What are you playing?

I’ve gone back on my word, but only because I can pretty much play it for free. Turns out the laptop I’ve had over a year now came with a free month of Gamepass, so here I am playing Starfield just to confirm it’s no bueno.

This is all despite issues with trying to get the game to register my PS5 controller as well as having to update invidia drivers, and now I can’t verify this hasn’t been a coincidence but ever since I downloaded the game and played for a couple hours, my laptop has had to restart multiple times in just one evening so far.

As for the game itself, I made my character, Fraud Coward, and aside from a few little details, I’d wager the actual RPG elements are even less remarkable or varied than those in the final version of Cyberpunk, which is pretty sad. The only choices so far have been to either go along with the story, or refuse and not make any progress at all…not really a choice. There’s not even anything like SPECIAL so forget running low Int or high Luck or whatever. All we got are the same bland skill trees, which so far seem even worse than what Fallout 4 had.

Will see if I keep getting crashes, especially if I get them during gameplay. After updating the drivers, the game still defaulted to low settings for everything. Now, I don’t have a very discerning eye for frame rates and all, and I generally only play at 1080p given the screen size, but it seemed to run ok with some hiccups. I always turn vsync and motion blur off, and saw suggestions to turn off this weird grain filter they added for no reason. It doesn’t matter as much to me, but people who have spent on the newer graphics cards and all only getting blurry messed at sub60, I can’t really blame them when they exceed recommended specs. Personally to me, even the better screens and footage I’ve seen, it still looks pretty mediocre for what it is, and since it’s not even really open world now they can’t really use that excuse to fall back on. Initially was not wowed by Armored Core 6 but even that looks way more detailed and with a more interesting art direction to boot.
 
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Posted this over on the Starfield Steam forums and unsurprisingly got no response whatsoever. I don’t think hardly anyone wants to look at the game with a critical eye. Sadly, I think Bethesda’s tactics of dumbing down their own games over the years has worked in cultivating an extremely casual audience - the kind that would buy Madden every year without a thought. I’m just gonna copy and paste it here.

20 hours in, so beware of spoilers:

It’s been real slow going even just sticking to mostly main quest stuff, but I am making a bit of progress, just to see how it ends and to say I have this game a fair chance.

Have to say, they probably could have cut down on the number of artifacts you have to find, or maybe somehow make the more cut/paste ones entirely optional. At least some parts have been mildly more interesting. Neon was actually ok, all things considered, and did not expect to be able to kill Walter’s business rival and proceed to a shootout/escape with little consequence. Even so, kind of bland, thought they were hinting at maybe his wife actually double crossing him when she came over the intercom. Oh well. There was a point where the stealth just kind of bugged for some reason which really sucked because I wanted to play this part as peacefully as I could, but no I guess not.

The part where you have to board the eccentric collector’s ship(forget his name and many others tbh) went a little smoother at first. Able to get by with only hurting him and getting a small bounty, no one killed or anything, and that was fine throughout the next part where the Hunter attacks the lodge. Wasn’t real torn up about Sam dying, all the characters are rather plain and I just happened to like the ones on the Eye a little more. In bland Bethesda fashion his daughter just says all the usual stuff kid characters do, not acting very realistically to a death of a parent or otherwise.

After that whole sequence is where I started running into major issues. I would have been fine simply paying off the bounty coming back to New Atlantis, but they wanted to take me somewhere shady. Had already read on here about a quest line in regards to police forcing you to do nonsense and didn’t want any part of it. So I started blasting. Racked up a much higher bounty, goodbye saving for anything else I might want. Not to mention Sarah and other companies throwing a fit when I thought they’d be understanding. But on top of everything it’s been really annoying how it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ with plot progression with the Keeper and that quest for a good bit. This whole thing has soured a good chunk of my experience. Consequences for actions are one thing, but the game already railroads you significantly for so many hours with very little choice other than to go see empty, barren planets with the same few copy/pasted POIs. Far as I’m aware I’m doing some of the only content actually worth doing, and actively punished for abstaining from one particular aspect of it.

In managing to escape on my way to the coordinates given, I was able to finally pay the bounty on a different planet, so hopefully that’s done and over with. However I’ve decided to say ♥♥♥♥ any constellation companions I guess. Lin and adoring fan it is I suppose. Anyway, so I finally make it to meet these two aliens, which seems to be a big moment.

