What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[guigui]

Have you played Trials of Fire yet?

Trials of Fire looks nice. Is it the same principle ala Slay the Spire where you start every run fresh ?

[Stevens]

I'm honestly kind of terrible at it, the mafia stage where just about every enemy has counterattack is where I hit a brick wall. I've actually been playing almost entirely with the balanced deck out of habit, it seems like whatever deck you have at the start must be replaced by lategame when objectively superior cards of every type start showing up.

Have you played Trials of Fire yet?

I have not but will check it out. Nitro Kid looks interesting too.

Yeah at this point unless you're playing with some sort of self imposed challenge there is no reason not to draft your own. You get the cards you want sooner. Makes it a lot easier. I mean why wouldn't I take throat punch x 3 if I can get it up front?

[Gamer707b]

Been on Star Wars Fallen Order for a few days. I'm loving it! It's kinda weird, because I don't normally play AAA games. And even less when they have a story, but this one has me engaged. Also, I'm in shock that EA published this game. Quality single player, no dlc or micro transaction B.S. Are pigs flying??

[XoPachi]

Fallen Order was great and really refreshing. Respawn makes great work and I can't wait for the sequel.

[ryu]

Metroid Prime Remaster. Enjoying it about as much as I did about 20 years ago (that's a good thing). My only real issue with it so far is that it doesn't work with gamecube controllers via the official adapter. It's a game I can start up whenever to have a good time, make some progress, even if it's just getting to the next save room, quit out, and not have to worry that I'll be playing it for months because I only played 0.0001% of the game. An aspect I've been coming to appreciate a lot again lately.

[Sumez]

Been on Star Wars Fallen Order for a few days. I'm loving it! It's kinda weird, because I don't normally play AAA games. And even less when they have a story, but this one has me engaged. Also, I'm in shock that EA published this game. Quality single player, no dlc or micro transaction B.S. Are pigs flying??

I don't know if Fallen Order is specifically AAA, it's probably a good tad below, making it a safer investment. It definitely doesn't look or feel like one to me at least, which is pretty much exactly what I enjoyed about it.
It felt a lot like a callback to what most of these sort of action/adventure games were like roughly 20 years ago, whether intentional or not. Would be nice if the mainstream game industry would continue going in that direction.

[Marc]

Fallen Order reminded me a lot of the first Prince Of Persia on GC. I really enjoyed it and have high hopes for the sequel. Picked up Spy Bros for Switch. It's.... OK I guess? Feels like they got three quarters of the way toward a finished game then abandoned it. Its not terrible, but there's nothing really grabbing me.

[XoPachi]

I don't know if Fallen Order is specifically AAA, it's probably a good tad below, making it a safer investment. It definitely doesn't look or feel like one to me at least, which is pretty much exactly what I enjoyed about it.
It felt a lot like a callback to what most of these sort of action/adventure games were like roughly 20 years ago, whether intentional or not. Would be nice if the mainstream game industry would continue going in that direction.

Star Wars Squadrons and Jedi Fallen Order were some nice departures from a larger publisher. I was really happy to just get a classic action adventure game.
And I agree. I want more games designed like that and Hi Fi Rush.

[Stevens]

Lots of FITS.

Been really trying to build decks that build combo quick and then cash out.

Three punch combo is a good one, particularly if you can get more than one. If you can palm strike (+2 damage for remainder of fight) you can start stacking some numbers. Hidden blade is nice to have with 3pc since each hit applies bleed. With an upgrade, damage stacks, and a lean deck I've had 3pc up to 13 x 3.

I'm still either drafting or using the aggressive deck. Stabby deck is fun too.

[Mischief Maker]

Oh my god, "The Last Spell" fucking RAWKS!

It's an isometric turn-based tactics SRPG siege battle roguelite against literal armies of the undead, all set to a dunting metal guitar/darkwave soundtrack!

LOOK AT THIS SHIT!

[Sima Tuna]

I'm definitely interested in The Last Spell. I'm waiting to see if the switch port that just released is alright.

[drauch]

I'm (finally) 'deep' into Daggerfall. Not sure how many times I've started it now, only to abandon it almost immediately out of intimidation in it's ridiculous scale. While I'm greatly enjoying it, it's impossible not to admit the size of the game is absolutely stupid. It becomes immediately evident when you search for a specific town, only to find 15 others that sound just like it, all just as insignificant. But on the other hand I do appreciate some of this.

Like going into the city Daggerfall itself -- it actually feels like a city in its size. You don't get that feeling in the others; they all feel like 'towns', with their twenty or so houses. Sure, the roaming denizens in Daggerfall are all mindless, soulless cutouts that bend at the change of your tone. "I won't speak to anyone like that! Besides, I don't know where it's at and I wouldn't tell you anyway!" I change my tone from 'Polite' to 'Normal'. "You'll find that just to the Southeast of here." Lmao.

