[Amorous Biscuit]

So I've been trying to clear a bit of the old backlog this year and I've made some good progress on that front. So far this year I have played and completed the following:

Ghost of Tsushima + Iki Island DLC
Five Hearts Under One Roof
Jusant
CULTIC
My Friendly Neighborhood


After sinking nearly 100 hours in Ghost I thought I would beat some more smaller and shorter games and I've been pleased with the selections so far. Jusant is a beautiful game that perhaps borders on being a bit too simple even though its main mechanic (climbing) has some intriguing twists to it. It's nothing out of this world and it is certainly way too short given it only lasted about 3-4 hours, but it's fun and given it was £1.50 on CDKeys? I think I got my money's worth.

My Friendly Neighborhood is a very eclectic mix of FPS and Survival Horror featuring Saturday morning puppet characters as the enemies. You also shoot them with a variety of guns which don't fire bullets but letters of the alphabet. It has a weird atmosphere in that it's trying to be creepy, but this often feels at odds with the more oddball and goofy characters chatting absolute bollocks whenever you're in a room with them. They also can't be killed which means the real nightmare is going insane from listening to their dialogue. It's very old school with a lot of back tracking for keys or puzzle solutions but I enjoyed it for the most part. There's a lot of cool secrets to be found but I haven't bothered with those. You can certainly do worse than this game as it has a very different presentation and style to a lot of other games I have played over the years.

Five Hearts Under One Roof is a Korean Romance FMV game that is absolutely ridiculous. Sausage man forever. My main gripe is that it forces you down a "perfect route" for initial completion and that makes it feel very railroaded. Reloading chapters to try and figure out the best main route wasn't very fun. Once that's done though, there's some fun stuff to be seen here and a pretty good cast of women to keep you interested.

CULTIC is a phenomenal game. If you have even a passing interest in boomer shooter FPS, just play it. It's insanely good.

Up next on the docket is probably 1000xRESIST. I hear great things about its story and I am excited to play through it.

 

[Dreamlord]

Started The Talos Principle 2. Loved the first game and the second seems to be a grander version of it.

As usual, it makes me feel stupid and occasionally clever. So far I managed to solve say 8 out of 10 rooms. If I get stuck for more than 10 mins, I either quit it for the day or look for a solution, otherwise it will take me forever.

I like how they build a world and fit the puzzles in there more organically.

 

[The_Mike]

So I finally completed Syphon Filter 1.

I have a mixed feeling. The game is nostalgic for me as I went pretty far into the game, however I felt the maps went a bit messy later on. I know people are saying modern games are baby holding too much, since we came from these old eras, but replaying these, especially if you didn't make it throughout the entire game, really show its age.

From around the Stronghold map I was needing a youtube guide more and more, as there were many hidden areas that was needed to progress, plus the objectives were all over the place.

Game is great for what it was, but if they went with a remaster, then there would be many things I'd say they should include to make it playable by todays modern standard.

I am overall happy that I got it completed after all those years though, and I am diving right into Syphon Filter 2 now.

Edit: What I hated especially about the game is the tanky controls and the amount of enemies who has kevlar armor on. It is insane how hard they can be to kill, especially when theres several enemies at once who has the kevlar vest on.

 

[Thing on a Spring]

I think I'm almost at the end of Blasphemous 2. It's been a pretty great metroidvania with some challenging bosses. Easy to recommend.

Just downloaded and started playing the demo for Deadzone: Rogue. If you're a fan of Roboquest, you'll likely enjoy this too. Stuck it on my wishlist.

 

[HE1NZ]

Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb. This one is great. A sort of middle ground between old Tomb Raider games and Uncharted. Very good controls and melee combat. Every punch feels impactful, Indiana Jones is a Hulk. Platforming and puzzles are good too, maybe a bit easy. Game has a very early 2000s PC feel, similar visual kinks, disproportional architecture wrapped in photo textures, ugly in-engine cutscenes. Looks as if it was made on Q3 Engine, but it is a console game on a unique engine. Tried it on Xbox first, but it was reseting for some reason so switched to PC. It is a good port and there's an update to have perfect controller support which is great. I'll keep playing.

Slightly disappointed in the end. Game felt more cheap the longer I played. Maybe a very weak 7/10

 

[HE1NZ]

Cool game alert!

Playing Gunman Chronicles. This is a total conversion for Half-Life that had a retail release in 2000. But it goes above and beyond that. It's a Half-Life style game set in a sort of psychedelic Turok + Starship Troopers + System Shock world. Very creative and fun. Doesn't feel like a mod at all, a very complete game. All kinds of crazy shit going on on screen. This is like a Half-Life game you never know existed. Half-Life 3 basically.

You can get it as a mod from moddb and put inside Steam version of Half-Life and it will work great.

