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Post by RadicalRex on May 4, 2023 17:20:44 GMT
deekyfunI vaguely recall that back when this stuff was new the whole interacting thing was rad. I believe my first game of this sort was Maniac Mansion on the NES, and just looking what happens if you interact with random shit was funny as hell, and the sheer amount of possible interactions was unheard of. When it was new, fooling around like this was exciting, but today I find it just... eurgh. And if not even that amazing Star Trek game can keep me playing, I'm afraid there'd probably no point in recommending me anything (but thanks for the thought!).
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Post by deekyfun on May 4, 2023 17:30:26 GMT
Its fair enough. They are definitely a test of patience, and play in a space similar to something like a crossword puzzle or logic problem, where the 'game' as such is to ruminate, maybe go away and have a think, etc, and ultimately needs you to get it to progress. Speaking for myself, as I get older I just have less time to sit through and not progress when doing something that is supposed to be fun.
We have just this week finished a different point and click for the YouTube channel which really tested my patience about as far as it could go. On those occasions I'm very grateful to be playing alongside someone else!
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malek86
Junior Member
Pomegranate Deseeder
Posts: 3,242
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Post by malek86 on May 4, 2023 18:15:21 GMT
The weird puzzles in point and clicks might be the reason why I usually prefer Myst-style adventures. At least the puzzles in those tend to be logic-based. Of course there are some really weird ones in those too, and the bad Myst clones are very aggravating, but the good ones tend to be quite satisfying.
Talking of point and clicks though, a modern game I liked is the Journey Down trilogy. Very much inspired by the old classics, but less frustrating. I also enjoyed the unusual setting and character design.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on May 4, 2023 18:51:00 GMT
Yeah, Strangeland recently wasn't hard or particularly obtuse by point-and-click standards and it still made me feel stupid on a few occasions. There is just something about how they work that I easily end up being frustrated by.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on May 8, 2023 16:57:58 GMT
Seasons after Fall: Didn't give it much more than 30 minutes. It's a side-scrolling platformer in beautiful nature environments with some platforming and puzzling with the help of the "seasons". It may be pretty, but I found the gameplay to be tiresome. It's one of those games which very quickly made me think that this could as well have been some kind of movie or some super cut-down minimalist game. Most of the time I was just thinking that I was running around and platforming too much as that I could truly enjoy what the game actually does well. The art and music. But it's just background that isn't as immersive or atmospheric as I'd wish.
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Post by harrypalmer on May 12, 2023 14:44:21 GMT
Mass effect: Andromeda
It’s just a bit shit, which is a shame.
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Post by pierrepressure on May 14, 2023 7:30:46 GMT
Rage quit and deleted Sackboy on the PS5 after failing to collect one of the orbs in time.
Not a bad game, the music levels were a nice touch but the game can't hold a candle to Mario or Ratchet and Clank.
Won't happen but would love Sony to bring back Jak & Daxter.
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Post by harrypalmer on May 14, 2023 11:56:53 GMT
Yeah I’m also a bit disappointed by sackboy. Is good but I don’t like the aesthetic.
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lukasz
New Member
Meat popsicle
Posts: 673
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Post by lukasz on May 16, 2023 14:15:45 GMT
Mass effect: Andromeda It’s just a bit shit, which is a shame. Yeah its meh game. Took me over a year to complete it. Last mission was really fun. |
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on May 23, 2023 13:32:36 GMT
Far Cry 1: That didn't take long. Just 45 minuts to determine that I probably wouldn't have much fun with this one. Not after an annoying trial-and-error vehicle section and too many attempts of getting off a resisting ladder while being shot at by a helicopter. Onto a deck where you'll be shot at from two sides even when in cover from the helicopter.
It frequently also just didn't feel very good. A lot of the time there aren't any sound cues. Enemies announce their presence quite loudly, but in combat they often appear as if from thin air and far-away enemies usually know where the player is and they are accurate. I'm not quite sure what makes this feel so bad. Partially just placement I think, but sound design also just feels off somehow. It's kind of disorienting.
I have heard about the infamous difficulty spike in the later parts, but seeing how this game is designed in terms of the difficulty I don't have the slightest desire to even try to get there.
Edit: This was all on the default difficulty with three more difficulties above that.
Edit2:
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division off the list as well. It just was too much trouble to set up right and even once I had it working acceptably I was still getting a bit motion-sick. And what I had seen up to that point just wasn't great.