Alright, so the Hunter and Emissary are kind of unique for Bethesda, will give them that, the whole starborn, artifact connection reveal. Had already been spoiled a little on NG+ so I figure that’s where this comes in. This seems it may eventually present me with a choice, to which I may side with the Hunter, but who knows what rails this game will place next? Even so, this seems to be one of the only actual choices so far that really matters, and may be the only one in the game, so I ask myself…what is the point in caring? I’ve been given very little reason to care about any of the characters so far, nor my limited scope of interactions with them. The game acts as if this is some big moment, reveal, but ultimately it falls flat because there’s just no substance leading up to it. It’s the kind of writing that looks to games like Nier Automata, or hell even Bioshock Infinite (which is already not great in itself) without asking why those games earned their moments.

I put this game aside for the new Pokémon DLC yesterday. Sadly pretty short and a bit more linear than the main game, but I still feel the characters, especially for a kids game, had quite a bit more depth and nuance to them than most in this game so far. And even there you don’t get much choice at all either, but then Pokemon rarely promises that, compared to Bethesda’s usual games.

I hope I’m almost done at least. So far I’ve got yet a few more artifact pieces to collect in yet more uninteresting bases with the same old goons and same old guns. Hoping the lead on the moon will be unique content if some kind.
 
I really, really wish I could play Starfield, but it keeps giving me motion sickness. Maybe 4-5 games over the course of my life have given it to me, but usually over the course of several hours. Unfortunately, Starfield joins Ecco the Dolphin on Dreamcast as the only game to almost instantly make me sick. Super bummed about that.

So with that, I'm playing this mobile MMO called The Legend of Neverland. It's super pay to win, but I've made some good friends there, so we pal around and just get our butt kicked in PvP.

Mega Man X Dive just came out with an offline version, so I'm playing that too. Very nice having all the gacha stuff removed and all the content available (including holiday events and characters) for $30.

Gearing up for the RE4 and Sonic Frontiers DLCs over the next couple of weeks as well!
 
otbr87 said:
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MK11 was my most played game on PS4. I loved the characters but never played MK much as I felt it was one of those games where you get caught in a combo and might as well put your controller down as there was little you can do about it.

Two reasons why I'm not getting the latest. 1- I feel like it's way to soon. The amount of hours I put into MK11, I'm just not ready for this. Second reason is Street Fighter V. Love the game but have struggled for time to play it.
 
Nathanial Essex said:
MK11 was my most played game on PS4. I loved the characters but never played MK much as I felt it was one of those games where you get caught in a combo and might as well put your controller down as there was little you can do about it.

Two reasons why I'm not getting the latest. 1- I feel like it's way to soon. The amount of hours I put into MK11, I'm just not ready for this. Second reason is Street Fighter V. Love the game but have struggled for time to play it.
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If you loved MK11 I highly reccomend MK1. MK1 and MK11 rival each other in many ways for being the best games in the franchise, though its too early to tell for sure, I'm already thinking that overall 1 is better than 11(intros and creation suite are worse than 11 tho). Easily better than X or 9 or any of the older jankier ones.
 
Honestly I wouldn’t say you’re missing out on much if you’re unable to play Starfield. I was around maybe 26-28 hours in, well past boredom and trying to just get to the end by then, and got bluescreened and lost 4 hours of progress. It was then I decided it was not worth it to repeat all that and dropped the game. The story acts like it earned some big revelation but the fact is none of the characters are interesting enough to get me or I imagine many others to be invested enough to care. That and there’s one quest that somehow does the Dark World from ALttP concept in the most tedious possible way, and one other that forces you to take a bounty no matter what solution you try and in turn that forces you into being dragged off to a side mission I did not want to do, so I was forced to kill police and have none of the main companions following me. Games like Skyrim or Fallout 4 were already lacking in real, meaningful choices, and between this and the utterly barren procedurally generated planets, there is very little worth seeing unless you want an extremely casual experience that drags on.

So I guess I’ll be going back to Armored Core 6 now, probably some others soon as well. Apparently some bosses got nerfed while I took a break from it. Some people on the steam forums are throwing a fit about it, but if that gets them to stop being full of themselves and going back to Elden Ring then I’m all for it.

The recent reveal of Another Code Recollection got me to try playing Trace Memory again for probably the first time since it was released way back when. Somehow even more excited for it than the Paper Mario 2 remake. Watching but not really paying attention to a longplay of the sequel on YouTube since it never came here to the US, don’t want to be spoiled too much but the vibes really remind me of Deadly Premonition 2.
 
Starfield

Doing errands and side quests, i'm like 25 hours and didnt do anything of the main quest lol.
 
I'm playing through Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. It's ok so far, it plays pretty well and has a nifty soundtrack (though more on that later). I like the way they set up the tagging system, which lets you switch up what you want to paint by following a different pattern.