Stealing is odd. I can steal out of sight of anyone behind a closed room, and the moment I step outside every guard is on me. But I accept a quest to deliver a Daedra heart, with a warning they'll probably be after me. One spawns within the castle of Daggerfall, literally right in front of the King and Queen. It one-shots me and nobody flinches

I'm playing this time in Daggerfall: Unity, with a mod to decrease the infamous dungeon size. I've learned that lesson before. Dungeoning has been fun, but the generated content is widely evident, like everything else. You can really bend this to your desire. Load up a dungeon and its full of werewolves and harpys -- fuck that. Reload and it's all rats and bats. Let's fuckin' gooooooo. When I first went to a castle I was really excited. It was eerie, with flavor text about hanging skeletons and corpses and shit. But after doing multiple of these, it's all the same castle on the outside. The insides vary, either making slight changes or being the same, just with different loot/critters. Disappointing, but I get it.

In the past I hated the amount of roaming idiots in towns, all of which you can talk to. But now I'm kinda digging it. I like that I'm given a quest and it's not immediately clear what I have to do. I actually have to go talk to people, moronic as they are, to get a lead on where to go. Sometimes they'll mark it on your map for you if you get the right person, otherwise I've got to keep chatting until I get a location. I like the lack of hand holding, unlike the modern iteration of a quest where you get a map marker and all the information right at the get-go. But then there's obviously some modern conveniences that I wish were in place. I went through a dungeon to find some explorer doing research, only to be told by him that this magic shield is elsewhere, and I need to go there. No problem, I'm ready for adventure! Then I leave and check my notes, only to realize this particular dialogue was not added to my quest. So I gotta go back in and find this fucker again and write it down, because for some reason I can't copy his dialogue like I can the townspeople. I don't mind writing shit down. I'll gladly learn Lizardspeak in Ultima, but don't give me a half-baked action that I can only use some of the time. And of course it's generated nonsense, like Longsfellow dungeon, so nothing you can actually remember since the game just parses similar sounding words to create the 15K locations. Minor complaint!

And some of these generated quests are hysterical. "Please, you've got to go to this plantation and free this child from the Dark Brotherhood! Beware!" Oh hell yeah, let's do this. I get there and there's a dark presence, evil surrounds me, mention of bad dudes around. But it's only one lady in a kitchen, a non-combatant, then I find the kid in a closet and pick them up, their cherubic face hilariously displayed in the corner of my screen. I 'escape' and get back to town, not an enemy in sight, and collect my randomly generated bounty of 352 septims.

Hmm, maybe more minor complaints than I intended, but not the damper it probably seems, as this is all I want to play at the moment. Learning the short-comings and expecting them are livening up the experience. Plus I gotta level up so I can do some shit for this babe queen.

[guigui]

I'm (finally) 'deep' into Daggerfall.
...

I actually read all of this, and all I could hear in my head was "VEENGEAAAAANCE!"

[Marc]

Deleted Metro Exodus last night. First twoo hours owere a series of cut-scenes with a single path to follow and the odd monster to shoot, with the odd crop stealth bit thrown in. It introduced me to the open world with a fucking boat ride, then one of the smallest, most linear 'levels' I think I've ever played in an FPS. Life is too short when I have Powerslave Exhumed and 4k Quake sat on my HD. I'm saving those for now, might go Doom 64, Crisis Remastered or Deathloop next.

[Stevens]

Oh my god, "The Last Spell" fucking RAWKS!

It's an isometric turn-based tactics SRPG siege battle roguelite against literal armies of the undead, all set to a dunting metal guitar/darkwave soundtrack!

LOOK AT THIS SHIT!

I am really curious but also hesitant. I don't traditionally love the building/resource aspect of stuff like that. What are your thoughts so far?

[XoPachi]

Deleted Metro Exodus last night. First twoo hours owere a series of cut-scenes with a single path to follow and the odd monster to shoot, with the odd crop stealth bit thrown in. It introduced me to the open world with a fucking boat ride, then one of the smallest, most linear 'levels' I think I've ever played in an FPS. Life is too short when I have Powerslave Exhumed and 4k Quake sat on my HD. I'm saving those for now, might go Doom 64, Crisis Remastered or Deathloop next.

Metro is one of those series that immediately looks aggressively boring to me. I dont think I'd want to fatigue myself playing it even if it was free.
I've played enough gritty post apocalyptic FPS games for a life time.

[drauch]

I think it's insane that Metro got as popular as it did. Agree with all your complaints; it's a super boring game hampered by a mediocre narrative that they just cram down your throat with meaningless exposition amidst sporadic action. Absurd so many people have played that series and haven't even touched STALKER.