It's essentially a Mech game plus a more traditional FPS. By Monolith.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on May 24, 2023 16:06:38 GMT
Far Cry 4:
Hmm, didn't seem too bad at first. Nice detail in the environments and such, but it constantly interrupts everything with cutscenes and snatches me from whatever I was doing. FPS gameplay was just fine, but I was having constant problems with the framerate. Also constantly getting set aflame by standing in the wrong place in one mission.... People constantly fighting meaningless, random fights out in the wilds, constantly getting scared of eagles and so on. Oh yeah, and did you know that your tiny loot bag is full again.....
I was just thinking that I really didn't mind all of it that much, when I accidentally left the apparently also tiny mission area and was thrown back into a cutscene I had already seen with no immediately clear way to skip it. So I just Alt-F4ed out of there.
I don't know how they manage to have so much shitty game design in just a few hours of gameplay. And I thought Ubisoft Connect would give me trouble. But that was honestly the least of it.
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Post by Rubicon on May 27, 2023 9:00:24 GMT
Floppy Knights - The short answer is that it annoyed the fuck out of me.
I don't normally farm achievements but it's leaving Game Pass and I'd never tried a CCG before so thought why not. It became apparent fairly early on that you could do a level with just your starting 'hero' card and having any other units in play was a waste of energy. So it became a lot of moving/cheesing your unit backwards and forwards and waiting until you get the right hand.
That was until the level I raged out of which sees you have to lure enemies in front of a drill to soften them up and it becomes this Benny Hill sequence where your being chased but the faintest mistake or wrong hand and your fucked. There is no margin for error and I just don't have the patience anymore.
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rajin
New Member
Posts: 269
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Post by rajin on Jun 2, 2023 14:53:49 GMT
Eschatos: 0 continue
I am not a great shoot em up player, but this game should be doable. For some reason I am a mili second late on shield activication, miss objects and just cant seem to progress. Its starting to just to bore me.
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ned
New Member
Posts: 492
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Post by ned on Jun 2, 2023 17:41:08 GMT
Tears of the Kingdom after about 10 hours…
So I could properly play BoTW.
After a quick 95 hour run through of that with 120 shrines and 4 beasts in master mode (wouldn’t recommend that mode) I’m back on TotK (restarted) now and loving it.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 3, 2023 11:17:06 GMT
Psychonauts: Wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I didn't find the characters or their dialogue more than mediocre with a good amount of tired one-liners and familiar tropes thrown in. Not bad, just not enough to help carry the game. The voice-acting was fine, they just didn't have much to work with much of the time.
The platforming and navigation around the one level I played didn't win me over either. For some reason even max mouse sensitivity wasn't enough and I had to use the internal dpi settings of the mouse. Even then there still was something off.
The ideas for some of the other levels might have been worth taking a look at, but I didn't last long enough for that.
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Post by RadicalRex on Jun 3, 2023 16:59:46 GMT
Hot Wheels Unleashed
I'm actually not into Hot Wheels, but it looked like a fun game, I like Milestone, and it's 80% off on Steam (until 5 June if you're interested).
Not feeling it though. Most of all, I dislike the handling--I thought maybe that's just because I'm not used to this kind of game and need to adjust for a while. But after two hours I find it just as weirdly stiff, unintuitive and unenjoyable as I did in the beginning. Not really having any fun and it doesn't look like that's going to change, so I'm quitting.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 9, 2023 13:42:02 GMT
Homeworld Remastered: It's certainly pretty, nice music and the story is Battlestar Galactica with ok voice-acting.
Unfortunately I'm already stuck a few missions in and as per usual with RTS-campaigns for me I'm only very rarely willing to stick with it when the difficulty is already turned up early. Add in possible special scenario circumstances you get and I often just turn to Skirmish-mode pretty quickly.
In this case I'm already wondering if it was a good idea to build any Repair/Support ships at all as they seemingly don't do what they are supposed to do when not being micro-managed. My Ion Cannon Frigates do have quite some range, yet they often choose to fly in close and then just not do much anymore. Probably some issue with the relatively complicated behaviour system. Aggressive behaviour also doesn't always seem to work (i.e. units not attacking nearby enemies).
In general controlling the relatively fiddly 3D space isn't much fun when there is a lot going on and I don't really feel like I want to learn all that, sorry to say.
Edit: Probably should have checked the manual for various commands, option to pause the game etc. I vaguely remember there being some info in the tutorial on how to give a repair command for a whole group, but it wasn't quite as comprehensive as I would have liked.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Jun 10, 2023 11:18:02 GMT
Homeworld is pretty much the only RTS I like, because it generally plays at a nice controllable pace.
