What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Lander]

Inscryption is super cool. Hell of a journey, and one that doesn't demand you be a Magic / YuGiOh savant to make it through, which is nice for those of us without card game genes.

Mullins' earlier Pony Island is also well worth a go if you enjoy a good mystery - toss any preconceptions about aesthetic, you're in for a ride.

Though I didn't really get on with Rayman Origins / Legends. Can't argue with the quality - fun, funny, lovely art, plays tight, stupid amount of variety - but found they miss some difficult-to-articulate X factor of 'classic' Rayman. Maybe it's the focus on pure mechanical platforming over a sense of adventure; the old games had a knack for making the fairytale world feel persistent and real, rather than just nice tilesets to run through.

The Pratchettian treasure chase scenes are great, though

[m.sniffles.esq]

but found they miss some difficult-to-articulate X factor of 'classic' Rayman. Maybe it's the focus on pure mechanical platforming over a sense of adventure

The only other Rayman I played was 2 on the Dreamcast. And I will admit that losing a dimension initially literally flattened the experience for me. THAT SAID, I ultimately came to appreciate how intricate and nutty the 2d universe was, albeit in a different way (as it does lose a bit of the pure exploration and discovery sense of 2).

But I remember playing with my nephew who was probably 8-9 at the time, and hearing him wonder aloud "how come none of my friends have even heard of this game??" I was like "real good question, kid. Probably because there's not a nintendo logo on the package"

[Lander]

2 might be peak in terms of vivid world-discovery; odd places with odder characters living in them, but grounded in creation myth. Cave of Bad Dreams is quite unforgettable!
And shy of the overtly zany margin the series crossed into with 3 and its disco-powered 'world tour' vibe, too. (Though it's still a secret favourite - Doctor Malmstein is a gift )

Rayman 1 is an interesting case, since it's 2D and evidently where L'Origins draws a lot of inspiration from (looking at you, spikeballs that are looking at me!) From some perspectives it's just as abstract, since many of the later stages are configurations of weird themed stuff floating in the sky. But the world map, powers gifted from Betilla, tourist-trap checkpoint guy, and caged Electoon hunting do a nice job of hiding the '30 seconds of fun' loop behind something that feels a little bigger despite being smaller on paper.
Interesting to think about - the series zagged early, then looped back much later to zig and explore what it might have been if Ancel and related artiste-ry hadn't been Ubi's focal point at the time.

I wonder if your nephew's friends would have heard of Rabbids? That's where Rayman stopped mattering, imo; he was almost ray-to-shoulder with the plumber and fast mammal in my playground circles, but ultimately ended up in as a sidenote in his own game (and eventually, universe!)

[XoPachi]

I grabbed System Shock 2. I used to always see this one talked about on G4 as a kid and it was one of those games that mystified me because I just didn't have the hardware to play PC games like that at the time. Nice to finally try this one. I can tell it's gonna be a difficult one to figure out.

[Sima Tuna]

System Shock 2 isn't so hard to figure out if you've played any of the Bioshocks or Prey 2017. Bioshock offers a very scaled-down, consolized version of the same game, functionally. Prey 2017 is more of a sequel in spirit to SS2. Well anyway, the rpg and narrative elements, and the structure of the game itself are nearly identical. I know some people think that every "immersive sim" is like system shock 2 but they aren't. But if you want to know what games are like SS2, well it's Bioshock and Prey, mostly. The interface in SS2 isn't as convenient and there are some annoying elements like... The Elements. The literal elemental table. You can get used to it though.

[Sumez]

I don't think Bioshock managed to retain much of the SS2 feel and design at all. It's a spiritual sequel in name alone, really, if such a thing makes any sense.
Prey however, for sure, owes a lot to System Shock 2. It's ultimately still very much its own thing, but it's the closest anyone has ever come to replicating that.

