What are you playing?

[tripredacus]

GTA San Andreas came up on my backlog again, but this time it was the PS2 JP version. I had tried this earlier in the year with various emulators but there was always graphics problems. But since then I had gotten a PS2 from Japan for $30 and did not know if it worked. I fired it up and a couple things I noticed about the experience. Firstly, the graphics looked way better on the 32" Trinitron than the US PS2 did on the 20" Magnavox TV I have upstairs. So much that I think I will use my US PS2 on the big TV as well. Second, the Japanese version of San Andreas is nothing really different than the US version. Not different music or anything (I was hoping) and basically it is the US version but with Japanese subtitles. Alas, I did not get to play very long, as I get a message about the disc not being able to be read. It took Google Translate a few tries to read it, as I'm sure my phone camera has some issues reading from a CRT. So I then just played a music CD on the PS2 and a Japanese DVD movie. Those worked, so I guess the game is no good. That's fine, I still have the US version I can play with my original save. And I'm glad the super cheap PS2 turned out to work fine, I was kinda worried about that.

[Cartagia]

I've been making my through Super Mario Bros. Wonder.  It's just not really gripping me, and I don't know why.  It's not bad at all, and it is way better than the New Super Mario Bros games.  i'm definitely going to keep playing, and probably 100% it, but I'm not plowing ahead without abandon like I was expecting.

[kamikazekeeg]

Starting back into FF7: Rebirth, I ended up pausing the game abit ago, some things were coming up and I was feeling a little burnt out by the game and I'm still sorta having that feeling.  I think the game is good, but the whole open area setup drags abit.  Normally I'll all about an open world to explore, but the problem with FF7R, is that it's kind of a lot of the same stuff in every area, some unique things per location, but doing it all over again with mild tweaks to it, is kinda lacking.  I may or may not just try to push through the story, I like to do as much side stuff as I can, but that could burn me out again, but I want to see where the story goes, I'm over half-way through the story, so we'll see.  My time spent in it might depend on if I can beat it before Star Wars Outlaws releases later this week.

[finley]

Recently obtained Paleo Pines, supposedly a relaxing game. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but I certainly wouldn't say it's relaxing, and there some strange choices for this type of game like limited bag space (which I found out on Steam is because a member of the team decided that smaller bag space apparently makes it more challenging? Except items don't disappear from the map when you leave it, so it's not challenging so much as it is a nuisance when the loading screens for each area are pretty long). You can't even collect all of the dinosaurs because you only have a limited amount of places at your ranch.

I've also got a copy of Waga Ryuu o Miyo: Pride of the Dragon Peace which, going by the opening, I think is going to be more fun for me. I love games that allow you to pick your own starter.

[kamikazekeeg]

Started into Arena Breakout: Infinite and it might be one of the most obvious ripoffs I've seen in a long time lol And that's not the casual use of "rip off" as often happens, this game is just "What if we took everything from Tarkov, tweaked it ever so slightly, made it about 10% less hardcore, and it has Free to Play elements.  Like the F2P elements are kind of a turn off, but having a slightly less hardcore version of Tarkov is actually something I'm into as that game is the most hardcore game I've ever played and it's just overall not a fun game to me, especially as a solo.

What makes it slightly less hardcore is that I think it has a few less of the more in depth gameplay mechanics, you have a map that shows location, exits, and I think hot spots, items and lootables have a very soft glow to them when you get close so you can better see stuff what you can.  All stuff I appreciate really.  It still seems to be very hardcore and I'll probably get pissed at it like I would Tarkov, but if I'm less annoyed or overwhelmed by other things, I might be okay with it.

The big negative might be the F2P aspect as they have to make money in other ways and while I've heard that you can maybe spend real money to buy the best ammo, I'm not sure how impactful that is, how much it is, if they try to railroad into that stuff or what, so I could very well hate the game because of that, but for abit, I might be cool with it.

Also the game seems to run real smooth and not be a big resource hog like I remember Tarkov being.  So it's either I end up enjoying Arena, or I go do the Singleplayer mod for Tarkov which was something I was trying out before I got the new PC lol

[alligo]

Damn... I play sleeping dogs and i forgot how generous old  games could be.

Not only does the OW reward you with essential collectibles (statue for health, briefcase for money or clothes) but the missions too, by winning cars or other.
Or maybe it's because i have the definitive edition...

[kamikazekeeg]

Been tentatively waiting for Star Wars: Outlaws as it's a combination of excited for Star Wars that isn't built around established characters or Jedi, but also it's an Ubisoft game and I haven't really enjoyed one of them in kind of a really long time now.  Only a couple hours in so far, but enjoying, it's got all that Star Wars flavor and done up well.  Visually pretty good, lip sync at times feels a little light once in awhile, but otherwise everyone looks good.  This is also the first big brand new game I'm playing on my new computer, so I get to max it out.  It's running well most of the time, though I'm seeing the frames drop out in the open world area and might tweak my graphic settings a tad, it's hard to tell if that's my end or not, as I have a fairly beefy system right now, probably more of a them thing I'd bet as I was also getting some odd graphical flashes in the first main city you get to.

