What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[AGermanArtist]

Saros is the game I'm looking most forward to this year. Hopefully they didn't nerf the difficulty too much relative to Returnal.

Also my most anticipated game this yr. They do seem to be going for something more 'accessible' than Returnal, I'd hope they don't get the balance wrong.

[AGermanArtist]

I have an odd relationship with the Yakuza series.
I liked the first on PS2 and its sequel less so.
I played Yakuza 3 on PS3, and while I enjoyed most of what I played, there was many issues with it. I found it incredibly boring in its final third and only saw it through to completion out of desire to see it through, regardless. And it had PS2 jank despite being a HD 'current' game.
I played Yakuza Dead City and it was the worst game I've ever played. A truly awful experience.
Yakuza 3 and Dead City affected me to the point I had no interest in Yakuzas 4/5/6 - I haven't played those games and have no real desire to do so.
I've tried some of the studio's other games - Fist of The North Star and Binary Domain, and while the Fist of The North Star franchise is something I'm interested in (particularly a Sega game) - I just found it and Binary Domain underwhelming, mediocre experiences.
Yakuza 0 reviewed well with the people whose opinions I respect, so I played it and enjoyed it to an extent - it looked better and its gameplay was interesting enough. Better than 3, anyway.
I own Yakuza Kiwami 1&2, but have yet to try them.
With all of this in mind, I tried the Yakuza Pirates in Hawaii demo and immediately loved it.
I picked it up in a recent PSN sale and started it. I'm currently around 5hrs in and while it is more Yakuza, it seemingly has a lot more going for it. It almost feels like a reinvention of the tired Yakuza formula.

I have one major issue with it and it's its exposition. There is too much chatter to skip through. I get the jist and immediately skip.
I'll likely come back and finish this thought at a later state, but I have to say I am really enjoying this.

[it290]

Currently playing Terminator: Resistance; this game is sort of the perfect B tier jank game.

[Sumez]

Saros is the game I'm looking most forward to this year. Hopefully they didn't nerf the difficulty too much relative to Returnal.

Also my most anticipated game this yr. They do seem to be going for something more 'accessible' than Returnal, I'd hope they don't get the balance wrong.

Oof. My only "issue" with Returnal is exactly that I feel like the game is going way too easy on you especially in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. So I wouldn't want to see them moving even further in that direction.

Despite the ability to basically skip back to the section where you died, the punishment for failure is very real - which is what I like about the game. You care about not dying at the boss, just like in any classic arcade game. But as a result they also make it nearly impossible to fail as long as you're being careful. I never felt like playing more skillfully really got rewarded.

[Sima Tuna]

I enjoyed Yakuza 1, 2, 3, 4. I probably would like Yakuza 5 if I played it.

Then I dropped out of the series and now I don't recognize it anymore. I tried Kiwami and it was just garbage imo. Way too much exposition and bad soap opera, pretty weird gameplay (bosses seem to get more bullshitty as the series goes on,) and a TON of filler content that had no value except padding the runtime.

I'm not interested in the bootleg dragon quest gameplay of the newer titles, where they've dropped even the pretense of being beat em ups. I realize some people may like those games more because of that fact... Since the beat em up gameplay always suffered a bit for Yakuza's really shitty-designed bosses who would randomly become invincible, spam super moves and have trucktons of hp. I put a lot of time into the boss ladder in Yakuza 4, using that machine that let you access upgraded boss re-fights and unique encounters. At a certain point, I hit a wall of "this game design is just stupid and not fun, why does this enemy even have this much hp?" The combat engine has potential depth but it's often squandered because the game doesn't play fair and thus doesn't incentivize the player to play fair either. Once you start bringing in weapons and healing items to boss fights, all the balance goes out the window. But if you do try to play fair, you'll be frustrated at the boss becoming invincible whenever they feel like it or counterhitting you with a 3-frame attack you had no telegraph for and no way to react to.

