What are you playing nowadays? Share yo' thoughts.

[Stg-Flame]

The new Risk of Rain 2 DLC just hit and despite lots of people in various places just bitching about how it's the worst DLC yet, I'm having a lot of fun. Sure, there's some collision issues and I've had more than a few voidlings get stuck under the terrain and I know there's a possible softlock during the Prismatic Trials, but other than that, the DLC has been amazing. Not only that, but it's actually pretty damn hard now but I think that's most likely due to the new elite type being overly-used. I'm not sure if this is intentional for testing purposes or if they just overtuned their spawn too much, but out of maybe 20 or 25 Monsoon runs, I've only made it to the new final boss stage four times and I've only seen him once.

 

[IronWing]

I'm thinking about giving the Viewfinder puzzle game a try as it is 40% off on Steam.

I started playing it this evening. Pretty good puzzle game. Some of the feel of The Talos Principle though the puzzles are easier, so far.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I started playing it this evening. Pretty good puzzle game. Some of the feel of The Talos Principle though the puzzles are easier, so far.

Kinda pricey. Makes more sense to get their adventure pack for better value.

 

[IronWing]

Kinda pricey. Makes more sense to get their adventure pack for better value.

The other games in the pack aren’t first person so no go.

 

[A_pathetic_insect]

I play a lot of titles from the late 1990s through the early 2010s. I thought that I would get into newer titles when I got a pc that could actually run them, but they never interested me.

 

[MoragaBlue]

Just watched the Forever Winter trailer. Hadn't known anything about this game before, any thoughts on it?

Thanks.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Just watched the Forever Winter trailer. Hadn't known anything about this game before, any thoughts on it?

Thanks.

Forever Winter

This looks interesting, no release date that i could see. It's a looter/extraction game https://store.steampowered.com/app/2828860/The_Forever_Winter/ The premise is you scavenge the battle fields while much bigger armies fight while trying not to draw to much attention to yourself art...

forums.anandtech.com

It's still a long ways away from being released but it looks interesting.

 

[Ranulf]

The new Risk of Rain 2 DLC just hit and despite lots of people in various places just bitching about how it's the worst DLC yet, I'm having a lot of fun. Sure, there's some collision issues and I've had more than a few voidlings get stuck under the terrain and I know there's a possible softlock during the Prismatic Trials, but other than that, the DLC has been amazing. Not only that, but it's actually pretty damn hard now but I think that's most likely due to the new elite type being overly-used. I'm not sure if this is intentional for testing purposes or if they just overtuned their spawn too much, but out of maybe 20 or 25 Monsoon runs, I've only made it to the new final boss stage four times and I've only seen him once.

People on the xbox had their whole saves and unlocks deleted/overwritten. From some of the bugs I've seen it is pretty bad. I'm scared to load up the base game alone. Glad youre enjoying it though.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Got it, thanks!

Perfect timing, since I've just finished Wukong. Nioh 2 sounds fun and Sekiro I picked up when it was on sale, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. For whatever reason, I can only focus on one game at a time, and depending on the game, I could be on that one game for quite some time, e.g., was on Elden Ring & DLC for a year and change.

I'm like that with games too. Sekiro is incredible though don't try to play it like a Souls game. I made that mistake, got ten hours in, and then got to a boss who is completely incapable of being beaten if you haven't mastered the deflection and parry system and quit the game. Played it again a couple of years later this time learning the sword fighting system and it was incredible.

If you haven't played the Souls games 1 & 3 are highly worth getting and Bloodborne is right there tied with Elden Ring for GOAT ever in the genre for me, though I guess you need a PS4 or PS5 for it.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed Lies of P since usually find Souls knockoffs not up to the standard FromSoft has set. It wasn't as good as Bloodborne which it was so clearly based off of, but still a must play.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Played it again a couple of years later this time learning the sword fighting system and it was incredible.

Reminds me of the time when I played MGS2 on PC because I couldn't afford PS2. Everything except the last boss fight went without a hitch. But when Raiden was given that sword or katana weapon, the controls for that didn't map properly to the keyboard buttons so I had no idea how to use that weapon effectively and beat the boss with some cheats I think. Years later, when I finally played the HD version on PS3, I discovered that using that weapon involved the Lx/Rx controller buttons and it was a joy to beat the boss using that.

 

[MoragaBlue]

If you haven't played the Souls games 1 & 3 are highly worth getting and Bloodborne is right there tied with Elden Ring for GOAT ever in the genre for me, though I guess you need a PS4 or PS5 for it.

Once they go on any kind of sale, I will pick them up. If Lies of P is most similar to Bloodborne, I'd pick it up right now and play if it were available on Steam. I suppose, I could play it if the PS5 Pro will be $600 or below? LOL

 

[Stg-Flame]

People on the xbox had their whole saves and unlocks deleted/overwritten. From some of the bugs I've seen it is pretty bad. I'm scared to load up the base game alone. Glad youre enjoying it though.

I can't comment on the console versions, but the PC version hasn't had many big issues other than the collision, some damage calculation, and the new "reflective" type celestial enemy. I think the new reflective one has a vivid deep blue aura but if I'm playing the Engineer, all I know is that both my turrets and my character seem to randomly take massive amounts of damage while hitting enemies during the celestial phase. The biggest issue at the moment is playing on Monsoon, there's so much stuff happening on the screen that it's incredibly difficult to see what's going on most of the time.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Once they go on any kind of sale, I will pick them up. If Lies of P is most similar to Bloodborne, I'd pick it up right now and play if it were available on Steam. I suppose, I could play it if the PS5 Pro will be $600 or below? LOL

PS5 Pro won't run Bloodborne any better than the PS4 Slim, that one is stuck forever at 1080p30 with bad frame pacing unless you put CFW on your system. If you want the best Bloodborne experience should buy a hacked early gen PS5 so you can play Bloodborne via BC with the fan made 60 fps patch. Or failing that, a hacked PS4 Pro, which I think you can play at 720p60 on. It's a shame because it and Elden Ring are my two Game of the Century now 24 years in.