[Sima Tuna]

I don't think Bioshock managed to retain much of the SS2 feel and design at all. It's a spiritual sequel in name alone, really, if such a thing makes any sense.
Prey however, for sure, owes a lot to System Shock 2. It's ultimately still very much its own thing, but it's the closest anyone has ever come to replicating that.

In gameplay, Bioshock is incredibly streamlined compared to SS2. But in terms of story, progression and characters, it's nearly identical. Polito and Atlas are the same character. Ryan in Rapture serves the same purpose as the Many on the ship, controlling a horde of "zombies". The plot twist is exactly the same. The way the game leads you through with that voiced narration/audio log focus is also just like SS2. The rpg elements were toned down or removed but as many story elements as possible were stolen and reused for Bioshock. Everything science fiction was made into steampunk but otherwise didn't change.

If you know the story of either game then you know the exact story of the other one. It's actually humorous how identical they are.

[XoPachi]

I beat BioShock 1 and Infinite and didn't like either. But I loved Prey '17. I guess I overestimated because I'm having a decent time despite starting on hard mode. It just had a vibe like it was going to be really highly complex.

[Sumez]

If you know the story of either game then you know the exact story of the other one. It's actually humorous how identical they are.

Never once when talking about similarities between the two games did I even bother to consider the story. Always thought the story in Bioshock was dumb as fuck, but it's kind of overshadowed by how dumb the Bioshock Infinite one is.

[Mortificator]

There's at least one part of System Shock 2 that has a looooooot more impact if you've played through System Shock 1 first. I think I nagged EmperorIng into playing 1 way back and he had a good time. I don't know how the 1 remake turned out.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Not expecting anyone to feel my pain, but awhile back I satiated a morbid curiosity by purchasing Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix for like $6, and every once in awhile, I fire it up to be reminded of how incredibly difficult this fucking thing is.

The Switch says I've clocked over 2 hours of game time, and the vast majority has been spent on one two-minute song, that I've yet to even get beyond a failing grade at (I think you need like 60% to just pass, and I've never got beyond like 43%)

It crazes me out that these games are intended for 10-year-old girls.

[Sima Tuna]

Not expecting anyone to feel my pain, but awhile back I satiated a morbid curiosity by purchasing Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix for like $6, and every once in awhile, I fire it up to be reminded of how incredibly difficult this fucking thing is.

The Switch says I've clocked over 2 hours of game time, and the vast majority has been spent on one two-minute song, that I've yet to even get beyond a failing grade at (I think you need like 60% to just pass, and I've never got beyond like 43%)

It crazes me out that these games are intended for 10-year-old girls.

I had the same exact experience with DJ MAX on ps4. I couldn't play for longer than 10 seconds without failing. I simply lack the manual dexterity and quickness of eye to respond accordingly quickly. Perhaps I could memo the entire song with enough persistence, but it was a demoralizing experience. I don't think I've ever failed so hard and so immediately at something that was marketed as "easy" (the song was) in my life. Even my online chemistry course at college, which the professor treated as her vacation time and was absent for damn near the entire term... Even then, my inability to grasp chemistry was less infuriating than DJ MAX. Based on my own impressions, I'd be tempted to call DJ Max the hardest video game ever made. But of course, I know that cannot possibly be true. There are many "hard" games I play which perhaps others would find harder than DJ MAX. Maybe. So I had to conclude that I am incapable of DJ-MAXXING with the zoomers. The evolutionary curve has left me behind.

[XoPachi]

Project Divas background theatrics are very VERY distracting. I could clear some normal difficulty songs quickly enough on the big controller but it starts to get very hard to follow on anything higher.
The one rhythm game that looks impossible to me is Sound Voltex.

[729]

As of late - BMS/7keys.

An absurd amount of free songs available dating from 1998 - present. Contains a difficulty scale with charts that focus primarily on stamina (higher the level = higher the density/bpm; more to read/unpack note by note and physically optimize). Every session feels fresh when playing higher levels and it's genuinely entertaining.