 

[TaySan]

I finished the first few missions and it's dope. The music slaps!

 

[skeem]

@DonDonDonPata @WhatIsThis?

Rise of the Ronin. This game is FUN! The game is doing nothing wrong at all. It's open world but I don't feel weighed down by that where I often have done with other games. Everything is moving at a nice pace. Good action and combat. It has been consistently enjoyable so far.

I can definitely see some of the QoL features tucked away in the game menus at this early point.

It's a good'un

 

[Grinchy]

Alright I'm definitely grabbing Ronin when it his $30. I feel like no one even knows the game exists, but when I see it come up it is always positive.

 

[BlackDow]

Alternating between RDR & Enter the Gungeon. (So far furthest I've gotten is to the second boss) both on the switch.

RDR for long plays and Gungeon to do like 5/6 runs in a row. Then stop. Each time seeing how far I can go.

I want to finish RDR but it feels like it is dragging now. After I want to do the undead Nightmare DLC.
Then go through my back log. I have too many games on digital. It's very bought a lot on sale. Most of them. But beach since I got the switch in 2017 my library has grown.
I'm happy the switch 2 was a backwards compatible as they are going over to it when I get a switch.

 

[DonDonDonPata]

Alternating between RDR, Enter the Gungeon. (So far furthest I've gotten is to the second boss) both on the switch.

RDR for long plays and Gungeon to do like 5/6 runs in a row. Then stop. Each time seeing how far I can go.

I want to finish RDR but it feels like it is dragging now. After I want to do the undead Nightmare DLC.
Then go through my back log. I have too many games on digital.

What do you think of Gungeon?

That has been one of my mainstays for years since it first came out, one of my all-time favorite twin stick roguelikes. My kids have spent many hours on it, too.

 

[BlackDow]

What do you think of Gungeon?

That has been one of my mainstays for years since it first came out, one of my all-time favorite twin stick roguelikes. My kids have spent many hours on it, too.

At first I thought I sucked. I bought it back in the day. (Whenever it was released for switch)I Tried it and my experience was holy fuck this is insane. I recently restarted it and realised the point of the game is to keep failing then learning to succeed. Honesty sometimes I get in the flow can work out the patterns etc. changed my controls around for the buttons and yeah if I get some good pickups I can usually make it far. But once I get hit I lose the flow state and get wrecked.
Depending on the pick ups I can work out if it's going to be plain sailing. But yeah I didn't realise you can slide over the tables John woo style.
Wish I never left it so long to play. For me it's for replay value in spades. Im guessing there is unlocks galore.

Despite me sucking (or not) I really like it. I'll see how far I can get. But I think between this and Isaac. I prefer this and it's faster paced and you can aim in more directions.
Also despite being mid at bullet hell shmups I love them. This is like that. I just want to get further and the game is just in the right side of the"just one more go" yeah.

 

[HE1NZ]

Cool game alert!

Playing Gunman Chronicles. This is a total conversion for Half-Life that had a retail release in 2000. But it goes above and beyond that. It's a Half-Life style game set in a sort of psychedelic Turok + Starship Troopers + System Shock world. Very creative and fun. Doesn't feel like a mod at all, a very complete game. All kinds of crazy shit going on on screen. This is like a Half-Life game you never know existed. Half-Life 3 basically.

You can get it as a mod from moddb and put inside Steam version of Half-Life and it will work great.

This was super awesome. It kept being impressive till the very end (6-7 hours campaign). Recommended.

This is honestly a very unique game. Modern boomer shooters try to replicate Doom and Quake. They can't replicate Half-Life.

 

[DonDonDonPata]

At first I thought I sucked. I bought it back in the day. (Whenever it was released for switch)I Tried it and my experience was holy fuck this is insane. I recently restarted it and realised the point of the game is to keep failing then learning to succeed. Honesty sometimes I get in the flow can work out the patterns etc. changed my controls around for the buttons and yeah if I get some good pickups I can usually make it far. But once I get hit I lose the flow state and get wrecked.
Depending on the pick ups I can work out if it's going to be plain sailing. But yeah I didn't realise you can slide over the tables John woo style.
Wish I never left it so long to play. For me it's for replay value in spades. Im guessing there is unlocks galore.

Despite me sucking (or not) I really like it. I'll see how far I can get. But I think between this and Isaac. I prefer this and it's faster paced and you can aim in more directions.
Also despite being mid at bullet hell shmups I love them. This is like that. I just want to get further and the game is just in the right side of the"just one more go" yeah.

Sorry to add yet smother suggestion to your plate but if you like twin stick shmups, CYGNI came out last year and it's really good

Keep at it with Gungeon. It has a ton if content added to it over the years so you've got a lot of playthroughs ahead of you if you really wanna explore what the game offers.

