Nokt

I wish I remembered any of the albums that actually came out this year so I could participate in this thread. I don't retain that kind of memory though.

I pretty much agree with all of your points. This game could be a real 10/10 if it had some tweaks made to whatever game comes next. There is a route that plays better than just running around. Elephant/bird first, camel/lizard last. I personally did Elephant, Camel, Bird, Lizard, but still hard problems getting into the desert had to play super careful, one I was there though it wasn't too bad.

Either this falls through or costs $800+

Been poking around in Borderland 2, I always start it up and play a few hours just to uninstall and let it sit for a year or two. Played a good chunk of Smash yesterday, probably 2/3 done with the story mode. Trying to keep most of my schedule clear for KHIII. I should actually put in for the day off now that I think about it.

Has there even really been any gameplay? The "gameplay" footage isn't even really gameplay.

My problem with most procedural generated games is that they feel really hollow. Its always coined that you never get the same experience, which sounds great on paper, but rarely ever translates well. Like I've never had an area pop up in a PG game where it was like "wow this map was amazing, really well crafted". Like think about Ori and the Blind Forest and some of the slingshot sections, you'd never have those experiences in a PG game, its like you limit yourself to what you can create. You have so many variables, but they hardly ever branch out on them. I've been playing Heroes of Hammerwatch. Its alright and its fine to load up with a buddy and have some fun, but it showcases exactly what I have problems with. Each run through is different and I guess it helps with the monotony, but the only thing that ever really changes is where the enemies/traps spawn. All of the maps range from okay to bad, sometimes you just get dealt a crap hand and have a trap that locks you into this huge area with a fight that is more than likely going to cost you either your life or at least a swig of your potion. When its a "good" run through there is nothing ever special about it. The other issue I have is that they always expect the gameplay to completely hold up the game. The story is always some afterthought that either isn't even explained or its just a really basic story and its easy to see that they really didn't want you to spend much time on it. Then you have the grind, oh lord the grind, if you get into a rogue lite like HoH they expect you to just keep running through the same okayish to bad maps over and over and over and over and over to slowly upgrade your character to make it to the next level. Then once you make it to the next level you just do the same thing again until you make it to the next level. Its just this huge grind, little to no story, no elaborate maps that really get you on toes without feeling cheap or just really good layouts. I'm oversimplifying the genre in some of these complaints because not all of them have these problems. Some are just one or the other, some have good stories, some literally can get held up by gameplay like Minecraft, some don't have as bad of a grind. I usually never find one that doesn't have one of these problems though and it immediately turns me off of wanting to play. Another problem is that we really don't have a lot of AAA jumping into the genre, its a bunch of indie developers, not that its indicative of quality, but still.

Yep, good call.

You're both crazy. Gamefaqs for life.

It's happening again where I want to buy this game, but I've never finished a RE game. I think RE4 is the only game that I've made it more than half way. The gameplay looks interesting, but will it have the archaic controls of the past? If it does I'll probably pass or pick it up on sale.

I tried so hard to like this game, but never could make it more than a couple hours. Visually stunning, planets, backgrounds, character models (outside of their faces) look amazing. Gameplay is pretty good too. It just felt like a hollow game, I didn't care about the story, the characters, or really anything that was going on. I was just mindlessly running from planet to planet killing things. I'll agree with reddit that the game isn't as bad as gamers made it out to be, but I don't find it a particularly great game either. EDIT: Guess that doesn't really answer the question of is it worth it $8. Yes its worth $8, it just depends on if you'll actually play it or not.

Guess I forgot that you needed Din's Fire to get into the Shadow Temple. Its been a number of years since I've played. I think I watched my brother how to get it when I was younger before my first playthrough, it just ended up being something I always grabbed. Makes sense to be frustrated then.

Yeah, but Master Quest definitely was an afterthought to the original game. While it is just a "harder" version, it definitely is something that you would need prior knowledge for.

Momodora is great. Furi is something that I really wanted to be into, but got stuck on a boss early on and never played it again.

Yeah I feel like Ashen is a diamond in the rough right now. No one wants to buy it on the Epic Store, but everyone that has is enjoying it. It got stellar reviews. I might do a giveaway when the steam version comes out just to get someone to try it. I don't think there is gifting on the epic store right now

Just finished this is one sit through. As its been surmised there is little depth to the game, but its not exactly just a walking simulator either. You gain small upgrades throughout the game like double jump, swimming, singing (lets plants grow), etc. Not that the linearity ever stops, but its good to have progression. The puzzles are easy and usually incorporate the upgrades as you progress. It helps the game from feeling stagnant. That being said if you need action, challenge, super complex puzzles, this isn't for you. What the game lacks in depth it makes up for it in charm. The visuals are absolutely splendid, as is the soundtrack. The opening moments to the ending of the game I enjoyed every moment. There is some "intense" moments where you are being chased, but I don't think you can actually die. Which is fine, if you get sucked in like I did you don't really care, its an intense moment one way or the other. My biggest gripe about it though is that there is a "secret" ending which is obtained by collecting all of the memories(?). The secret ending provides a lot of insight about the game and honestly I wish would have either been put at the beginning or at the end as kind of a twist (regardless of collection). If you decide to run through this find the memories as I think it will make the experience more enjoyable for you in the end. Again, if this doesn't enthrall you at all, don't play it. It is a very enjoyable game though.

