What game are you wasting time on?

[Caim]

Mega Man 7 is in that weird uncanny valley between a NES Mega Man game and a Mega Man X game. I kinda like it, even though it's pretty weird. Mega Man 8 is even stranger with some of its design ideas. Same for MM&B, which has an entirely different problem.

As for 9 and 10, they are a lot more like MM2 but without a lot of the jank of the old games. 11 meanwhile is... well, you really need to use its new mechanics. I do like the design changes to Rock whenever you equip a Robot Master weapon.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Seeing as I had no real options to play Mega Man 9 (or 10 for that matter) I took the lazy man's way out and watched some longplay videos.

Even then I could draw some conclusions.

MM 9 is doing its best to try to look and feel like a NES-title, but without any of the hardware limitations. Any limitations imposed are artificial, solely towards the goal of catching the look and feel of the NES-titles. No slowdowns ever happen, no flickering is ever visible. I don't mind that one bit because then MM 9 'cheats' a bit by doing things within those limitations that go unnoticed to the untrained eye.

Platforms that only move based on MMan's momentum, platforms that spin MMan around, enemies moving at super-speeds, lots of things going on at once without any slowdowns... and some really cool bosses. Thematically the Robot Masters are sillier than ever, but how they act and fight in-game is far from that. More importantly their weapons are really awesome, despite their silliness. There's a Robot Master who fires bees as a weapon. The only thing funnier about that is that the first ever female Robot Master in the series happens to be vulnerable to the bees! Tornado Man fires a tornado which sweeps all non-boss enemies off the screen, making it one of the most powerful weapons in the entire series.

Then there's Galaxy Man, the Robot Master who fires black holes.

When you consider the story for a second, it's about Robot Masters rising up because they're all gonna end up on the scrapheap. I honestly don't know which thought is worse - that there's a Robot Master out there with the capability to create black holes at a whim, or that such a robot will ever become obsolete and needs to be decommissioned.

It's at this point I realized that the devs are gunning for comic absurdity, so I just roll with it and enjoy some laughs.

But seeing all these cool gimmicks and tricks made me realize just how restrictive the NES-hardware is. It's not because of lack of creativity that we have 48 Robot Masters, of which three use a time-stopping weapon, four use an orbiting shield, three use a returning projectile, and almost half of them jump around the screen like acrobats - it's because the hardware didn't allow for much more than that. When one studies the more abstract Robot Masters (just to name half of the boss encounters in the games) one begins to see the creativity at work behind them. The best contrast between the old and the new here is the orbiting shield. The shield functions almost identical in all four instances it appears in the NES-games, but then check out the Water Shield in MM 10 and how it's vastly more versatile.

One major addition to MM 9 is an item shop. Screws are now a droppable item which counts as currency. Take them back to Dr. Light's lab, and you can buy useful consumables or a handful of upgrades - and even a cosmetic item to boot! The Energy Balancer makes a return to the games via the item shop, but again I must ask why it wasn't just included from the start.

But at the end of the day, MM 9 is trying to be just like the NES-titles of old - and succeeds quite well.

MM 10, on the other hand, uses MM 9 as a stepping stone and tries new things. In its full mode MM 10 now offers a choice of three different characters to play, with three different weapon sets and playstyles. Lots of replay value there. But what I really took away from MM 10 was how the humor is cranked up a notch. I laughed out loud at Sheep Man just by seeing the name, and again at his weapon name. Strike Man deserves a special mention for his 'theme', and I almost fell out of the chair laughing when the map showed the path to the final Wily-stage. But at the same time MM 10 is filled with humor, it's also quite snazzy at times. Nitro Man is easily one of the cooler Robot Masters so far, and Commando Man's 'well-'ard' appearance is only one-upped by his weapon, one of the most versatile bomb weapons the series has seen yet. Then for one of the castle-stages they revisit the element of reusing Robot Masters from older games, but this time they get it right.

At the end of the day MM 10 is trying to 'evolve' into a more modern game, while still trying to appeal to nostalgia fans of the series. It's a direction I don't exactly approve of, but I can't deny that the game has plenty of content and feels fun to play.