 

[BlackDow]

Sorry to add yet smother suggestion to your plate but if you like twin stick shmups, CYGNI came out last year and it's really good

Keep at it with Gungeon. It has a ton if content added to it over the years so you've got a lot of playthroughs ahead of you if you really wanna explore what the game offers.

I only have a switch. Is it on there ?

 

[Kvally]

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 (Team Death Match), and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden.

 

[regawdless]

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 (Team Death Match), and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden.

How do you like Banishers? Apparently was pretty good, but didn't sell much.

 

[Kvally]

How do you like Banishers? Apparently was pretty good, but didn't sell much.

So, the game play is solid. The story is decent enough, but there must be like 50 million lines of dialog to sit through. I used to skip dialog back in the day, but now stories appeal to me. But I am almost at the SKIP dialog point in this game otherwise I won't ever get it finished.

I would give it an 8/10 for game play, controls, graphics, and story. The game loses 2 points for the excessive dialog and the menu controls that use a cursor.

But I am not a good judge of games. I liked Dragon Age Veilguard. (I ignored the DEI stuff).

 

[tillbot8]

Gone back to playing red alert remastered on my pos laptop. It's an APU with Vega graphics. Be gentle

What a game tho. The classics never get boring!

 

[DonDonDonPata]

I only have a switch. Is it on there ?

Sadly no

 

[Grinchy]

I started up God of War Ragnarok on my Pro and god damn does it look crisp.

 

[Tapped]

Yakuza 0. I bought it at launch, played a few hours then didn't come back. About 5 years back I restarted it, got part way through chapter 4 then put it down and again didn't come back. Third time must be the charm because I just started chapter 8 and I'm enjoying the story much more this time, it's highly likely I'll finish it and cross it off the backlog. My major complaint is that I don't like how sluggish some of the cutscenes can be, the conversations sometimes feel unnaturally extended beyond what's needed.

 

[Asmonius]

Yakuza 0. I bought it at launch, played a few hours then didn't come back. About 5 years back I restarted it, got part way through chapter 4 then put it down and again didn't come back. Third time must be the charm because I just started chapter 8 and I'm enjoying the story much more this time, it's highly likely I'll finish it and cross it off the backlog. My major complaint is that I don't like how sluggish some of the cutscenes can be, the conversations sometimes feel unnaturally extended beyond what's needed.

Y0 definitely takes its time to get going, but it's such an amazing intro to the series I still completely recommend it for people looking to get into the series. Highly recommend doing enough activities for Completion Points, since the quality of life improvements from the shrine/temple make the game WAY more enjoyable.

 

[Tapped]

Y0 definitely takes its time to get going, but it's such an amazing intro to the series I still completely recommend it for people looking to get into the series. Highly recommend doing enough activities for Completion Points, since the quality of life improvements from the shrine/temple make the game WAY more enjoyable.

Yeah it's a super slow start, I completed Space Marine 2 in the same time it's taken for me to finish chapter 7 for example and the amount of time spent watching cutscenes in Y0 must be a huge % of play time but now that the story is picking up and has quite a few mysteries I'm eager to find out how it all plays out. Any specific CP path I should focus on first? I mostly put points into the tree with sprint upgrades to begin with.

 

[Asmonius]

Yeah it's a super slow start, I completed Space Marine 2 in the same time it's taken for me to finish chapter 7 for example and the amount of time spent watching cutscenes in Y0 must be a huge % of play time but now that the story is picking up and has quite a few mysteries I'm eager to find out how it all plays out. Any specific CP path I should focus on first? I mostly put points into the tree with sprint upgrades to begin with.

Adventure upgrades are the best quality of life-wise, then business (especially for Kiryu). Battle upgrades require a lot of points, but Kiryu has one to get 50% more money from Mr. Shakedown - so you can take turns letting him beat you and then cheesing him with a Super Spicy Knife to multiply your cash.

 

[Tapped]

Adventure upgrades are the best quality of life-wise, then business (especially for Kiryu). Battle upgrades require a lot of points, but Kiryu has one to get 50% more money from Mr. Shakedown - so you can take turns letting him beat you and then cheesing him with a Super Spicy Knife to multiply your cash.

Neat trick, thanks for sharing!

 

[HE1NZ]

Now playing Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines

Wanted to get back into real time tactics games. Haven't played them in decades. This one was the very first game in the genre and it's a classic. Still looks great. Only issue - it's designed for 20 fps and thus controls clumsily.

 

[Dreamlord]

Played the Khaos expansion of MK1. Two hours long, I can't believe how much they were asking for, full game price. Ridiculous. Only bought it for £14 and mainly for Ghostface and Conan (who landed today and is quite fun to play).

 

[Hinedorf]

Playing The Roottrees are dead. Really fun detective/mystery game where you piece evidence to create a family tree. I'm about 80% through it and still having a blast. Not that big of a game but fun to play.