[Lander]

I fired up Borderlands 3 recently, having passed it up during the initial Epic Games hoo-ha.
This may have been a poor life choice.

It's good; not quite up to the clinically-paced SEGA-defrauding gold standard of 2, but plays great, and is as compulsive as ever. The latent narrative had me expecting mediocrity, but so far I'd call it a strong second-best for the series.

Writing and villains aren't as good, and there are too many forced walk/stand 'n chats, but the wacky mad-lib stream of gags a hit or two into the moment-to-moment stream of wacky random. Its real comedy strengths lie in the little emergent things, like a smart-gun occasionally exclaiming WHYYYY? after being thrown as a disposable grenade.

I've been running Amara the Siren with a Brawler build for the first playthrough, which meshes nicely with the manic Quake 1 rushdown playstyle I favor - never stop moving, and treat every second as an opportunity to do something.
The mantle and slide are excellent additions, smoothing over mechanical edges that high-level players were already working around in the last game, and the guns are on-standard for variation, fun, and silliness.

Balance seems to have gone out the window in favor of variety-fun for the initial playthrough: The drop rate has been jacked up to the point where I'm sporting almost entirely legendary-tier gear halfway through the main quest, and spent levels 10-20 instagibbing boss-tier enemies with a Super Shotgun that plays a Mick Gordon noise on refire.

Certainly an effective way to spice things up, though it does highlight the ARPG trope of thousands of weapons, 90% of them trash!

[m.sniffles.esq]

So upon talking to someone more familiar with these things, they informed me that the difficult/borderline unfair difficultly is actually an essential component to the Hatsune Miku brand.

In that, they don't want you passing a song then moving on in five tries, or even fifty. They want you to live every note of the song literally a hundred times (if not more) so it's absolutely drilled into your skull

So that things like this

I had the same exact experience with DJ MAX on ps4. I couldn't play for longer than 10 seconds without failing.

Are actually intended. I noticed with the Miku game, inputs are dead on the vocal melody, so one has no chance until one learns it. Instrumental sections switch inputs between on and off beats (even polyrhythms!) to prevent the player from just tapping whatever input in time. On top of that, they force the inputs to be ridiculously exact. Like I can't even use the pro-controller as the d-pad is too squishy, and the extra tenth of a millimeter is the difference between a hit or miss.

ALTHOUGH. through this I discovered that '"vocaliod" isn't just a name for this cartoon girl with a synthesizer voice, it's actually proprietary software made by Yamaha that's the synthesizer itself. I spent waaaay too long playing with that thing last night. It can even make your natural voice into a vocaliod!

[null1024]

The one rhythm game that looks impossible to me is Sound Voltex.

Sound Voltex is genuinely a lot easier to get into than it looks at first glance [in fact, I very literally started playing after deciding my reaction time was getting too slow and I needed to do something about it], although some of the knob sections eventually get completely nuts and there are songs where you will just have to look it up on Youtube in slow motion instead of actually reading it live.
It takes a while to get to that point though [16s and up, or boss songs in lower levels].
You absolutely need to start at rock bottom [also, you can practice a bit on the attract mode lol: whenever a song is playing, controls are enabled, pressing a key will disable autoplay!].

Also, exactly three bits of advice for anyone: use your thumbs for the L/R buttons rather than palms, twist the knobs with a rolling finger motion instead of using the flat of your palm, and it doesn't actually matter how fast you turn the knob, the game only checks direction, and it's kind of lenient about that too, it's much less lenient about a knob that isn't spinning.

Contrast IIDX, which is exactly as hard to get into as it looks and everyone says. I absolutely made myself able to do it [thank you IIDX.org, learning a proper hand positioning REALLY helped there], but there was a lot of grinding through songs on the Assist Easy gauge and barely passing even then at the start.

