What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

RE5 I think plays a lot better in coop than not, it's a fantastic splitscreen game, glad you got to experience it that way!

[XoPachi]

I meant to come in and say this but Lem's Fragpunk post caught my eye. But I got addicted to StarFox Zero this week.

[AGermanArtist]

I'm playing this game called Black Ops 6 as Ana de Armas (my main movie squeeze) in a cocktail dress, a Terminator Skeleton/Arnold, a Metal loving Satan with his head on fire and super camp COD mascot Archie Atom.
I loved COD4 MW and MW2 to a lesser extent, and quit playing a few months into MW3's release, because I figured it had become a victim of its own success, attracting people new to online games who really shouldn't be playing online games, Normies essentially - the very same people who would've made fun of you for doing so, only 18 months previously.
It just got to the point where it seemed every doorway had some sad cocksucker lurking, and sniping in FFA or camping became the norm when it was once a frowned upon source of shame. And Nuketown, a map that once received groans in the lobbies on its rotation was now a 'fan favourite' among the newcomers. And broken spawns.
12 years later and these problems still exist, but I've seemingly learned to deal with them.
I tried it on Xbox Series S with a month Gamepass over Xmas and got addicted again, so I bought it on PS5 and now have 400+ hours on it, and haven't started its campaign - preferring MP and WZ. I really enjoy this new version of the COD engine (which kind of makes iD Tech feel somehwhat antiquated - I found myself wanting to slide while playing Doom The Dark Ages), and I'm oddly enjoying playing this again. Maybe it was the break, I don't know, but one of my motivations for playing this is punishing people. There's something strangely satisfying about dunking a camper with a petrol bomb/Molotov.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-c3Kk_gsDM

[Marc]

Mario Wonder: which is bloody great. I mean, in fairness, it’s hard for these things to genuinely surprise after 35+ years of play, but this does the best job in a long while. The Wonder Seeds throw an incredible number of gameplay alterations at you, it’s crazy how many ideas they use once and just throw away. Controls are tight, it looks great, and the whole thing just makes me smile.



System Shock Remake: wow, this is old-school. I mean there are no quest markers, no pointers, the map so far is both large and confusing, the combat is nothing special, but I love it. It all still hangs together incredibly well and is a but of a change coming off the back of the Robocop game, which, fun as it was, was pretty superficial. You can definitely see the roots of the immersive sim here even now.

[Lemnear]

I tried Splitgate 2, the gunplay is really Bungie-like, the design is nice too (Warframe x Wipeout) ...but the main mechanic of the game, the portals, is totally superfluous, there is no real way to use them if not as a sort of teleport (and it wouldn't even be a novelty), the jumps you can do through portals are few, the fact that you can't shoot them everywhere like in Portal is absolutely limiting...too bad, I'll try it again but I thought it had "something more"...

[ryu]

Just saw the state of play. Pragmata looks like it could be just one my thing. If it's not going to be a movie game. Please don't be a movie game.

Silent Hill f also looks like it might deliver.

[ryu]

Got to check out F-Zero GX on my brother's Switch 2. Seems to run at 120hz and looks great, but was nigh unplayable with the wireless Gamecube controller they released with the console. Not sure if the problem is because of the controller or the game (probably) running at 120hz (I did not test the game with the console set to 60hz), but I wasn't able to do steer sensitively and kept bumping around uncontrollably.

Mario Kart World was decent. Not as bad as I was afraid it might be but also didn't really hit me the way MK8 did in the few races I played.

[XoPachi]

Playing Phantom Spark. It's basically Trackmania but with a very zen focus and better art style. Granted, not something meant for mods, but that's never been a thing that bothered me for a game. I've been in a mood for navigating circuits following all this Mario Kart buzz so I grabbed this. Seems to have been a great purchase. Having a lot of fun. I like the consistent theme of ardent self improvement the demigod characters push on you.