 

[BlackDow]

Got to the third boss in enter the dungeon. But then it killed me.

 

[Grinchy]

I know I'm supposed to be playing Ragnarok, but I started Metroid Dread last night before going to sleep.

I played some more of it tonight on the TV with a controller. Damn, this game is gonna be good. I'm still pretty early in but it's all kinda coming together now. I also pulled off one of those "impossible escape parries."

 

[The_Mike]

Since I got internet when quake ii was popular I've mainly been an online gamer, always loved PvP so haven't played that much offline.

When I played Xbox one my favorite games were Xbox 360.

Now I'm playing a combi of Jak and daxter PS2 and medal of honor PS1, and tbh I found out that I don't dislike single player games, I am just not interested in modern games.

Too much shitty stuff cramped into them. Jak and daxter is run around and collecting, jumping on enemies etc.
Medal of honor is on rail basic shooter where you have a few objectives yet still streamlined without having to use your brain and just having fun.

 

[Pyrate]

Since I got internet when quake ii was popular I've mainly been an online gamer, always loved PvP so haven't played that much offline.

When I played Xbox one my favorite games were Xbox 360.

Now I'm playing a combi of Jak and daxter PS2 and medal of honor PS1, and tbh I found out that I don't dislike single player games, I am just not interested in modern games.

Too much shitty stuff cramped into them. Jak and daxter is run around and collecting, jumping on enemies etc.
Medal of honor is on rail basic shooter where you have a few objectives yet still streamlined without having to use your brain and just having fun.

I would've probably quit gaming altogether with the PS4 as my final generation had I not learned about emulation (and good indies). Thanks to those two though, I'm more into the hobby now than ever before.

 

[Hinedorf]

Gotta give some hype for the Roottrees are Dead. If they made 20 games in this exact same design I'd buy/play all 20. Fantastic musical vibes just an overall cool experience.

I deleted my 'free' copy and properly bought the game on Steam and will eventually give a glowing review which I rarely do but this is a real niche game I think 95% of all gamers would enjoy

 

[Rock And Roll]

Put 12 hours in to Chained Echoes today on my flights. Honestly, it's pretty meh. Don't know if I want to continue. Has anyone here played it? I could power through it, but I have this suspicion it might get really annoying towards the end and a pain in the ass to complete. Don't want to waste another 12 hours and then put it down 90% done if that's the case

 

[DonDonDonPata]

Playing some Infinity Nikki with the kids. Very easy to recommend to any girls who enjoyed Breath of the Wild…. It's a more platformin-heavy BotW with lots of costume stuff and easy exploration. Controls feel good and itlooks quite good for a free game, animations included. I'll probably get bored after a bit but both of my daughters will sink dozens of hours into it.

 

[Grinchy]

Ragnarok is good so far. I'm past the meetup with Thor. These production values are top notch.

Metroid Dread is also really damn fun so far. I'm in the 2nd area and I'm hopefully soon gonna find some kind of heat shielding.

 

[Pyrate]

Playing some Infinity Nikki with the kids. Very easy to recommend to any girls who enjoyed Breath of the Wild…. It's a more platformin-heavy BotW with lots of costume stuff and easy exploration. Controls feel good and itlooks quite good for a free game, animations included. I'll probably get bored after a bit but both of my daughters will sink dozens of hours into it.

Isn't it a gacha game? Wouldn't want my little siblings anywhere near that crap, they play roblox with their school friends which already makes me sick.

 

[DonDonDonPata]

Isn't it a gacha game? Wouldn't want my little siblings anywhere near that crap, they play roblox with their school friends which already makes me sick.

Yeah there's gacha costume collecting, but as best as I can tell all the ability costumes that relate to game progression and exploration (e.g. bug catching outfit, floating outfit, etc) are unlocked through normal play.

 

[skeem]

Rise of the Ronin continues to surprise. I like a lot about the game by this point but I am surprised to be mentioning how much I like using guns! Jumping off a high point with the wings, landing a short distance away from enemies just to take the first couple out with the rifle is great fun.

The ease of fast travelling is a real plus so I can focus on story or focus on exploring easily whenever I want. I do really recommend the game based on my first 10 or so hours with it.

I've also tried Hitman World of Assassination. Such a clean looking game. It's been absolutely ages since I tried anything from this series. And it's a fun game with a very different pace to play alongside Ronin.

I've been taking a good break from playing Street Fighter 6. Haven't touched it since early December. I definitely prefer the fighting game competition over the actual game itself. Views after 850+ hours are that the mechanics exclusive to 6 have harmed the game. Drive rush and drive rush cancels. It really takes away from the feel and practical use of a character when every character is looking to do something so similar.

I can't wait for the Capcom Fighting Collection to release so I can play a variety of styles in a fighting game that I enjoy again.