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[Monokrom]

Diablo IV is the game I'm playing now.

Edit: 9 hours non stop, time to get some rest.

 

[drganon]

Took me about 80 hours, but I finally beat trails of cold steel 2. With that, I've played the entire quadrilogy ( don't ask me why I played them out of order). Also beat the second case in Apollo justice.

I've got plenty of other stuff to play, but I'm probably going to get tears of the kingdom next.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

6 hours into Psychonauts 2

Spoiler: Spoiler

I got past the Lucky Octopus boss in the second stage. It was a fun boss battle. I admit I never played the first one, but I can follow the story pretty well. I'm currently fixing the mind of this guy named Ford. I finished the first one of his splintered mind Ford's Follicies, had some tough segments but was able to get through it. Right now at the Questionable Area to get to The Forgetful Forest to get a bee for this guy who is in this psychoisolation chamber.

So far I've been really enjoying this game, has a feel of saturday morning cartoon with dark undertones.

 

[Heisenberg007]

FFVII Intergrade. About 60% done, and hot damn, what a great game. I'm hooked.

Also, playing Convergence on the side. Cool little 2D game.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Agreed on some of the light-dark world traversal but the more modular design should have made backtracking easier overall. Temple Grounds is the overall hub but as you progress through the game you can unlock shortcuts that connect the other regions directly. Seekers open up a path between Agon and Torvus, Power Bombs open up shortcuts from Sanctuary to the other two, and obv. Light Suit opens up direct teleports between all the main energy controllers. Prime 1's rough here by comparison - a point that was hammered home to me when I played the Remastered release and didn't get Space Jump first like I do every time I played the GCN release. You have to make *3* trips across half of Magmoor, across the exact same rooms, after clearing the Chozo Ruins. By the end of the game, some areas just don't connect directly at all too. There's an appeal to that kind of design too but the lengthy trips if you want to get anywhere can be a hassle.

Some of the design in Echoes could be cleaner though, yeah. The devs clearly wanted to play with the other world mechanic but the long loading times tended to make things more tedious. Maybe it would have been better if the transitions were faster but I don't think they had that luxury on the GCN hardware. Those games are built to keep only two rooms loaded at a time, and Retro already was cutting corners as is to keep the game running smoothly. Notice how two, large rooms are never directly adjacent to each other? On original hardware, you can crash Prime 1 relatively easily by Boost Balling too quickly through some of the connecting tunnels in the Chozo Ruins (interestingly, I don't think this ever happened to me in Phendrana).

A little surprised to hear you don't like some of the endgame bosses. I'll give you Emperor Ing as I've never been a fan of his flailing tentacle form that didn't like lock-on or his final form that always seemed to have some non-deliberate obstruction blocking his vulnerable spot, but most of the other endgame bosses are pretty cool. Spider Guardian and Power Bomb Guardian are fun puzzle fights, Quadraxis is commonly cited as a favorite among fans for its scope and grandeur, and Chykka... isn't quite late-game but it's my favorite fight in the game for how fast-paced and involved the second phase is.

I will freely admit I'm not nearly as in-depth with either Prime 1 or Prime 2 as you are I think. Just in terms of map knowledge and so on. I've beaten Prime 1 probably...four times total throughout the (many) years and I've only fully beaten Prime 2 once now.

I think my issue with Prime 2's backtracking is often the "feel" of it. That's an obtuse thing to say but as a player, the light/dark maps, the pretty damn long distances to get anywhere and so on especially truly tested my patience during the Sky Temple key hunt. I should add I played and beat this completely blind. I sat down with a pen and paper, old school style lol, and actually made lists as I was going. Same for the Sky Temple keys. I almost always knew what to do, just thought switching between light/dark on the map eight million times and going back and forth to portals every time...damn. I was really hoping they'd just introduce a portal item of sorts later on that just lets me switch worlds on the fly. The Sanctuary Fortress trek to the portals especially got on my nerves.

But again, I'll freely admit that Prime 1 may have similar issues but I think it didn't wear on me as much because it's less convoluted. Which again isn't always a bad thing. I do like quite a few aspects of Prime 2 going balls deep with the formula. The more I think about it, the more my issues might just boil down to the dark world stuff. There are some cool, clever elements with that though. I like how they'll have you solve a puzzle in the other world to create a pathway in light and so on.