Then I made the mistake to checking out MM 11 - Nope, not my cup of tea.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS PLAYING HELHERRON STILL

PARTY JOURNEY LOG

WHILE WANDIRING THE LQND HEAVILLY ARMED AS IS OUR RIGHT AS HELHERRONIANS WE HEAR BIRD NOISES

WE GO INTO THE CAVE WITH BIRD NOISES

BIRDS IMMEDIUTLY ATTACK AND AS TRUE HELHERRONIANS WE ARE HEAVILY ARMED AND DEFEAT THIS UNPROOVOKED ATTACK

WHILE WANDERING FAFRTHER INTO THIS CAVE ILLEGALY OCCUPIED BY BIRDMEN WITHOUT ANY WARNING THEY SEND BIRDFAGD WITH SWORDS AND SPELLS AND SHIT

WE MUST NOW KILL EVERY BIRDMAN FOR THE SAFETY OF HELHERRON

ITS A LITTLE SAD BECAUSE USUALLY Q MAYOR OF A TOWN ASKS US TO GENOCIDE THE LOCAL RIFFFFRAF BUT GOD GAVE US SWORDS AND SPELLS FOR A REASON

BROS THEY TOTALLY EVIL SO WE DONT FEEL BAD KILLING THEM ALL AND STEALING THERE SHIT

ASKTUALLY THE FAIEY PARTY MEMBERS HEARD SOME VERY FAIRYPHOBIC LANGUAGE SO NAZIS GET WHAT THEY DESERVE

THEIR ARE RUMORS THAT THE CENTAURS ARE PREVENTING FREE PASSAGE THREW THEIR HOMES

IF WE GO TO THERE HOME AND ARE ASSAULTED WE WILL DELIVER MEDIEAVAL MAGIC FANTASY LEVEL DESTRUCTION TO THERE FAIRYPHOBIC ASSES

 

[Caim]

Seeing as I had no real options to play Mega Man 9 (or 10 for that matter)

Legacy Collection 2 is on Steam, which has the games 7 to 10.

But yeah, things get pretty cartoony. If that's not your cup of tea, well, you won't like the later games.

Are you going to take a stab at the X games? Or maybe some of the later stuff?

 

[Ezekiel]

I wonder how many players actually completed Spyro 100 percent without looking in magazines and online. Some of these collectibles are pretty well hidden. SM64 has nothing on these secrets.

 

[Average Manatee]

I wonder how many players actually completed Spyro 100 percent without looking in magazines and online. Some of these collectibles are pretty well hidden. SM64 has nothing on these secrets.

I didn't have any help and I 100%ed it. You have to keep in mind that if you were a kid in the 90s you probably didn't have the internet or 100 games to play or phones and stuff to distract you, you had time to burn on the 2-4 games you got a year. None of the levels are THAT big, and the only tricky part I can remember is the ones that require chained speed runs and glides, specifically the treetops level.

 

[NecroLord]

I've been playing some MDK 2.
Pretty good, though whether or not it is on par with the original is a matter of personal preference.
You also get to play as both Max and Doctor Hawkins in this one, not just as Kurt.

Max missions are straight RAMBO action. Max has the best arsenal and 200 max HP.
Doctor missions are more puzzle focused, but he has only 60 HP, the lowest out of the three.

 

[Ezekiel]

Spyro 2 opened with so much exposition, so many annoying characters (and locked abilities) blocking off areas, that I'm now less enthusiastic about playing Ratchet and Clank.

 

[TC Jr]

Spyro 2 opened with so much exposition, so many annoying characters (and locked abilities) blocking off areas, that I'm now less enthusiastic about playing Ratchet and Clank.

Haven't played them in years but I think the general consensus is that Spyro 2 + 3 aren't as good 1. More gimmicky elements, and overall less solid.
R&C on the other hand is excellent, I've been replaying the first one and it's really fun, I remember the 2nd being excellent too but haven't touched that since release. One thing worth pointing out though, as the series moved forward, there was less focus on platforming and more on combat, so fundamental differences in design compared to the first Spyro.

 

[Azalin]

Finished Far Cry Primal. I got this during a sale and tried it due to its setting, there aren't many games set in prehistoric times. Graphics are fine for a game that is 8 years old by now.The premise and story are pretty basic, you are a caveman that has to gather the various members of your tribe to build up your and the village's strength to take down two enemy tribes,that's it.The game have more of a focus on gathering and crafting due to its setting,the gameplay is fine,generic open world stuff,you can also tame many beast and even ride some sabretooth tigers like you are fucking He-man or something.It's not a long game and the map isn't that big so it doesn't outstay its welcome,I finished the main quest and most important sidequests in under 20 hours. There is the usual Ubisoft stuff all over the map if you want more but I think it can get repetitive fast,this isn't an open world game where you will spend 100 hours on.Overall an ok game if you are looking for some prehistoric action

 

[lametta]

Started Metal Gear Solid 5. It's great if you are coming from MGS Peacewalker but maybe not so good if you come from any other game in the franchise.
Too bad we wont have anything similar.

