What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Gamer707b]

Been slowly playing through Resident Evil 9. Yesterday had a long 5 or 6 hour session. I'm loving it so far. The only other AAA game I've bought in years is the occasional Nintendo stuff and Resident Evil. Resi 9 is such a polished game. I don't know how far I am into it. Aside from a couple trailers, I'm pretty much playing it blindly. For anyone on the fence, I say give it a shot. If everyone put this much care into their games, maybe I would enjoy a couple AAA games here and there. Hopefully that Code Veronica Remake we keep hearing rumors about will be next.

[AGermanArtist]

Woah holy shit Marathon's amazing.
If you've got it, add me

FUTURESKELETONS#6165

[Lethe]

Very excited for the Slay the Spire 2 Early Access going live tomorrow.

I am impressed they managed to make it even uglier, and are confident enough in their setting to present the player with many story/"lore" tidbits which I instinctively skip past without even looking.

[Marc]

The Castle area of Village in VR is one of the greatest experiences I've ever had. The motion controls add so much immersion it's untrue. Here's hoping it doesn't tail off too badly.....

[Stevens]

Woah holy shit Marathon's amazing.
If you've got it, add me

FUTURESKELETONS#6165

Glad to hearing you're digging it. I think it will find an audience no doubt, but the mandatory wipes kill it for me.

[AGermanArtist]

Woah holy shit Marathon's amazing.
If you've got it, add me

FUTURESKELETONS#6165

Glad to hearing you're digging it. I think it will find an audience no doubt, but the mandatory wipes kill it for me.

I'll see how it goes, but you do level quickly in this with your contracts.
It's not the ARC K1LLA and that's fine. I have time for both. I hate all the unreasonable tribal discourse around it.
Despite being an 'extract' shooter, it's a completely different game. More like Hunt Showdown. I have all 3, but I'd sooner play Marathon than Hunt.

[Steven]

Finally beat Zero or Fatal Frame or whatever you want to call it. I got this on PS3 a long-ass time ago and played it for a while but never beat it for some reason. Only thing I remember about the overseas version is that the English voice acting is really bad and that they changed the main character model to look different for some unnecessary reason. Then I bought a Japanese PS2 copy from a friend a few years ago and proceeded to never play that either. Started finally playing it in July last year and only played about 60% of it and stopped. Last night I loaded that 60% complete save file from July and finished it.

Great game, but kind of annoying to play at times. No invert y-axis fucks me up so badly that I struggle to play the game at times, and the turn speed when holding the camera is not great. Holding square makes it go faster, but it's still not optimal. This is particularly annoying in the second half of the game when you get mobbed by multiple enemies at once, but using headphones helps massively. It seems that the Xbox version, which is called Fatal Frame even in Japan, fixes the controls by letting you invert the y-axis. Not sure if I want to bother with getting the (expensive) Japanese Xbox version just for that, but as I don't have Japanese copies of either of the two sequels, I will try to get the (even more expensive) Xbox version of II, which also has the Fatal Frame title even in Japan, eventually.

Don't really have much to say about the gameplay other than that it's fairly simple (or is it?) and straightforward. Kind of surprised at how short this game is. I think my clear time was 6 hours, 12 minutes, and some odd seconds, which I think is probably not too bad for a first time while figuring out the puzzles in Japanese and especially being completely lost after picking up a 9-month old save mid-game on the third night and having no idea where I was, what I'd done, and what I needed to do because I'd forgotten everything. Ended up scouring the place on the third night to figure everything out, but it turned out okay, obviously. I thought there might have been some alternate endings depending on clear time or whatever, but after finishing the game and checking, nope. There is an alternate ending, but it has nothing to do with clear time.

Has anyone ever played this game for score? You can do that! Not entirely sure why you'd want to other than to upgrade your camera faster, but you can.

[drauch]

Oooh yeah, the US voice acting is nutty. "The roooooooooppppesss, the roooooooppppesssss". Pretty annoying how we got the director's cut/enhanced versions for just the Xbox. And even if you don't want to shell out the cash for those, Xbox emulation is still iffy iirc. I long for that day so I can get rid of this thing. My Xbox is basically a dedicated Fatal Frame machine at this point.