I tried Splitgate 2, the gunplay is really Bungie-like, the design is nice too (Warframe x Wipeout) ...but the main mechanic of the game, the portals, is totally superfluous, there is no real way to use them if not as a sort of teleport (and it wouldn't even be a novelty), the jumps you can do through portals are few, the fact that you can't shoot them everywhere like in Portal is absolutely limiting...too bad, I'll try it again but I thought it had "something more"... :(

I disagree with this highly. You can use portals to get jumps on people in a lot of crafty ways and they can be used to maintain speed. But you really have to learn maps intensely. Requiring a surface is limiting but in a good way that makes you pick battles smarter and keeps the game from feeling totally random and impossible.
If you could just place portals literally anywhere, it'd be a complete nightmare as you can't exactly account for someone just placing them in some wildly obscure position and just sniping you in a manner you legit could never anticipate or know how to be wary of in the future. They'd have to put some other bullshit limit on the portals that would just kill the pacing I feel. That or the maps would have to be constrained in really unfun ways. I think having clearly defined surfaces in specific locations is the smarter compromise for this sort of game. I'd rather the game also not overemphasize them as the only way to outsmart opponents but something supplementary to expand your skill and map knowledge.

Mario Kart World was decent. Not as bad as I was afraid it might be but also didn't really hit me the way MK8 did in the few races I played.

Yeah, the game's ok. The open world is not terribly exciting as expected but other than Mirror Mode and frivolous costume unlocks, it's nice you are not forced into it and can seamlessly just get to racing. But I wish the circuits were more involved. Grinding, wall rides, and charge jumps hardly ever see any significant use. Trying to be all free form, stringing it all together is always strictly worse than taking the lower, simpler, boring main path. A lot of super wide drift turns and a LOT of long straights. Air time wildly slows you down and you build no kind of momentum if you manage to do a lot of sick shit. You don't even stack boosts from multi tricking. It's only to adjust your aerial trajectory which is kind of not necessary. And water sucks. It's better than the really passive floatiness water areas were in 7 and 8, but it for some reason slows you down and again, stringing cool shit is just outright slower. There's actually some neat water physics going on, but it's not optimal to interact with it at all.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

There's actually some neat water physics going on, but it's not optimal to interact with it at all.

Speaking of which, I'm surprised they haven't done a Mario Kart style Wave Race entry. Wave Race 64 had some really fun water physics to play with, maybe they see it as too high of a skill ceiling for a casual audience though...

[Sima Tuna]

Wave Race 64 was the goat. We need more racing games that were willing to model interesting wave physics.

[Marc]

Wave Race 64 was the goat. We need more racing games that were willing to model interesting wave physics.

I've literally just picked up the Switch N64 pad to play this and 1080 again - they simply don't feel right on a standard controller.

[Daytime Waitress]

Speaking of which, I'm surprised they haven't done a Mario Kart style Wave Race entry. Wave Race 64 had some really fun water physics to play with, maybe they see it as too high of a skill ceiling for a casual audience though...

Which is wild, because whilst I'd argue that it definitely takes a while to learn how to finesse the jetski, Wave Race 64 is pretty much exactly what comes to mind when I think "immediately accessible racing game". Maybe it's the bright colours and sheer novelty of not being in a car or hovercraft or whatever traditional vehicle? Nintendo (near enough to) launch title pretty much screams "casual appeal" at any rate.

[XoPachi]

Wave Race 64 is wonderful if pretty sparse in content. The music is among my favorite Nintendo soundtracks. So much heart and soul.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I think for an early/launch title it's totally fine. You have a great selection of polished tracks with some neat elements like the tide changing depending on the lap, and the physics feel really satisfying. I never owned a Gamecube though, so I never had the chance to play the GC sequel. I assume it's good too, though I haven't heard much talk about it.

[Sima Tuna]

The limited amount of content is also somewhat compensated for by the depth of the mechanics. I remember spending a very long time tooling around in the training area, getting used to how the waves work. Learning the courses with the waves provides added complexity too.

[stellar_light]

I love Wave Race 64 but the Gamecube sequel doesn't feel quite as good to me--it's hard to properly articulate it but doing simple turns that would've been easy in 64 feels much more sluggish and punishing in Blue Storm, especially on Expert where the buoy placements are extremely tight and missing a single turn can boot you out of 1st and all the way into 8th.

[Marc]

Yeah, I also struggle to articulate it, but Blue Storm feels just tiny bit.... stiff? Less fluid?

It's still light-years ahead of any other water-based racer at the time but something's just not quite right compared to 64.

[XoPachi]

This song makes me homesick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8_is9Dfss