[Marc]

I've tried every Metro game, and got bored within a few hours, not sure why I thought this would be any different. I guess it being touted as semi-open made me hope for less linear play. Maybe it opens up later, but I'm no longer willing to waste hours waiting for a game to get interesting.

I ditched Chetnobylite before this and that gutted me, as I'm a bit if a Chernibyl needs, so the setting was catnip for me. It was actually kind of interesting in the levels, but forced in a bunch of base building and crafting. Sigh.

I remember loving what I played of Stalker, but my PC was too inept to run it properly. Damn shame it never got any Ports.

[Lander]

Stalker with mods is where it's at - the base games are technical abominations for the most part, but the community has managed to hammer 64-bit support and various bugfixes into its proprietary engine over the years.

More progress has likely been made since my last foray into the zone some ~5 years ago, but the Anomaly megamod was the bee's knees at the time - all of the official games' maps and factions stitched together into one massive A-life slavbox, complete with a campaign that resembles Strelok's journey to the NPP for folks who prefer some direction over simply throwing themselves into the chaos.
Even better is that it doesn't require any of the base games to run, somehow making the best Stalker experience completely free.

Probably the most impressed I've been at an A-life / im-sim sandbox - I think it goes even deeper than the original games, since it simulates many maps at once, keeps you up-to-date on emergent events via pager, and even has a debug map you can pop open to remote-view off-map simulation in real time (or locate important NPCs that wandered into a bandit ambush and died hours before becoming plot-relevant )

[Sima Tuna]

I agree with everyone saying Metro is boring. I bounced off 2033 years ago. The themes resonate with me but the games themselves are bland and shitty. There's a difference between an immersive sim like System Shock and a corridor walking/cutscene sim with occasional shooting like Metro.

Anyone who hasn't played Prey 2017 and likes immersive sims should definitely give it a shot. Probably the last good imsim released by anyone.

[Marc]

Prey was brilliant, something i'd definitely replay if time allowed. Hoping the System Shock remake is up to scratch. Really enjoyed Dishonored 2, so I'll probably have a look at Deathloop next.

[Stevens]

Oh my god, "The Last Spell" fucking RAWKS!

It's an isometric turn-based tactics SRPG siege battle roguelite against literal armies of the undead, all set to a dunting metal guitar/darkwave soundtrack!

LOOK AT THIS SHIT!

GADAMMOT MM. Quit making me buy shit!

I bought it. Still in the tutorial, but yeah I've been looking for something a little different. This will do nicely. Thanks for the rec.

[Air Master Burst]

Anyone who hasn't played Prey 2017 and likes immersive sims should definitely give it a shot. Probably the last good imsim released by anyone.

I feel this so hard, and there's not much announced on the horizon either. I just pray they finish up the Consortium sequel within my lifetime!

[Marc]

Played the first few hours of Deathloop. Feels like a breezier FPS Dishonored, with the odd nod to older stuff. Not exactly sure what I'm found so far, but it's fun.

[Sima Tuna]

I didn't play Deathloop, but I watched a fair bit of it. What I saw looked a lot like an asset flip of Dishonored 2 but with guns.

Arkane's best ImSim is probably either Dishonored 1 or Prey 2017. I can see why people would prefer Prey 2017, but there's something cozy about the watercolor world of OG Dishonored for me. Definitely a game with some flaws (limited nonlethal options may seriously reduce the fun factor for Clean Hands players,) but I still love it.

Maybe I should ask what everyone's favorite Immersive Sim is? I'd probably go with OG Day o' Sex, or System Shock 2.

[Marc]

Oh, Deus Ex by far. It's still peerless in so many small ways. Was only reading the other day about how someone's just disvovered the the small bits of floating debris that blow away after a trash bag catches fire can actually still set off trip wires. Insane detail for a game of its age.

What is it you like less about Dishonored 2? From my playthrough, it just seemed like a more open and varied expansion of the original?

[Sima Tuna]

Oh, Deus Ex by far. It's still peerless in so many small ways. Was only reading the other day about how someone's just disvovered the the small bits of floating debris that blow away after a trash bag catches fire can actually still set off trip wires. Insane detail for a game of its age.

What is it you like less about Dishonored 2? From my playthrough, it just seemed like a more open and varied expansion of the original?

Dishonored 2 didn't grab me for some reason. I like the two playable characters and how their abilities are slightly different. But the levels weren't as interesting to me personally. I didn't like how the art was changed from Dishonored 1 to 2. The story bored me.