Bosses. I think it DOES have a few pretty fun fights but personally, I find some of them a bit too convoluted and drawn out again. Like Chykka is a cool concept and I only died to it once but I just found the fight annoying overall. Bear with me I have to google these fucking names lol. Quadraxis was cool, you're right. Spider Guardian is straight up hate from me, thought that last "stage" of it was infuriating. But really my biggest boss gripe is the last boss combined with time limit Dark Samus. It's just another one of those "you could but...did ya have to?" moments that sometimes popped up in the game. Emperor Ing's mouth grille thing was confusing as hell, I really didn't know if I was playing it right or if there was a trick to it that I didn't get because shots would land maybe 30% of the time. Anyway...

And you know what, you are right, Magmoor in Prime 1 does get pretty annoying. That song is branded into my skull because I've run through it so many times.

Overall though, I still would give Prime 2 a 7/10 at the very lowest like I said. It's kind of weird because all the great things I have to say about it feel like a given because I expect everyone to know the Prime formula in general is fucking sick so I only really mentioned the negatives

 

[Boots_the_God]

Street fighter 6 and Diablo 4

 

[Astray]

Stray, been trying to relax this weekend ahead of a very crucial work week.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

I like to have a few games on the rotation so I have some variety so at the moment I'm playing...

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Such a phenomenal game for me. I love losing myself in its world and explore the heck out of it.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years(PSP) - I have never beat it and I want to change that. Not a big fan of the moon mechanics but since the original FFIV holds such a big place in my heart, I'm curious where this story is going to take me.

Splinter Cell: One of my favourite franchises and I love to replay the series every year or two years. Can't wait to see how the Remake will shape up.

 

[93xfan]

Street Fighter 6. So far it’s the best for him in the very very long time, unless you count Smash Ultimate

 

[Archaic101]

Marvel's Midnight Suns, which is vastly better than I expected it to be. This one got slept on...

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

12 Hours into Psychonauts 2

Spoiler: Spoiler

I was able to fix Fords mind, the mail stage was my favorite out of his 3 mind stages. The Bowling Stage was annoying. The PSI King Sensorium stage was lot of fun, and I loved the celshading and how bright and colorful that stage looked. Than I had to go through Cassies mind which was a library. I loved this one too and the boss fight at the end was fun. Oh another stage I got through was Compton's Cookoff, that one was inventive. Right now, I just entered Bob's Bottle. I'll play more later

I'm almost done with this game since I've been using a walkthrough. So far I have 3 stages left. I'm loving the games visual, story, setting, characters, etc. It's fantastic

 

[genesisblock]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey, I want to get the trilogy done in time for Mirage but for the love the god it is by far the worst game of the franchise.

Unbelievably bad level scaling and the groundwork is exhaustive even when focusing only on the main missions. Which is such a shame because I do like Kassandra but they gameplay is somehow less responsive than Origins! I dread playing Valhalla if this is any indication.

Stopping it for the meantime and booting up Dishonored 2. Oh wow, this is like taking cues from OG Thief with combat tacked in. The enemy awareness is once again is amazingly perceptive that they can see you clearly even when there's a small gap in the cover but somehow they can't see you 'peeking' out with your entire head exposed . I'm liking it but let's see how it goes when I reach Karnaka.

 

[Captain Toad]

FFVII Intergrade. About 60% done, and hot damn, what a great game. I'm hooked.

Also, playing Convergence on the side. Cool little 2D game.

FFVII Remake is great. As someone who wanted turn-based and hated FFXV's mindless combat, they nailed the combat in FFVIIR.

It let's you play the basic normal attacks, while allowing you to (almost) completely pause combat to perform more meaningful actions, while easily controlling all three party members.

The whole pressued->staggered system is just a perfect amount of strategy without being overly complex with other stuff going on.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Guess I‘m nearing the end of Hogwarts Legacy. 9 more main quests to go.

Been enjoying this game quite a lot. Just did the shop buying quest and it was LEGIT. Came out of the blue because the rest of the game was quite standard so far.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

I've been in a Playstation 5 mood as of late, here's what I'm playing on it rn:

-Kingdom Hearts 3: Loving it overall! In the Big Hero 6 world as of this writing. It's a simpler game to play compared to some of the other stuff I'm also playing so it's a neat cozy action RPG to sink into.
-Uncharted 1: Nathan Drake Collection: This game is pretty awesome, I can see why it launched a series. It's pretty tough too. Idk if this is because of Bluepoint of if the game was always like that but I like how the blood splatters are pretty HD and noticeable in this game.

 

[Nightrunner]

Warhammer 40k: Boltgun, it feels like a nice little Doom/Quake hybrid that could've come out back in the day. I plan on moving on to System Shock when I'm done and Diablo 4 afterwards.

