What are you playing?

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Going to revisit the ReVamped version of these...see how nostalgia sits on this franchise. Would love to see a brand new BloodRayne game (not the anime side scroller crap, but a 3rd person one) that reboots the franchise.
 
I cannot believe that Gynoug is back. Surreal. Anyway, I'm trying it out on the Switch. I've not played it in nearly 30 years.

I'm also currently playing FE: Three Houses and Deltarune. What did you guys think of Three Houses? There are fanboys who dislike the game.
 
I have to believe I’m almost at the end of Fatal Frame V, just so tired lately and trying to get other stuff done. Shin Megami Tensei V should be coming in the mail today - kinda excited to try it out, hoping I won’t need to look up a story synopsis of the others I haven’t played. The remastered Bloodrayne games look closer to Bayonetta than I realized but I might wait on them til next week.

Oh, and I probably won’t bother playing the rest of San Andreas let alone even starting the other two GTA “remasters” lol

The only opinion I have on Fire Emblem is that there are far too many characters in Smash.
 
Grand Theft Auto The Definitive Trilogy - I've been dabbling around with GTA III and Vice City mainly in this package. I finished III, started Vice City and still haven't gotten around to San Andreas yet.

Where do we begin? First off, how can you call this the definitive edition when it is missing songs from the original release? Doesn't seem very definitive to me ;)

When you start playing, it looks okay at first sight. But the more you play, the more you notice what's wrong about it. While not entirely unplayable, it's still pretty god damn rough in all areas.

Graphically its a mixed bag. I don't necessarily mind what I've seen of character models in III and Vice City. There's only so much you can do with the original low poly models and I think they look okay for the most part. I've heard San Andreas is the worst offender though and like I said, still haven't tried San Andreas. Environments are a mixed bag generally speaking. It looks at odds with itself as it tries to implement a bunch of new rendering techiques into what is essentially low poly count PS2 geometry. Sometimes it looks nice, other times not so much.

As for bugs? I had my fair share in GTA III. A lot of game crashing bugs. The game crashed on me many times while playing. Also just weird little bugs in general. Cars floating out of the underground tunnels like they were hover vehicles was a common one I experienced. There was one point where I was killed while driving a boat so I retried the mission, however as I sailed by I noticed my old dead-self still floating in the water. And of course, falling through the world into the underground tunnels.

The rain effect is REALLY bad in GTA III...yet the rain effect in Vice City looks better to my eyes? Not sure what the fuck happened there.

I kind of like the implementation of the free camera. It doesn't fix the woes these games always had when it came to gun play but it does help a little have free-camera control.

All said, I don't think these games are unplayable but they definitely leave a lot to be desired. By all accounts, these games deserved better.

You would think that a company of Rockstar's quality would have at least a little quality control? They have millions upon millions of dollars, they must know these games are beloved. You would think they would have a little more quality control and actually do something special with these games? Nope! This screams rushed-to-market all around. I think Grove Street Games were just way in over their heads. When you count how many versions they had to release, I think it just got away from them. I blame Rockstar entirely. Rockstar has enough money in their accounts to do something special with these games and instead, they shat out 3 rushed-to-market games all for a quick buck.

It's a sad statement as to where the industry is nowadays though.
 
Sput Vas Normandy said:
Did you play the original trilogy?
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Sure did. I started out with Mass Effect 2 on PS3. Bought it right after the third released. I was enjoying it so much that before I even beat the 2nd, I went out and bought the 3rd as I found it on sale for Black Friday that year. Played them back to back and Mass Effect became a favorite series of mine. I even loved the co-op multiplayer on the third.

I eventually got to play some of the first when it digitally released on PS3. I never beat it as it played quite a bit different than the other two. When I picked up the Legendary Edition, I finally played all the way through the first. That boss battle was pretty epic at the end.

Really happy to see that the series is continuing and at least Liara is making a come back. That means there's a possibility of others from the crew returning as well. I wonder if they're going to allow save transfer from the Legendary Edition to the new game? That would be pretty cool.
 
Picked up the Ghost of Tsushima (Director’s Cut) for PS5 on sale today. What sealed the deal was the Japanese lip-syncing, which honestly still boggles my mind that this wasn’t a thing in the original release. I gotta say, lip-syncing seems pretty lousy to me so far, and these aren’t even actual subtitles being used, but fucking captions. This may seem like a really petty thing, and I’ve absolutely nothing against captions, but I’ve seen DVD and Blu Ray releases like this. I just want to understand what the characters are saying, not whenever they (gentle grunt) or (desperate wail). For a Director’s Cut, this one tiny (yet oddly marketed) feature is a disappointment.
 
I finished Fatal Frame V…quite a number of times. More than I really like to count lol. Mostly for all the swimsuits. That abs I finished the WiiU version as well which had me kind of trying to speed run it just to get to the ending faster. It’s really annoying that the last mission has to be replayed like 4 times and still takes me near an hour even with skipping the cutscenes and running through most of it. Guess I was really dedicated to getting the Zero suit especially.

I tried out the first level of the bonus mode with Ayane…it was kind of weird. Was not expecting stealth at all and I feel it’s just not designed very well. It doesn’t help that it seems that the tether guide that has replaced the ghost guide does not seem to work very well and constantly gets confused. There’s far less guidance in general and it feels as if they want you to be able to get lost a lot more.

Tried out SMTV and, well…I was genuinely surprised when the cast started referring to the protagonist as a male lol. From all of what I’ve seen and even on the cover there was no doubt in my mind that he was female but I guess they can just do whatever they want, but that makes me wonder why not just let us choose his gender then. Even the most effeminate Jojo characters I’ve seen like Giorno have at least some actually defining male traits. It probably won’t put me off the game in general but it’s just annoying I had to reset to give him a different name.