Still a perfectly competent immersive sim and far, far above the quality of (for example) the Bioshock games. If I remember correctly, Dishonored 2 also fixed a mild issue with Dishonored 1. Something about either not displaying your Clean Hands Ghost achievement properly or screwing you out of Ghost for various reasons that aren't actually your fault. It was some issue like that. I remember there was some weird bugginess with going for Ghost in Dishonored 1. Dishonored 1's engine also does crazy shit when you start moving too quickly. So Dishonored 2 is probably the more refined and polished experience for those who gel with it. I just prefer the art, atmosphere and level design of the original.

Prey 2017, on the other hand, is everything I liked about Dishonored 1 plus some added depth taken from System Shock 2.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Does Hitman count? I love Deus Ex and System Shock 2, but I feel like the Hitman series is the coolest realization of that concept I've played - of course it lacks the epic, sweeping adventure of Deus Ex, which is still an irreplaceable game, but I feel like the modern three Hitman games feel like a masterful distillation of the immersive sim concept. (And Blood Money is thoroughly excellent as well, outstripping the modern trilogy in some ways too.)

[drauch]

I should probably give Dishonored another shot since I liked Prey so much (except the fawkin' endings). I was so disgusted by the handholding introduction (you can go this way or that way!; hold this heart thing to find this item!; crouch behind this box in the middle of the street to hide from the guard!), only to be plopped into a bland hubworld with a severely uninteresting forced narrative that I discarded it within a couple of hours. I also hate their character design, but the lack of human contact in Prey helped me ignore that. That'sa me problem, I know.

But honestly, going back to Bioshock a couple of years ago for the first time since release I had a similar response. The game treats you like an idiot/child. Maybe an idiot-child. Gigantic arrow pointing where to go, the omnipresent voice telling you to wack a bad guy with a wrench (you can use it as a weapon!), now shoot your electric power into the water. Did you know that water is conductive? Now shoot your flame power on this oil. Did you know that oil burns? Once you're done, be sure to go this way! (I know you can turn the arrow off, thank god. I'm just bitching at baby game design and probably whined about this a trillion times).

Coincidentally, I was reading an article just yesterday on playtesting that mentioned Bioshock. I guess the new RE4make has gigantic yellow X's on boxes and windows and barrels you can break, lmao. Gotta make it clear! Anyhow, one of the dudes that worked on Bioshock had this to say about playtesters, and the eventual give-in to make sure things are absolutely clear for modern audiences:

He described a particularly frustrating incident where a playtester didn’t understand that a machine was actually a resurrection device. “In that test, we had one user walk up to Vita-Chamber and stare at it for about two minutes. Mercifully, they moved on… and then picked up the wrench. Progress! Unfortunately, they then did a 180, went back to that same Vita-Chamber and proceeded to smash it with the wrench for probably another four minutes.”

I have such a hard time with this shit anymore, or these long, drawn out intros. Like hollllllly shit, the Skyrim intro. It's so long and unskippable before you can even play, then you've got the entire introduction dungeon. Oblivion had a similar dungeon, but you at least don't have some clown telling you everything to do, then immediately convincing you to follow him once you escape. Rockstar is getting bad with this shit, too. I know they're obsessed with telling a narrative, but both Red Dead Redemptions start you off in lengthy stretches of handholding and forced narrative before finally letting you go into this gigantic openworld where you can pretty much do whatever you want. It betrays the entire appeal of the game. I thought I was really in the mood for some Red Dead the other week but was already so burned out after that intro and being plopped in a 'hub' of sorts with a million characters that all want to talk to me.

Or maybe I'm just GRUMPY?

[vol.2]

Dishonored is great, especially if you liked Arx Fatalis. You can just about trace it's lineage back to the Ultima Underworld series.

But honestly, going back to Bioshock a couple of years ago for the first time since release I had a similar response. The game treats you like an idiot/child. Maybe an idiot-child. Gigantic arrow pointing where to go, the omnipresent voice telling you to wack a bad guy with a wrench (you can use it as a weapon!), now shoot your electric power into the water.

I've thought about this recently. I've had similar reactions to certain older games. To me, it's similar to the reaction that I have to very long, playable, but often unskippable intro sequences, like in Half Life. The plain fact is that when these games were new, a lot of this stuff had not been done like that before, and the mechanics of the games were new to the point where, yeah, the average player might not understand what to do. Having confused players breaks immersion and causes ppl to quit. So it made sense as a solution to that problem at the time, and it was novel enough to capture attention.

Now most people playing these games are going to have the chops to jump into things and work it out as you go, and there are better, more clever ways to teach players how to play the game, or to introduce new mechanics. Or just using methods that had always been around, but were not widely employed. That's not to say that handholding has disappeared, but I think it looks and feels pretty dated now, and I hear more complaints about it than I used to.