What are you playing?

[kamikazekeeg]

Was looking forward to STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, been such a long wait for it, but unfortunately it released in not the best state.  It runs well enough for me, but there's some definite areas of improvement I'm seeing and I think I'd rather come back to it next year after some patches to clean things up, maybe even add some things like deeper survival mechanics perhaps if possible as I think it has a real solid base to build off of.

[kamikazekeeg]

Decided to poke around Dead Island 2 again, maybe pick up the DLC I never got to later as going through Dying Light 2 and kinda not loving the game, I was sorta trying to remember back to this game, thinking I liked the general action more.  It's also abit stiff, heavy attacks do like this lock on animation strike depending on what weapon you have, but the action feels more visceral and violent here.  Also, super fast instant looting, I wanted that so bad in Dying Light 2, it feels so nice to just quick loot places and not have animation with everything lol  Game is dumb fun, might go through the whole game again, not sure yet as I need to finish 2 other games before the year is out.

[kamikazekeeg]

For how many free games I get a year from different services, it's rare that I get one I actually want to play, but Dredge was one of them thanks to Twitch.  Been meaning to get it for awhile as it looked neat and it is! Put a bunch of time into it and it gives me very familiar vibes to what Dave the Diver was like when I played that.  Very casual game, nothing too challenging, mildly creepy, some okay story going on.  Something about these sorta games can get very addictive though  I think I'm most of the way through the game, it seems quite short, but that's good, I wasn't wanting another big 30+ hour game as I plan to try and spend this month mostly finishing up some other games as I'm close to beating Astro Bot and then can go try to finish FF7 Rebirth.

[kamikazekeeg]

Played a couple matches of the Steel Hunters beta, was shown off at the Game Awards, it's a new F2P Wargaming venture, but I wasn't too impressed with it, it's really basic, kinda slow, which I wouldn't be against normally, but I don't know, I've played other mech games with more going on.  It's a very lighter Extraction/BR type of game, about 12 players, 6 teams of 2, but I think the problem is that combat with players isn't very exciting, and the PVE is really bad, just running to capture points and fighting really boring floating drones, and nothing else. 

Honestly, Mecha Break has more potential, that was also shown off at the game awards, it's way more hectic and fast paced, I played the beta, it's like if Armored Core was more of a hero shooter and I might keep an eye out for that instead.

[alligo]

I just finished Bakeru in 16 hours, the game is really fun and pleasant.
I enjoyed collecting the souvenirs and the scoop, finally a game where the collectibles are not a defect.
Moreover they are quite instructive because they teach things about Japan or life in general.

A few small negative points that said: the hitboxes, there is an enemy with a spear who was able to hit me behind a structure when normally he should not have and some levels towards the end can become frustrating.
but the game remains fun, it's really cool to be able to "visit" all of Japan with each of their specialties.

I'm happy to have been able to support the developers, I recommend it to those who like platform/adventure games and want to have fun.

[bizzgeburt]

While still steadily grinding mages in Final Fantasy IV for their mage summon drop in hour-shifts, I distract myself with Slider for SEGA Game Gear, a short arcade-style puzzle game - I'm at Level 59/100 now, hoping to beat it this time, for last time I tried, my handhelds screen gave up and had to be replaced with a modern one first.
Speaking of modernizing the screen, I realized that the 6 batteries last about 10 hours now, so no more hasty uncomfortable GG gaming for me

[bizzgeburt]

After beating Slider, I started playing Fantasy Zone for Game Gear. Guess this one becomes another unfinished for my backlog 
But I made it to 2nd boss so far, writing down my highscores this time.
Current highscore: 49.800    trying to beat it after dinner...

Keep on playing folks!

[alligo]

Star Ocean The Second Story R
I finished the first part with Claude and even if I liked the game, I'm still quite mixed.

The OST is good but quite forgettable, the AI ​​is really bad because even by putting on "balanced action" it won't do anything if it has no more MP. (especially the mages)
The fights become very messy when there are several lines of enemies and attacks.

The gameplay is not bad but you quickly get the hang of it, it's quite repetitive.
There are too many things to assimilate at the beginning (skills especially)
Fortunately there is a skill to make farming easier, because the game is very poorly balanced even on normal difficulty and it can become punitive.

The game is very beautiful, I love the modeling of the cities.

Maybe I'll see later to prepare for the endgame.

[LukaTheWanderer]

Been playing a few games. Currently focused heavily on Kingdom Come Deliverance before the sequel releases!

[alligo]

I'm on rebirth and I didn't expect to like the game as much. I haven't finished it yet so I might edit my post later.

The fact of having an open world scared me a little but in the end, it's not as horrible as Ubisoft's. There are a few quests but we're never overwhelmed by them.
Chadley's are a bit redundant though, even if there is a "lore" behind them.

The towers don't need to be activated (except for 100%) if you explore the maps.
Well, there are still some quests that are a bit crap like Johnny's or the one with Aerith where you have to sniff shells.

What I find unfortunate is having to play and succeed in certain mini-games for the proto-relic quest.
The gameplay is truly divine

The game is teeming with impressive details, they must have really pulled their hair out to implement all that. Even if they probably reused assets.
The game is beautiful in cinematics but in game, we can end up with coarse textures that are reminiscent of the PS3/PS4. It's also a shame that there are stuttering problems, there are also the same lighting problems as on PS5 so they lied by saying that they had reworked these aspects.

The music is grandiose, they have outdone themselves once again.
The staging is on another level, I just got to the gold saucer and it's just magical.
On the other hand, they made a big deal about Zack but we don't see him much during the game.

I like the little caves that we can find in Corel like the one where there is a well of life or for the esper.
For the parade at Junon I expected it to be harder but I succeeded the first time.

[kamikazekeeg]

Every so often I get the mood to dive into Hell Let Loose, it's my need for a Battlefield style shooter, something with scale, without just going back to play Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V more, but every time I'm immediately reminded why I struggle to keep up with the game lol There is so much downtime. 

Matches can take abit to start, if you die and there aren't garrisons and outposts up, or you spawn on HQ without a truck around, you could be running for awhile.  Even if outposts and garrisons are up, there's always a 10 second delay on death, and then you can have upwards of 20 to 30 seconds to respawn if you miss the timer.  You'll then run ahead, most likely get killed by random explosions, usually artillery, maybe a bomber, perhaps a tank, and then you repeat it.  It can be very satisfying, getting those long distance shots, running up on someone and blasting them, but the downtime can get brutal if the match isn't going your way.  If you are properly pushing, you'll likely spend minutes of every game just getting ready to deploy from deaths. 

It's aggravating because there's a generally decent game here, but there's so much running to die and a large portion of the time, there was nothing you could do.  Map might suck, lots of open areas, you are just screwed with pushing if people aren't chucking enough smokes, or often you are just getting exploded by something you couldn't expect, especially if you are fighting near a point. 

I'm dying for a good shooter right now that hits the mood right that isn't something I've already played a bunch.  Tried to play Black Ops 6 when it released, but base game sucks, can't play tiny, poorly designed, maps anymore, I can't play Warzone if I wanted to as it's terrible for players that aren't sweats and it will have or already has the Black Ops 6 movement system, which is mostly terrible and CoD in general is just bad and that's kinda it.  I tried to play Delta Force, but it's a bad Battlefield 2042 knockoff, so I guess I'm kinda stuck just puttering around with something like Hell Let Loose until Battlefield 6 hopefully releases this year and they decided to make a decent game for once.