But I know that's not the point of Yakuza games. People like them because... Japan! Minigames! Open world rpg! Talk to people! Live out your Yakuza fantasies! Shop at the conbini! Sing at a karaoke bar! Train hostesses! Race RC cars! Throw a bike at a mobster!

[Sumez]

Yakuza switched from poorly designed beat'em up fights to turn-based combat with barely any tactical involvement. None of these offer great gameplay, but I do think the latter fits the core design of the game better.

[AGermanArtist]

As a beater, RPG walking adventure, you know your game fails when Beads of Good Fortune is a welcome pick-up item, because the combat becomes incredibly tedious. So far with Hawaii Pirates, that doesn't seem to be an issue, since the combat is actually fun. I'm actually seeking it out.
It's like a halfway house between Yakuza and Nioh.

[Marc]

Had my first scalping experience with SNES collecting last night.

End of November I picked up a PAL King of Demon’s cart at a decent price (my SNES in region-free), thinking I’d grab a repro box at some point down the line as I did with ActRaiser 2.

Combination of Xmas, A bunch of new PS5 games and a Switch 2 mean I haven’t fired the SNES up in a few months. Went to play this last night, and up popped, the title screen for Hyperion, of all games. Ouch. Lesson learned.

Speaking of Actraiser 2, I threw this in after and got the ‘not designed for your region’ message no matter which region I set the machine to. Played some Mario World, popped it back in on the off-chance, and…. Success. Weird. Even lets me flip it to NSTC once it fires up. And I’m terrible at the game – unless I’m missing something there are a lot of jumps I can’t seem to make even with the floating double jump?

[Creamy Goodness]

After some frustrating shmup grinds I needed some mindless press A for awesome game that doesn't take very long to complete. So now I am playing Reynatis. Janky af and outside of the Shibuya cityscape looks like a PS2 game, but still I am enjoying it and it is a nice change of pace before going back to the grind.

[BIL]

Speaking of Actraiser 2, I threw this in after and got the ‘not designed for your region’ message no matter which region I set the machine to. Played some Mario World, popped it back in on the off-chance, and…. Success. Weird. Even lets me flip it to NSTC once it fires up. And I’m terrible at the game – unless I’m missing something there are a lot of jumps I can’t seem to make even with the floating double jump?

Great game! Idiosyncratic hardcore. I'm short on time but for now, I always liked this clip from PJ Dicesare, as a short primer on the crucial airborne i-frames.

A tiny but vital detail I love (ah jeez, so many) is how the sword dive will cancel out the skidding landing animation. Divebomb even the tiniest foothold for a safe touchdown. Between the i-frames and the laser-precise landing, dive-twatting all manner of varmints from footing you might assume is too precarious becomes second nature. You can even use it as a poke during flatland combat with heavy enemies, by landing the strike, then swerving back to safe distance. It's a way more flexible game than the Master's lumbering walk might suggest.

[vol.2]

Still working on FF1 in the background. I haven't had as much time to fire up my preferred gaming rig, so I setup this little 9" guy next to my desk so I can passively grind while I'm getting other shit done.

I'm about level 30 now and still haven't done the class change. Supposedly, the BB gets a much bigger MDEF bonus on lvl than the MA, so I figured I'd hold off for now. It also makes the later dungeons a lot more deadly when you can't just cast Exit or Warp when you're getting your ass handed to you.

I still have never played FF2 before, so I might try to do that next. I played FF3 when they did the remaster on the DS and I really liked that one.

[Sumez]

Had my first scalping experience with SNES collecting last night.

End of November I picked up a PAL King of Demon’s cart at a decent price (my SNES in region-free), thinking I’d grab a repro box at some point down the line as I did with ActRaiser 2.

Combination of Xmas, A bunch of new PS5 games and a Switch 2 mean I haven’t fired the SNES up in a few months. Went to play this last night, and up popped, the title screen for Hyperion, of all games. Ouch. Lesson learned.