The new Hyrule Warriors came in the mail not too long after, bought entirely with gift cards from my birthday. I’d meant to get it much earlier but never got around to it, and things like wondering how much DLC there’d actually be and whether the story would actually be canon kinda had me second guessing it a bit. Thankfully it seems there’s not much I missed out on and so far I’m finding I don’t care whether it’s canon, it’s just fun seeing what Hyrule was like before everything got destroyed as well as the champions actually being at least a little more fleshed out beyond a Saturday morning cartoon. Thank god for voice acting in other languages being there by default.

The gameplay itself, well, it’s a bit difficult to get used to. Maybe it’s a bit of nostalgia almost, I haven’t touched it since the WiiU, but I think there’s something to be said about the simplicity of the original - that and being more a celebration of the entire series, whereas this being a offshoot of BotW makes it a bit more limited as well as too complex in some ways. I still can’t get used to what moves let you paraglide or why you would want to, nor each character having a different variation of each rune, etc. The maps seemingly being taken directly from BotW and simply edited seems to be a good idea at first but it also makes them a bit confusing to traverse at times when the map doesn’t seem to show height difference.

Seems like a lot of complaints but just more nitpicking than anything. Unfortunately my laptop battery seems to be dying, and since I’m recording these for my YouTube I will have to wait to play more until I can replace it. What a waste of a 5 day weekend lol
 
I played all of the older football games I have for the Genesis (IE: all but Madden '98) last night, as the Bengals (my team) go up against the Stoolers (Steelers) on Sunday. I played all 3 games with the settings that Sunday is supposed to be (Bengals at home, Stoolers the visiting team, rainy):

John Madden Football: 49-0 for me lol. It's actually hard to run up the score like I did, in this game!
Madden '93: 29-7
NFL '95: 28-14 (should've been 35, but that's a different story)

Fun to play the old games, especially when you're hamstrung with rosters you can't adjust (ESPECIALLY in '95; the Bengals were the worst team in the entire league that year and were rated accordingly...).
 
I just beat Yakuza 7 again. Had a MUCH better time with it this time around, if only because I played New Game + and didn’t have to do nearly as much grinding as my previous games. Still stand by my issues with the presentation shortcuts and RGG Studio’s obsession with cramming more irrelevant side-content into the game instead of focusing on refining the core gameplay, but there’s still something about this game that keeps me thinking about it.

It’s Ichiban, man. Ichiban.
 
I purchased Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice and Cuphead from gog. Let's see how far i come in Cuphead. If it's too hard i can watch videos from youtubers. But i liked the design-idea from Cuphead.
 
Lately, nothing's been doing it for me so I went ahead and re-downloaded No Man's Sky on the PS5 just for a laugh. I've been hooked. They turned this game into something beautiful and all-encompassing. I occasionally wonder why I'm bothering playing a game where I just run around zapping herbs and plants, but the game works on so many levels that it's a pleasure. Certainly worth experiencing if you haven't already. I don't typically like endless/super-long games, but I'm alright.
 
SledgeNE said:
I purchased Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice and Cuphead from gog. Let's see how far i come in Cuphead. If it's too hard i can watch videos from youtubers. But i liked the design-idea from Cuphead.
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Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice well worth the $$$. Game is a masterpiece of story telling.
 
I am still playing Far Cry 6 and I started my anual December Shenmue 1 run. I did not really started yet just watched the intro that played on the 29. I will resume playing on the 3 of december. The real time Shenmue playthrough is always fun.
 
Doing a Shenmue 1 playthrough too, but also just found NHL '94 Rewind on Xbox. As a kid I did swaps with my friend, his Megadrive for my SNES, for a month or so, and NHL '94 was a game I got with the console. Fecking brilliant it was and, by Jove, still is. Love it. Still not 100% clear on what 'icing' is, but what the hey. Or maybe I've just forgotten... :LOL:
 
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Now that I have my new 65 “ LG G1 mounted and set-up I was replaying Rachet and Clank in its 40 FPS fidelity mode and it’s absolutely amazing. Those extra frames make a tremendous difference while retaining highest possible graphical settings. I really hope Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games and other Sony 1st parties take note and make this an option, especially with next slate of titles continuing to be multi platform.

Also replayed Miles Morales and had a blast, it’s a tight small game that never out stays it’s welcome. Next PS5 Directors cut of Ghost of Tsushima and Death Steanding.
 
Bule said:
Doing a Shenmue 1 playthrough too, but also just found NHL '94 Rewind on Xbox. As a kid I did swaps with my friend, his Megadrive for my SNES, for a month or so, and NHL '94 was a game I got with the console. Fecking brilliant it was and, by Jove, still is. Love it. Still not 100% clear on what 'icing' is, but what the hey. Or maybe I've just forgotten... :LOL:
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lol icing is when the puck crosses 3 lines or so and reaches the opponent's endline (the red line, without getting touched), then gets touched by a non-goalie (if the goalie touches it, icing is waived off), which results in a face-off in your zone.

It is to deter constant dumping of the puck, in order to drain clock and keep your opponent from being in your zone.

I can't quite define it well, but I can recognise it no problem :)

On a slight side note, I still don't know why people love '94 so much; it is SLOW, clunky and literally every 16-bit NHL game that came after it, is SIGNIFICANTLY-better in every facet.

One of the many mysteries of 16-bit gaming (why it's beloved when it sucks compared to the games that came after).
 
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