LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 17, 2024 21:28:53 GMT -5
Too early to offer any kind of review except to say that Hades II rules.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 22, 2024 7:36:24 GMT -5
Uh, very light Hades II spoilers I guess: Holy crap, Hades II has a whole second campaign! Like a whole second path with all unique biomes that you can start from the hub once you unlock it. And the first two biomes at least (haven't managed to beat the 2nd boss) are absolutely cool as hell. Just as I was beginning to feel I was overdoing it and should take a break, especially since getting to House of Hades had become a foregone conclusion and runs were taking 45-60 minutes each now, I unlocked a whole fresh new path. Genuinely kind of amazed how much game there is here for an Early Access release. I'd read it, but for some reason didn't believe it until seeing it for myself, but Hades II in early access really is twice the size of Hades. I wish it had more weapons, and does indeed appear it will be adding one on full release, but I want, like, MORE weapons. That and their associated hammers being the main differentiators of any run.
I've yet to roll credits. I've gotten to who I'm pretty sure is the final boss of the underworld path, to the second phase even, but got slapped pretty much immediately after that.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on May 22, 2024 11:33:09 GMT -5
Yes! I was so excited when I realized that about Hades 2. I cheat and play Godmode so I'm 40+ nights in, just upping my friendships with everyone and discovering new stuff.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on May 22, 2024 15:32:40 GMT -5
Yes! I was so excited when I realized that about Hades 2. I cheat and play Godmode so I'm 40+ nights in, just upping my friendships with everyone and discovering new stuff. Is the God Mode the same as the first game? Because that's absolutely my jam. (I am still amused at the fact that at least PART of the reason I needed god mode was because my PC was lagging. I thought I was just totally terrible at it when that's maybe 30% off my problem. I still beat the game!) |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 22, 2024 15:54:48 GMT -5
Yes! I was so excited when I realized that about Hades 2. I cheat and play Godmode so I'm 40+ nights in, just upping my friendships with everyone and discovering new stuff. I am using God Mode also. I'm not nearly good enough at this game* (or its predecessor) to see endgame content without it. I've got the frog familiar, Frinos, who is absolutely my boy, but I'm sure at some point I'll figure out how to befriend that cat. I'm night 21 or 22, I think? *Actually, now that I've beaten all of the underworld bosses so many times except for (who I assume is) the last one, I think I could probably disable God Mode and still make it at least to the House of Hades. I think I've beaten the first two underworld bosses hitless at least a couple times at this point. The first one for sure. (The 3rd biome boss in Hades I, Theseus and Asterius, I simply could never get good at. I still find that fight more difficult than Hades himself.) |
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on May 22, 2024 21:25:02 GMT -5
Yes! I was so excited when I realized that about Hades 2. I cheat and play Godmode so I'm 40+ nights in, just upping my friendships with everyone and discovering new stuff. I am using God Mode also. I'm not nearly good enough at this game* (or its predecessor) to see endgame content without it. I've got the frog familiar, Frinos, who is absolutely my boy, but I'm sure at some point I'll figure out how to befriend that cat. I'm night 21 or 22, I think? *Actually, now that I've beaten all of the underworld bosses so many times except for (who I assume is) the last one, I think I could probably disable God Mode and still make it at least to the House of Hades. I think I've beaten the first two underworld bosses hitless at least a couple times at this point. The first one for sure. (The 3rd biome boss in Hades I, Theseus and Asterius, I simply could never get good at. I still find that fight more difficult than Hades himself.) Hint on the cat: bring each gathering tool, including the spirit gathering one, with you on at least two runs each. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on May 22, 2024 23:20:11 GMT -5
What is Fez? Also, cool, I think I’ll buy it and start playing as soon as I finish with Death’s Door, which I suspect I’m nearing the end stages of. Death's Door is such a good game.
Fez is a 2012 puzzle-platformer in which you explore a 3D world through a series of 2D planes. The game presents as a traditional 2D platformer, but very early on you gain the ability to rotate the world 90 degrees, revealing that every space actually has up to four sides that can be explored for collectables. An example would be: you're on one treetop, and you want to jump to another treetop to collect a cube (generic game collectible), but the treetop is much too far away to jump to. However, when you turn the perspective 90 degrees, they appear to be right next to each other, almost touching even, and you can simply hop across. Now, when you change the perspective back, you've effectively leaped to the other side of what was once an impassable gap, when all it took was a little hop and the right perspective.