You know that outside of recent repros, King of Demons only actually came out in Japan, right?
I'm sorry that what you got wasn't an original release, but even if it had been the correct game, it still wouldn't be original. Or had you intended to buy one of those legal/licensed reproductions?

Speaking of Actraiser 2, I threw this in after and got the ‘not designed for your region’ message no matter which region I set the machine to. Played some Mario World, popped it back in on the off-chance, and…. Success. Weird. Even lets me flip it to NSTC once it fires up.

The region lock on SNES consoles prevent a game from launching entirely. If the game has a built-in "not designed for your region" message, that's an additional check coded in software. Usually that one checks for the region mode on the graphics chip, so if you have the option to switch between 50hz and 60hz modes, that will usually do the job.
Also, those checks usually only fire during startup - so once you passed that check, you can change things like you want afterward

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm about level 30 now and still haven't done the class change. Supposedly, the BB gets a much bigger MDEF bonus on lvl than the MA, so I figured I'd hold off for now.

It's true that the BB has the unfortunate problem of getting +4 MDef per level compared to MA getting +1, but you typically won't need to worry about this. a) 3 of your characters should have Ribbons which means full resistances against anything, thus greatly reduced damage and only 3/256 chance of instant kill spells like RUB or ZAP! hitting, and b) you have a White Mage, who after class change can cast Wall spells. Wall, basically gives full resistances like a Ribbon does for the duration of the fight, and can be used during any major fight like the final boss where you don't want someone without magic resistance.

Ribbons are strongly recommended and you generally don't want to go without armor on your BBs except in limited circumstances if you're very high level early on and the Silver Bracelet's not available yet (their unarmored Absorb is equal to their level). Once the Silver and Gold Bracelets become a thing, there's no reason to go without armor.

Also, beating the game is totally doable at level 30, the level cap is 50 for what it's worth and even 40 is considered overlevelled generally. At level 50, a barehanded BB with a FAST buff has an extremely good chance of one-shotting the final boss.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Dear oh, dear, Yakuza combat. I enjoyed first one on PS2 as an interactive movie of sorts (even the US voice acting was cool with me) but the combat, if a bit of silly fun for a while, kept making me think that I enjoyed SO many PS2-gen action-adventure games' combat SO much more... It really is no rocket science - to make you game's combat more fun for the all of game's lasting, than Yakuza makers made their game's combat feel.
In terms of pairing some pretty high production values with underwhelming combat, I would place at least the very first Yakuza game somewhere inbetween Zone of the Enders 2 (NOT the 1st one; that one was okay, combat-wise) and Xenoblade Chronicles (especially their bossfights, I mean, REALLY).
Heck, imagine a GTA-style game where you can run NPCs over in a variety of ways, but its sheer driving vehicles is no great deal of fun to begin with.
That being said, when I play anything these days it's typically ye olde 1st Super Monkey Ball ('Cube one on the Wii), TrackMania (Wii) singleplayer (trying to win more medals; effectively - time-attaccking tracks to hell and back, has yet to grow old on me), or an odd time-attacking Burnout 1 or 2 session. I'm about where I was 5 years ago or so, gaming-wise. Going to go to weekend school next Friday, meaning - my videogaming is likely to become even less of a thing than it's already been lately, so my opinion about any gaming at all is likely to become largely insubstantial whatsoever, as if I were talking about fishing or hunting out of a sudden.
That being said, if Wii is bound to remain the newest console where I'd finished a console game, forever - it won't be an awful record at all. Hella good times were had and if you keep a CRT handy - it's quite a handsome girl of a console to hook up on it every now and then.
I know right! I should introduce my nephew to Gauntlet Dark Legacy singlescreen multiplayer one of these days. Looking at drawings he'd been making of late, it's hard to believe he has never even seen Diablo. So full his head seems to be of such an imagery. Since there is a GameCube version out there (apparently slowdown-ridden at some points) of Gauntlet Dark Legacy and I have a handful of appropriate controllers to play it with, I wonder how he's gonna like it.
Since I tried out Steam on a pair of laptops semi-recently, I'd played some Half-Life 2 there and this time around it struck me how much Ico's (or Another World's, Beyond Good & Evil's...) game design's philosophy there is to it. In that it tries to disguise a videogame as a kind of real-world experience. Not so much interactive movie, as a kind of showcase "reality" indeed. It sucks that makers likely would NOT play BG&E or Halo Combat Evolved with mouse and keyboard controls (where move direction is camera-relative, i.e. pressing "up" not so much makes vehicle go in direction where it's front points, but where mouse-controlled camera does). Why on earth motorboat of H-L2 controls the way it does with mouse and keyboard is a mystery to me. Like, there was already aplenty of games where you walk around as someone controlling camera most of the time who sometimes go vehicular, in FPP too... What particular older game H-L2 is like in this regard, UT2004? I wouldn't really now, having hardly even played it (not terribly into playing with online strangers, I'd preferred the first UT against bots instead).

