That daily game progress thread...

[twonha]

Finished Immortals Fenyx Rising, aka "Baby Assassin's Creed & Breath of the Wild"; working on a MotoGP world championship now in MotoGP22. There's a World Superbikes game out now too, but I'm not sure I have the time and energy for two motorcycle racing games every year.

(Scratch that, I'll probably buy WSBK22 on sale during the winter break. )

[nutcrackr]

Finished Grounded... finally. Took me like 50 hours which is crazy. Overall good game though.

[twonha]

I've started playing Telltale's The Walking Dead, Season 1.

I watched the television show for its first seven or so seasons. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic media. I adore The Last of Us. But I've never played TT'sTWD, outside of a ten minute demo or something. I think I picked up the first season for free somewhere, and I figured it's time to catch up on this decade-old cult hit.

Having put about an hour into the game, it's funny how anything resembling the point & click adventure games from the early 90s (Broken Sword, Monkey Island, Full Throttle...) puts me so at ease. The calm voice acting, the seemingly immovable scenery, the back and forth between areas to look for that one particular item. The world may have come to an end, and I may be in mortal danger, in adventure games there's never any stress.

The other thing that is painfully obvious, is how bad this game looks and feels. The controls feel sluggish, the graphics are dreadfully basic with anything more than twenty meters away just rendered as a sprite. And yet, this too feels oddly comforting. The game is carried by its voice acting and its writing, and everything else is just support.

I look forward to catching up on this ten year old adventure game, see what all the fuss was about.

[Silent-Runner]

playing a lot of World of Tanks lately...again. It's (still) a mixed bag, as usual it's a TON more fun playing with buddies than with random blokes. Battles are usually short so it's good for a few rounds in between. Still hate the grinding part of it.

[Jaillum Malord]

I think I technically completed Batman Arkham Knight after initiating the Knightfall protocal or what ever you call it. Tells me that to see the true Knightfall ending then I would have to 100% the game.....HELL NO! I did not enjoy this game as much as I wanted to and really wanted to be done with it.

COMPLETE!

[twonha]

I look forward to catching up on this ten year old adventure game, see what all the fuss was about.

Well, that's done and dusted. It was alright, despite its age and its million zombie tropes. The player choice is more about the journey than the destination. I doubt I'll play any of the other seasons, unless I get those for free too.

[Lazy8s]

I started SteelRising.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1283400/Steelrising/

I’m only about 30 or 40 minutes in but it seems solid and pretty well done, although my 3060 mobile isn’t up to all the graphics options, still a good looking game.

[Jaillum Malord]

Just finished Quake 2. Honestly would not have bothered were it not for the RTX FX but it was enjoyable. I did play it when it was released initially back in the day but i cannot for the life of me remember why i did not complete it.

Got quite a few backlog but I am close to finishing or on final boss of following games; Blasphemous, RE6, Owlby, Little nightmares and Elden Ring (148hrs so far).

And obviously, I have to fricken start Horizon Zero Dawn again cause no cloud saves on Epic.....Nice!

[twonha]

Picked up on my Half-Life Alyx with commentary run. It's nice to actually do something with my VR headset, because that means I'm not tired, and not playing a dozen other games on a flat screen already.

So far, about an hour or so into it, what I'm picking up from the commentary is how Valve had to jump through every hoop to learn how to properly do a VR game. As usual, lots of comments about design, testing, reiterating, and testing again. I can imagine most developers don't have that kind of luxury.

[theshadowcult]

Picked up on my Half-Life Alyx with commentary run. It's nice to actually do something with my VR headset, because that means I'm not tired, and not playing a dozen other games on a flat screen already.

So far, about an hour or so into it, what I'm picking up from the commentary is how Valve had to jump through every hoop to learn how to properly do a VR game. As usual, lots of comments about design, testing, reiterating, and testing again. I can imagine most developers don't have that kind of luxury.

i know somethign you can do with your vr set! Give it to me

[twonha]

i know somethign you can do with your vr set! Give it to me

Come and get it.

[ugly]

Double Dragon Trilogy

I got this one on GOG. Didn't look before I bought. I was expecting it to be a re-release of the NES games. But it's the arcade games. Clunky movement and bad controls. They're made to be hard, but then the game gives you nearly unlimited 'coins' for continues. So it's mercifully short. 1 and 2 almost feel like the same game.

Double Dragon IV

This was what I was looking for. An updated sequel that looks and plays like the NES games. So, fun if that's what you're looking for. There's a story mode that you play with Jimmy and Bimmy Lee. It's just a bunch of missions like in the NES games with some fairly lame cutscenes in between. Similar to Double Dragon 2. Relatively challenging.