I haven't played Remastered, so I don't know what they've changed.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Jun 10, 2023 14:34:36 GMT
Tron 2.0
I got about 60% of the way through this I think. With the Killer App mod to make it work on modern systems and resolutions.
The worlds look amazing. A few of the vistas inside the computers are stunning, and they manage to capture the look of the film while also creating their own cool environments. You end up inside an old computer trying to overclock it, and it all has this slightly 70s retro look, then you're in the Net and it's a big cyberpunk-esque city. Then you're inside some big weird rotating thing with beams of light and stuff and it looks great.
The gameplay never really grabbed me though. It's an ok shooter, but the only really fun weapon is the disc, and while that's fun it gets repetitive, and the movement feels a bit off.
They try to break things up with a range of missions like light bikes (gets annoying quick), holding points until a time limit runs out, doing the same bit from a sniper location, escort missions etc.. but it never really hooked me. Some bits can be a bit sudden death, leading to annoying repetition.
The stuff about managing your installed inventory, upgrading your mods etc.. sounds good in theory but is mainly just busywork. The fact that getting hit projectiles fired by corrupted enemies can corrupt your inventory items, which can then spread to nearby inventory items and means you need to anti-virus them, becomes very annoying quickly. It breaks up the flow of a battle that anytime you get hit you have to pause and go to the menu and drag that item to the anti-virus.
Plus as the game goes on you're fighting more and more corrupted.
It also slightly falls down the hole between pure shooter (Like doom, Jedi knight, etc..) and something more cinematic. The voice acting etc is fine, but I never really cared that much about the story.
I'm glad I tried it, and maybe if it'd tried it at the time I'd have loved it, but these days I wish someone had made a 'condensed' mod that gave me all the best places in half the time.
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Post by RadicalRex on Jun 10, 2023 14:51:37 GMT
^ It's such a shame about the so-so gameplay, because I think it's one of the most stylish games ever
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lukasz
New Member
Meat popsicle
Posts: 673
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Post by lukasz on Jun 11, 2023 7:14:17 GMT
Vampire survivors
Really not my type of game. Thought I can get some brainless fun something like one finger death punch .
Unfortunately they early stage grind of just trying to survive lvl1 mooks and collect exp asap with limited weapon is boring and leads me to losing concentration and hence dieing or taking damage which will be issue later anyway.
So only reached 3rd stage.
10 aud spent but got some fun out of it.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 13, 2023 4:51:41 GMT
Homeworld is pretty much the only RTS I like, because it generally plays at a nice controllable pace. I haven't played Remastered, so I don't know what they've changed. I think it might come down to how you play. Certain events seem to simply not trigger if the player doesn't get aggressive.
There is some confusion about how the difficulty scaling in Remastered works.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Jun 13, 2023 5:15:02 GMT
Although I seem to remember one mission where your flagship gets dive-bombed by a whole fleet coming down from above about 30 seconds into the level. I may be misremembering the details though. But the fact that the ships move quite languidly through space means it felt more chill and purposeful than a lot of RTS which are just click click click. Except in the moments where it decides to pile-drive your flagship.  I keep flirting with the idea of playing Deserts of Kharak(sp?). Even though it's land-based it looks like it might have kept similar pacing. But then I remember that I usually can't commit to RTS games these days and I suspect I'd bounce off it during the tutorial. |
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 13, 2023 15:20:19 GMT
Although I seem to remember one mission where your flagship gets dive-bombed by a whole fleet coming down from above about 30 seconds into the level. I may be misremembering the details though. But the fact that the ships move quite languidly through space means it felt more chill and purposeful than a lot of RTS which are just click click click. Except in the moments where it decides to pile-drive your flagship. I keep flirting with the idea of playing Deserts of Kharak(sp?). Even though it's land-based it looks like it might have kept similar pacing. But then I remember that I usually can't commit to RTS games these days and I suspect I'd bounce off it during the tutorial. Deserts is definitely one I still want to give a try. Even if just to get a good look at it. |
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Rich
Junior Member
Posts: 1,983 
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Post by Rich on Jun 20, 2023 14:44:16 GMT
Final Fantasy XV
I've given it a good shot, and there might be a good game in here, but on my PS4 Pro it's borderline unplayable. Huge load times, stuttering cutscenes, unsynced audio. Looking around suggests this fairly common, and I very much doubt Squarenix are working on a fix. Bleh. Life's to short.
