I have been playing a bunch of Grand Theft Auto IV on Series S. It boggles the mind how awful every other version is in framerate and framepacing. Even the one downside of cut soundtrack and lack of Vice City FM is easily bypassed with Simple Background Music Player. It also helps that the driving controls are somehow tighter in the X360 release.
They had the foresight to release with an unlocked FPS, Series brute forces it to a locked 60 without breaking a sweat.
The only downside is that the speed messes with one pivotal QTE at the end of the game, you have to really mash the shit out of the QTE button, and I mean mash the absolute *SHIT* out of it.
Despite some shortcomings, I really enjoyed it. I played on Hard (Expert) for about 90% of the game, adjusting down to Normal for the final two bosses, who were total and utter shits.
For those that haven't played it, you've probably heard that the bosses are brutal. It's all true, and they will absolutely wreck you; the difficulty spikes are bonkers!
They had the foresight to release with an unlocked FPS, Series brute forces it to a locked 60 without breaking a sweat.
The only downside is that the speed messes with one pivotal QTE at the end of the game, you have to really mash the shit out of the QTE button, and I mean mash the absolute *SHIT* out of it.
That's a unique one. Destruction Grindstone (for stagger) and Indomitable Amulet/Special Purification Ampules (for shock removal) are a must. Dancing One's Amulet (exchanged for Parade Leader's Ergo) is also a great help for dodging without stamina. A heavy blade on a light weapon handle should stagger pretty well with the grindstone buff. The Arm of Steel Legion Arm charged attack also has pretty good stagger. Second phase can be speedrun using Shotput and Cluster Grenade throwables.
Work has let up for a few days, I watched the Dr Who specials, and have done all side content before the final mission in Cyberpunk, so I’m now ready to hit Dogtown right and proper!
Playing Final Fantasy X for the third time. I played it at release and stopped sometime after one of the Seymour battles late in the game. A few years ago, I reclaimed a PS2 along with this game and gave it a go. The music sucked me in, but the game overall just did not. I quit again 16 hours in.
By chance, I got the music in my head last week. a few years ago, I spent a few weeks perfecting “to zanarkand” on the piano. I decide to boot up the game on my PS2 (via a 27” JVC CRT), and I am fully committed this time. Everything just clicks and I am overlooking the “gamey” aspects.
I am just preparing to enter the Djose Temple. Other than this, I have 40 hours of. Stardew Valley in just a week.
Finished: Alan Wake 2 - Final Draft (Top-tier GoTY contender, more people need to play this).
Currently playing: Popped up some Far Cry New Dawn on Xbox, FPS boost makes a huge improvement. Honestly, this shit is better than the Avatar game they just put out lol. More fun to play.
Next: Baldurs Gate will will be my holiday / January game. Nothing immediate coming out in January that I want to play day 1.
That's a unique one. Destruction Grindstone (for stagger) and Indomitable Amulet/Special Purification Ampules (for shock removal) are a must. Dancing One's Amulet (exchanged for Parade Leader's Ergo) is also a great help for dodging without stamina. A heavy blade on a light weapon handle should stagger pretty well with the grindstone buff. The Arm of Steel Legion Arm charged attack also has pretty good stagger. Second phase can be speedrun using Shotput and Cluster Grenade throwables.
Took me 11 hours to beat The Last Case of Benedict Fox. Had issues with the game but it was still a great Metriodvania
I just finished Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes. Took me a little over an hour to beat it. It was ok
Now I've been playing Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain. Let's just say, I'm impressed. I got past the intro which I really enjoyed. The story is actually good, I'm shocked. I really like the gameplay too. I'm planning on playing more later today
Just started Nier Automata adter finishing all 5 endings of Nier Replicant.
Not gonna lie, the general premise has been spoiled cause the game is memed to death online, but i still hope for some great twists and turns during my play time
I'm currently searching for a fourth star in Super Mario RPG remake. It's my first time playing and I can see why this game is so beloved. There is a lot of charm in it, and I have a lot of fun playing it
I'm also playing GTA 3 on Steam Deck. It works quite well, I'm very close to finishing Portland map. Got some side quests and final Salvatore's mission left
At home over the holidays and decided to boot up my PS3. First up I've decided to make my way through the Prince of Persia trilogy HD. Past couple days I made my way through Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. It was fun but as a massive fan of Sands of Time the decision to make the character and story dark really loses the charm and what made he first game so good. The parkour and new mechanic of jumping between a past and present version of the castle is pretty cool. The environments are not as memorable as the first but it's cool to see the interconnectedness when traversing.
They definitely tried too hard to make the prince dark and edgy, together with the nu-metalish soundtrack. I had fun with it but nowhere near as great as the first one.
Now onto the Two Thrones.
Got the true ending in Armored Core 6 this weekend, was a very stressfull affair so I decided to pivot to something a bit lighter and I am now well underway in Pikmin 4. Been enjoying it a lot, game is funny and looks great and it is a very welcome change of pace.
Also played some Far Cry 6 since it was on Gamepass for PC. Got to the second small island but hasn't really grabbed me yet.