[Steven]

Got the new Star Trek Voyager game. This game is hilarious and infuriating, and both are because the game is extremely oppressive. Shuttles are death traps. OMG shuttles are so amazingly dangerous to their users that the only thing they are good for is getting people killed while trying to collect resources, which you never have enough of so you're constantly on the verge of game over. The first time I sent out a shuttle, it exploded. Then I built a new shuttle and it happened again. And again. And again. Now I don't expect shuttles or their crews to survive their missions, which also makes them a convenient way to ensure that my crew complement doesn't become unfeasibly large.

This is the Voyager that people wanted but never got until now, the Voyager that is constantly being attacked, is barely able to feed its traumatized crew that dies on a daily basis, and that has no resources and therefore can't fix the systems it needs to survive or repair the endless hull breaches, or at the very least for the crew to not go insane. There isn't just a Year of Hell, it's an Eternity of Hell. But is the game good? I don't know. It's fun in a morbid way, though.

[ryu]

I played Crow Country over the last couple days. It's an indie survival horror title reminiscent of Resident Evil and Silent Hill (although it has its own atmosphere that doesn't compare with either game). It doesn't reinvent the wheel but is a solid title that should be worth playing for fans of the genre. I definitely enjoyed it, even if some of the combat mechanics don't fit the classic overhead perspective and tank controls too well (the game can also be played with modern controls but I assumed that the tank controls were suppoed to be the main control scheme).

[Sima Tuna]

I'm indulging my boomer nostalgia with one of my favorite played-to-death games: Fallout New Vegas. This time on steam deck.

Spoiler

Seems to work fine right out of the box. I know the game has a billion mods but honestly? I never felt any desire to seek them out, because the vanilla experience with DLCs is just so satisfying. There are a few mods that might be nice to add just for variety, but nothing in the game really feels incomplete or like it needs patched. I love everything about New Vegas. The faction system is simply lovely and should have been copied more. Karma is still a dumb idea but that's carried forward from the Bethesda games and basically has no impact on anything. I always steal from everyone yet usually have max faction rep with all "Good" factions. The way the game handles good and evil is excellent too. No faction is really "good" although there are of course some factions closer to the platonic ideal of Goodness than others. The Legion are almost cartoonishly evil (especially at first) but they are well thought-out as an antagonist faction. NCR vs Legion is a fanboy war that has waged for ages. I personally will always come down on the side of Boone in that debate (trying to do the right thing sometimes is better than not trying at all) but it's also not wrong to take a Followers of the Apocalypse viewpoint and see them both as rival gangs fighting over turf, and appropriating the symbols of the past to do so.

