/games/ - Video Games

>>61968
Well, I certainly recommend playing it. Cured my gaming impotence for a couple of wonderful evenings.

>>61969
whats the most comfy place you liked the most and stayed the most. I didn't play the game but the ocean house hotel looks comfy to me.
the ost are perfect. game with 90% of their music being good are rare

>>61970
I liked the fact that all hubs and locations have different atmosphere about them. I liked the dark vibes of the Chinatown the most I think. Regarding the favorite one place I've gotta say I enjoyed just chilling at Vesuvius, it had a wonderful theme song which is now stuck in my head.
Also I was rather disturbed by Andrei's place. Fleshcrafted furniture and those two-legged manbeasts. It was certainly visceral and unique. Haven't felt that way since Silent Hill 3. Andrei in general was a pretty memorable character, shame he didn't play a bigger part in the story.

>>61967
I still see VTMB2 as vaporware.
They have been trying to make the game for almost 20 years in one form or another and failed each and every time.
VtM in general is pretty shit and filled to the brim with SJWs who can only tolerate safe edgy. World of Darkness in general is dead to me and I doubt there will ever be a decent game based on any of the properties again.

>>61973
Paradox jews just trying to milk the VTMB name while not giving a shit about the quality whatsoever. They gave it to a studio that has never developed RPGs cause they were very cheap to hire. It is a real shame though. Gaming in 2024 is just money grubbing and Paradox are the worst scum on par with EA and other parasites

>>61974
>Gaming in 2024 is just money grubbing
There are expeditions. While that is true of the major corpos, there are still decent mid sized studios and indies still putting out decent stuff.
I think most studios and game companies lose their way as soon as they get to a certain size and get taken over by business guys instead of people who give a shit about games being fun or providing value to their audience.
But thankfully there are still hundreds of small teams making good stuff so I always feel like I have way too much stuff to play. Which is a good problem to have. Makes ignoring the trash going on in AAA extremely easy.

>>61975
>I think most studios and game companies lose their way as soon as they get to a certain size and get taken over by business guys instead of people who give a shit about games
I agree 100%. when a small studio who made a good game, big companies want to buy them so they can milk money from it like a mad cow

Silent hill 2 remake
It's ok, but just not the same, the original game had so much going on, this one just feels as generic horror third person shooter, might as well be playing resident evil. It's like if they remade jacob's ladder or something, they won't ever make it justice

>>61983
I played it a bit and dropped it because i wasnt enjoying being in claustrophobic ugly apartment buildings

>>61983
>it's like if they remade jacob's ladder or something
Oh god, please don't give the hacks in hollywood any ideas.
I got horror shivers just thinking about it.

>>61986
if that kind of thing bothers you, you made the right call, it only gets worse after the apartment building

>>61983
I tried playing it but it seemed a bit too hollywood for my liking. Original SH2 had way more unique soul. It is the main problem with remakes. They become soulless or at least get a different one.

Finished playing through Mouthwashing.

Was a lot more linear then I was expecting.
It was more a vehicle for the story then a game imo.
On the one had I feel like I probably missed a lot because there are a fuck ton of hidden achievements somehow, but on the other hand I don't really feel the urge to play it again.

Thank God I waited until Robocop Rogue City was less than a tenner, though even that was a bit too pricey for an incredibly bog-standard fps with handful of maps intersped with a few hub-maps and a couple of novel gimmicks like the ricochet shot and robocop marking enemies like in the film. The AI is retarded, enemies stand out in the open while you blast them and does not improve as you go through the game, so it's basically like a shooting gallery.

When you're not shooting people you're walking on foot to talk to people and issue parking tickets with tedious A-to-B sidequests.

The story was like an episode of a robocop cartoon, just constant referencing of the original two robocops, ridiculously blunt "satire" that makes you appreciate how well the over-the-top satire was done in the original film, cheap voice acting with many of the npcs voiced by a handful of people. Peter Weller gives the appropriate amount of effort for this.

It's not a bad game, just a low-budget one with a license. Modern day "gamers" are retards giving this 8s and 9s are out of their mind, this game is 5/10 which is an okay score because scores don't start at 7/10. If this game came out 10-15 years, it would warrant a higher score.

>>62207
I agree with you on the rating inflation thing.
It's one of the reasons I prefer a "out of 5" scale for ratings with effort, and simple thumbs up thumbs down for low effort normies.