Took me some time to clear Yakuza 5, so now I'm half way through Yakuza 6. Also slowly making my way through GTAIV campaign (again). This is all on the Deck.
I'm about 40 hours into Cyberpunk 2077 on PC, with glorious path tracing. The game did not grab me untill the 2.0 update, but now I'm loving it!
Also bought a proper sim setup from a friend (missing a 6 speed manual though), so I'm playing a lot of Automobilista 2, Assetto Corsa and some iRacing.
Got into POE's new season; Im a veteran of at least 10 years... So nostalgic of my unemployed days when I would play all day with my German cougar....
At least this morning I made sure I was at a satisfying point(End of act 4 and first ascendancy done) before getting ready for work... and soooo eager to get back home....
Splurged on MTX out of rage against capitalism and working life.
With all the expensive console and audio visual kit around my place. Yet I'm humbled to say I'm spending far too much time playing a game on my Chrome desktop browser: LiChess.org Great chess with excellent online rules and pairing.
I'm also back to night city again on PS5. Visually its a bit ropey at times and even with VRR there's some areas which drop far too low. Other times it looks pretty good. Its the first game where I had to use a special aiming joystick curve adjustment on my DualSense Edge to get the controls to feel right/normal. But for the most part the gameplay since 2.0 carries it onwards regardless.
Playing two games off and on: Dues Ex: Mankind Divided and Crysis 3 Remastered. Mankind Divided is so damn good. Love how talking to randoms sometimes reveal info that can be exploited while talking to NPCs to solve missions without combat.
Just bought this on Steam for $5. Will give it a go during the holidays.
Was thinking about Gloomhaven for $20 and Songs of Conquest for $17 on GOG too. But Gloomhaven videos look pretty boring and slow, and SOC only has 4 factions. Maybe I'll at them again in 2024.
Finished Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Big improvement on Warrior Within. Much more interesting environments and much larger focus on the platforming. The addition of stealth kills also reduces the amount of monotonous combat encounters. The game also has narration like Sands of Time which was needed, Warrior Within felt so threadbare without it.
Wraps up the trilogy well and is stylistically more in tune with the first game, righting the poor decisions taken for the second game. Although it is odd how they basically retcon the ending of Warrior Within and basically say it never happened. Sands of Time is still the GOAT.
I remember playing through the game on PS2 back in 2005 or whatever. Your post made me crave to play it again. I see my local shop has a PS2 copy, so I’ll pick it up soon.
I've been collecting dead birds and braining hobos with all manner of blunt instruments. I love how finding the hidden computers says "unlock achievement" as the button prompt. I'm on the final chapter and only got a few chapters in when I purchased it at launch for the 360.
Finished Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Big improvement on Warrior Within. Much more interesting environments and much larger focus on the platforming. The addition of stealth kills also reduces the amount of monotonous combat encounters. The game also has narration like Sands of Time which was needed, Warrior Within felt so threadbare without it.
Wraps up the trilogy well and is stylistically more in tune with the first game, righting the poor decisions taken for the second game. Although it is odd how they basically retcon the ending of Warrior Within and basically say it never happened. Sands of Time is still the GOAT.
I prefer TTT over SoT due to quality of life improvements you mentioned. It's insane that Ubisoft made such excellent traversal mechanics and combat system that incorporates so much movement and then completely butchered it with Assassin's Creed.
The Two Thrones is one of the most fun games I've played, it's a joy controlling the prince.
The Forgotten City
Played an hour. Interesting ideas so far.
Vampire Survivors
Unlocked quite a few characters, boss rash and limit breaks. Think my favourite character so far is Pugnall or however you spell it. Really like the starting weapon.
Been playing death stranding. Didn’t think this game would hook me but it had. The world is weird as hell and I don’t really understand it all but it’s just interesting. You are essentially just delivering stuff but I don’t know it’s fun to me.
The one flaw though is that they don’t play the great sound track more. They save it for big events instead of using it on most deliveries where sound isn’t necessary.
Very fun. The new cast of characters are fun. The plot is somewhat interesting and really fleshes out the lore albeit very slow paced. It makes some very bold changes, some good some bad whilst somehow still retaining the core identity of the original. There are some extremely questionable changes they made however like the weaker momentum physics, inclusion of ultimate abilities, overuse of cybervoid(even if they aren't just puzzles/slow walking anymore) and most importantly the forced open world outside motorbike sections. The first game is perfection to me so i'm not even expecting it to be exactly on the same level but the forced open world segments where you have to drag the motorbike from point A to point B to C to D to E etc) feel so uncalled for and tedious. It's literally an antithesis to the linear, fast paced design of the original. But its still an 8 or 9/10 so far, when you get to play the game normally that is.
I've been collecting dead birds and braining hobos with all manner of blunt instruments. I love how finding the hidden computers says "unlock achievement" as the button prompt. I'm on the final chapter and only got a few chapters in when I purchased it at launch for the 360.
Been playing Pikmin 4. I might as well sell my copy of 3 now; this game surpasses it in every way. Very smooth to play, a ridiculous amount of content, and while it starts easy it certainly has its share of challenging bosses later on. If there was a "pleasantly exceeding my expectations" game of the year, this would be it. I do still miss Pikmin 1's unique structure of a hard time limit or its game over though. So perhaps that one is still my favorite...