The thing I most hate to criticize is that it's actually kind of bland. So far there's only 3 characters (I just finished the Mall level), and their design and personality isn't really that interesting. They're trying to have cutscenes and story and I think it's not a good fit for this game, especially since they use a few sound bytes instead of VO lines. A lot of the sound design feels sparse, especially on attacks and character movements. So far the soundtrack is pretty good, but it doesn't have any of the quirky and memorable tunes from JSR. Being chased by police doesn't really have any sense of urgency.

It kind of feels like they leaned a bit too hard into "remember Dreamcast?", but JSR still had DJ Professor K narrate what's going on, and the production values and presentation is still better in JSR/JSRF. I don't mind if they want to be inspired by JSR but still do their own take on it, but that's not the takeaway I have with what I've played so far. Fair or not, this will be compared to the game it takes its inspiration from.
 
Tomato Convenience Store said:
I'm playing through Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. It's ok so far, it plays pretty well and has a nifty soundtrack (though more on that later). I like the way they set up the tagging system, which lets you switch up what you want to paint by following a different pattern.

The thing I most hate to criticize is that it's actually kind of bland. So far there's only 3 characters (I just finished the Mall level), and their design and personality isn't really that interesting. They're trying to have cutscenes and story and I think it's not a good fit for this game, especially since they use a few sound bytes instead of VO lines. A lot of the sound design feels sparse, especially on attacks and character movements. So far the soundtrack is pretty good, but it doesn't have any of the quirky and memorable tunes from JSR. Being chased by police doesn't really have any sense of urgency.

It kind of feels like they leaned a bit too hard into "remember Dreamcast?", but JSR still had DJ Professor K narrate what's going on, and the production values and presentation is still better in JSR/JSRF. I don't mind if they want to be inspired by JSR but still do their own take on it, but that's not the takeaway I have with what I've played so far. Fair or not, this will be compared to the game it takes its inspiration from.
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The story is pretty great actually, exceeded my expectations by the end of the game. Not what I expected from a JSR clone.
 
I am playing the Re 4 Remake DLC in Separate ways and I am also going to start to play Mortal kombat 1 soon. my pre-ordered copy has already arrived on launch day but I ad no time to play it yet.
 
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9dragons said:
I am playing the Re 4 Remake DLC in Separate ways and I am also going to start to play Mortal kombat 1 soon. my pre-ordered copy has already arrived on launch day but I ad no time to play it yet.
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I highly recommend you do so soon. Granted, I only got to play Tekken 8 for around 20 minutes or so, but I’ve sunk 20+ hours into SF6 and MK1 and feel comfortable in saying that the latter is by far the best of the big three’s next-gen offerings.
 
Replayed Rise of the Tomb Raider (PS4) for the first time since its release in 2015. While such a gap between replays may seem normal, Tomb Raider has been a favorite series of mine since it started in 1996. The 2015 release, Rise, was marred for me significantly with the Xbox year of exclusivity. It wasn't that it was exclusive, it's that no one would say a damn word on if it was coming to any other platforms for most of that year.

When I finally got to play it on PS4, I felt incredibly let down, mostly by the writing. The gameplay felt similar, but off. It was a worse Tomb Raider than the 2013 game in almost every way. I took such an extended break believing that perhaps the game was better than I initially thought and that I was still pissed over the way it was handled on the road to eventually releasing on Playstation. So where do I stand?

The game is still worse than the 2013 game in almost every way. I played them back to back. I had guessed Rise's entire plot on the first playthrough, having not watched anything on the game during it's year on Xbox and PC. Aside from the writing, how is it worse? One thing I loved about the 2013 Tomb Raider was the reliance on the bow and the axe. You could play a majority of the game with just those two tools. In Rise, the game demands you use regular guns more than you use the bow. Sure, they try and implement the bow in as a tool, expanding to add gas and what not, but for a majority of the game, especially the last half, the bow is essentially useless.

Thus, my original thoughts on the game, while a bit marred by the year of exclusivity via the silence to the fanbase, was still spot on for my tastes. I just couldn't put my finger on what was different between the two to justify calling it worse without the replay.

Moving on to Resident Evil Remake (first game - PS4)
 
Been replaying Hotel Dusk and really not much else lately. Better than I remembered, even if somehow I missed out on getting the bonus ending. Probably a lot of this stuff went a bit over my head back then and didn’t resonate with me so much, especially in a way where I think characters like Melissa might have annoyed me then but now it’s just so wholesome to see her happy by the end.

So now I’ve started the sequel, Last Window, for my first time last night. Only about an hour in but I can already tell I’ll likely enjoy it just as much, but also suffer in how relatable it is to my current situation lol. Did not think Kyle to be as young as 34 tbh.
 
I recently completed Star Ocean: The Divine Force in its entirety.