A lot of SDVX videos are A: of 17s and up, so extremely high level songs [the scale goes to 20], and B: have people playing with absurdly fast lane speed since it's easier to read for dense sections, but it also means that if you aren't already intimately familiar with the game and controls, you simply cannot follow along at all. It really makes the game seem much, much, much less approachable than it actually is, starting off from 1 and working up isn't too bad in the game.
Honestly, my lane speed is still set to be really slow vs a lot of other players, but I screw up bad when I start increasing it.

So upon talking to someone more familiar with these things, they informed me that the difficult/borderline unfair difficultly is actually an essential component to the Hatsune Miku brand.

In that, they don't want you passing a song then moving on in five tries, or even fifty. They want you to live every note of the song literally a hundred times (if not more) so it's absolutely drilled into your skull

Going from Hard to Extreme in Arcade/Future Tone/Mega Mix/+ is some shit man. The last time I felt quite so annoyed by the difficulty jump was Guitar Hero back in the day [going from 4 keys to 5], and it's not even close to as bad as Project Diva is. I got through most of the song list on Hard [no DLC tracks] and have like 10 songs passed on Extreme and cannot be arsed to keep going.
Hard outright does not prepare you for Extreme, you just have to grind it out. Honestly, I don't think any difficulty in the game actually prepares you for the next. I think it's a fun game, but goddamn.
The other games I play don't really have massive jumps with higher level stuff, it simply just gets harder as you keep moving up the numbers.
The PSP/Vita Project Diva games are at least not that bad with difficulty, although I am not entirely convinced about the timing accuracy in the PSP releases.

I had the same exact experience with DJ MAX on ps4. I couldn't play for longer than 10 seconds without failing. I simply lack the manual dexterity and quickness of eye to respond accordingly quickly. Perhaps I could memo the entire song with enough persistence, but it was a demoralizing experience. I don't think I've ever failed so hard and so immediately at something that was marketed as "easy" (the song was) in my life. Even my online chemistry course at college, which the professor treated as her vacation time and was absent for damn near the entire term... Even then, my inability to grasp chemistry was less infuriating than DJ MAX. Based on my own impressions, I'd be tempted to call DJ Max the hardest video game ever made. But of course, I know that cannot possibly be true. There are many "hard" games I play which perhaps others would find harder than DJ MAX. Maybe. So I had to conclude that I am incapable of DJ-MAXXING with the zoomers. The evolutionary curve has left me behind.

DJMAX charting is kinda intense -- even early on, it's pretty dense.
Also, playing on a gamepad for DJMAX is just really confusing. I absolutely cannot do it -- like, I could probably learn, but I would in fact need to sit there and just grind it out over a few days to get the muscle memory and I am not willing to do it. I play on PC on keyboard and am 200% happier. I'm not particularly young anymore, so I can't just react right from the get go, I need muscle memory backing me up.

As of late - BMS/7keys.

An absurd amount of free songs available dating from 1998 - present. Contains a difficulty scale with charts that focus primarily on stamina (higher the level = higher the density/bpm; more to read/unpack note by note and physically optimize). Every session feels fresh when playing higher levels and it's genuinely entertaining.

I absolutely cannot get the latency in Beatoraja to a level where I like on my desktop. I wish it had exclusive audio mode [or at least a different backend]...

[Steven]

Project Diva games are usually a mess because the difficulty settings are either way too easy or extremely difficult with nothing in between. I've never played it with the arcade controller, but I have heard that that's actually the worst input option, with keyboard being the best I guess. I play them with a PlayStation controller because of muscle memory from the PSP versions. They are good and fun, provided you can tolerate Vocaloid music for long enough to play a few songs, but they can be frustrating at times.

I guess every rhythm game I've ever played is like that though. I have been meaning to go back to playing Arcaea (Switch version, not phone version) eventually, which is probably the best rhythm game I have played so far, but I never do and it disappoints me that I haven't.

[Sima Tuna]

Good point about DJ Max, null. I think part of what I found so disconcerting was playing on a ps4 controller and the layout-to-inputs translation of the chart was like a foreign language for me. I couldn't see what was on the screen and react even remotely fast enough.