That's all very cool, and that combined with its attractive pixelated art style and one-of-a-kind soundtrack would have probably made it a hit, full stop. The reason why Fez is iconic, though, the reason why people still talk about it and present it as the ur-example of abstract discovery-based puzzle games, is that everything I've described so far is layer one. In layer two - which is not an explicit event or anything, just a word I'm using to describe your awareness of how the game works - you begin to realize that all the cubes you've been collecting, the cubes you could immediately see and needed only figure out how to manage perspective to reach, are the lowest hanging fruit. There's hidden stuff everywhere, much of it in plain sight. You just don't realize what you're looking at. Those birds that keep flying from tree to tree: those aren't just color. They're telling you something. That fox playing in the grass ... that means something. All those block symbols all over the buildings and obelisks you keep running into: what if you could read them? And not by finding some magical book. What if there was a Rosetta stone in plain sight, and all you need is a pen, a pad, and some cleverness? All these unassigned buttons on your controller that don't do anything ... what if they did?
I'll stop. Fez is a top ten puzzle game. It's a mental Metroidvania. Instead of double-jumps and super missiles, its progression is gated by knowledge. You figure out a new way of solving a puzzle, and the entire world is re-contextualized around that knowledge. You realize you haven't even started playing the game yet.
I recommend it highly:
Is the post-game content in Death’s Door worth playing? After you kill the Door Lord and get the credits sequence? |
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on May 23, 2024 0:49:08 GMT -5
I bought the Far Harbor DLC for Fallout 4 a few days ago and have been solely focused on it. It's a LOT of fun, and not just because it's set on an island off the coast of Maine so it's kind of fun to pretend I could have gone there myself.
I love the atmosphere full of radioactive fog. There are a few new creatures, and the story missions are a bit better than the main game in my opinion. Fog ghouls are stupid though, literally no different than any other ghouls.
There are multiple settlement options there, but I'm literally just using Old Man Longfellow's cabin as my base, where I gave him some extra lighting for his house and built myself a barn nearby to store all of my crap.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 23, 2024 7:12:45 GMT -5
Death's Door is such a good game. Is the post-game content in Death’s Door worth playing? After you kill the Door Lord and get the credits sequence? I'm afraid I can't say either way. I've beaten Death's Door three times, but I never engaged with the post-game much. I think I looked it up once, curious what all I could still do, and while the details evade me now, I remember thinking it seemed tedious and not worth the effort. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on May 23, 2024 7:51:09 GMT -5
Is the post-game content in Death’s Door worth playing? After you kill the Door Lord and get the credits sequence? I'm afraid I can't say either way. I've beaten Death's Door three times, but I never engaged with the post-game much. I think I looked it up once, curious what all I could still do, and while the details evade me now, I remember thinking it seemed tedious and not worth the effort. Yeah, trekking through the map for some sort of, as i understand it, puzzle solving, doesn’t really appeal to me, especially as this was starting to wear a little thin towards the end stages of the main game when i was trying to find the little health/magic crystal shrines and gain access to the best weapons. Onto Animal Well then, which I’ve actually already played like half an hour of. I love the aesthetic of it so far. |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 23, 2024 8:33:15 GMT -5
I'm afraid I can't say either way. I've beaten Death's Door three times, but I never engaged with the post-game much. I think I looked it up once, curious what all I could still do, and while the details evade me now, I remember thinking it seemed tedious and not worth the effort. Yeah, trekking through the map for some sort of, as i understand it, puzzle solving, doesn’t really appeal to me, especially as this was starting to wear a little thin towards the end stages of the main game when i was trying to find the little health/magic crystal shrines and gain access to the best weapons. Onto Animal Well then, which I’ve actually already played like half an hour of. I love the aesthetic of it so far. I've gotten about as much as I think I'm ever going to get out of Animal Well (which doesn't mean I'll never play it again). I got pretty far into what you might call "layer 2", the second level of objectives beyond simply beating the game. It's a great looking game with some excellent puzzle designs, but the tedium super duper sets in at that point, even working from a guide, and I became content to let others have their fun. I would still happily recommend it to any fan of puzzle platformers.
And by way of apology to all the reviewers I called out, the further you get, the more and more like Fez it feels. I prefer Fez overall, but maybe because up until that point, I'd never played anything like Fez before. But with Animal Well, I have: I've played Fez.
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Post by The Thanksgiving Goblin. on May 23, 2024 17:08:18 GMT -5
considering spunking over 2 grand on a gaming lappy solely to play hades 2
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on May 24, 2024 2:32:48 GMT -5
considering spunking over 2 grand on a gaming lappy solely to play hades 2 Blow your load! |
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 3, 2024 10:41:56 GMT -5
Finished the main story in Fallout 4 last night. I really had a blast replaying this. This time around I stuck with supporting the Railroad and the Minutemen. I snubbed the Brotherhood of Steel and took particular glee in blowing the shit outta the Prydwen when the time came.
Infiltrating the Institute and betraying them seemed much more appropriate this time around. Though I did get Shawn to help me on his deathbed by giving me the override code to start evacuating before the facility blew up. And having a 10-year-old synth Shawn to stay with me after all of that really helps bring the story full circle.
