everything the original game did.

[BulletMagnet]

Oh. Is the sequel better btw?

Personally, I finished (and mostly enjoyed, but yeah, that firefighting mission you mentioned encapsulates everything that drove me nuts about it) the remaster of the original but couldn't make it through the sequel; it's been awhile, but two things I remember being distinctly worse were 1) The camera was zoomed in further than before, making it even more difficult to keep track of what's going on around you, and 2) The framerate was cut back to 30 FPS. I made it to (I think) almost the end, but got stuck and frustrated as hell on a particular boss battle and ditched it. In any event I'm sure it's cheap to grab a copy by now if you think you might enjoy it more than I did.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Last game I've memories of playing not on GBA was The Adventure of Little Ralph (one of PSX titles I was testing my arcade stick with). The "just two buttons" policy worked a treat in this one. It may seem like a forced analogy, but I'd felt Metroid: Other M did a similar thing, for me (bringing back the feel of playing with something like a NES pad, with no substantial compromise to the gameplay).
Some years ago, Ballance reminded me how much fun playing a game with just a keyboard can be, and how I'd like more than your usual variety of point-and-click gameplay styles to be cultivated on the platform (that nevertheless are not - with a help of gaming peripherals - essentialy the same as they would be on consoles). I mean, sure, Ballance would work about as well with some other digital controller, but my point is - there's no need to even have one handy for the game to be perfectly playable (whereas no "usual" platform game did it for me on PC without help of a gamepad). Brought me back to the days of GTA 1&2, or the first MGS port, that all played comfortably enough with mere keyboard.

[Mischief Maker]

Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries - Dropship Collection

THIS IS A LIE!

I haven't gotten deeply into a Mechwarrior game since part 2, and to be honest that was mostly about the fantastic music. Mechwarrior 5's music sounds like it belongs in an 80s Saturday morning cartoon. And the mechwarrior 2 soundtrack mod I found on Nexus doesn't work with the new version. So about that gameplay...

Back in the 90s a friend said Mechwarrior games were just slower, crappier first person shooters, and I angrily disagreed at the time. Having played the keyboard/mouse optimized Mechwarrior 5, I'm now inclined to agree.

This game is definitely faster and more difficult than Mechwarrior 2, which is normally something I would like. The problem is this isn't Mechwarrior 2 where limping home in a nearly-dead mech is the taxpayer's problem. This is mechwarrior Mercenaries where not only do you have to pay for repairs, but critically damaged weapons and other parts are lost forever. I read a review saying save-scumming is the only way to keep your sanity in this game and I'm inclined to agree. Now you deal with similar consequences in HBS' Battletech, but being a turn based tactical game I at least have full situational awareness so I can act to minimize losses. In Mech 5 your radar is blocked by cover and your enemies come in swarms.

Jesus, the swarms! It's like they created this game to intentionally prove the impracticality of battlemechs. At all times you're swarmed with tanks and helicopters that are constantly moving, hard to hit, and shooting you with mech-caliber weaponry, stripping away your armor through the death of a thousand cuts. There's an early mission where you face a spider mech and your briefing lady is all worried and telling you to be careful while facing its fearsome two medium lasers and I'm just laughing considering I've already taken fire from dozens of helicopters with a medium laser apiece. And again, this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you'll have to pay for all the damage and you may permanently lose your best parts, so all the excitement of tearing your way through a choked battlefield and barely surviving is replaced by deliberating over whether to load that save file.

The weapon effects are nice, but the maps are dull. I went into instant action to try out an urban map and it was the same mountainous canyon with a 4-square-block fortress surrounded by useless walls, but the buildings inside the tiny compound looked like commercial skyscrapers instead of industrial equipment. Lame.

People said the Heroes of the Inner Sphere DLC is necessary for Mech 5 to feel like a complete game. I shudder to think how empty the experience is without it. If you gotta have a mech game in the FASA universe, get the Battletech game on sale.

And if you want an action game about giant stompy mechs tearing through urban centers with one of the coolest soundtracks in gaming, play Brigador. It's honestly more fun than Mechwarrior 5.

[Mortificator]

Funny thing about tanks that the MechWarrior licensees always change is that in actual tabletop BattleTech they're not strictly weaker than mechs. They have the same crazy futuretech armor, and can carry more firepower, than a mech of equivalent weight. The main way they lose out organically is mobility; game rules are also slighly against them in that their chance of a critical hit is ~6% compared to a mech's ~2% and their fewer discrete locations mean a crit's more likely to screw them over.