If it didn't have the FF name attached to it I'd have binned it off during the opening hour or so.
Edit: After diving into other games, it seems the problems are more likely the HDD failing in the PS4. Great.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 21, 2023 11:55:52 GMT
I played a few hours of Ember - an ARPG/RPG with party - yesterday. It's apparently from 2016, which is slightly surprising as the controls feel like from a much older game. There are a few quickslots, but all skills so far were tied to the equipment and have to be clicked on repeatedly for every party member. They cannot simply be tied to the Mouse keys. There is a pause, so it works well enough, but after levelling a few times I still didn't really have a sense of progression or being allowed to make interesting character building decisions.
The story is pretty much what you'd expect for a fantasy scenario and the writing was mostly just serviceable. It's aesthetically nice enough, but not particularly impressive or surprising or anything. Similar case for the music.
It's an odd mix of being hurt both by lack of originality and weird, incovenient controls at the same time. In the end though it just comes down to having no wish to go back to it. Not least because many features of the game feel more cumbersome and slow than need be.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 22, 2023 18:20:11 GMT
Silverfall (2007) is yet another ARPG that just doesn't have any features or aspects that really stand out for me. I also played it for a few hours and I also could easily do one playthrough just for the sake of having it off the list, but that would still be another 15-20 hours or so. But overall it's just ok. Ok music, decent graphics and aesthetics, ok character system and loot and some very slightly original aspects. That's not enough to put any more time into it.
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Post by Samildanach on Jun 25, 2023 8:43:41 GMT
Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD
It is a very rare event when I abandon a game (ignoring jumping around through old emulated games) but this one died a definite death. I just couldn't be bothered with so many aspects of it, from the utterly tedious writing and presentation of the story, the collecting and upgrading of the stupid looking pet things, the floaty combat and movement with too many gimmicks, to the fact that you have to play each of the bland worlds TWICE. I got a fair way into the second world before packing it in and watching the dull climax and ending on YouTube. Very glad I didn't waste my time on that.
In fact the whole series is leaving me a bit cold now despite enjoying the first two entries twenty years ago (and the psp one about 10). I recently helped my children beat the first two and found them archaic in all the wrong ways (and I much enjoy retro games that have good gameplay and/or atmosphere). The card based KH entry got dropped quicker than even Dream Drop Distance and a started replay of the PSP one (this time on PS4) also got dropped in the tutorial world as I realised I didn't give a massive fuck about any of it.
I had bought the complete series in a bundle on the ps store in a deep sale as I thought my three children would enjoy playing the Disney worlds. The did enjoy the first as it does have an enjoyable, fairly uncomplicated and self-contained story. The second one is when any semblance of a coherent story goes out the window and they were constantly confused. I've got them playing Final Fantasy X now and they are well into it again.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2023 14:49:51 GMT
Samildanach Yeah, I loved the first two on PS2 way back when, but I remember not enjoying the GBA one. Skipped the PSP and DS ones, despite hearing a lot of hype about how the PSP one was the best in the series. Picked up the 3DS one and quickly traded it in. Later got the PS4 remasters and gave the PSP one a go. Not great. I don’t think any of the portable ones were any good. The writing is nonsensical and the areas were bland. At least KHIII was fun again, but I really don’t care for the series as I did when I was younger. Not sure I’ll bother with IV.
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Post by Samildanach on Jun 25, 2023 15:55:44 GMT
Samildanach Yeah, I loved the first two on PS2 way back when, but I remember not enjoying the GBA one. Skipped the PSP and DS ones, despite hearing a lot of hype about how the PSP one was the best in the series. Picked up the 3DS one and quickly traded it in. Later got the PS4 remasters and gave the PSP one a go. Not great. I don’t think any of the portable ones were any good. The writing is nonsensical and the areas were bland. At least KHIII was fun again, but I really don’t care for the series as I did when I was younger. Not sure I’ll bother with IV. Yep, the psp version was deemed good since it seemed quite impressive for the hardware at the time. Remove it from that situation and you have a fairly nonsensical story, bland levels and combat that is doesn't stand up next to modern game design now. Pretty much the entire series seems like that and while I will play KH3 since it also came with the bundle and I gather it essentially concludes the saga, I also have zero interest in any KH game beyond that. Thankfully the Fragmented Passage minigame that I gather is made from the same Engine as used for KH3, is not too painful so far. |
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