Speaking of, the open world seems nice, it's not just a part of the Ubisoft open world blob that their games became with Watch Dogs and Far Cry and Assassin's Creed, where you need to climb towers and there's a lot of BIG empty sameyness being felt. It feels like a nice, reasonably sized, open world, experience and I think there's maybe 3 of these planets, which is more than enough without feeling draining to explore.

Gameplay is fine, it's pretty basic blasting, wish there was a dodge roll or dive or something, because I think it could need it, AI feels abit basic, but they work.  The gimmick would be Nix, the little lizard partner, he can be directed to attack things, distract, interact with panels, etc and that's pretty nice to use.  It's not crazy amazing action to write home about, but it's fine so far. There's a lot of stealth action, but it's alright so far.  I heard you may need to do the stealth stuff alot, but it's not too bad.

Overall a solid enough start to the game, hoping it can be something I'm happy with.

[tripredacus]

Minecraft back on my daily, the issue then becomes that when playing a pack it isn't a good idea to only play it once a week. So for now I am thinking that I am going to be focusing on Minecraft for a while.

In other news, I am once again going to be trying to find the max score on Bejeweled 2 flash running on Ruffle. Previously I ran into roadblocks where you could only get to just under level 200 before the game would freeze. But I recently updated my browser and noticed that it doesn't freeze at that point anymore. Previous pre-update scores were around 200 million. I did some test runs and did get to level 400 something before I ran out of moves BUT ran into another bug. If you continue to play after loosing, the score counter doesn't update. So when I submitted the level 400 score it was 0. I think I need to refresh after every failure and start over each time. I managed to get to level 200+ and got a score of 1 billion. I wonder how high it can go.

[kamikazekeeg]

Tried to play the CoD: Black Ops 6 Multiplayer beta and boy is that new movement system not great to me.  Part of it is fine, being able to shoot around from prone and move faster in any direction is okay, but I kinda hate the whole diving system, because I find it clunky to execute unless I was to maybe rebind it, but also due to just knowing how badly the hardcore sweats will abuse it.  CoD is already super speedy nonsense, so to add all of this new movement is just going to make it way worse.  I also don't like how the new movement affects general movement, because when you are running around, I felt like my body had so much sway to it, it's weird.

Not that I care too much about CoD, I haven't cared since MW2019, where I was kinda on board, they did some big changes, Ground War was neat, it felt like a nice upgrade, and then every game after that just felt half-assed from what I saw.  This one might not be as bad as MW3 sounded like it was, probably having a fine campaign and zombies for those that care, but there's not much here for me. 

Man I hope the next Battlefield is good, I really need Battlefield to not be ass lol

[alligo]

Metro Exodus.

The atmosphere is clearly not the same anymore since we are often on the surface and it's much more open, that said I appreciate the train journey or the use of the car (it's still more practical to explore than on foot)

It's only towards the end, when we return to the tunnels that I felt anxiety like in the first games.

Good game overall but quite buggy.
I fell below in the map when a demon let go of me, a texture went crazy (a ceiling light that was swinging by itself), no physics on certain objects, an enemy who walks in the air and dies suddenly and (spoiler) in the end credits, when the group shoots, one died suddenly...

Edit : there are also still problems with the audio
The sound is sometimes too low, suddenly becomes loud again or cuts out.

[dhaabi]

I'll mention it here now because I doubt I'll ever be able to finish it, but I've been playing Super Hexagon off-and-on. At the easiest of six difficulty modes (aptly named Hard), I've been able to achieve a 51-second run. The game is wonderful, yet terrifying.

[alligo]

Space Marine 2.

The game is a real pleasure, it's a good old-school game without hassle like the 360/PS3 era.
A little repetitive but no shit to collect (just audio logs), just the pleasure of slaughtering hordes.

The DA is beautiful, I wanted to stop several times to take screenshots. An important fact to note that has become rare these days is that the game is really very well optimized and beautiful. They really did a good job.

[weirdfeline]

I reached level 30 (max level) on the Black Ops 6 beta. Rewind is such an awesome map.

[kashell]

I've been playing Visions of Mana. It's super cozy.

[kamikazekeeg]

Bouncing between Star Wars Outlaws and Astro Bot abit at the moment, of which Astro Bot is great.  I've only done the first zone, but it's just a very lovely time.  It's not my favorite style of 3D platformer, it's more like the linear 3D Mario games such as 3D World/Land games, but it's really enjoyable.  It's basically a Nintendo game, but with the visual flair of modern hardware as I still think it evokes the feel of the previous tech demo as there's often just extra stuff going on with tons of leaves to kick around or little acorns getting dumped out for the flair of it.