New Vegas has some of the best companions of any crpg, let alone any fallout game. The best setting, probably, of any of the games. I love the pseudo-western gimmick because it plays into how "country" folk would have carried forward their version of 1950s culture, just like how the other Fallouts are more generic 1950s nuclear family culture. Well, there's the city and the country, as any "real American" knows, and the two cultures are frequently at odds. People write off the cowboy thing but it's part of the fabric of the entire New Vegas experience.

Gameplay is fine. New Vegas gameplay has always been "fine." I know people say the vanilla game has dogshit gameplay and ok, that's fine to think so. I disagree. It's not nearly as rough-feeling as Fallout 3 was. The game just feels awkward at first because low level gun skill influences your aiming. The major problem the gameplay has is buggy movement and some jank to how holstering/shouldering works, but it's not a deal killer for me. I don't play New Vegas FOR gameplay but at the same time, it's extremely satisfying to run my typical All-Guns Shotgun Build with the lever-action shotgun and get goresplosion-headshots in and out of VATS. Of all the 3d fallouts, this is my favorite implementation of VATS too. FO4 made vats feel useless. FO3 was too jank overall with its combat. New Vegas' combat feels just bad enough at the start to incentivize learning how to use VATS. It's important in an rpg that the rpg elements aren't vestigial (fallout 4, hint hint.)

For some reason, the steam version of the game I have comes with some DLC I didn't have access to on my xbox 360. This particular DLC is weird, because it adds overpowered starter items into the game for seemingly no reason. These include: a lightweight leather armor, a lightweight metal armor, a full-condition caravan shotgun, full-condition 10mm pistol, full-condition grenade launcher(!) and an armored vault suit. The armor pieces are all approximately equal in value. They're not superior to standard leather, metal, etc by very much, but the fact you can have them at level 1 is very overpowered, since normally you'd be getting a leather or metal armor by killing Viper bandits. A caravan shotgun at level 1 is pretty big for shotgun builds, since the caravan shotgun is the first shotgun worth using, and normally you wouldn't get one until Primm (so, not at Goodsprings.) The best armor you normally would have early on is the Powder Ganger Guard Armor, which you can't wear most of the time (since it disguises you as a hated faction.) There might be a leather in Primm somewhere. And I guess there's Nipton's NCR Trooper Armor (on the dead bodies there) but that, again, sets your faction to NCR temporarily, meaning Caesar's Legion aggros. The grenade launcher is OP as fuck, because explosives are all OP and it's the hardest for enemies to avoid of the early options. If you shoot/throw explosives in VATs, everything dies. The really OP thing about the launcher is the full durability will allow you to spam it. None of these items would break the game in themselves, but they really do trivialize any challenge when taken as a whole. I don't mind the armored vault suit as a little extra item to start the game, but I'm baffled who wanted EASIER starts in New Vegas non-survival mode play.

[Marc]

Saros is the game I'm looking most forward to this year. Hopefully they didn't nerf the difficulty too much relative to Returnal.

Also my most anticipated game this yr. They do seem to be going for something more 'accessible' than Returnal, I'd hope they don't get the balance wrong.

Oof. My only "issue" with Returnal is exactly that I feel like the game is going way too easy on you especially in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. So I wouldn't want to see them moving even further in that direction.

Despite the ability to basically skip back to the section where you died, the punishment for failure is very real - which is what I like about the game. You care about not dying at the boss, just like in any classic arcade game. But as a result they also make it nearly impossible to fail as long as you're being careful. I never felt like playing more skillfully really got rewarded.

Jesus, really?
I fucking loved the game, but found it ball breakingly difficult. There always seemed to be one room, usually just before the boss that would contain a combo of enemies that would wreck me, it just felt outright cruel rather than challenging. And restarting from scratch on something where runs were so lengthy....

Loved it in theory, spent more time frustrated in practice.