[Sima Tuna]

Finally beat Zero or Fatal Frame or whatever you want to call it. I got this on PS3 a long-ass time ago and played it for a while but never beat it for some reason. Only thing I remember about the overseas version is that the English voice acting is really bad and that they changed the main character model to look different for some unnecessary reason.

Invert y axis master race reporting in.

I actually kinda love the bad English VAs for Fatal Frame... I think horror games sometimes benefit here. I'm not saying "it's so bad it's good" or "I love cheesy shlock." I genuinely believe that off-kilter phrasings, bizarre word choices, unusual inflections and so on can be a huge aid to horror mood. Some of the voice lines in Fatal Frame kinda creep me out and make the horror more effective, because the voices sound so strange. The English audio logs I think can be particularly strong at times. I normally prefer subs, but both Fatal Frame 1 and Siren 1 have English voice overs that hit me hard. Kinda like Silent Hill 2, although personally, I think Fatal Frame and Siren are scarier than any Silent Hill game. Most video game stories aren't effectively scary imo, but Fatal Frame and Siren both land.

I know a lot of people will probably disagree about the dub voices working better to instill a creepy mood precisely because they're unusual, but I've been watching cutscenes of Fatal Frame 1 recently and it still works on me. The sound design overall in Fatal Frame is also excellent. One of the best horror soundscapes in a game, probably tied with, again, Siren and also Kuon, From's secret horror masterpiece.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I genuinely believe that off-kilter phrasings, bizarre word choices, unusual inflections and so on can be a huge aid to horror mood. Some of the voice lines in Fatal Frame kinda creep me out and make the horror more effective, because the voices sound so strange.

Apparently when they were recording for Silent Hill 2 they weren't in the same studio together, which is why it kind of sounds like this. I think it actually worked out well, for the same reasons you've listed.

Silent Hill Homecoming didn't properly support inverting the Y axis to non-defaults. The option's there but it does something weird that I can't remember, but basically means inverting it is useless (it's like it inverts only the non aiming camera but not when aiming a gun or something like that). I also ended up discovering that nowadays on an analog stick, I prefer up being up and down being down for third person shooters, rather than airplane style controls. Tastes change I guess!

[neorichieb1971]

Resident evil Requiem

Its my 5th favorite RE game. If you cut out the cutscenes thats about 2 hours shorter, for me they are too long. I like cutscenes like Shadow of the collossus or God of War, but not when its 3 or 4 minutes each and quite often as well. The story isn't that gripping. I'm on my 2nd playthrough and different things are happening which is nice but its a "oh shit" moment.

I wish the running speed was a bit faster.

I think its a solid 10/10 for graphics but the rest is about an 8. So i'm going with an 8 as my friend gave me his PS5 and its my first game apart from the built in astro game.

[Steven]

Managed to stop playing that super fun Star Trek Voyager game long enough to play Tales of Berseria for about 15 hours. Eh... hard to say at this point, but I don't think this game is that great. A lot of people who have only played 3D Tales games (obligatory reminder to play the 2D Tales games because they're significantly better than the non-Graces 3D ones, and also usually better than Graces) call them mindless spam games, and that's definitely true of this game when playing as Velvet. This is definitely one of the worst 3D Tales battle systems. Positioning doesn't even really matter because precise positioning is now very difficult due to no more 2D movement, which also results in a very slippery, imprecise feeling when attacking enemies, making it far too easy for attack animations to carry you past the enemies and hit nothing. It's also way too easy on hard. All you have to do here to win is be Velvet, mash some buttons and occasionally press R2. That's it. Oh well. Still exponentially better than the impossibly boring Arise, at least.

I've heard Berseria is way better if you don't play as Velvet, as using other characters apparently requires you to actually learn how to play the game properly. Might switch to someone else, but it's very disappointing that enjoying the game requires intentionally not using the main and default character because she's completely broken.

Fatal Frame II remake is out and I got to play it a little tiny bit before work. It's got some technical problems, but setting those aside, it's good. At least, it's good on PC. It runs at mostly 60 FPS on my 2016~2017 PC and looks great, aside from occasional artifacts from the mandatory FSR2. I think I should upgrade my damn computer eventually... not that anything that I want to play really justifies doing it. Death Stranding 2 next week is the real test.

