Get your game on!

Finished Doom 2016 a few days ago. Damn fun game, although IMO the boss fights were just bad - the entire game is about providing you with arenas to run around in fighting hordes of demons, but then the boss fights are more “sure that was fun, but now we’re going to stick you in a small circular room without cover”. Regardless, one of the better FPS’ that I’ve played in a long time.

Started on Rise of the Tomb Raider, which so far is like the previous game so that’s decent enough. Doesn’t quite do the switch from player-control to game-control as well as the Uncharted series, but fun is still fun.

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Finally downloaded the Darkest Dungeon Crimson Court expansion. I conceptually like it, but there are new mechanics that aren’t well explained and it’s too buggy to play for long. Guess I’ll wait for a patch.

Are there other good roguelikes for PS4, does anyone know?

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I’ve been playing Steamworld Heist lately. Fun single-player turn-based tactics game, with some physics on shots so you can use ricochets or bouncing weapons.

I completed the story once, then tried bumping up the difficulty from “Regular” to “Experienced” and started having a lot more trouble. There’s an achievement available for completing it at the highest difficulty level with no failed missions and a maximum number of moves… I don’t think there’s much chance of me ever getting that one.

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Some of @Donald_Petersen’s issues that he mentioned around romantic representation were taken care of in game updates, but sadly, all DLC has recently been canceled for the game. It’s strange, because ME had grown from a cleverly done cult-hit RPG to almost legendary status as a series, so I’ve no idea why they treated Andromeda the way they did.

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I know right? I’m at the last boss fight now against the spider mastermind and It’s probably going to be a few days before I actually play and beat it, just because I’ve already come this far anyway. Or maybe just so I can start again, there’s still a lot of secrets and collectibles to find.

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I’m about 50 hours into Yakuza 0. I’m enjoying it a great deal because it feels like the spiritual successor to Shenmue but that’s a double-edged sword. It’s a hugely immersive recreation of bubble-era Japan and I did my dissertation on the yakuza, so a lot of the themes it deals with are pretty interesting to me. It’s very tongue-in-cheek but it’s also a remarkably accurate portrayal of how the yakuza view themselves (even if that is considerably more noble than the reality).

That said, there is a seriously ridiculous amount of grind. There’s no way to unlock all of the fighting moves for one of the playable characters without spending at least six hours playing a hostess club management minigame, while the other playable character needs a similar time investment in an equally stupid real estate management sim.

It’s a fun game but it has some serious structural issues. It’s the spiritual successor to Shenmue (which is why I’m still playing it) but it doesn’t feel like the dev team have learned anything in the last 17 years…

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Here’s how I’m “playing” the real estate management sim while doing other things with my time:

The countdown timer until the next payout stops if you put down the controller and don’t press anything, so for the meantime, the supposedly badass yakuza character I am playing as is earning millions of yen by slowly walking into the photocopier in a real estate office. :roll_eyes:

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I recall an endurance race on an oval track in one of the Gran Turismo games which could be completed well enough to unlock whatever-it-was, with a pair of rubberbands.

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Currently playing Just Cause 3, Subnautica and trying to start Arkham Knight.

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God I hated the Spider boss - after reading up on some decent strategies/perk choices it wasn’t too hard, but I did need to leave it a few days just to get the frustration out of my system before trying again.

Chapter select is the way to go for getting the collectables, being able to have all your amped up weapons in the early chapters is a blast.

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You know it’s bad when fucking EA doesn’t even attempt to milk the DLC cash cow. There were so many winks and nods to potential DLC opportunities that were squandered.

It’s not like the game was really critically panned or anything and it sold pretty well. I guess unless it makes all the money is not worth it.

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I remember doing this trick back in the day with one of the Final Fantasies. Go to lower level area. Lock the controls in place to run around in a circle with a rubber band and use an aftermarket controller with auto-fire capabilities. Let run overnight, end up some 50 levels up by morning.

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I finally decided to dig out Firewatch and try playing it again. The first time, I got horribly lost on the first day and failed to complete even the first task. I wound up stranded the wrong side from the lake, unable to find a way back to the tower.

This time I made different choices in the interactive introduction, and while everything on-line says that doesn’t affect the game’s ending, I swear it changed the beginning.

The first time I made the meanest, most selfish choices for Henry (the PC). This time I tried to make him less selfish (the story doesn’t let you make him good), and this time I got a map and compass right away. I don’t remember those from last time – just the maps on the storage boxes. I also got a camping-out scene on the way to the watchtower I don’t remember from last time.

Anyway, this time I made it though the first day, and while the trails can be frustrating to navigate, hey, I made it to Day 2.

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I started today wanting to play an RPG - not one of the newer FPS action games labeled RPGs, but one of the old-style ones. I’d gotten a bundle of them from GOG awhile back so I went to install one (Dark Sun: Shattered Lands) but in the process I noticed that I had also bought but never installed or played Rebel Galaxy and FTL, so I installed them as well and thought that I would give them a try after a few hours of RPGing. While they were installing, I noticed that I also have Master of Orion, which I haven’t played in years.

I spent the entire day playing MoO. Never got to the others. I don’t regret it.

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Yeah, I’m pretty annoyed at EA and Bioware for abandoning it. I guess they really needed stellar reviews and huge sales after what had to be an insanely expensive 5-year development, but since three and a half of those years were essentially wasted, it wasn’t likely it would be able to earn those sales.

But that’s not the fault of us ME fans, and it’s criminal that such a rich and evocative and mature IP is being put out to pasture for the foreseeable future. But man… they screwed it up. I mostly enjoyed the game, but since so very many of its gameplay mechanics turned out to be timewasting irrelevancies that didn’t materially affect the outcome of the game noticeably, I’m not tempted to give it another playthrough. This lack of replayability (or, more accurately, lack of tempting motives for replaying the game, since I wouldn’t expect any surprising differences no matter how differently I tried to play) devalues the $60 I spent on the game. Still, I’d spend good money on DLC since I simply want more story in that world (and I just have no interest in multiplayer competition). Bioware are making a big mistake, I believe, by abandoning Andromeda.

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Given how popular and enduring the first three games are, and how much potential the world they’ve created has, I predict that this is far from the end of ME. Someone somewhere will pick up the IP and figure out how to do more stories in that universe, whether it’s a Shepard prequel or something completely new. I doubt we’ll see more Ryder stories, however.

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I’m not even mad at Bioware.

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Destiny 2 drops tomorrow. I expect my wife will only see me in passing for a while as I and my Destiny clanmates play it like crazy.

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Is it tomorrow? I thought it was Weds. I’d like to have one more day before my husband vanishes into space for like a month.

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Tuesday, 9 pm Pacific.

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