Messages

1

General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: July 13, 2025, 06:52:39 pm »

Not sure if I'll get back to Another Crab's Treasure or not, it's overall a decent game, but it wasn't clicking how I'd like.  For no real strong reason, sometimes games just don't play perfectly how I like and it's enough to mildly annoy me and the whole time I played I just wish some of the mechanics were a little smoother or tighter.  I do recommend it though and maybe I'll get back eventually, I just have Game Pass for now, so I got a bunch of stuff lined up to check out.

And the next I checked out is Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4.  Big Tony Hawk fan and was glad they got another shot at the series.  And despite being another studio for this, it's so far decent, only half-way through THPS3 content at the moment.  I know some people weren't happy that THPS 4 isn't the same game it was, they are just putting the maps into the classic timer format instead of being more of a free roam game with story content, but I don't mind that.  I personally don't have the nostalgia specifically for that one and I honestly don't think they would've made THPS 4 in full anyways, so this is the better option.  The only thing I'm slightly disappointed by is that apparently most of the music in the game is new additions rather than the old soundtrack.  I don't know specifically what was cut, I remember a bit less from this time other than CKY a few others, but I still would rather keep it as close to the original as possible.  That being said, I've heard some songs that I believe are new and are pretty cool, so I don't mind it a ton.

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Off Topic / Re: What TV/Netflix show are you currently watching? (Megathread)

« on: July 13, 2025, 03:24:43 pm »

Watched through the Apothecary Diaries on Netflix and it's a decent anime.  It's got a little drama to it, but it's almost slice of life for this girl who is obsessed with poisons and medicines being forced into indentured servitude for the royal court and using her intellect to solve deaths and illnesses that crop up.  The main girl feels really standout from a lot of female MC's as she's almost entirely aromantic, despite advances from another character in the show who is considered basically the hottest thing ever, and she's also considered abit of a freak as she's basically made herself immune to a lot of poisons through experimentation and has used herself to figure out new medicines for burns and such.  She's a fun character as the only thing that gets her excited is when she gets some rare herb or thinks she might have the chance to ingest poison lol  I'll probably watch Season 2 once it releases.

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: July 11, 2025, 02:05:07 pm »

Needed something more chill and light-hearted after Death Stranding 2, so got a few games line up, some abit shorter, starting with Another Crab's Treasure.  Basically a FromSoft styled action, but you play as a cute little crab trying to get back his home (shell).  Decent gameplay, feels like it could be abit tighter at times with it's movement, but there's nothing bad so far.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Why I think Perfect Dark has the potential to be Microsoft's God Of War

« on: July 09, 2025, 07:27:54 pm »

Just sucks for how bad this all looks for Rare.  A new company working to bring one of their series back to life is shutdown and game cancelled, and then Rare's own new original game is shut down and one of the old school guys leaves, and Rare has nothing else to show other than Sea of Thieves, a game from 2018.  I wish someone had ran with the hype from Banjo-Kazooie in Smash Bros as it's been 6 years since then and in all that time, they could've had a new game or even just a remaster of the three main games out in a sick bundle.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: July 06, 2025, 12:10:05 am »

15 - Death Stranding 2 (PS5 2025) - BEAT - Gonna keep this one simple, but beat the games story, still have more I'm gonna do to try and complete, but I really enjoyed the game.  I put it on the same level as the first, a game I really adored, and it does a lot of new stuff right, but it does stuff I don't love.  It's this uptick, but then brought back down, so it kinda evens out.  I think the overall story is better in the first and in some ways the world you traverse is better, abit more challenging, but I still really like this game. 

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: June 27, 2025, 02:52:33 am »

Right into it with Death Stranding 2, been waiting for this and have enjoyed my time so far.  It's very much more of the first game, absolutely expected, so if you weren't into the gameplay loop of the first game, nothing here will change ones mind.  There are a few QoL improvements here and there, some new things to unlock, new things to do, new enemies, it's a solid sequel a good 4 or 5 hours into it.  Some neat new environmental things like rivers that surge when it rains, or flood waters cause what looked like dry riverbeds to become active rivers, appearing and disappearing as you look at them, along with things like sandstorms.  Curious if there's anything special like that in the second area of the game I got to.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: June 24, 2025, 10:09:44 pm »

14 - Grounded (PC 2022) - BEAT - This continues to be one of the best all around survival crafting games I think.  It has a good story and setting, good variety of gameplay and creatures, lots of stuff to build, gear to make, it has a lot of great stuff going on.  No real negatives, mostly just nitpicks, it has me really excited for Grounded 2, though I'm not likely to get into the early access that I think starts next month, I try not to do that with games anymore and I'm just gonna hope it'll be out within the next year or so.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: June 20, 2025, 03:43:22 am »

13 - Deltarune: Chapter 1 to 4 (PC 2025) - BEAT - Been waiting way too damn long for the next chapters in this game, almost 4 years since Chapter 2 came out, and it's been 7 years in total since Deltarune came out.  I really wish they had worked abit quicker to get this out, but I did enjoy myself with these last two, they were big steps up in like gameplay variety, particularly Chapter 3, which had some fun minigames throughout.  I did do a full replay of the game as it had been years since I played the first two, and it was nice to go back through those chapters again. 