I also play Taiko on pad, so the DJ Max pad controls were butting up against ingrained Taiko pad reflexes. The simplest input scheme in DJ MAX I believe still uses four inputs, whereas Taiko has essentially only two (you double up on the same input for a more "powerful" drum hit in that type.)

[To Far Away Times]

I'm about 20 hours into Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Kind of a hard game to evaluate really. I really liked DA: Origins and think it has some of the best writing and memorable scenarios I've ever seen in a videogame. I could still tell you damn near every little detail that happens in that game. I'm not the biggest fan of DA2, but it's a miracle it's atleast playable given it's notoriously rushed development. DA: Inquisition has it's moments, but the writing is clearly a step down, despite feeling much more like a modern game.

Veilguard is a good game by most metrics. There's lots of feel good game mechanics and notable upgrades, the skill trees are excellent, and the combat system is so much better than you'd expect from a game like this. Seriously, combat is pretty fucking rad in this game. It looks expensive at every corner, and it's an incredibly well optimized game. It's got maybe the greatest options and tinkering menus of all time, with a million settings to adjust, with a real time look at your VRAM and in game graphics. Bioware was clearly very proud of the effort they put into optimizing the game. We hear so much about games coming in hot and without enough QA. Dragon Age feels like it was designed to never need a patch. My Steam Deck has no business running a game that looks like this, but here we are.

But Veilguard has some issues too. Characterization of previous characters feels a little off model, and the writing in general, while not bad, is just completely without bite. All dialog choices more or less lead to the same dialog, everything is inoffensive, "quippy," and lacking in substance like a Marvel movie. I can already tell there won't be a scenario as memorable as choosing Alister's fate or making a choice between the mother and the unconscious child trapped in the fade. Something with that much bite simply isn't going to be in this game. If this was the writing that was in DA Origins we would have never got a series out of it.

By all accounts, Veilguard is a good game, but it's not a good "Dragon Age game," if that makes sense.

[729]

I absolutely cannot get the latency in Beatoraja to a level where I like on my desktop. I wish it had exclusive audio mode [or at least a different backend]...

For audio latency, you could check these links out and see if these suggestions are applicable to your setup.
Here , Here, and Here (really interesting article about WASAPI)

My setup is:
LR2HD (WMIX-PLAY) with Borderless Gaming to allow Windowed Full Screen and 165hz natively. Then toggle stock Windows 10 WASAPI (see above) within the LR2 launcher audio/backend options.

I play at 0.0 then handle accuracy and density as is within the upper scale.

I hope the info above was helpful in some way for your 7key adventures.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Okay

Upon people saying they were doing 'level 1' songs, I started to wonder "why am I only seeing level 3?"

I didn't even see the "easy" tab...

So I did the song on level one and cleared it instantly.
BUT, I went back and did it again on level three and FINALLY cleared it with a 50.3

It's sad that I feel like I finally accomplished something. Ms. Miku is now wearing a gasmask

PS The song in question (Aikotoba) has to be the strangest XTC rip-off in existence. If Andy Partridge is twitter or whatever, someone should really bring it to his attention, as I think he'd get a HUGE kick out of it)

[XoPachi]

Revisiting Jet Force on my Steam Deck. I am deeply nostalgic for this one.
I come back to it either in an emulator or on my cart every few years. I always have to wrangle this damn game into submission like a rowdy hog as I unearth the ancient muscle memory for it's controls. Each time I come back to it, I get closer and closer to saying the modern gamer classic, "This Aged Poorly(TM)". And then the controls just click again and I'm fine.

The controls are bizarre but, they work. They make the game unique and able to maintain it's more "mascot adventure" framing they wanted in a 3rd person shooter. I also have to be lenient because A) I've been playing shooters on keyboard and mouse for 16 years now B) controllers in general suck for manual aiming C) even the controller I use for my actual N64 is not THE N64 controller, so I'm not using what the game was built for. Not even close. Also fuck look spring.