[ryu]

I struggled for a while in Biome 4 and 5. The game eventually became easy for me in general once I found an overall strategy that worked well for me. Gotta be honest and admit that I already forgot what artefacts I was prioritizing to be successful though

[m.sniffles.esq]

Then I dropped out of the series and now I don't recognize it anymore. I tried Kiwami and it was just garbage imo. Way too much exposition and bad soap opera, pretty weird gameplay (bosses seem to get more bullshitty as the series goes on,) and a TON of filler content that had no value except padding the runtime.

You just said a cotton-picking mouthful.

I think it was zero when I started just instantly lowering the difficultly on any boss because I knew fighting them on normal would just piss me off.
Anyways. I've been kinda/sorta playing through Infinite Wealth, and it seems the general philosophy behind the entire game could be summed up by "MORE". The map is SO large, littered with SO many subquests. The biggest challenge seems to be simply advancing the main storyline, because walking 15 steps in any direction triggers a subquest which are repetitive in of themselves, but if you played 'Like a Dragon' they're REALLY repetitive. Seemingly every subquest character you met in Yokohama is in Hawaii now. Even this wouldn't be so bad if the writing was decent ('Like a Dragon' mostly had pretty sharp writing), but it's not. So you're left with quantity, but not much quality. And who cares if you have a lot of something that's boring?

[Sumez]

Jesus, really?
I fucking loved the game, but found it ball breakingly difficult. There always seemed to be one room, usually just before the boss that would contain a combo of enemies that would wreck me, it just felt outright cruel rather than challenging. And restarting from scratch on something where runs were so lengthy....

Loved it in theory, spent more time frustrated in practice.

Hmm, I've heard another person (who's otherwise seemingly good at many video games) share the same sentiment, but my experience was similar to ryu, where it's more about getting a functional strategy down, and then repeating that. The game is more about being careful than being quick and precise.

Also, I think there's a really huge difference based on which guns you end up using. I can't remember exactly, but I recall there being at least two specific ones which I'd always go for on the first biome before skipping ahead to the later ones, since they made it much easier to kill stuff effortlessly. Did more for me than any of the other upgrades you could acquire during a run.

As such, I'm pretty sure most of my deaths even late-game were on the first biome until I'd geared up

[it290]

I felt that Returnal was tuned just about perfectly. I think my first clear probably took about 20-30 hours, which I feel is the perfect length for a game like this. The only spot that was a bit of a wall for me was the big room with the large robot enemies in the third biome; that level is long and kinda painful. Biomes 4 and 5 were a breeze I felt.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Got the new Star Trek Voyager game. This game is hilarious and infuriating, and both are because the game is extremely oppressive. Shuttles are death traps. OMG shuttles are so amazingly dangerous to their users that the only thing they are good for is getting people killed while trying to collect resources, which you never have enough of so you're constantly on the verge of game over. The first time I sent out a shuttle, it exploded. Then I built a new shuttle and it happened again. And again. And again. Now I don't expect shuttles or their crews to survive their missions, which also makes them a convenient way to ensure that my crew complement doesn't become unfeasibly large.

This is the Voyager that people wanted but never got until now, the Voyager that is constantly being attacked, is barely able to feed its traumatized crew that dies on a daily basis, and that has no resources and therefore can't fix the systems it needs to survive or repair the endless hull breaches, or at the very least for the crew to not go insane. There isn't just a Year of Hell, it's an Eternity of Hell. But is the game good? I don't know. It's fun in a morbid way, though.

I've read you can simply stick two fingers up at the whole thing and just use The Caretaker to go home, thus clearing the game

Do you get generic characters if the main cast die? Asking because fuck Tom Paris and Harry Kim. Legit don't have time for a new game for some time, but this sounds like it could be fun.

[Steven]

Yes, you can use the Caretaker to go home if you want! I believe there is a chance of failure, so you may get stuck in the Delta Quadrant anyway.