 

[Captain Toad]

Replaying the best indie ever made.

 

[CleverCaviar]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey, I want to get the trilogy done in time for Mirage but for the love the god it is by far the worst game of the franchise.

Unbelievably bad level scaling and the groundwork is exhaustive even when focusing only on the main missions. Which is such a shame because I do like Kassandra but they gameplay is somehow less responsive than Origins! I dread playing Valhalla if this is any indication.

Stopping it for the meantime and booting up Dishonored 2. Oh wow, this is like taking cues from OG Thief with combat tacked in. The enemy awareness is once again is amazingly perceptive that they can see you clearly even when there's a small gap in the cover but somehow they can't see you 'peeking' out with your entire head exposed . I'm liking it but let's see how it goes when I reach Karnaka.

Sounds like you had the same reaction I did to AC:Ody. However, I disliked it so much, I've taken a long, long break from AC and Ubisoft in general. I quite enjoyed Origins as well, but was a bit too big.

Dishonoured 2 however, has at least two of the best levels ever constructed. Enjoy it!

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

I've received yesterday my physical copy of AI Somnium Files for Switch. About 9h in so far and loving it.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Sounds like you had the same reaction I did to AC:Ody. However, I disliked it so much, I've taken a long, long break from AC and Ubisoft in general. I quite enjoyed Origins as well, but was a bit too big.

Dishonoured 2 however, has at least two of the best levels ever constructed. Enjoy it!

It kills me that there's no 60 fps patch for Dishonored 2 on console

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

I've been in a Playstation 5 mood as of late, here's what I'm playing on it rn:

-Kingdom Hearts 3: Loving it overall! In the Big Hero 6 world as of this writing. It's a simpler game to play compared to some of the other stuff I'm also playing so it's a neat cozy action RPG to sink into.
-Uncharted 1: Nathan Drake Collection: This game is pretty awesome, I can see why it launched a series. It's pretty tough too. Idk if this is because of Bluepoint of if the game was always like that but I like how the blood splatters are pretty HD and noticeable in this game.

I hope we get another Uncharted game from ND this gen. I'm missing the series.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

I hope we get another Uncharted game from ND this gen. I'm missing the series.

It's inspiring me to go through all the games I have in the series!

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

TotK- it's great but does anyone else think the graphics are slightly worse in certain areas than Botw? Maybe it's because of all the extra physics or how stuff was added to the map or maybe it's just in areas where the framerate is worse than Botw..for example Kakariko Village- the framerate is really bad here which makes the game look worse. Also- there's a haziness to this town that extends to when you're inside houses. Looks washed out and duller than I remember Botw looking.

The shrines in totk have this haziness to them as well that wasn't there in botw. The only place the framerate really bothered me in Botw was the lost woods/master sword area btw

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Picked up a used PS5 copy of The Callisto Protocol for 25 bucks last month on a whim, started it this week and I’ll be damned, this game fucking rocks.
Having an absolute blast with it in performance mode with headphones. (IQ is equally great in both modes, unlike RE4’s comparatively blurry perf. mode)

The quality of this game’s sound design cannot be overstated. it’s so immersive, it legit sounds like I’m there. Everything sounds exactly as it should, right down to every melee hit, stomp, squish, and mechanical noise in the environment. Dualsense haptics are also phenomenal.

I’ll share more thoughts when I’m done with it but I’m already starting to regret not supporting this at launch.
Will definitely be grabbing the story DLC later this summer.

Just a heads up. Seems to me Re4 is running and looking much better on ps5 than it did around launch. You should play in Resolution mode. If you turn off RT and hair strands you can get what feels now like a locked 60 fps.

Don't know about performance mode but res mode had some iq issues too that I think may have been fixed and I'd be curious to see if Digital Foundry agrees if they ever revisit it.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

I'm 2 hours into Elden Ring (Steam)

It's my first From Software Souls game

I die alot but I've been enjoying it. I've been grinding alot too

Another game I've been playing is Mary Skelter Nightmares (Switch)

Interesting story and cast. It's a Dungeon Crawler

 

[Alan Wake]

Been curious about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for a while and have finally started it. Playing the 360 disc on my Series X. This a good game. Nice environments, great voice acting, good controls, seems like a game that deserved more recognition.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Been curious about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for a while and have finally started it. Playing the 360 disc on my Series X. This a good game. Nice environments, great voice acting, good controls, seems like a game that deserved more recognition.

I'm curious, does playing the game on the Series X have any visual/frame rate improvements?