Game's fine so far. Too early to judge it, but I don't really have many complaints beyond enemy HP being perhaps too high. Maybe way too high. Maybe it will get better with an upgraded camera. I hope it does. I will say that god damn this is way better with a mouse than it is playing the first game with a controller. It's so incredibly nice to play a game without being held back by a sub-optimal input device. Thank you for existing, mouse and keyboard.

So I played the original NA version of Fatal Frame II for like 5 or 10 minutes a decade ago or so and stopped because I hadn't finished the first game yet. Now that I've finished the first game and the remake is here, I'm definitely going to play the remake, but I also want to go grab the Xbox version and play that too. On that subject...

Oooh yeah, the US voice acting is nutty. "The roooooooooppppesss, the roooooooppppesssss". Pretty annoying how we got the director's cut/enhanced versions for just the Xbox. And even if you don't want to shell out the cash for those, Xbox emulation is still iffy iirc. I long for that day so I can get rid of this thing. My Xbox is basically a dedicated Fatal Frame machine at this point.

Is Xbox emulation not great? Damn, the system's like 25 years old already...

I have never played an Xbox game on 360, but I know that uses some sort of proprietary emulator, and that the first Fatal Frame has a single broken cutscene on 360. That's not so bad. Annoying, but not terrible. II is apparently perfectly fine on 360, so I definitely will play it there. I guess I could get it on PS2 and save a massive amount of money, but I'd really rather have the best version of the game. I'm also playing it on my modern PC monitor, so having progressive scan instead of interlaced video is also extremely nice... I hope it has progressive scan, at least. I've heard most Xbox games do. Also have no idea how the 360 handles video for Xbox games, both over analog outputs and HDMI. For 360 games I know the 360 relies heavily on upscaling, but no idea what it does for Xbox games.

Finally beat Zero or Fatal Frame or whatever you want to call it. I got this on PS3 a long-ass time ago and played it for a while but never beat it for some reason. Only thing I remember about the overseas version is that the English voice acting is really bad and that they changed the main character model to look different for some unnecessary reason.

Invert y axis master race reporting in.

Hell yeah only way to go, at least with controllers. Not with mouse, of course! Unless you're flying a plane or X-wing or whatever. Then I'll still invert even the mouse. Actually, Star Wars Squadrons plays very nicely with the mouse! Not that anyone plays that anymore, sadly... I stopped being able to find games about 4 to 6 weeks after the game launched. Probably just because of my region or even just time zone differences, but I doubt many people play it even in the USA now. Super fun while it lasted, at least.

I actually kinda love the bad English VAs for Fatal Frame... I think horror games sometimes benefit here. I'm not saying "it's so bad it's good" or "I love cheesy shlock." I genuinely believe that off-kilter phrasings, bizarre word choices, unusual inflections and so on can be a huge aid to horror mood. Some of the voice lines in Fatal Frame kinda creep me out and make the horror more effective, because the voices sound so strange. The English audio logs I think can be particularly strong at times. I normally prefer subs, but both Fatal Frame 1 and Siren 1 have English voice overs that hit me hard. Kinda like Silent Hill 2, although personally, I think Fatal Frame and Siren are scarier than any Silent Hill game. Most video game stories aren't effectively scary imo, but Fatal Frame and Siren both land.

I know a lot of people will probably disagree about the dub voices working better to instill a creepy mood precisely because they're unusual, but I've been watching cutscenes of Fatal Frame 1 recently and it still works on me. The sound design overall in Fatal Frame is also excellent. One of the best horror soundscapes in a game, probably tied with, again, Siren and also Kuon, From's secret horror masterpiece.

I had to go check the Fatal Frame 1 English intro cutscene on Youtube because I couldn't remember how bad it actually was. It's not as terrible as I remembered, but it's still not great. Mafuyu's voice acting is probably worse than Miku's, but I didn't check anything beyond the intro cutscene this time. The way Miku says "My brother was so kind to me..." or whatever in the intro makes me think she's saying this while about to fall asleep after not having slept for a week and a half or something! I think it's kind of funny, so I will give it a pass.