 

[MoragaBlue]

PS5 Pro won't run Bloodborne any better than the PS4 Slim, that one is stuck forever at 1080p30 with bad frame pacing unless you put CFW on your system. If you want the best Bloodborne experience should buy a hacked early gen PS5 so you can play Bloodborne via BC with the fan made 60 fps patch. Or failing that, a hacked PS4 Pro, which I think you can play at 720p60 on. It's a shame because it and Elden Ring are my two Game of the Century now 24 years in.

Ah, locked at 30 FPS? They should remaster it, just as they have with Dark Souls. As to the other options to increase the frame rate, it's not worth the effort, at least not for me. While I have played and enjoyed games at 30 FPS, there's no reason to do so these days with powerful GPUs, in my view.

 

[IronWing]

I'm thinking about giving the Viewfinder puzzle game a try as it is 40% off on Steam.

Too short for the money, even with the discount. The back story is dull and leads nowhere. The mode of the puzzles is interesting.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Ah, locked at 30 FPS? They should remaster it, just as they have with Dark Souls. As to the other options to increase the frame rate, it's not worth the effort, at least not for me. While I have played and enjoyed games at 30 FPS, there's no reason to do so these days with powerful GPUs, in my view.

All they'd need to do is remove the frame cap, no need for remaster. I doubt we ever see it though because Sony shut down all of Japan Studio except Team Asobi who does the Astro games.

 

[MoragaBlue]

All they'd need to do is remove the frame cap, no need for remaster.

So, why don't they just remove it? It's almost as if they have no interest in anyone playing this IP.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

So, why don't they just remove it? It's almost as if they have no interest in anyone playing this IP.

Because they mostly shut Japan Studio down with the exception of the skeleton crew they left for the Astrobot games, so no QA and no one to fix bugs the unlock might introduce. I'm hoping against hope that Bluepoint will remake it after seeing how incredible their Demon's Souls remake was, as they took an amazing PS3 game and gave it jawdropping PS5 graphics without changing how the game played at all, but the rumors of Bluepoint making their own original game instead have me kind of down.

 

[MoragaBlue]

Because they mostly shut Japan Studio down with the exception of the skeleton crew they left for the Astrobot games, so no QA and no one to fix bugs the unlock might introduce. I'm hoping against hope that Bluepoint will remake it after seeing how incredible their Demon's Souls remake was, as they took an amazing PS3 game and gave it jawdropping PS5 graphics without changing how the game played at all, but the rumors of Bluepoint making their own original game instead have me kind of down.

Ok, I know nothing about coding, and thought all they had to do was flip some kind of switch. I just thought they could, say, "hey, you, software coder, make this 60 fps." I read something about a Bloodborne emulation for PC, and may look into it further to determine if it's something I may want to pursue, if the PS5 Pro's pricing isn't commensurate with my expectations.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Ok, I know nothing about coding, and thought all they had to do was flip some kind of switch. I just thought they could, say, "hey, you, software coder, make this 60 fps." I read something about a Bloodborne emulation for PC, and may look into it further to determine if it's something I may want to pursue, if the PS5 Pro's pricing isn't commensurate with my expectations.

PS4 emulation is a long long long ways away from being a viable way to play games sadly. You're stuck with the other options I laid out above to play this masterpiece. Maybe they'll announce a remaster/remake along with the PS5 Pro announcement which you think would be coming any time now to build hype for the holidays since PS5 Pro is supposed to be a Q4 2024 release. But I wouldn't get my hopes up, as Sony seems to not like money for some reason.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Sony seems to not like money for some reason.

Possibly lots of older short sighted guys on their management team.

 

[MoragaBlue]

Possibly lots of older short sighted guys on their management team.

I'm sure there are lots of really smart folks there who are convinced the modern live service multiplayer games will provide them with a stream of annuitized income in perpetuity, a la Fortnite. The problem is with very few exceptions, it's exceedingly rare to replicate. So, they set out to make 12 on the premise that a few of them hit, they're set.

What was it Mike Tyson said? Everyone has a plan until you get hit in the mouth. They've been hit in the mouth, and let's see how they respond. I just want Bloodborne and single player type games, in particular Soulslike ones. I just think they can allocate resources to make games for both genres, rather than just betting the farm on one of them.

 

[igor_kavinski]

single player type games

They can't ignore those because historically their single player games have been system sellers for them. If they ignore those types of games, they might as well start selling discounted Linux boxes with Geforce 1630 for playing Sony's version of Counterstrike.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Was looking forward to playing the Persona 3 Reload Episode Aigis DLC on Tuesday, but apparently the enshittification of XBox Game Pass has begun with this DLC only accessible for people who buy Game Pass Ultimate instead of PC Game Pass.

 

[quikah]

Finished Kunitsu-Gami. Quite fun, somewhat odd, really love the art. A bit too easy until about the third boss. Unlocked a lot of stuff, but unfortunately there is a persistent crashing issue (with the gamepass version of the game at least). Pretty annoying, I want to try new game+, but the crashing is putting me off it. Game is VERY Japanese, so if you have no interest in Japanese culture might be put off it.
There is a sort of prequel story in the form of a Bunraku play if you are interested