 

[Alan Wake]

I'm curious, does playing the game on the Series X have any visual/frame rate improvements?

I honestly don't know. I haven't compared this to how it plays on the 360. It's very smooth, though.

 

[Alpha Male]

Series X
Halo Infinite multiplayer
Battlefield 2042
Super Mega Baseball 4
Forza Horizon 5
State of Decay 2


PS5
Age of Wonders 4


Switch OLED (handheld)
Tears of the Kingdom

 

[stn]

On chapter 13 in Final Fantasy 15 (PS4). Gonna try to beat it tonight, then continue SF 6 (PS5), Elden Ring (XSX), and Bloodborne (PS4).

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

The PS5 fest continues for me :]

The Callisto Protocol: So far, it feels like an incredible fusion of classic survival horror and OTS horror games, with a hint of RE6 in there. My favorite mechanic so far is when doing a melee combo you get a chance to aim your gun for a headshot and then BOOM. Such a neat fusion of melee and ranged in the same combo. This game made me miss QTEs and button mashing. I love how the story is presented, it's pretty linear and to the point. It's execution reminds me of RE0 and ZombiU...RE0 in the sense that you and a prisoner are trying to escape together from the complex and ZombiU in the sense that some of the audio comes out from the DualSense! Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooove that implementation right there. Speaking of DualSense features...nobody told me there was optional Gyro aiming! Before I started the game, I checked for it, enabled it, turned up the sensitivity to the max, and I was set. I don't think the mode I picked is a particularly aim heavy one, that's Dismemberment mode that's probably heavier on the aiming but it's still neat it has native gyro aim support.

 

[Amory]

I just finished up Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019) (Switch). It was...pretty good? Pretty good I'd say. Never played the Game Boy version so it was my first experience with Link's Awakening on any platform, and I did ultimately enjoy it but not without caveats.

I got stuck more than a couple times not knowing what to do or where to go next to advance the story, so I think they could've done more to modernize the hints system. Other than that, I just found it a bit soulless. I liked the look, the music was fine, the incorporation of mario enemies and whatnot was quirky and fun, but the experience ultimately felt sterile compared to modern Zelda games. I guess that's to be expected, given it was a GB game and this was a pure remake with not many enhancements. I'll give it a 7/10.

Dicey Dungeons (Switch) - I picked this up awhile back on a deep sale but only recently started playing. Very into it at the start, now RNG frustrations are starting to crop up and I'm falling somewhat out of love. The Witch is a shit character with a shit gimmick.

And I'm STILL finishing up Horizon Zero Dawn (PC / Steam Deck) - I just don't know with this one. I go through waves of crippling boredom, and then sometimes I get into a flow and genuinely enjoy my time. Mostly, I find the game tedious. The story is the high point of the whole experience and I want to see it through. So I tell myself to just main-path it to the credits, and for some reason I keep wasting time checking off pointless side quests. I feel like I've been playing this game for a year, but in reality it's only been 3-4 months off and on.

 

[Roman Empire]

I came back to Genshin and tried their spin on Gwent - Genius Invokation TCG for the first time now that is an event tied to it. It's surprisingly fun and easy enough to get people into it. There is even a tournament with prize money to happen sometime in the future, so this game mode must be big, especially in China.

Street Fighter 6 - only a few hours in the lobbies but it's the best Street Fighter experience I've had in a long while since I didn't like SFV at all.

I finished Tears of the Kingdom on Friday. Now, I'll leave the side content (a few shrines and fucking korok) to another day. I need to be ready for FFXVI by the end of the month.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Damn Ghost of Tsushima is an excellent game. Hell of a looker too! Really enjoying this.

 

[engstra]

Finished Ghost of Tsushima main game. While I like the game, it's way too long for its own good. Just started Iki Island after the main islands probably took me 50ish hours if not more. I want to see everything but I'm definitely looking forward to be done with it and move on to something that's not open world.
Felt like my progression ground to a halt in the final area as I was fully leveled up by then. There's also way too many enemies out in the wild. The world is absolutely beautiful but it's hard to enjoy it when keep on having to fight or avoid enemies every 50m. Feels like those enemies should disappear from an area once you have liberated it.

 

[drganon]

Started tears of the kingdom.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Diablo 4. Took Friday off to play the early access. From Thurs to Sunday I put in about 24 hours. Played some Zelda last night

 

[rapid32.5]

Alan Wake Remastered and Siberia 3. I’m refreshing my memory in preparation for Alan Wake 2. It seems I forgot a lot since the last time I played Alan Wake, the game is still great as I played it the first time. Siberia 3 needs a lot of patience with some puzzles and they don’t make sense but I like slow games with my cup of coffee.