Silent Hill 2, now... that one's voice acting is just hilarious. It also has only the English voice acting, even in the Japanese version, so you literally have no choice lol. I mostly stopped playing that because of the bad controls and because I somehow wasn't able to get it working on Steam Deck, but I did play it for a little bit. I don't know what I didn't do properly on Steam Deck because it's supposed to work there, so I hope I can figure that out.

[ryu]

I just beat the story of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Gotta say I really like the game and the mediocre reception its gotten with a lot of people seems really unjustified. The switch to power armor basically makes this a scifi character action rpg. So in a way this is almost the official scifi Souls game we never got. The open zone environments are actually pretty impressive for a game that's not built on a triple A budget. People who complain about the game's story don't know what they're wishing for because the major issue with the storytelling in this game is that its story would need a full 24 episode anime series to work out properly. Personally I'm glad the devs kept back on the cutscenes. If I wanted to watch an anime I'd watch an anime, not play an action game. Then people complain about lack of enemy variety... when the game probably has more distinct enemy types than even Breath of the Wild. The biggest issue I have with this game is that the dungeons all look the same and are rarely interesting. But the combat and boss fights completely make up for this issue.

tl;dr this might be my game of the year 2025.

[guigui]

The bad reviews on this also turned me off but I may consider it again.
Did you try the 1st daemon x machina ? How does it compare to this one ?

[ryu]

The bad reviews on this also turned me off but I may consider it again.
Did you try the 1st daemon x machina ? How does it compare to this one ?

I like Titanic Scion more than the first game I think. The combat seems to flow better and has more depth... but I'd have to check out the first one again to confirm (because maybe my impression only improved because I got better at this kind of game). The post game in the first game was just grinding online dungeons over and over, which got old fast. Here I still have some quests left over, another DLC region to explore, static and generated dungeons left to check out, various bosses to farm for loot. There's also still the card game I haven't played. What I'm trying to say is that the end game content is more diverse and less repetitive if you want to keep improving your Arsenal after clearing the story.

[Sima Tuna]

I just beat the story of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Gotta say I really like the game and the mediocre reception its gotten with a lot of people seems really unjustified. The switch to power armor basically makes this a scifi character action rpg. So in a way this is almost the official scifi Souls game we never got. The open zone environments are actually pretty impressive for a game that's not built on a triple A budget. People who complain about the game's story don't know what they're wishing for because the major issue with the storytelling in this game is that its story would need a full 24 episode anime series to work out properly. Personally I'm glad the devs kept back on the cutscenes. If I wanted to watch an anime I'd watch an anime, not play an action game. Then people complain about lack of enemy variety... when the game probably has more distinct enemy types than even Breath of the Wild. The biggest issue I have with this game is that the dungeons all look the same and are rarely interesting. But the combat and boss fights completely make up for this issue.

tl;dr this might be my game of the year 2025.

I love power armor games and there are relatively few, let alone good ones. One of the "best" is ironically Fallout 4, which isn't a good game but has amazing-feeling power armor you can stomp around in.

[Steven]

Finally got some more time to play the Fatal Frame II remake. At launch, it took probably way too many shots to kill (??? They're already dead, but...) anything, at least at the very start of the game, by which I specifically mean the first few fights before you can upgrade your camera at all. A day later they patched it and now it's the opposite extreme and now everything dies in 1~3 shots. It needed better balancing, at least for the first few enemies, but this is way too much and now it is way too easy and needs better balancing again to not make the game trivial! I am considering reverting back to the old version, but I will try the higher difficulty setting first to see how that is.

Other than that, game's great so far. Should probably finish tonight. Will definitely buy the original version on Xbox once I get my next paycheck, and I am looking forward to that a lot.

A question for people that play horror games: anyone else think it feels supremely wrong to play horror games during the day? I have done it like two or three times, those being when I was replaying Silent Hill f to get the other endings over with faster (before they patched it. No clue what the game is like post-patch and not planning on finding out) and to do some framerate testing on the Fatal Frame II remake demo, but it feels so wrong that other than these instances I always wait until it's super dark.