The first time I played this 9 years ago I got frustrated with the settlement building aspect because it just didn't click with me the way I hoped it would. But buying the far Harbor DLC really helped with that because the barn construction pieces work so much better in building things that I like. Sanctuary Hills looks much more like how I envisioned it this time around, and I've been able to improve some of the smaller settlements in ways I actually like. Hangman's Alley, for example, has a second story to make up for limited ground space.
I'll probably keep playing for a bit, doing follow up Railroad and Institute missions until I'm content before moving on to Fallout 76. (I started playing that one a bit last week just to check it out. Looks promising.)
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 4, 2024 0:34:48 GMT -5
Despite having completed the main story as noted, I'm still having fun puttering around, so I sprung for the extra $5 for the Wasteland Workshop DLC also, which adds a bunch of new settlement items... Including LIGHTS GALORE, NEON SIGNS, and FUSION GENERATORS! Here is my updated Sanctuary Hills front entrance, complete with concrete power bunker to the right. I also have actual streetlights all the way down the main road. Next I'll be replacing my ramshackle pile of crops with more organized garden plots. The one downside is that I really like the concrete buildings, but they take a TON of cement, which is a bit hard to find, so I had to make several trips to specific locations that had stockpiles according to the wiki. So I'm still running low again, so that's probably the only concrete building I'll be making for the foreseeable future.  |
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 9, 2024 20:05:27 GMT -5
I've moved on to Fallout 76 completely now. It is much better (so far) than I had originally heard, though of course like No Man's Sky there have been a lot of updates since release to improve it.
What I do like quite a bit is that the standard Adventure Mode is a max of 24 players per server spread out over the entire map, which is HUGE, so it's hard to actually run into anyone unless you're at the larger hubs. There are casual groups (up to four players each) that give everyone an XP bonus but you don't need to be WITH each other, so most people just join it and do their own thing. PVP can be turned off too, so no worries about that.
Gameplay and combat are a lot like Fallout 4, so there's very little learning curve. You still go around gathering scrap and bringing it home to build things and killing enemies. VATS doesn't slow time, so you can just use it to auto-target when enemies are in range or play it like an FPS. I'm level 21 and have only died once so far, when I got stuck in an alley with a bunch of super mutants and couldn't escape or heal in time. (And the only penalty for dying is you drop whatever SCRAP you're carrying, none of your other stuff, so as long as you go home and drop stuff off after each mission or so you never lose much.)
Your CAMP is like Settlements in FO4, where you can build whatever you want in a small chosen area, but it's far more open on the map where you can choose to build.
The story is interesting and I like the random events that I run into on the map. I just spent about 30 minutes clearing out a nuclear reactor of enemies, then repairing a bunch of pipes and control panels before restarting it.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jun 10, 2024 10:56:27 GMT -5
DOOM: The Dark Ages looked kinda boring. I'm sure the gameplay will be solid, but the trailer made everything look weightless, when weightiness is, like, modern DOOM's whole thing. Everything is supposed to be chonky and over-the-top.
Really it made me wish for a modern DOOM-style return of Heretic. That would be badass.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 10, 2024 11:24:49 GMT -5
DOOM: The Dark Ages looked kinda boring. I'm sure the gameplay will be solid, but the trailer made everything look weightless, when weightiness is, like, modern DOOM's whole thing. Everything is supposed to be chonky and over-the-top.
Really it made me wish for a modern DOOM-style return of Heretic. That would be badass.
Heretic / Hexen were so much fun! Haven't though about those in 20 years, damn! |
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Post by The Thanksgiving Goblin. on Jun 15, 2024 5:31:08 GMT -5
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jun 16, 2024 13:27:33 GMT -5
DOOM: The Dark Ages looked kinda boring. I'm sure the gameplay will be solid, but the trailer made everything look weightless, when weightiness is, like, modern DOOM's whole thing. Everything is supposed to be chonky and over-the-top.
Really it made me wish for a modern DOOM-style return of Heretic. That would be badass.
Would you be more intrigued if they were promising to finally reveal what Doomguy's name is in this game? |
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Post by Nudeviking on Jun 17, 2024 3:36:21 GMT -5
DOOM: The Dark Ages looked kinda boring. I'm sure the gameplay will be solid, but the trailer made everything look weightless, when weightiness is, like, modern DOOM's whole thing. Everything is supposed to be chonky and over-the-top.
Really it made me wish for a modern DOOM-style return of Heretic. That would be badass.