Notwithstanding its flaws, I enjoyed the battle system of this recent iteration. Whilst it isn't M. Sakuraba's memorable gaming soundtrack, it has some noticeable gems here and there.

If Square Enix gave Tri Ace ample time to finish the game's development, the reviews wouldn't be as harsh.

I'm currently playing the remake of Star Ocean on my ps4.
 
BloodyHeartland said:
Honestly I wouldn’t say you’re missing out on much if you’re unable to play Starfield. I was around maybe 26-28 hours in, well past boredom and trying to just get to the end by then, and got bluescreened and lost 4 hours of progress. It was then I decided it was not worth it to repeat all that and dropped the game. The story acts like it earned some big revelation but the fact is none of the characters are interesting enough to get me or I imagine many others to be invested enough to care. That and there’s one quest that somehow does the Dark World from ALttP concept in the most tedious possible way, and one other that forces you to take a bounty no matter what solution you try and in turn that forces you into being dragged off to a side mission I did not want to do, so I was forced to kill police and have none of the main companions following me. Games like Skyrim or Fallout 4 were already lacking in real, meaningful choices, and between this and the utterly barren procedurally generated planets, there is very little worth seeing unless you want an extremely casual experience that drags on.

So I guess I’ll be going back to Armored Core 6 now, probably some others soon as well. Apparently some bosses got nerfed while I took a break from it. Some people on the steam forums are throwing a fit about it, but if that gets them to stop being full of themselves and going back to Elden Ring then I’m all for it.

The recent reveal of Another Code Recollection got me to try playing Trace Memory again for probably the first time since it was released way back when. Somehow even more excited for it than the Paper Mario 2 remake. Watching but not really paying attention to a longplay of the sequel on YouTube since it never came here to the US, don’t want to be spoiled too much but the vibes really remind me of Deadly Premonition 2.
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I got myself a gaming PC. Thought this would be one I would check out as I'm longing for a Western RPG. However, just looks like a Bethesda game and that puts me right off. As it's not getting 9s across the board, I am going to skip.

Not really playing anything at present. I am trying to power through Horizon - Call of the Mountain, but can only play that when my kids are in bed and by the time that happens, I am too tired to set everything up.
 
Since my last post I’d somehow gotten into replaying Nier Automata with some goofy mods for fun…then finally getting around to trying Replicant on PC and getting almost 100% in that as well(getting all upgraded weapons is still a tall order), and am now playing it again with modded father voice lines and model…and it’s making me nostalgic enough to play the original again lol. Just something about it.

I could get back to Last Window. Or to finishing Fatal Frame 4 for tomorrow but I been too long. I did try the PC port of mgs3…hate to be a stickler, but it’s really just the HD version back from 2011, and you have to do crazy work around to get any resolution higher than 720p and to make sure the fps doesn’t fuck up the game. So I refunded and would rather wait for the full on remake.
 
i completed a few games including the callisto protocol (ps5) on ps+. the story and graphics were good but i think the gameplay missed the mark. maybe it would of worked better if it was a run and gun horror game like Binary Domain? i would give the callisto protocol 6.5/10



at the moment, i'm pretty early into zelda totk.

i find the gameplay quite easy going and relaxing but having said that, i'm not playing it non stop.. i'm only playing it slowly.

i have a few of the new ability's unlocked, including the creating mode. i've only created basic stuff but i can see how you can become quite creative to complete a set task. i saw a youtube clip of how to make a simple flying bike but i haven't made it yet because it kinda looks like cheating lol

my only complaint with this game and the previous zelda title, is that despite the really nice, simplistic graphics, the ingame tutorials are lacking and the gameplay can be quite hard to understand. i often find myself referring to walkthroughs to find something out ( which i normally hate) and end up kicking myself because its normally something quite simple.. if i remember back to the gamecube days, thats one of the main reasons i gave up on zelda windwalker, which i regret.
 
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I'm pretty excited for the new Remaster of Star Ocean 2, so I have gone back to play the PSP port of the original - Which is luckily available on PSN! It's a very accessible game and I hope I can get through it before I get the 2nd game next month. The PSP port was already fantastic with lovely pre-rendered backgrounds and voice acting.

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Beyond that I have been playing Disney's Speedstorm. While boggled with microtransations as these Frree2Play games tend to be, it's not completely debilitating. I've just been playing the Cup Mode which updates with 10 or so races every 4-7 days and have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it! There is even an online mode where everyone is set to the same level so you don't have to compete with someone who has given up their wallet! It seems every month will have a theme from a Disney Classic, I've already managed to Unlock all the characters from the curernt theme Aladdin. It's quick to jump in and play, I'e had more fun with this than I did with the Crash Team Racing Remake on PS4.
 
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