Everybody except for Janeway (who can't be hurt by anything and doesn't get to leave the ship, ever, even during Basics) has a generic stand-in in case they die or get stuck in sickbay... except I'm not sure about the EMH. Anyway, if someone dies or is incapacitated or unavailable and is needed for story stuff, there is a replacement for them. Even Seven of Nine has a replacement, Nine of Nine, who joins with Seven. These replacements can't go on away missions or be used to man positions on the ship though, and you DEFINITELY don't want Harry to die because he's extremely good in this game. Thanks to him sitting in my large hydroponics bay (not the normal one, you need the big one), I have literal infinite food and never have to worry about food ever again... until the large hydroponics bay gets blown up and I have to fix it, but that's only a temporary problem. I still send Harry on away missions though because he's extremely good there too, and if you're careful nobody will die. If you mess up at any point, the game will let you know immediately. It's rather unforgiving.

Tom's stats suck though. He's horrible! You still need him for some stuff because he has the Pilot trait that allows him to do unique stuff that others can't. You also don't want him to die because his actor provided some voice acting for the game and if he's dead you won't get to hear it. Same with Tuvok... and my Tuvok died right at the beginning of the game. If you don't care about Tom's voice logs it's probably safe to let him die though lol

Earlier today one of my crew members wasn't able to contain their pet tribble, so it escaped and started eating all of my food and multiplying. It sounds silly, but it really can happen, and I have a screenshot to prove it.

Spoiler

Yeah, you can beam the tribbles to an uninhabited planet, where they will no doubt bring death and destruction to the entire ecosystem. I would have done that if I'd had the tech to do it just to see what Chakotay said, but I didn't, so I destroyed the food and made them starve to death because all I had to do after they died was to go turn on the hydroponics bay again because of Harry's ability to provide infinite food. I've also had metal-eating parasites invade the ship and various other amusing annoyances. The game was clearly made by people who absolutely love the source material and it shows in everything.

It's a fun game in a weird way. I'd say to check out the demo with the knowledge that it gets way better after you're done with the stuff with the Caretaker. The demo is okay, but it is pretty on-rails and it gets better and more interesting after that, which is exactly where the demo stops. It's also rather glitchy, so you might want to consider waiting for fixes. I'm still not sure if I'd consider it a great game, but the devs clearly cared about it a lot.

[Marc]

I felt that Returnal was tuned just about perfectly. I think my first clear probably took about 20-30 hours, which I feel is the perfect length for a game like this. The only spot that was a bit of a wall for me was the big room with the large robot enemies in the third biome; that level is long and kinda painful. Biomes 4 and 5 were a breeze I felt.

I think I spent that trying to clear the first!

[it290]

Everybody except for Janeway (who can't be hurt by anything and doesn't get to leave the ship, ever, even during Basics) has a generic stand-in in case they die or get stuck in sickbay... except I'm not sure about the EMH.

Does Kes age out and die? Do you get the opportunity to kill Tuvix?

[Steven]

Everybody except for Janeway (who can't be hurt by anything and doesn't get to leave the ship, ever, even during Basics) has a generic stand-in in case they die or get stuck in sickbay... except I'm not sure about the EMH.

Does Kes age out and die

Not sure about that. I know you can keep her, but I think you might need Tuvok to do it and my Tuvok died like an hour into the game, so I wasn't able to.

Many hours later edit: yes, you definitely need Tuvok, and I think you also need to upgrade sickbay prior to a certain point partway through Scorpion. I wonder what happens if you have Tuvix, but I doubt that he will work. Will see what happens on third playthrough with Tuvix.

Also just now realized that Fury never happened. Huh. Maybe I missed it? It's possible that they didn't put it in the game. There are a bunch of episodes that are not here, so it wouldn't be completely unexpected.

Do you get the opportunity to kill Tuvix?

If you want to. Tuvok and Neelix both have to survive to that point, and Tuvix is an optional side mission anyway, so there is a chance that you will never encounter him. I don't really see any advantages in having him, as Tuvok and Neelix both are useful, and Tuvix apparently does not fully act as a replacement for either of them from what I understand. I'm doing my second playthrough now and I killed Tuvix, so I'll get him on my third run to see how he is.