 

[Fargus]

Finished Archolos.

Now i'm just playing Gothic 1, taking things slow. I'm about level 6 now. My previous playthroughs usually involved killing everything with scar's sword early on. So i let some npcs beat the shit out of me without reloading and forbid myself from power leveling. Had to become a water carrier in New Camp because Lefty forced me to, got mugged by thieves twice, one stole all my daily swamp weed package (modfix), weapon and 100 ore. I went back and swindled Whistler out of his ore in Old Camp and ran off to join Swamp Bros, my favorite camp where i smoke swamp weed with bald fanatics :D Later i will go back to sell some weed to mercs.

Wish there was more consequences for being a rat bastard in Old Camp. Bloodwyn sent a few goons for not paying and i killed them and then mugged two ghosts while they were asleep. That alone should paint a target on your character. No idea why you even need to use Gravo's services.

I play with modfix and it adds more life to npcs and removes some of the exploits like looting merchants and getting rich that way. When you beat the merchant his inventory disappears for some time. So no more carrying thousands of ore pieces in CH1.

 

[Fargus]

Finished Far Cry Primal. I got this during a sale and tried it due to its setting, there aren't many games set in prehistoric times. Graphics are fine for a game that is 8 years old by now.The premise and story are pretty basic, you are a caveman that has to gather the various members of your tribe to build up your and the village's strength to take down two enemy tribes,that's it.The game have more of a focus on gathering and crafting due to its setting,the gameplay is fine,generic open world stuff,you can also tame many beast and even ride some sabretooth tigers like you are fucking He-man or something.It's not a long game and the map isn't that big so it doesn't outstay its welcome,I finished the main quest and most important sidequests in under 20 hours. There is the usual Ubisoft stuff all over the map if you want more but I think it can get repetitive fast,this isn't an open world game where you will spend 100 hours on.Overall an ok game if you are looking for some prehistoric action

Primal is a nice game all things considered. The most memorable out of all ubi Far Cry slop because of the setting and the language characters speak. Would have been better if it was less repetitive and for some reason they had to shove that assclown Hurk again by making him a caveman with american accent :\

 

[deuxhero]

Trying to finish off Tales of Vesperia since I was right before the final dungeon before I moved onto other games. Man, the end-game sidequest roundup really highlights how every area without encounters is way too big (as in a 5 meter long hallway could be 2.5 meters, not content density). It ultimately is one of the last "traditional" jRPGs before the 360/PS3 era's various cancers started filtering in.

That most artes have varied knockback, secondary effects, aoe etc., that skills encourage different combo strings per character at different points in the game means there's actually reason to do more than set the best possible combo and spam it. This, free move, and skills being easy to swap around solves one of the major issues with older games in the series.
The characters are all pretty good. Yuri is a great protagonist, and the choice to (mostly) give him similar but distinct artes from the set learned by most Tales heroes (which go to Flynn instead) is a great reinforcement to his renegade personality. His mean spirited sense of humor is a surprisingly versatile character flaw that takes good writing to not just come off as vile.
The character designs are also pretty sane. No Belty McBelt of Belt Clan, and you can get a decent chunk of a character's personality by how they dress.

Downsides:
A lot of mechanics feel totally vestigial. What's even the point of the weather system (which is detailed enough to change a lot of artes etc.) beyond the one sidequest that needs a particular weather to spawn the optional boss? By the time the weather is actually unlocked you barely spend any time on the world map. Likewise resting really feels like it's just there for the territory sidequest (which is just poorly implemented in general: You can activate it super early in the game, but it doesn't actually work till the very end and is just there to confuse the player.) since it's only usable on the world map (not save points?) where towns with inns or save points with free full restores are normally very close.
The environments really suffer from the generation's problem of refusing to use clean textures (despite doing so for the characters), but not actually having the v-ram to display higher quality textures. Thus most maps are blurry jaypegged messes that don't match the character art at all.
While characterization wise the characters are great, there's no real reason to actually swap the party around once you find a set of characters who work.
Secret Missions were clearly added for 360 achievements. Half are things where the "secret" is cleared automatically without trying, and other half vary between "easy in theory, actually depends on AI wrangling", or "why would anyone think this is a good design?" (use one particular arte of a single character to hit a boss while it's doing one move you can easily interrupt through literally any other attack?)
You can't manually advance skit dialog (or, if you can, I never figured out how)
As mentioned, everything is too big at times.
Where does food come from? So much is made about the dangers of living outside of a barrier (or at least, a giant fortified wall) it's unclear how people actually eat. A big world building oversight that is never really answered clearly.