I have to relearn how to play a beloved childhood classic each time I return to it but you know? Maybe that keeps it fresh no matter what. I love this game.

[ryu]

Dragon's Dogma II
Beat this one just yesterday. It's a good game but lacks the qualities that made the first game stand out. There's basically no soundtrack. Dragon's Dogma, and especially Dark Arisen, had a good amount of outstanding and memorable tracks. The only music that stood out to me in Dragon's Dogma II is the title theme. Additionally the dark fantasy vibe and atmosphere of the original are almost completely gone. This game feels as generic as it gets.

The world map is larger with more complex topology. Personally I hate this approach to open worlds because I play with a heavy emphasis on exploring everything in detail and always end up wasting hours trying to climb cliffs or rocks with nothing in return, or generally look for secrets that just don't exist. It completely ruins the pacing. Although on the other hand moving across the map definitely felt like a real adventure over and over, so it's not all bad.

I liked the combat in the first game more. Can't speak for the other vocations but I don't like that warriors now play even slower with even more emphasis on charge attacks. I really liked the delayed press combo in the first game and used it just as much as jump attacks and skills. In this game I just spamed skills every fight and it got old fast. Enemies yield way too much XP given how large the map is. If you explore and do side quests you're pretty much bound to be overleveled all the time. The lack of real dungeons also hurts the game. There's some interesting caves, but like in every other open world game most of them are not too interesting to explore with no lore attached to them.

The story is okay but falls apart near the end. Felt like they had to rework it due to development time constraints.

They had a cool idea for the post-game. Unfortunately it's just more wandering around in the open world. I would have preferred a real dungeon to this.

All in all not a terrible game. I had fun with it but it really doesn't stand out much and unfortunately has almost nothing going for it that would make it worth playing over the first game.

Still a good game. If Capcom ever releases an expansion for it I would be down to buy that.

[Sima Tuna]

I lost days of my life to Dark Arisen when it released. I loved that game. Saw a bit of the gameplay for DD2 and I wasn't impressed.

[Lander]

Revisiting Jet Force on my Steam Deck. I am deeply nostalgic for this one.

Gosh, Jet Force - sits next to Mystical Ninja and OoT on my Formative Goodness 64 shelf, but it emulated like a pig for years and didn't get a rerelease until after Xbox shat the bed, so I'd gone and forgotten it.

Shall have to steal the idea, gussy it up in retroarch once this bout of looter-shooter addiction passes, and actually finish it this time - I remember I'd always get to the endgame find this many Tribals to save the world part, conclude that the galaxy was too big for all that, and start a new playthrough

Although on the other hand moving across the map definitely felt like a real adventure over and over, so it's not all bad.

This is the key thing DD2 has going for it, imo. The quests themselves are whatever, often oddly-arranged if you step back and look at the broader progression, but brawling across the realm to get from A to B is great fun.

I guess you didn't dig too far into the other vocations? There's some neat stuff to eke out with cross-class augments, but they stumble at the finish line with Warfarer. Being able to freely mix-match and level the standalone classes all at once is great in theory, but it locks out the stuff that makes them really good, so ends up worse than all of them. Pain in the ass to unlock, as well.

I'd buy an expansion too. Though I don't expect it'll happen now Itsuno has tendered his resignation, since Capcom tend to take their sweet time finding a new the guy when a series gets left headless.

[XoPachi]

Gosh, Jet Force - sits next to Mystical Ninja and OoT on my Formative Goodness 64 shelf, but it emulated like a pig for years and didn't get a rerelease until after Xbox shat the bed, so I'd gone and forgotten it.

