I’m currently playing mainly the free https://store.steampowered.com/app/1463920/hexceed/, which to my surprise has a lot of free content. I found it mentioned elsewhere on Lemmy, and have been playing it since. hexceed is a hexagon puzzle game.
Being controllable mouse-only is nice. Needing focus it’s not always fitting to play though. :)
I also bought some pick-bundles and tried out Cash Cow DX, but it wasn’t for me.
And I tried playing The Ascend last weekend, but the Steam Controller track pad feels awful for full-degree aiming.
I’ve also been playing Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara, but am somehow on a break there currently. If I go back to a platformer on my PC, it’ll probably be that though, to continue playing through it.
I finished Max Payne but idk how I ever got through the first couple times I played it... I had so much trouble this round that I would be seriously stuck if it wasn't for console commands T_T I briefly thought about playing Max Payne 2, but thinking about the final fight in that game is kind of off putting, so I'll leave it be.
I originally wasn't going to go through Quantum Break again, but since I had already decided on playing Max Payne and Control, I thought, what the hell, it's a great game so I'll go another round in it. Besides, Alan Wake 2 technically does reference it, so... lore! Plot points! The game is still great fun, incredibly underrated, but I am a little miffed that I now had to install the show episodes to watch them. Not a huge deal, but having to stop and wait a few hours for all the versions to download took me out of the moment.
Started a new playthrough of Subnautica to do between Remedy games. I'm trying to explore more and utilize the beacons and the scanner room, and man, I've already come across stuff I haven't seen before. This might end up being a game I put on regular rotation as a "filler" game, like Mad Max or V:TM Bloodlines.
I’m in a bit of a down period as STALKER 2 is coming out soon so I don’t want to pick up a new story campaign from my backlog in the meantime (Metro: Exodus, Bioshock Infinite and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are on the docket) in case I’m not finished in time for release day.
Still playing lots of Deadlock, but for a single player story game I’ve gone back to some bits of RDR 2 when I’m not in the competitive mood. I started it earlier this year but abandoned it as I burnt out on it a bit. Coming back to it has been a very mixed experience, there is still so much about it I love - but also some very deep frustrations. And absence hasn’t really made the heart grow fonder in that regard. I don’t really like the mission structure. I know it’s been brought up by others, but I too seem to be among those who are bothered by it. I also find the sheer body count forced on you through main story missions to be so ludicrous as to regularly ruin my immersion. I’m not even that far in and I’ve already basically committed genocide levels of murder! And then the mission is over and nobody is talking about the massacre of hundreds of lawmen?
The only real qualm I have is the lack of Ukrainian and Russian accents on the English dub. I don’t really understand the thought process as I felt like it added a lot of character and immersion to both the originals and to the Metro games.
Otherwise I’m optimistic, I think the game looks good and they’ve been saying all the right things. Game journalists who have played it also report things that make me feel very hopeful, both in terms of micro gameplay (atmosphere, tension and isolation without reliance on jump scares) and macro gameplay (decisions mattering, branching stories and factions).
I pre-ordered the ultimate edition regardless to support the studio after the horrors they’ve survived over the war, including losing colleagues to the frontline.
The lack of accent is an odd choice, I agree! Maybe they went the Chernobyl route (fitting) where they let the voice actors use their regular voices so they wouldn’t have to be faking an accent the whole time? I thought it worked well there. Thanks for the rundown, might have to preorder it!
More Baldurs Gate 3 in coop with a friend. We’re in the Underdark, gonna kill some Dwarves next time and Gnome and probably everything. We’re just complete murderhobos.
Then I heard about Vampire Hunters, which is kinda Vampire Survivors, but as an FPS. It’s fun and there are a few more maps to beat, but I don’t know if it’s going to have as much staying power as some of these other games I’ve played.
Also, more Metroidvanias. I played through Elderand, and don’t think it’s very good. For some reason, I got lost and didn’t know where to go at some point, which I don’t remember ever happening with another game. It turned out to be a way up some platforms I just missed, but it took a lot of time with me just running around, until I looked at a video playthrough. Even if that’s just a skill issue on my end, some of the other parts, aren’t that good either. The map seems to be a bit inconsistent, which didn’t help finding the correct way. Combat is extremely repetitive, with every melee weapon having the same three-hit combo, even dual-wield daggers or a whip. There’s a crafting system for potions and upgrades, but it’s useless, because basically no materials drop. Definitely do not recommend this one.
I decided to buy Ender Magnolia, the follow-up to Ender Lilies, which is currently in Early Access. There’s not a lot to do right now, it took me a bit under two hours to get through everything, but it’s fun. Definitely wait for the full release though, unless you want to pre-order this game or something.