I love power armor games and there are relatively few, let alone good ones. One of the "best" is ironically Fallout 4, which isn't a good game but has amazing-feeling power armor you can stomp around in.

Metroid Prime 1 is probably about as good as it's going to get for that. Now I kind of want to play it again! Incredible game.

[ryu]

A question for people that play horror games: anyone else think it feels supremely wrong to play horror games during the day? I have done it like two or three times, those being when I was replaying Silent Hill f to get the other endings over with faster (before they patched it. No clue what the game is like post-patch and not planning on finding out) and to do some framerate testing on the Fatal Frame II remake demo, but it feels so wrong that other than these instances I always wait until it's super dark.

For me the rule is to play when the sun is down, ideally when it's pitch black outside. Definitely broke it too for Silent Hill f for the same reason lol. Not sure what patch you're talking about. You mean the new "easier than baby easy" mode they added?

[Steven]

A question for people that play horror games: anyone else think it feels supremely wrong to play horror games during the day? I have done it like two or three times, those being when I was replaying Silent Hill f to get the other endings over with faster (before they patched it. No clue what the game is like post-patch and not planning on finding out) and to do some framerate testing on the Fatal Frame II remake demo, but it feels so wrong that other than these instances I always wait until it's super dark.

For me the rule is to play when the sun is down, ideally when it's pitch black outside. Definitely broke it too for Silent Hill f for the same reason lol.

Yeah, Silent Hill f was... decidedly tedious when getting all of the endings. It made me dislike the game more than I would have if I'd only played it once, and that is annoying because you MUST replay the game to understand its story, provided the player actually wants to do that. I think I started playing during the daytime partway through my third playthrough just to make it end faster. At least it warns you when you try to skip a cutscene that you have not seen before, so that helps a lot.

Not sure what patch you're talking about. You mean the new "easier than baby easy" mode they added?

This one: https://steamcommunity.com/games/294744 ... 2047950122

made the game easier on all difficulty settings... a month after everyone finished the game. Not sure how I feel about the universal difficulty decrease, especially because I haven't played it since a month and four days before this patch, but that's how it is now.

Now that I think about it, there is supposed to be some sort of collaboration between Silent Hill f and the Fatal Frame II remake. Probably just each game's main characters' (yes, plural possessive, as I'm counting both Mio and Mayu) costume available in the other game or something like that, so I'm not hoping for much.

[ryu]

It made me dislike the game more than I would have if I'd only played it once, and that is annoying because you MUST replay the game to understand its story, provided the player actually wants to do that.

That's exactly how I felt about it too. What a terrible design decision. And then it's not even replayable because if you want to have the full experience again you have to play the game all over 3 or 4 times again. What the hell?? I think I got 3/5 endings so far and decided to go for the remaining ones next horror season or so.

This one: https://steamcommunity.com/games/294744 ... 2047950122

lmao, getting to skip entire parts of the game is wild. That's got to be the saddest change I ever saw to a game. I think I probably like that they reduced damage on hard mode. I played that mode on my first run and some parts of the game were ridiculously frustrating - the first real boss took me 2 or 3 hours of attempts. But I really thought that it was only bosses and powerful enemies that were dealing too much damage. The change definitely wasn't needed on the zako enemies. Can't say I'm thrilled about the other changes. I know I didn't like that the last 30% of the game was one long gauntlet, but I feel like it's lost its purpose when you can just run past everything now. And fewer enemies probably means that the whole game's a walk in the park now, that's just sad.

[Steven]

It made me dislike the game more than I would have if I'd only played it once, and that is annoying because you MUST replay the game to understand its story, provided the player actually wants to do that.

That's exactly how I felt about it too. What a terrible design decision. And then it's not even replayable because if you want to have the full experience again you have to play the game all over 3 or 4 times again. What the hell?? I think I got 3/5 endings so far and decided to go for the remaining ones next horror season or so.

It's sad because there is a good game in here buried under a lot of stuff that makes it annoying to replay. It's mostly great for the first playthrough, but then you get to the second...