Oh wait, there's an entire pseudo-remake of Pikmin 1 embedded in this game with a hard time limit. Did I mention there is a ridiculous amount of content here?
Other than that, some recent indies I've played:
Hatchwell - A top down Zelda-esque game that was fairly disappointing. The one bright spot was that dungeon puzzles/exploration weren't just room by room; there was some decent manipulation of the entire level that required keeping a good mental map. But still, this is yet another game that makes it clear that the old "Zelda games only score well because of the name" canard is false. This is the one genre in which I have really struggled to find an indie game that can approach Nintendo's talent here.
Transiruby - Somewhere in Japan is a guy who seems to make games just for me. Skipmore's previous game Kamiko is a tiny little exploration game that I absolutely adore (and one of the rare exceptions to my statement above regarding indies and Zelda-likes). Transiruby is a side scroller that is a lot meatier, but still focuses more on exploration and getting lost than puzzles or action. I guess it's a Metroidvania, but structure is a lot different. I think I like Kamiko better since I think this approach works better in a top down environment rather than side scrolling, as well as Kamiko being much shorter and therefore easier to replay. Still, this was pretty good.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - A free Epic game, and worth the price. There's nothing special gameplay wise, so all value lies in if you care about the humor/art. Enh. At least it was short.
Tandem A Tale of Shadows - Another free Epic game, but this one is more to my liking. The unique element (you switch between two characters, one from a top down perspective while another from a side scrolling perspective (by walking along the bottom wall of the screen and that can also walk on top of shadows)) works well enough. It does mean puzzles are never too hard, since you are always interacting with only one or two elements in a way to manipulate things allowing the other character to advance. Still, they did what they could with the premise, and it was an enjoyable enough experience.
El Paso Elsewhere. Just finished level 1 and this game is sick. Controls do unfortunately feel a little floaty, but damn this game has a vision. So much style and so many cool touches everywhere. OST is crushing it. Great voice acting. Didnt expect any of that.
Been playing Pikmin 4. I might as well sell my copy of 3 now; this game surpasses it in every way. Very smooth to play, a ridiculous amount of content, and while it starts easy it certainly has its share of challenging bosses later on. If there was a "pleasantly exceeding my expectations" game of the year, this would be it. I do still miss Pikmin 1's unique structure of a hard time limit or its game over though. So perhaps that one is still my favorite...
Oh wait, there's an entire pseudo-remake of Pikmin 1 embedded in this game with a hard time limit. Did I mention there is a ridiculous amount of content here?
Other than that, some recent indies I've played:
Hatchwell - A top down Zelda-esque game that was fairly disappointing. The one bright spot was that dungeon puzzles/exploration weren't just room by room; there was some decent manipulation of the entire level that required keeping a good mental map. But still, this is yet another game that makes it clear that the old "Zelda games only score well because of the name" canard is false. This is the one genre in which I have really struggled to find an indie game that can approach Nintendo's talent here.
Transiruby - Somewhere in Japan is a guy who seems to make games just for me. Skipmore's previous game Kamiko is a tiny little exploration game that I absolutely adore (and one of the rare exceptions to my statement above regarding indies and Zelda-likes). Transiruby is a side scroller that is a lot meatier, but still focuses more on exploration and getting lost than puzzles or action. I guess it's a Metroidvania, but structure is a lot different. I think I like Kamiko better since I think this approach works better in a top down environment rather than side scrolling, as well as Kamiko being much shorter and therefore easier to replay. Still, this was pretty good.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - A free Epic game, and worth the price. There's nothing special gameplay wise, so all value lies in if you care about the humor/art. Enh. At least it was short.
Tandem A Tale of Shadows - Another free Epic game, but this one is more to my liking. The unique element (you switch between two characters, one from a top down perspective while another from a side scrolling perspective (by walking along the bottom wall of the screen and that can also walk on top of shadows)) works well enough. It does mean puzzles are never too hard, since you are always interacting with only one or two elements in a way to manipulate things allowing the other character to advance. Still, they did what they could with the premise, and it was an enjoyable enough experience.
Finished Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty and absolutely loved it - I did a full replay of Cyberpunk 2.0 all the way up to the final mission then went into Dogtown. The design of Dogtown is absolutely superb and feels so rich and dangerous. I think I even liked it more than Night City.
After the credits (which felt like credits from a James Bond film, so very fitting as it felt like one when playing) I reloaded a save a couple hours back so I can make the opposite choice - the differences must be pretty wild so I’m looking forward to that later.
I thought Idris Elba was superb as Reed and I still can’t get over how much work CDPR put into the small mannerisms in conversations, which must mean hours and hours of extra work for the developers - but they really do make the characters feel alive and real.
Crikey - if you havent done both Phantom Liberty choices/endings I recommend doing so - that was wildly different. It's 2 hours or so of completely different missions from the point you choose who to side with.
I am about to fire up kirby's epic yarn for 3ds after waiting 17 days for it to arrive from Gamefly. It probably came from the west coast shipping center, but still!