Just finished the game. I'd probably give it an 87/100. Beautiful world, great soundtrack, gives this really peaceful setting to it. Game starts out pretty easy and gradually gets harder and harder. The first dungeon is where I first really started struggling a bit. There is a lot of overworld exploration, but every so often you have to go into what I call dungeons. There is usually one save point outside the dungeon and one right before the boss with a couple places to refill your flask along the way. I didn't really pay much attention to the story as it seemed really barebones and just not a huge focus of the game. Something about darkness and saving the light. There is really only 4 weapon classes. One handed, Two Handed, Blunt, and Axe. Blunt weapons give out more damage but have no possibility of crit, axes have crits, but put out a little less damage. If you roll one handed you can carry a shield or lantern (I highly recommend just upping your brightness a little bit for whenever you would need to use the lantern). Slightly disappointing is that the starting blunt one hander is one of the highest damage weapons in its class. I only found one other weapon that beat it in damage output and it was near the end game, so I rocked that weapon for pretty much 85% of the game. I should have switched it up a little bit, but I've always done "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". There also is javelins which become a requirement a little after halfway through the game, they don't do a ton of damage, but they can knock enemies hiding on ledges for a one shot kill or to pull an enemy from a distance There is a few items in the game. A flask that heals you when you drink it (up to 8 charges). Certain foods that will heal you or hurt you. I have no idea what the point is of the food that hurts you. The healing kind will either give you a small boost in health or more health but slowly over time. I found myself using the slower kind, but just eating a couple at a time to gain health faster. There are runes that you can buy and gain over the course of the game. You can have one big one selected at any time and four smaller ones that give smaller perks. Money of course to buy upgrades, food, runes, etc. You can also get potions that usually give trade offs like when you AI companion is around you have higher damage resistance or fighting in the dark gives you damage resistance, but weaker in the light. Armor varies a little bit and its really just a trade off of what you want. The less protection the faster you gain stamina back, the more protection the slower you regain stamina. For a long time I was using heavier armor, but later in the game I ended up making the trade into some lighter gear. When you get into situations with multiple enemies or you lose you AI companion you can't really tank a bunch of hits with or without having a full flask. Which brings me to my negative of the game, the AI companion can be a bit wonky. For probably 90% of the game it works fine, but every so often he will chase an enemy into the water and drown or just straight up disappear. Unless there is someway to trigger them coming back, they are pretty much gone until you reach a save stone. This happened to me 4 times in a row inside one of the games dungeons, extremely frustrating to run through that alone. There is parts of this game that weren't made to do without your AI companion and its makes it all the more difficult to get through it. Multiplayer didn't work while I was playing and my buddy that I was going to play it with got so far apart in quests that it wasn't worth one of us waiting for the other. The game isn't as long as a something like Dark Souls or Bloodborne, but for its price point comparatively I think its well justifies the $40.

Nothing. I did buy myself Gris this morning though.

I worked up until 1PM. We have a family dinner with my siblings tonight around 5PM. Then my parents give all of the grandkids one present (pajama's for them to sleep in). My siblings all go to their SO's parents house and open presents and to my parents house for Christmas brunch and more presents. Then we all split up afterwards. As I the only sibling that doesn't have a SO I usually just go hang out with friends after and see a movie or play video games.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I need to actually play Samus Returns and buy Luigi's Mansion from this thread. My 3DS has been neglected for a very long time. I can also recommend A Link Between Worlds Cave Story I know you can buy cave story on PC, Switch, but its good no matter where you play it. I also like the 3D remake though some people dislike the art style they changed it to.

Is that what that game is? I watched shroud play it for like 10 minutes and I had no idea what was going on and it looked absolutely boring.

The new mode that supposedly comes out today takes the snow a step further. You have to find like food and warmth to stay alive during the night gamemode. Not sure if I'm really into that or not. I'm also not a huge fan of how there is only 40ish people per match. Why not 80 or 100? They do have lots of vehicles and modes of transportation, but still I end good matches with 3-5 kills. Some games I get a single kill.

I've been tasked with reading an 800 page "cram" book to get my A+ cert. If I do this within a week (kind of joking, kind of not) I can get into the IT department at my work.

34k playing an hour ago 39k 24 hour peak Its population is doing well enough for now. I'm sure it will fall off in time though. Seems like people just keep going back to PUBG.

So I kind of held off on this one because BR is a tired genre already and a lot of them have been dying off pretty quickly (Islands of Nyne just stopped development, but servers are still live). I saw IGN throw out a review for this on twitter and decided I'd give it a go. Honestly it runs great, it looks as good as any other BR game on the market (though the character models look really good, at least in the menu). I ran a few solo games and didn't really get anywhere, but I got a buddy to download it with me (F2P) and we had a pretty good time in the game we played. There is 3 different starting kits that you can pick from (Glider, Pistol) (Snowboard, Pistol) (Climbing Gear, Shotgun). The Snowboard seems like the most useful is most situations, but spawning with a shotgun in a hot drop wouldn't be a terrible idea. Not sure I'm a really big fan of how the game ends though. The goal is to hop onto a helicopter and escape YMIR (the map slowly gets colder and colder and you have to stay in the warm regions to continue).

I'll still buy this day 1 because I'm an idiot, but I'm still waiting to hear anything of substance. Like is sprint will be in the game or how it will be balanced this time around, same thing with armor abilities. If 343i can actually make weapons that don't have ridiculous amounts of bullet magnetism/auto aim. Who is going to be the writer of Halo Infinite. All of the below is good news, its just small adjustments that I'm not really that overly concerned with. Though I wonder how KBM is going to be handled. If Halo will support it or if the comp scene enforces the use of controllers or if controllers will just have a built in advantage over KBM as what has happened in previous titles (H2V)