This one: https://steamcommunity.com/games/294744 ... 2047950122

lmao, getting to skip entire parts of the game is wild. That's got to be the saddest change I ever saw to a game. I think I probably like that they reduced damage on hard mode. I played that mode on my first run and some parts of the game were ridiculously frustrating - the first real boss took me 2 or 3 hours of attempts. But I really thought that it was only bosses and powerful enemies that were dealing too much damage. The change definitely wasn't needed on the zako enemies.

I think the Fatal Frame II remake nerf patch is probably way worse, honestly... they absolutely neutered this game with that patch from what I have experienced, and given both its severity and that it happened literally the day after launch suggests that it was some sort of unplanned emergency desperation move. I hope they find a balance because it's ridiculous. At least make the higher settings somewhat resemble how they used to be.

Anyway, you could already skip a decent amount of the dark shine (that place's art direction is fucking amazing BTW) on subsequent playthroughs even before the patch, but I do wonder exactly how much skipping you can do now post-patch. The damage reduction on hard and stamina recovery speed increase were not needed changes; I thought hard mode was very balanced already and was my preferred difficulty. What's the point of making hard mode easier? It's supposed to be hard! Damage dealt didn't really seem to change that much between difficulty settings, based on my very limited testing done by smacking the same enemy type with various weapons on a few difficulty settings.

What did change massively between settings was damage received. On normal ("story" I believe is what it was called) you barely take any damage at all, but on hard you had to play somewhat skillfully because the difference in damage received was massive and you can die somewhat easily. Lost in the fog was only a moderate increase over hard from what I remember; it doesn't really change that much... but maybe I forgot since it's been a while.

Can't say I'm thrilled about the other changes. I know I didn't like that the last 30% of the game was one long gauntlet, but I feel like it's lost its purpose when you can just run past everything now. And fewer enemies probably means that the whole game's a walk in the park now, that's just sad.

This is why I'm not sure how I feel about the patch. They removed some (a lot? A little? I don't know) enemies, making the game less tedious, which is good because it was super tedious at times, especially on replays, but removing forced encounters is like... what's the point then? You could say the same for the removed zako too.

The game's already easy enough, even on the highest difficulty; grab three knives, equip the omamori that repairs weapons that are not currently equipped, and there you go. The knife is very fast and extremely powerful, with its only downside being that it breaks easily, so once you get rid of that downside, you can go on a stress-free rampage against everything.

Still, I haven't actually played the game since over a month before this patch and maybe it's better now.

[ryu]

The knife man. I didn't even try it on my first playthrough because I just assumed it would be the worst weapon. The enemies with lots of HP were such a pain lol

[Steven]

Oh no the knife is incredible! Get the knife! The only weapon in the game that is better than the knife is

Spoiler

the fox arm, and even then I'm not sure if its normal attacks are actually stronger than the knife, it just doesn't break or collide with walls or other things and has that super mode or whatever, and its counter is very powerful too. Naginata is maybe also better than the knife, but you don't have it for very long, especially on replays because you get the fox arm early and barely get to use the naginata.

Well, the sun has almost completely set now, so it's almost time play Fatal Frame II remake some more, and maybe even finish it. First need to go buy food.

[Sima Tuna]

A question for people that play horror games: anyone else think it feels supremely wrong to play horror games during the day? I have done it like two or three times, those being when I was replaying Silent Hill f to get the other endings over with faster (before they patched it. No clue what the game is like post-patch and not planning on finding out) and to do some framerate testing on the Fatal Frame II remake demo, but it feels so wrong that other than these instances I always wait until it's super dark.

I love power armor games and there are relatively few, let alone good ones. One of the "best" is ironically Fallout 4, which isn't a good game but has amazing-feeling power armor you can stomp around in.

Metroid Prime 1 is probably about as good as it's going to get for that. Now I kind of want to play it again! Incredible game.

I really love EDF games for my Power Armor fix. I play as Wing Diver because I like power armor that is agile but fragile. If you prefer big, stompy power armor, then the Fencer is what you want. Good suggestion in Metroid Prime, though. It definitely does make you feel like you are piloting a suit, with the multiple layers of interfaces you can access. That's a much-underused element of the suit/mech fantasy: visual and targeting optimization. After all, one of the greatest strengths in combat is access to information.