Would you be more intrigued if they were promising to finally reveal what Doomguy's name is in this game? Only if it's like Han Solo in that Solo: A Star Wars Movie About Han Solo levels of stupid. Like his name was Guy Dumas and via phone autocorrect features Dumas, Guy became "Doomguy." |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jun 17, 2024 8:31:13 GMT -5
DOOM: The Dark Ages looked kinda boring. I'm sure the gameplay will be solid, but the trailer made everything look weightless, when weightiness is, like, modern DOOM's whole thing. Everything is supposed to be chonky and over-the-top. Really it made me wish for a modern DOOM-style return of Heretic. That would be badass.
Would you be more intrigued if they were promising to finally reveal what Doomguy's name is in this game? The slayer's name should be Flynn Taggart, nickname "Fly", that being the name given to the original Doomguy in the mid-90's series of DOOM books. I read them back then, and they are not good, but I do think the first one, Knee Deep in the Dead, has its charms. Later books in the series mostly left the Doom world behind to tell their own (exceedingly boring) sci-fi story. But the first book, as I recall, really did read like a novelization of playing the game. Also, this immortal line: “This situation has got eldritch coming out the ass.”
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Post by The Thanksgiving Goblin. on Jun 18, 2024 11:05:37 GMT -5
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jun 18, 2024 11:29:42 GMT -5
I thought the Zelda game looked pretty cool, though I feel like the gameplay loop of building towers and other contraptions to navigate the world could become tiresome.
Honestly, kinda excited about that DW1 remake (and not 2 or 3, because I never played them).
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Baron von Costume
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Post by Baron von Costume on Jun 19, 2024 10:04:36 GMT -5
DQ3 remake should be a lot of fun, it'll be a while before I get to it though.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jun 21, 2024 0:04:06 GMT -5
I thought the Zelda game looked pretty cool, though I feel like the gameplay loop of building towers and other contraptions to navigate the world could become tiresome.
Honestly, kinda excited about that DW1 remake (and not 2 or 3, because I never played them).
What were your thoughts on the Metroid Prime 4 trailer? I was kinda underwhelmed; much as I loce the original Prime, this looks pretty much exactly like that game with better graphics, but not even a hint of any tweaks to gameplay so far. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Jun 21, 2024 3:11:30 GMT -5
DQ3 remake should be a lot of fun, it'll be a while before I get to it though. Dragon Warrior/Quest III is one of my all time favorite games. A version of it with some modern quality of life enhancements would be fantastic. I don't even give a shit about improved graphics or anything. Just make it so I can quick save in a dungeon or whatever or swap party members without having to go back to the first town whenever I wanted to change out a Pilgrim for a Goof-Off. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jun 21, 2024 7:03:25 GMT -5
People keep talking about Dragon Age: Veilguard or whatever it’s called. Can somebody please tell me what the controversy is about and whether this is good or bad? I’ve never played any of these games or any of the Mass Effects, or any other games by that studio.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jun 21, 2024 7:55:27 GMT -5
I thought the Zelda game looked pretty cool, though I feel like the gameplay loop of building towers and other contraptions to navigate the world could become tiresome.
Honestly, kinda excited about that DW1 remake (and not 2 or 3, because I never played them). What were your thoughts on the Metroid Prime 4 trailer? I was kinda underwhelmed; much as I loce the original Prime, this looks pretty much exactly like that game with better graphics, but not even a hint of any tweaks to gameplay so far. The Prime series is a blindspot for me. I did not play 1 or 2, and I played 3 only a little bit. (I was enamored with the idea of FPS on Wii but never ended up liking any of the ones I played. Except maybe Elebits, but that's different.) So, while I have the cultural bonafides to understand that Prime 4 is a Big Deal TM, it didn't do anything for me. Like you say, it looked like more Prime but with better graphics, and not even, like, way better graphics. When it comes to FPS, I'm a mouse and keyboard only guy now. If, somehow, some way, the Prime series ever ports to PC, I'll finally go back and play them for sure. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jun 21, 2024 8:01:33 GMT -5
What were your thoughts on the Metroid Prime 4 trailer? I was kinda underwhelmed; much as I loce the original Prime, this looks pretty much exactly like that game with better graphics, but not even a hint of any tweaks to gameplay so far. The Prime series is a blindspot for me. I did not play 1 or 2, and I played 3 only a little bit. (I was enamored with the idea of FPS on Wii but never ended up liking any of the ones I played. Except maybe Elebits, but that's different.) So, while I have the cultural bonafides to understand that Prime 4 is a Big Deal TM, it didn't do anything for me. Like you say, it looked like more Prime but with better graphics, and not even, like, way better graphics. When it comes to FPS, I'm a mouse and keyboard only guy now. If, somehow, some way, the Prime series ever ports to PC, I'll finally go back and play them for sure. Oh, apparently the guy who shows up at the end is from Metroid Prime Hunters, the Metroid game best known for not having Samus in it, and which I have never played. |
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