: Probably the best non-portable original jRPG of its generation, but that's more of a commentary on how hard the genre just died in the HD crunch.

 

[Spike]

Finished Last Hero of Nostalgaia. Eh, solid

Played through Portal 1 again, with the bonus challenges. Still holds up.

Started Portal 2. Still holds up, can't remember if I ever beat it. I don't go on Reddit so nothing was tainted for me, but I can picture geeks laughing their ass off in 2011 at every other line. I remember when it came out, I was still in high school and it was a big deal with my friends. Still need to finish. But I also played Demon's Souls that same year and enjoyed it a lot more.

Started Asterigos. It's cool but eh. Feels like a or , though I am not that far in.

Started Bleak Faith: Forsaken. Really enjoying it. I love the exploration, the designs, atmosphere, combat is pretty good too. So far probably or but I love this genre too.

Stuck on Supraland. Really badly stuck. Refusing to look up the solution. This is probably a or a 1st-person puzzle-adventure game when I am done, though. Possibly but I want to finish it and see. Excited to finish it and play Supraland: Crash and Supraland: Six Inches Under, as well as the sequel coming out, Supraworld.

I want to play Lords of the Fallen and Black Myth: Wukong next, but I also need to finish Enderal and Baldur's Gate, absolutely loving both of them. Also Yakuza 5. This was started summer 2023 or earlier and I still haven't gotten around to beating it, might need to restart it again despite being 20 hours deep.

Thank you for reading my gamer blog

 

[AndyS]

Still playing Quake. I just started on Dissolution of Eternity. I usually play on hard but they made just getting into hard such a pain in the ass that I settled on normal.

 

[NecroLord]

Still playing Quake. I just started on Dissolution of Eternity. I usually play on hard but they made just getting into hard such a pain in the ass that I settled on normal.

Told you.
Go with Normal, then do Hard when you are more familiar with each level and the enemy placements and secrets.
Both Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution do not screw around.

 

[NecroLord]

I'm playing Jedi Academy.
Peak lightsaber combat, though I also use blasters and the other weapons.
I will max out Force Heal, Force Protect, Absorb, Lightning and Rage.
You can beat the game only by using ranged weapons, but the sheer number of Dark Jedi you will face in the last third of the game will make that difficult.

 

[Ezekiel]

Playing Ratchet and Clank. Seems okay. Wish I hadn't already played the PS4 remake. That playthrough took almost three years.

Wow, Ratchet just made fun of a woman for her weight. It's not even that old.

 

[Spike]

Playing Ratchet and Clank. Seems okay. Wish I hadn't already played the PS4 remake. That playthrough took almost three years.

Wow, Ratchet just made fun of a woman for her weight. It's not even that old.

It's awesome. So are 2 and 3.

 

[AndyS]

Playing Betrayal at Krondor for the first time since it was released. I'm on chapter 2 right now.

 

[mold]

I haven't had a great gaming year so far, but here's what I've played in the past few months:

Games I finished:

Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Expected more from this. First I was annoyed that I had to buy DLCs to get access to my favorite classes, and then I was annoyed with myself for having wasted money on this because the game was such an absolute bore that I started losing interest before I was even halfway through. Slow combat, one or two interesting fights. Had some serious performance issues. My computer is old but it shouldn't have been that bad.

Point & click adventures:
Blackwell series (minus the first one which I played a couple of years ago) - Too easy but otherwise ok.
Boxville - Decent short game with traditional puzzles seen too many times before.
Catie in MeowmeowLand - Not much of a game but interesting to look at.
Clothes Line - Granny game. Very short and simple.
Unavowed - Even easier than the Blackwell games. Liked nothing about this except the visuals.