MechWarrior, though. Back when Dynamix was making clones of them, I think those were superior to the name brand: Earthsiege 1 > MechWarrior 1, Earthsiege 2 > MechWarrior 2, Starsiege > MechWarrior 3. Too bad they shifted to Tribes and then went out of business.

[vol.2]

I haven't played any Mechwarrior stuff since Harmony Gold litigated the Battletech universe into oblivion.

So I guess I'm not missing much?

[Sumez]

This is pretty much how I remember both Gravity Rush games

[Marc]

Control seems quite neat. Sharp, nice to look at, good atmos, and gunplay is nice and snappy. Best bit is, rreading up looks like it should only take 8-10 hours to complete. I've only played first 45-60 minutes, but looking forward to booting this back up later.

About a third in, Grip has soured just a tiny bit. It's AI cheats to Mario Kart 8 standards, I repeated one race four times because I lead the entire thing start to finish, only to be taken out by a missile literally on the final straight. Three times. In a row. Of course, this takes you far longer to recover from than it does them; I've emptied a full clip of normal missiles into a single opponent to next to no effect. It's also a bit twitchy once it starts to speed up, and car control in mid-air is middling at best - if you nudge a stray piece of scenery or get pushed while taking a ramp, be prepared to barrel along uselessly for quite a while unless you immediately reset - usually ending up completely at the back of the pack. It's still great, and I'd still highly recommend it at the eight quid or so I paid, just be prepared for annoyances.

[guigui]

Control seems quite neat. Sharp, nice to look at, good atmos, and gunplay is nice and snappy. Best bit is, rreading up looks like it should only take 8-10 hours to complete. I've only played first 45-60 minutes, but looking forward to booting this back up later.

About a third in, Grip has soured just a tiny bit. It's AI cheats to Mario Kart 8 standards, I repeated one race four times because I lead the entire thing start to finish, only to be taken out by a missile literally on the final straight. Three times. In a row. Of course, this takes you far longer to recover from than it does them; I've emptied a full clip of normal missiles into a single opponent to next to no effect. It's also a bit twitchy once it starts to speed up, and car control in mid-air is middling at best - if you nudge a stray piece of scenery or get pushed while taking a ramp, be prepared to barrel along uselessly for quite a while unless you immediately reset - usually ending up completely at the back of the pack. It's still great, and I'd still highly recommend it at the eight quid or so I paid, just be prepared for annoyances.

I got Grip on the Switch at high discount. While I can definitely see the great game here, the bad quality of the port totally kills it for me on this support. Which support do you play Grip on ?

[Marc]

I started it on my son's Xbox, then deleted it from there as I wanted to pick it up myself. Then I too picked up the Switch port, and yeah, it's not great. I've finally gotten it for the PS (Pro) and it runs great on there, odd hitch aside.

[Marc]

Played some more of Control last night and I'm really impressed. Runs well on X1X, has a really nice 60's paranormal vibe to it, combat is satisfyingly snappy, and the environmental destruction is brilliant. From memory, it kind of reminds me of a super-charged version of Midway's Psi-Ops from back in the day. Very pleasantly surprised by this.

Atmosphere is good, not Silent Hill good, but effective all the same., I was playing between 11:00-12:15 last night, on my own. In a house we've just moved into that's some 150 years old, with a huge cellar; accessed by a door under the stairs, straight opposite my game room. Sat there playing this and cellar door rattles and bangs on its hinges, dog whimpered and fucked straight off upstairs, and jumped out of my chair and damn near shit myself. Cracked on, but the cellar door kept rattling in its hinges, and I must admit to keep checking over my shoulder while playing. Turns out my partner had left a nearby window open. Been a while since a game has made me that jumpy

[Blinge]

Having another Soujourn in Morrowind. I'm almost at 100 hours and have done very little
This game cool, I like it. Although I guess i'm roleplaying an insomniac because I never sleep, and will not sleep until I can raise 5 points in 3 stats...

[Marc]

Having another Soujourn in Morrowind. I'm almost at 100 hours and have done very little
This game cool, I like it. Although I guess i'm roleplaying an insomniac because I never sleep, and will not sleep until I can raise 5 points in 3 stats...