When you beat the game you unlock more characters and modes. There's a 'tower' mode that's hard as hell. It's essentially a survival mode. One life bar and you just keep repeating a single room that spawns somewhat random enemies. Getting to higher floor levels unlocks more characters.

With the unlocked characters you just repeat the main mission but with the standard Double Dragon enemies. But they're all way better than the default characters. So, it's fairly repetitive. Most of the unlock characters have projectile attacks. They're limited, but you can mostly spam them to win.

There's achievements for beating the game with each unlocked character, of which there are like 20. So it's grind. The achievement for the tower mode is hard but I did it because I was just using this as a 'listen to podcasts' game. So I put way more hours than anyone should into such a simple nostalgia trip game.

They didn't put much care into this game, unfortunately. In the mission there is a nearly impossible jump that is close to game breaking. And occasionally the game will just reset all your unlocked characters, which means have to replay a bunch of stuff, which also messes up your achievement progress. I would only recommend if you really feel like playing an old Double Dragon game.

[Silent-Runner]

Played some round rounds of Ship of Fools (demo). Had a blast with my buddy. Will get that one at release for sure.

For the curious

[yt]Qyyl1FYaHKo[/yt]

https://youtu.be/Qyyl1FYaHKo

[Lazy8s]

I’m trying to finish Steelrising. Bosses are easy but I can’t beat the platforming. Why do devs make you do pixel perfect jumps that have to be so exact it takes me longer to jump across than it does to beat a boss?

It’s so bad this is literally a game breaker for me. I don’t even want to finish it now.

[twonha]

Played a few games of C&C Red Alert 2, with the Yuri's Revenge add-on pack. Unfortunately, stutters and crashes ruin what's otherwise a wonderful trip down memory lane. Gonna let this one go for now.

[Lazy8s]

Finished SteelRising and now doing a co-op run with the kid in Remnant, From The Ashes. Good times.

[twonha]

Picked up on my Half-Life Alyx with commentary run.

Up to chapter 4 now.

I find VR gaming to be like sleeping and showering. I never feel like going to bed or getting ready for a shower, but once I'm in, I don't want to get out!

[theshadowcult]

nice. cant wait to actually play alyx in ten years when i can afford it!

[Munkus]

Finished The Outer Worlds and got the "good" ending, I guess. Pretty decent game overall. 7/10

[twonha]

Half-Life: Alyx done! Playing through Air Link on Quest 2 with an old switch is not a technically ideal situation, but it's worked well enough to get myself through the game. I liked the dev commentary, it's really impressive how Valve nailed their first AAA VR game.

[ugly]

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

Part of the Castlevania Advance collection. Obviously, the graphics are old, handheld level. The game itself is decent. The vania part of Metroidvania. Has most of the standard stuff. An environment with areas that open up as you gain more abilities, backtracking to places that were previously inaccessible, experience points and levels, random enemy drops, etc. This one is a bit primitive. Your attack is a whip and the standard Castlevania subweapons. You don't get other weapons, so it's more of a mix between old-school Castlevania combat and newer Metroidvania combat. The random drops are only different armors, which you barely notice, and rings that give you various stat bonuses. Some enemies drop cards, and different combinations of cards give you magic powerups. This give you different attacks or stat boosts.

It has the standard Metroidvania issues. You want to get all the drops, but they are often rare, so despite all the available items, you mainly stick with items that boost your luck so that you have a higher chance of getting more drops. There are too many card combinations and most aren't useful. You basically pick two or three combinations and just stick with those the entire game. Some are probably useful in specific circumstances, but aren't worth experimenting with to find out and you don't really know in advance what a boss is weak against. For the most part the game is really easy.

[Jet Black]

Half-Life: Alyx done! Playing through Air Link on Quest 2 with an old switch is not a technically ideal situation, but it's worked well enough to get myself through the game. I liked the dev commentary, it's really impressive how Valve nailed their first AAA VR game.

Nice! It took me a while to get this one finished, but was worth it (I just don't like being in the headset more than 1 or 2 sections per session). My youngest plays Bonelab and Boneworks... I guess VR is for the young because the free movement makes me want to barf.

I feel like I'm in a gaming limbo and I spend more time staring at my library than playing it. Put more time into New World while listening to a podcast. Not a bad MMO though I admit I'm just clicking through the quests/story so no idea what is happening, but the combat is pretty fun.