I usually don't play HORROR horror games. They're too scary for my pansy ass. I can't handle something like Amnesia, Soma, etc. I mostly play survival horror games. Those are more tense and stressful than actually scary. But I don't know... Fatal Frame and Forbidden Siren are two of the only survival horror games that do frighten me a bit.

My favorite survival horror game is PS1 Resident Evil 2 and I'm never scared when I play that. I love the power fantasy push-and-pull, balancing blasting away undead creatures while managing my ammo and inventory slots.

[Sumez]

Gotta love those 50-post long quote chains of "I wonder wtf game these guys are even talking about"

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I love power armor games and there are relatively few, let alone good ones.

I love them too, but I realized that the appeal for me is when it feels like you have that massive bulk alongside mobility from boosters on the armor. Armored Core for instance has that feel (it's technically more of a mecha game due to scale though). EDF 4, 5, and 6 all have the Fencer who, outfitted properly as you well know, gets to be ultra mobile and bulky all at once but there's also stuff like Vanquish that nails it for me. Dead Space I think also hits the aesthetic well, though it's very much a horror game that happens to have powered armor. Wrath of Earth I think is the earliest example of one, though enemies and environmental hazards hit hard enough that you do feel a bit frail compared to say, the doomguy who can wade through toxic waste and lava quite happily. Strania and Astebreed are the two shmups that come closest to nailing the vibe for me. Metal Warriors for the SNES and other similar games also work well for that.

[ryu]

Gotta love those 50-post long quote chains of "I wonder wtf game these guys are even talking about"

lol yeah, I've felt that before when others were quoting back and forth a lot. Guess that's how it is when you've got one thread to discuss every game under the sun.

Oh no the knife is incredible! Get the knife!

Yeah I already learned that on my second playthrough. But only because I had read a comment on the internet that suggested that the weapon was worth using. :/

[Steven]

Fatal Frame II remake done. First ending, anyway. Ending time was 11 hours, 41 minutes, 42 seconds.

It's just past 0300 and eventually I will have to sleep and wake up and go to work today, so I'm not going to write much for now, but I do want to say that it was really good... but I did kill the last boss in only 3 hits and never got hit at all during the very short fight. Yeah.

Many hours later edit: I looked into Xbox emulation and it does indeed seem to not be in an ideal place right now. That is kind of surprising, but it seems that one of the reasons that Xbox emulation is like this is due to lack of interest due to PC ports. Fatal Frame II is broken on xemu, supposedly the best Xbox emulator, so it seems that the most convenient way to play it is on a real Xbox or 360. Looks like I know what I'm doing with my next paycheck. I have a rule that I will not pay more than about 15000 yen for old optical disc games because of how fragile they are compared to cartridges and PCBs. Looks like I might be breaking that rule pretty soon, but not by much, if I can help it.

[AGermanArtist]

Marathon
I've got 30hrs on the release and 12 on the server slam, and I'm experiencing a serious issue with playing Solos. Almost every run, I down the first Runner I encounter and they down me. We both have to surrender and start a new run. There's a great game there and it's kind of ruining it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5kDLjv0bJk

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm tackling Hang-On and Super Hang-On's arcade versions currently. My impression is they're fun, but vastly harder than any Out Run game Sega's made, for a few reasons.

First, there's no coasting to a checkpoint; you game-over the moment you run out of time. Second, and related, the time is way more strict; even with no major crashes, you need to be absolutely flying to reach the finish line. Too many minor bumps or simply going too slow will cost you the race.

Third, Super Hang-On requires you to use the boost. If you're not using it aggressively enough, you won't be going fast enough to win, the time's that strict. Compare this to something like Rad Racer where the time is forgiving enough that you don't really need to be boosting the whole time, and the boost can be used at much lower speeds for more aggressive acceleration, rather than needing to be at your top speed already.

Fourth, the game's traffic doesn't stick to the middle of a lane and is quite difficult to read compared to something like Out Run.

I've 1CC'd Super Hang-On's beginner course, and lost right before the finish on intermediate as well as on Hang-On. Tough games, but fun!