I actually downloaded that this weekend on Game Pass, despite having had zero interest in either Oblivion or Skyrim. There's something about the atmosphere I can't quite put my finger on that appeals to be a lot more than the other two - sort of thing I could imagine mainlining for a day or two if I get the chance.

[Blinge]

would that be the xbox OG port ?
if so, i have no idea how that holds up.

[Vanguard]

It's a perfectly good port aside from long loading times and no modding support. Obviously the PC version is preferable.

[Ghegs]

Couple of weeks ago I started a project where I'd play through all the Trine games in order. I had finished the first game years ago and maybe the second one as well, but not the expansion of it, and I had never played parts 3 and 4 despite buying them on a GOG sale some time ago.

So, today that journey ended, with all Trines beaten. 'twas good times, mostly. 3 was a weird rollercoaster from start to the short finish. I did like how 4 made some throwbacks to it, with the devs poking fun at themselves. But man, physics-based puzzlers are funky, I do prefer non-physics ones. There were at least two times where I simply tried a solution several times in a row until it magically worked once, and that was enough for me to get past it and never think about it again.

I do admit to looking up solutions for two or three puzzles in Trine 4, mostly because at that point I was on hour 40 of the project and I just wanted to move on already. The length of the last game really surprised me when I looked at my time spent stats afterwards. The first game took me a bit over 5 hours, the second 10 hours, third 4 and a half hours, and fourth a whooping 21 hours! It's longer than the rest of the games put together! Crazy. I did get every collectible in the fourth game and only about 90% of them in the rest.

[Mischief Maker]

Technically speaking you're missing Trine 3.5 by not playing Nine Parchments, but I really don't recommend that game.

[Ghegs]

I have a vague memory of playing a demo of that, but didn't care for it. I do like the idea of using the same universe in different types of games like this.

[Stevens]

After putting 40 hours into Fights in Tight Spaces (cleared it once with a god tier deck) I was looking for more deck building.

Tried Griftlands. I am sure it's great as per the gazillion reviews, but it has this whole RPG aspect that I am not into. Refunded after 10 minutes.

FITS is going to be a tough act to follow. It is just so damn slick.

[Blinge]

The planets aligned and I got to play more Valheim with a bud. We beat the last boss today.
gud game, gud experience.

The iron is a bit annoying seeing as even in the last phase for the best armour you need to go collecting iron again.

[guigui]

After putting 40 hours into Fights in Tight Spaces (cleared it once with a god tier deck) I was looking for more deck building.

Tried Griftlands. I am sure it's great as per the gazillion reviews, but it has this whole RPG aspect that I am not into. Refunded after 10 minutes.

FITS is going to be a tough act to follow. It is just so damn slick.

I'm curious about what you can find in this genre on the Switch ?

[Stevens]

After putting 40 hours into Fights in Tight Spaces (cleared it once with a god tier deck) I was looking for more deck building.

Tried Griftlands. I am sure it's great as per the gazillion reviews, but it has this whole RPG aspect that I am not into. Refunded after 10 minutes.

FITS is going to be a tough act to follow. It is just so damn slick.

I'm curious about what you can find in this genre on the Switch ?

There seem to be a few but for some reason it won't let me link anything. Quite a few threads on reddit.

[guigui]

There seem to be a few but for some reason it won't let me link anything. Quite a few threads on reddit.

Oh gosh, is reddit a real thing ? I only read shmups.system11.org

Well for now I only found Griftlands and Slay the Spire, maybe will be tempted on a price drop.

[vol.2]

Metroid Fusion

I spent three days on the spider robot boss getting creamed over and over again and I remembered by the time I actually beat it that the same thing happened the first time I played the game.

I still love it though, in spite of the uneven difficulty and lack of many established Metroid conventions. I think it's a good candidate for a spiritual sequel (that fixes some of the problems).

[Mischief Maker]

Slay the Spire is the present GOAT for deckbuilders, even though it lacks some QOL features of newer games like Monster Train.

It's an FTL-tier genre-defining game. Fights in Tight Spaces is really fun because it hews so closely to the Slay the Spire formula.

[Sengoku Strider]

SNK vs. Capcom Cardfighters Clash or nothing.

[guigui]

Thank you for the recommendation about deckbuilding games pals.

But does it always have to be roguelike gameplay ? What is the advantage of this in a deckbuilder game ?