Finally, I also got Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. It’s much bigger than the other metroidvanias I played recently. I’m almost 20 hours in and about halfway done. It plays well and I gotta say, I really like the feature to take a picture, so you can see where you missed something and don’t just go back 20 times, just to realize you can’t get there yet. Combat against regular enemies can be a bit boring, since enemies are a bit spongy. Bosses are neat though, especially since you have a parry and interrupting boss moves feels great. There’s also a ton of platforming, which can get really tricky. The story is complete garbage and makes no sense, but whatever. The game is kinda expensive, but I got it on sale, which was fine. Since it’s an Ubisoft game, it’s probably going to be on sale for -75% in a few months.
Rant: Why are some of these metroidvanias so stingy with their fast travel? In Prince of Persia and Animal Well you can only travel to specific points of the map, although in Animal Well you could at least get to the teleporters from anywhere on the map. In Prince of Persia, you need to find the teleporter, to get someplace else, which can get really annoying. Just let me travel to and from every save point. Even Elderand, for all its faults, lets you do this. In Prince of Persia, in the DLC area you can actually teleport between save points, probably since they realized the other system sucks.
DLSS is extremely noticeable to me at stronger levels. I usually turn it on but keep it set to “quality” instead of “performance”. It’s still slightly noticeable but not that bad at that setting.
Yeah I’m a big fan of upscaling myself. I hear a lot of complaints on the internet that this means developers won’t optimize their games because upscaling exists, but I think it’s great because it gives older/weaker GPUs (like your 3060) some longevity.
Heck, I use DLSS on my 4080 when I don’t want a game to suck so much power.
Thanks for contributing in unneccessary witch hunting. You’ve shown that Lemmy can be just as petulant and inhospitable as reddit. Nothing I have ever written is AI generated, such a weird criticism and hilarious to lob that at someone considering that even million dollar tech companies who have made “ai detectors” have failed spectacularly with false positives. But you dislike what I say so you’re 100% correct, right? yea that makes sense dude sure.
It’s amusing to me how you felt the need to write this incredibly long “shame on you” rant, like you were really that bothered by some words you saw that you had to write up a long witch hunt and try to harass me.
If you feel like an user may be a bot, please report it to a mod so we can put said user under observation in order to access its behavior.
Your comment seem well documented, but that’s something that should be sent to the mods via PM, not posted on the open.
If you were wrong, and he was legit, you’d have triggered an harassment campaign against him by encouraging others to just conclude he must be a bot because someone said so with a lengthy comment they don’t have the time to fully check.
Edit: clarifying why this shouldn’t be done that way, as my previous take was kinda harsh (I was a bit tired)
Buy one for the living room, oled or standard. Then, if requests / frustrations about playing asynchronously piles up. Consider buying another for the most invested of all. Take physical copies also. They’re easier to share.
I started with just one, and was buying digital games. I quickly found as each child gets to 6-7, they need their own switch. So I’m sitting at 4 right now, and agree hard on physical games.
I actually really dislike DLSS and FSR. At least to me the upscaling is pretty noticeable (but not the end of the world), but the artifacts that it causes drive me insane. I haven’t tested Onion Ring with it. But for example FH5 I get all sorts of ghost images on my screen and they go away as soon as I turn off DLSS.
Also weirdly on my laptop I got worse performance. I’m assuming that’s because I’m 100% CPU limited and there is a bit of CPU overhead to running DLSS.
The amount you complain about WoW you should probably just quit the game, if you’re even playing it. Also why do you keep making topics and then deleting them? You complained about subscriptions, and now you’re complaining about optional additional cosmetic content.
Like 99% of the community likely doesn’t care about promotional stuff. You can just pay the game and subscription and get access to all gameplay features just fine. If someone spends hundreds of bucks to get some useless promotional item, then let them. It doesn’t affect my gameplay.
Yeah, you can buy a mount from the store that saves you like a 2 minute walk or flight to your closest auction house, ironically I’ve never ever seen anyone even use these mounts outside of the cities that have actual auction houses, they’re usually just next to a mailbox or bank across the street of the auction house.
The fact that these things sell is probably one reason why subscriptions in the past 20 years haven’t rising in the first place.
I just started playing WoW again and I don’t feel any pressure from the supposed “dark patterns”, or having to buy this stuff (which I can’t, because I’m not in the US). It has zero effect on my gameplay. WoW is fun and addicting in a sense for sure, but there are way worse MMOs when it comes to this. Just look at any Korean MMO, like Black Desert Online. I’d even argue ESO is way worse than WoW when it comes to monetization.
Yeah it’s the same when people say this about FFXIV, which does have an extensive money-shop for extra mounts/animations/skins/etc.
They’re pricey as hell, but at the same time the only thing you ever might feel pressured into getting are:
Fantasia (character do-overs) after enough years because you feel like you’ve seen enough of this face and want another one and want to finally become a cat-girl like everybody else is! The game does however give you two for free, and we’re soon getting a third one, at least temporarily.
Character boosts if your friends are being assholes and berate you for not skipping the story (seen it happen), instead of what 99% of the community does which is the exact opposite. 😅
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