Suzerain - The Sordland story was exciting. I was playing centrist and things didn't end well. That was fun. Didn't care for the Rizia story. Royals are always boring and everything was always going the way I wanted it to go.

--

Games I dropped:

Dysmantle - Mindless casual game where the player destroys stuff and fights respawning monsters.
Elderborn - Barbarian game. First person melee. Nice music, bland gameplay. But it's short so I might go back and finish it.
Machinarium - Unbearably slow walking speed.
Obduction - Can't play because I get motion sickness. Tried changing graphics settings but didn't help.
Outward - Gave up on this really fast. The survival stuff sounded interesting but the combat felt awkward.
Sanitarium - Meh.
Seasons After Fall - Wanted to try something new but I'm not into puzzle platformers (or any platformers). Seemed very easy.
The Inner World - Too talky for a point & click adventure.
The Technomancer - Not my kind of game.

--

Played a few hours of old favorites Age of Wonders and Master of Orion 2, but was disappointed to discover I don't love them like I used to. I was hoping to try some newer turn-based strategy games (I haven't played anything newer than HoMM5), but maybe the genre isn't for me anymore.

Also played some Project Zomboid. I love the atmosphere but the game can be a bit tedious, and once a character survives a couple of months, I start playing so carefully it stops being fun. And then I die in some stupid way anyway.

--

Currently playing:

Cryptmaster - Word game dungeon crawler. Started this about a month ago but haven't made much progress. It's a nice game, but it's not very fun having to type the same words over and over in combat.
Wasteland 2 - It's all right. I didn't get very far when I first tried it and might not make it to the end this time either, but we'll see.

 

[Zlaja]

I intend to start my first playthrough of Wasteland 3 today. Wish me luck against those potheads in Colorado.

 

[BadassNonbinaryPrincess]

I've been playing through Unreal Tournament just against bots. So many maps, such good AI and modes, one of the best games ever made.

 

[Spike]

I haven't had a great gaming year so far, but here's what I've played in the past few months:

Games I finished:

Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Expected more from this. First I was annoyed that I had to buy DLCs to get access to my favorite classes, and then I was annoyed with myself for having wasted money on this because the game was such an absolute bore that I started losing interest before I was even halfway through. Slow combat, one or two interesting fights. Had some serious performance issues. My computer is old but it shouldn't have been that bad.

Point & click adventures:
Blackwell series (minus the first one which I played a couple of years ago) - Too easy but otherwise ok.
Boxville - Decent short game with traditional puzzles seen too many times before.
Catie in MeowmeowLand - Not much of a game but interesting to look at.
Clothes Line - Granny game. Very short and simple.
Unavowed - Even easier than the Blackwell games. Liked nothing about this except the visuals.

Suzerain - The Sordland story was exciting. I was playing centrist and things didn't end well. That was fun. Didn't care for the Rizia story. Royals are always boring and everything was always going the way I wanted it to go.

--

Games I dropped:

Dysmantle - Mindless casual game where the player destroys stuff and fights respawning monsters.
Elderborn - Barbarian game. First person melee. Nice music, bland gameplay. But it's short so I might go back and finish it.
Machinarium - Unbearably slow walking speed.
Obduction - Can't play because I get motion sickness. Tried changing graphics settings but didn't help.
Outward - Gave up on this really fast. The survival stuff sounded interesting but the combat felt awkward.
Sanitarium - Meh.
Seasons After Fall - Wanted to try something new but I'm not into puzzle platformers (or any platformers). Seemed very easy.
The Inner World - Too talky for a point & click adventure.
The Technomancer - Not my kind of game.

--

Played a few hours of old favorites Age of Wonders and Master of Orion 2, but was disappointed to discover I don't love them like I used to. I was hoping to try some newer turn-based strategy games (I haven't played anything newer than HoMM5), but maybe the genre isn't for me anymore.

Also played some Project Zomboid. I love the atmosphere but the game can be a bit tedious, and once a character survives a couple of months, I start playing so carefully it stops being fun. And then I die in some stupid way anyway.

--

Currently playing:

Cryptmaster - Word game dungeon crawler. Started this about a month ago but haven't made much progress. It's a nice game, but it's not very fun having to type the same words over and over in combat.
Wasteland 2 - It's all right. I didn't get very far when I first tried it and might not make it to the end this time either, but we'll see.

Sorry but Outward is a stupendous, wonderful game. I am slow to finish Elderborn too, though, even though it is cool and decently fun.