Shall have to steal the idea, gussy it up in retroarch once this bout of looter-shooter addiction passes, and actually finish it this time - I remember I'd always get to the endgame find this many Tribals to save the world part, conclude that the galaxy was too big for all that, and start a new playthrough :lol:

This game and some others of the time confirmed for me that an elaborate plot is not necessary for an "epic" game. It just needs appropriate presentation, consistant pacing, and great set pieces.
I love how this game looks. Like massively, absurdly head over heels for it. Some characters are ugly but the environments are like none other. This game is wildly gorgeous from beginning to end. How did they do this? How the fuck did they do it? And Beanland's music is just perfect for every location.

As for emulation, It crashed on me during a boss death cutscene but that might be a memory hiccup having resumed the game from sleep mode.
The only other issue is that the tri rocket launcher reticule and Floyd mission hud simply don't display. I dont know why. I assume the homing launcher will be the same case. I almost didn't notice those because the game was otherwise running 1:1.

[ryu]

I guess you didn't dig too far into the other vocations? There's some neat stuff to eke out with cross-class augments, but they stumble at the finish line with Warfarer. Being able to freely mix-match and level the standalone classes all at once is great in theory, but it locks out the stuff that makes them really good, so ends up worse than all of them. Pain in the ass to unlock, as well.

Played Thief to max, felt like a button masher but I wasn't interested in any of the stealth stuff. Fighter seemed more fun to play than in the first game, but I'm not used to blocking and kept getting stun locked. Makenshi (the one with the magic twin blades) was alright, but I liked the melee skills much more than the magic skills and the class also gets staggered too much in melee. This one needed a dodge button.
Yeah I briefly considered to play Warfarer but the lack of master skills and small skill loadout ruined it for me. Although it might be fun as Sorcrerer/Makenshi mix. Freeze enemies with Deep Freeze or whatever and go in hard with melee swings.

I'd buy an expansion too. Though I don't expect it'll happen now Itsuno has tendered his resignation, since Capcom tend to take their sweet time finding a new the guy when a series gets left headless.

I heard they already got the Dark Arisen guy to head the franchise now, so I'm more worried they might ditch Ikehara because of how harsh people are on 2's story

[m.sniffles.esq]

I set aside Ms. Ms. Miku to finally take a look @ Dredge (which I bought like a year ago for $8)

If you haven't read one of the 188 articles, it's a spooooooky, 'Lovecraftian', fishing RPG, and it's... kinda neat.

I mean, it's a zero-effort time-killing (aka 'chill') affair. But the concept is novel enough to be more entertaining than if you were a dood on a horse harvesting goblin carcasses.

Rated: INSTLAOMCBTPAMAFBNMM

(I need something to look at on my commute, because the people around me are frightening, but not much more)

[NYN]

Played through Thief Gold after a new PC set-up, to finally fill gaps and empty troves (and lose an eye). Leaving computer play behind when the Dark Project was new, and focusing instead on consoles was never a deed I would regret. So coming in decades later it was a trifle daunting, and I am not ashamed to tell that I used a few pointers and some help on the way, since I feel still very clumsy with the whole keyboard as a means to input. In tandem played with Deadly Shadows, that one on XboX for those special loading times, and without any points and helpers, it was all smooth sneak. Incidentally cleared both on the same day. I find the original chaotic in a deeper sense, since it tells how the pagan tribe gets created. The final mission: DESCENT INT0 MADNESS is a pleasing climax: evading those ascending super-freaks on track to the topsy world, while we are descending into the heart of Woodness (and learn where teething creatures are coming from). Just started The Metal Age and can already tell it's about structured order. That leaves the Deadly Shadows as the Keeper part, giving the surprising ending. The Cradle being creepy standout, I found it to be more of a broader appeal and it is appreciated. I am not one for high or even dark fantasy, yet Garret's world has arresting content. The HPL artifact a.k.a. The Eye hissing it's bile (and you just know it makes sense) a strong fave. And I just heart the 3D aesthetics, where models and structure works so distinct, with no timeless sense of realism, that makes it all so endearing.

Call me taffy, I just received the mostly reviled Thief: The Re-loot, and I will definitely play it! No, try not to black-jack me for the best, I already know the risk involved!