I always have a great time with this series, it's enjoyable because they aren't real "RPG's", like technically they are, but you play them by not fighting, not leveling, it's like some sort of interactive visual novel or something, so a lot of the time it's quite chill, though certain fights could be a real kick in the teeth.  The secret boss of Chapter 4 proved to be real problematic as it focused on focused on interaction that required expert directional aiming and it was abit wonky.  Made it the hardest fight I've experienced yet as it felt like I was really fighting my controls through it.

I will say, even after all this time, I'm not sure if I like Deltarune music as much as Undertale.  There's some cool songs, but so many songs have stuck with me from Undertale more than Deltarune has and I'm not sure why.   It's not a dig on Deltarune music, just something I've noticed, like songs throughout, I'm hearing them and hearing callbacks to Undertale songs in them and that makes them more recognizable lol

I do love this weird little series, kinda the only turn based stuff I play these days lol  Might go back and do a violence run, not sure exactly, but we'll see.  With 4 chapters, it's a decent chunk of playtime now as it took me over 16 hours to do a full run, though I didn't do everything single thing.

Thankfully Chapter 5 is confirmed for next year, so no more giant waits hopefully.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: June 19, 2025, 05:40:49 pm »

12 - Snacko (PC 2025) - BEAT - Think I forgot to do something for this when I beat it, but this was an enjoyable little game, fun art style, basically Stardew Valley crossed with abit of Animal crossing. It was a little buggy and lacking in some areas, probably shouldn't have released when it did, but they are super active with patching.  I'll probably come back to this like next year to see the improvements and additions for another run.

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: June 09, 2025, 05:17:27 pm »

With the announcement of Grounded 2, it immediately made me want to replay the first game, so it seems to be a yearly thing now that I might be just do a new run of the game until the sequel releases.  Which I'm hoping won't be too long, it took them 2 years to get through early access before, but now it's less about building a game from scratch and more expanding what they did before, so maybe it'll get fully released next year. 

This is such a good game, if you like survival crafting games, I think this one is up there as one of the best.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Summer Game Fest 2025

« on: June 08, 2025, 10:40:20 pm »

Somehow I completely missed that Beast of Reincarnation was a Game Freak game and I now know that they aren't actually owned by Nintendo, I just always assumed they were since 90% of their output since inception has been Pokemon games lol

It's a weird situation where I'm curious to see what they can do going all out with something, but then their Pokemon output has been so bad during the Switch era, it also makes me very unexcited because I'm primed to expect a half-assed game lol Hopefully it's good though, always like to see a company try and break out to do something different.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Summer Game Fest 2025

« on: June 08, 2025, 04:31:43 pm »

I just saw Keeper also, missed it before, but it's very weird in that very interesting way with its character, and some real nice visuals, so might have to check it out.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Summer Game Fest 2025

« on: June 08, 2025, 02:23:38 pm »

Only thing at the Xbox show for me, kinda just skimmed it as I missed most of it, was Grounded 2, I loved the first game, it's a fantastic survival crafting game, so I'm very excited to get that game once it gets through early access.

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Modern Video Games / Summer Game Fest 2025

« on: June 06, 2025, 01:29:57 pm »

We can just use this as a general catch all for anything happening this weekend, but SGF proper is in a few hours and I'll post anything that's new and notable that shows up.

Was gonna live post some of the reveals, but it's a two hour show and I kinda realized I'd rather not.

Not a ton of stuff blew me away personally, but it did end on one of my big wants, which is Resident Evil 9 or Resident Evil: Requiem. Damn excited for that and it's got a Feb 27, 2026 release date with gameplay being shown off at Gamescom. Looks like it'll involve the bombed out ruins of Raccoon City.  You play as I think a reporter, to investigate a mysterious death, in a place where her mother was killed, her name being Grace Ashcroft.  That name probably means she's the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft who was an investigative reporter that was from RE: Outbreak. Very excited for this.

For some other neat showings...

Mortal Shell 2 - I didn't play the first one, I heard it was just alright, but more of a proof of concept than a full game, but this looked great.

Sonic Racing: Crossworlds - Initially I was bummed that it was Sonic only, because of how much I liked Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed, but they are adding guest levels and characters.  Yakuza guy, Hatsune Miku, Joker from Persona 5, and Minecraft Steve, probably more also.  Hopefully this is decent.

Atomic Heart 2  - Was one of those games that had good ideas, but poor execution, and with this insane trailer, I'm hoping they can kinda properly nail it now.  There's also a multiplayer game set in the universe called The CUBE, though not 100% sure what type of game it was.

Lies of P: Overture - Surprise shadow drop of the DLC for today, looking forward to it down the road, I played it on Game Pass, so I need to actually buy the game before I can do the DLC now lol

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Modern Video Games / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: June 06, 2025, 12:16:03 pm »

I mostly just saw accessories when I went to the store yesterday, curious to see what was left, alongside games still available.  I felt like there was a number of those awful web cameras there, because those seem so immensely useless lol

One game I was surprised to see such immediate improvement from the system was the previous Hyrule Warriors game, Age of Calamity, as that ran terrible originally on Switch, I think to the point that I didn't play it a ton, maybe just run through the story, not as much as the original Hyrule Warriors, but that game just immediately runs better, no patch, so that'll be one to look forward to replaying when I get a Switch 2.