I might as well talk about Voyager (the TV show) and how it's integrated into the game.

The devs chose some of the more important episodes and made them the game's main story, and there are a bunch of other, less important episodes like Emanations, Tuvix, or Jetrel scattered around as optional side missions that give you various rewards like EXP for Janeway, new technology or new characters or whatever, and many or all of these episodes have had their stories altered somewhat to accommodate the gameplay and whatever choices you make. That's pretty cool, and there are some interesting decisions made here, and there are also some weird ones.

Maneuvers and Basics are combined into one thing, which makes sense, but it also leaves out some of the more minor plot stuff and even some of the major plot stuff of both of them. For some reason after that you skip directly from Basics to Scorpion, with almost all of the rest of season 3 just not existing at all, but Unity and Distant Origin are side missions. Tuvok and Tom mention offhand that "oh yeah, we got a mobile emitter through various means" in their logs. There might be some more in there that I might have missed or forgotten about, but after checking the list of season 3 episodes, I think the devs skipped most of season 3 entirely. You'd think that at least The Swarm and False Profits would be there, but they aren't, unless I missed them somehow. I think it may be possible to skip Basics entirely, but I'm not sure about it.

As far as I know, the Delta Flyer just straight up doesn't exist in this game. It's weird because you are given the option to build "standard shuttles", which implies that there should be "non-standard shuttles" too, but I have yet to see any. It's entirely possible that I missed it somewhere, but shuttles are not really worth building anyway because they have a tendency to explode and kill people.

If someone that you need dies, is busy with certain plot stuff, or is investigating a planet while you leave to go do other stuff, they are replaced by an NPC who is only there to give dialog in place of the missing character, and these NPCs can't be used on away missions and can't take the place of the main characters in important story-related tasks, so like at one point you're given a choice to have Harry, B'Elanna, Tuvok, or nobody work with Seven, but if Harry, B'Elanna, and Tuvok are all dead, their replacement characters can't do it and you're forced to choose the nobody option. Having main characters die will permanently lock you out of doing some side missions/episodes, so stuff like dead Tuvok = no Tuvix and whatnot, so don't let people die. This probably doesn't apply to minor characters like Carey, or people that you pick up along the way, and I have no idea what happens if someone like Carey or Tuvix dies. On my first playthrough, Tuvok died first, then B'Elanna, both within like an hour of starting the game, and then after that Harry died during Equinox near the end of the game. All of those characters are really good in this game, so that sucked.

Speaking of that, it is entirely possible to send people down to a planet on a mission and then go to the next sector without recovering them, marooning them there. So, yes, if you want to get rid of Neelix or someone else, you can find one of those side missions that involves leaving a team on a planet for a few cycles and then never go pick them up again. I think doing this only puts you at a disadvantage, but if you REALLY hate Neelix or whoever, there you go. You are sometimes given the option to send non-main characters on shore leave, and I think it is possible to leave behind people on shore leave in the same manner. This might be useful if your crew is too big for the amount of food you are capable of producing. I don't really see a need to have more than about 100 to 120 people aboard, so in most cases it's just better to ignore any escape pods or refrain from hiring new crew members.

[AGermanArtist]

8 hours of Marathon's 'Server Slam' - this is not the game that's going to replace ARC Raiders, but it is a very good online game.
I would pitch its gameplay as a cross between COD Warzone's Casuals with Veteran bots and Hunt Showdown, with a Designer's Republic/Paul Nicholson art style. My only issue is the TTK. Your run can come to a grinding halt very quickly. I will pick it up, but I fear it'll end up like all the other online games I have, that aren't ARC Raiders - Elden Ring Night Reign/Helldivers 2/Hunt Showdown/Black Ops 7

EDIT - bought it

[Marc]

Resi Village on PSVR2. FUCK it's good. More enjoyable than 7 so far.

[To Far Away Times]

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