 

[Drake]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 down. 70 hours. I could do more side stuff, but I think I'm good. The endless skill checks really annoyed me by the end, but overall I enjoyed the game. I will definitely give 3 a shot, which I hear basically improves upon everything.

Last game in my backlog is 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I'll probably start that tomorrow. Once I finish that game I can look into getting something new. Either Xenoblade Chronicles 3, SMT V, or Zelda. Undecided on which one I want to get yet. I'm sort of leaning towards SMT V. Zelda looks amazing, but I'm not in a super huge rush to play it and I've been wanting to play SMT V for a while now.

 

[intbal]

Deus Ex Human Revolution
Unmodded
Been about 10 years since my last playthrough
It holds up better than I thought it would

 

[Danjin44]

Currently 170 hours in to Tears of Kingdom and still not done, I can’t believe I haven’t touch my PS5 in weeks because of this game, thankfully that would change once FFXVI comes out.

 

[Duchess]

Streets of Rogue.

Hmm, I don't really get it? I don't see why this game got such high reviews. It way too chaotic and repetitive. Will give it a few more days, but I think I've already had my fill. Only £3.50 in a PSN sale, so no big loss.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Started messing with my PS5 some.. all I have is Miles Morales so far, since my Ghost of Tsushima PS4 disc won't work in the PS5 I'm still playing that on PS4, loving it but gotta be getting close to the end. But Miles is solid so far - more of a good thing basically. I like the ray tracing. I can't really tell a difference with the 30/60fps modes, so I just keep the RT on.

But Astros Playroom - the pack in software is awesome, surprised I haven't heard about this before! Didn't realize the controller was so nice too - rumble has come a long way and I love the pressurized triggers on this thing. What are some other good games that make great use of this well designed controller?

 

[engstra]

Started messing with my PS5 some.. all I have is Miles Morales so far, since my Ghost of Tsushima PS4 disc won't work in the PS5 I'm still playing that on PS4, loving it but gotta be getting close to the end. But Miles is solid so far - more of a good thing basically. I like the ray tracing. I can't really tell a difference with the 30/60fps modes, so I just keep the RT on.

But Astros Playroom - the pack in software is awesome, surprised I haven't heard about this before! Didn't realize the controller was so nice too - rumble has come a long way and I love the pressurized triggers on this thing. What are some other good games that make great use of this well designed controller?

I would say that Returnal is probably the other game that really makes use of the controller in a meaningful way. It's also the first game that felt next-gen in my opinion.

 

[noise36]

Civ 6 on PC

New Zelda on switch with my son

 

[CuteFaceJay]

New Zelda & Diablo.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I've just finished Crysis Remastered and I'm quite disappointed... the graphics of the console version aren't great (plus it's not locked 60 fps) and the game hasn't aged well in terms of its mechanics. There's plenty of rough scripted scenes, the shaking effect is super bad, the first alien level (the one with flying in 'zero gravity') is difficult to get through because of constant disorientation and the last boss fight is even worse. I ended up turning down the difficulty from hard to normal, because it wasn't fun a all. The nanosuit is the best part of the game, I always liked the first levels of the game, because they allowed to surprise enemies thanks to camouflage.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Zelda ToTK

Resident evil 4 remake.

 

[Mr Hyde]

As good as Tears of the Kingdom is, it does feature some of the annoying in the predecessor. I don't mind the weapon breakage, it's mitigated pretty well with the infusion, making combat fun and varied. But do I have to do all the towers again? Collect all the fucking korok seeds and doing all the shrines? The graphics are also pretty drab, empty open world with long traversal distances, and every cave looking exactly the same. It drags down the experience a bit, ngl. But when Tears is good it's pretty damn good. So it does balance it out.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Platinumed Miles Morales on PS5. I liked the game for the most part though there felt like several questionable decisions made for that game that I didn't feel were fitting... I liked Spiderman a lot more and hope Spiderman 2 is a lot closer to Spiderman than Miles Morales. As a character he's not bad, I warmed up to him some but I don't really like that he's everything Peter is but "more". Cloaking, bio electricity, etc.. plus standard spider powers. Not sure that I have time to fit in FF VI before XVI, so may wait on that.

Tried Ground Zeros today.. wtf it's just one map? I got it and Phantom Pain together cheaply but it seems that I should be playing Peace Walker first. Had no idea wtf was going on despite playing MGS 1-4.