[KAC]

Adding all the games I finished here ftr:

Dying Light 2. Decent game / 10.
Modern Warfare 2. Good campaign / 10.
GT7 on PS5. Dope simulation arcade game thingie / 10.
Plague Tale 2. Amazing game / 10.

Currently pumping…

God of War Ragnarok
Bayonetta 1 and 2. 3 on deck as well
MW2 MP
and sometimes running benches on my 4090

[nutcrackr]

Finished SIGNALIS. Pretty good isometric resident evil game with terrible inventory and a story I don't understand. Dig the visual style though.

WRC Generations is just the previous games put together. Quite lazy imo. But if you haven't played the series recently then it's a decent pickup

[KAC]

Finished Bayonetta. What an amazing game and was definitely hard. I got so many stone awards it’s not even funny.

[Jet Black]

Finished Bayonetta. What an amazing game and was definitely hard. I got so many stone awards it’s not even funny.

Really wish 2 and 3 would come out on PC. I don't really play Switch games all that much.

[twonha]

Started playing Days Gone, aka Assassin's Creed with Zombies.

It's not a perfect game, but it's a lot cooler than its first impression. Once you're set free, it's neat to ride around and take on whatever errand you want. What I like about Days Gone, is that it's got this big open world, but you're not racing around at a hundred miles an hour all the time like you usually are in Assassin's Creed. Despite the bike, it's all a bit more grounded and deliberate, while still being an arcade action game. You can easily be cleaning up an area for an hour or so, especially when sneaking.

Not a perfect game, but definitely a fine one to spend a few dozen hours on.

[Drexion]

Just unlocked gold style Gwen in Fortnite. I play this game quite casually, first gold skin I ever unlocked. Cool that the bonus skins were actually awesome this time around unlike previous seasons.

[Lazy8s]

Nothing new here. I decided to get back into Nioh 2 for the achievements/trophies, just to 100% it. Something to do while waiting for Callisto Protocol to drop.

[Dengin]

Finally after many years I was able to break away from Star Wars The Old Republic for a little bit and I started playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition. It certainly feels a lot easier than when I played it many years ago. The only mods I downloaded were texture mods.

[nutcrackr]

Finished The Entropy Centre, good puzzle game. Only a few issues with puzzle refinement and movement mechanics.

[KAC]

Almost at the end of Bayonetta 2. What a phenomenal game. The gameplay is sublime. Bayonetta 3 on deck.

Also punching through COD MW2 MP. The gunplay in that game is also pretty dope. This time I feel the maps are also a bit larger. Even smaller maps like Farm have quite a few assault options. I need to try the 64 player mode.

Started Gotham Knights. Apart from the hitching the first few minutes were pretty good. I would’ve paid a couple of bucks just to watch the intro. Seems like it can be a good time.

Also punching through God of War Ragnarok. Took me a while to get back into the spirit. Finally kicking some ass as Kratos. Finished chapter 2.

Looking forward to Callisto Protocol before the year ends. Gaming bliss right now.

[KAC]

Finished Bayonetta 2. 10/10. FTR.

[Kain]

Finished Control. Liked it. Now to play the DLCs.

[A2597]

Been playing Just Cause 3 on the steamdeck.
As a life long PC gamer, a controller for a shooter is hard, even one as forgiving as Just Cause. But so much fun.

[nutcrackr]

Finished South of the Circle. I kinda liked it but the ending is trash.

[KAC]

Finished Bayonetta 3. 8.5/10. FTR.

[twonha]

Started playing Days Gone,
Not a perfect game, but definitely a fine one to spend a few dozen hours on.

So, about 20-30 hours in... It's enjoyable, but also dull. The game awkwardly sends me to one place for a mission, then straight back to where I came from, then straight out to where I had just gone. Encounters are basically the same combat loop: shoot people in the head, kill zombies, move on. It feels like the developers spent a lot of time getting the mechanics and the world feeling just right, but then ran out of creativity. The fuel mechanic (bike needs it) remains unused for exciting moments; ammo is basically plentiful; the bike is nigh indestructible; the Hordes are easily avoided entirely so far.

The game feels like it's ready to ramp up, so I hope it does, soon. Otherwise, I'll definitely see it through, but it'll be an empty promise rather than a thrilling tale.

[KAC]

It’s a pretty mediocre game. Some people here like it but I barely finished it. Was because of gaming drought in the month I was playing. Some of the horde battles are nice though.

[Lazy8s]

Working my way through Callisto Protocol a few minutes at a time. I’m not really enjoying it at all, but I spent the money so have to play it.

Also still doing co-op with the kid Remnant from the Ashes.