Because of gaming media being payed to inflate reviews, for most sites and review aggregators 7 is actually average and anything 5 and below is differing degrees of garbage.
So they functionally already have a 5 point scale.

Then again I fully admit I am very bias because I grew up watching X-Play as my primary source of game reviews during my formative years. They used a "out of 5" scale.

Played through one of the endings of MiSide

It's more feels than thrills for me.
For a horror game, besides a few jumpscares, most of the "horror" was just really sad. Like emotionally sad, not sad as in I was disappointed.
It's really good, but as with most of these types of games, I REALLY wish the movement speed was faster or I could run all the time instead of just scripted segments, because slow walk speed is and will always be something that irritates me.

It's frankly unbelievable that just 2 dudes pulled this game off. It's really well done, well polished, and unlike most horror games I have played, I didn't run into a single unintented glitch or bug meaning it's really well polished.

Oh, and for those wondering if it has any "adult content", the answer is no. Which actually relates to the subtext of certain aspects of the game as well as the themes in the plot.

Now to play it two more times to see the other endings and unlock more stuff.

Finally finished XCOM: Enemy Within after more than ten years since I first played the game. It's a very immersive and fun experience if you have a taste for it. There is a fatal flaw in the gameplay if you're not the patient type, and at the same time, if you're a bit of a perfectionist as well. This is a turn-based game that rewards caution above everything else. If you're going to roleplay in this game like I did, treating it as if you have actual human lives in your hands, you'll take great care of your soldiers. This means moving through the battlefield becomes almost a surgical procedure, at least it did for me. You'll be practically crawling through the stages in most battles because it's always better to let the enemy come to you rather than to meet the enemy head-on. Ambush is the name of the game if you want your soldiers to survive to the end. Kiting is also an incredibly useful tactic. Ambushing and kiting in a turn-based game can become an excruciatingly slow experience, and this is how you'll end up playing it if you don't treat your units as expendable.

On howlongtobeat.com, it says it takes about 27 hours to finish on average, and 50 for a completionist. Well, it took me about 50+ hours, probably, and I didn't even go for a completionist run. For example, I didn't build a cybernetics lab, where you can augment your units with cyborg parts. By the end, I had lost one unit and two rookies during that particularly nasty mission. The way they died was pretty cool, though, so I caved. I wasn't save scumming, but I was saving at the beginning of every mission and had to restart a few of them.

Anyway, it was a pretty fun experience finishing the game this time. I remember it being more difficult than it really is. I played on normal otherwise this would have taken an eternity to finish the way I like to play. The only part I didn't like was the final mission. Like I said, this game rewards patience and procedure. It mostly works during normal missions because the maps are not that large. The last one is a huge labyrinthine hell, though, and it takes forever to get across it. So much so that I switched to easy just to get through the next encounters faster. The ending is pretty good, too. I'm on the fence about psionics in this game. The atmosphere becomes a little goofy once you have units behaving like the X-Men, but I think it's a feature of the series since the beginning. At least I remember psionics in X-COM: Apocalypse (a much harder game I never finished, despite liking it a lot).

One maddening thing about Enemy Within is what terrible shots everybody and everything is. The aliens suck, too. I would prefer fewer misses, say, bump everybody's hit chance by +10% and eliminate the penalty for reaction shots if the target is less than 4 or 5 tiles away, for enemies too. It's ridiculous to have an elite soldier missing a shot from 3 tiles away when his target is a HUGE fucking locust-like mecha the size of two cars piled on top of each other. It would be like missing a bus from 12 feet away. It would be easier to hit than to miss, even if you're shooting blindfolded. I was using scopes and choosing only good shots for the missions, and still, they missed a lot. This is just a small gripe though, and even though it was a cause of frustration here and there, it didn't hinder the fun at all.

a game about digging a hole

!00%ed it.

Pretty short and very simple, yet honistly kinda enjoyable for what it is.
That said I don't think you get your money's/download's worth unless you aim to 100% it. A single normal playthrough takes around 45 minutes to a hour. Maybe more if you want a very wide hole. So if you play it as a one and done then yeah, it would be underwhelming.
But because a plathrough is short it doesn't feel annoying to achievement hunt after the first playthrough.
Overall I enjoyed my time with the game.
Ain't revolutionary, ain't the next AAA killer, or anything of the sort.
It's just a simple game about a simple concept executed well for a bit of fun for a few hours.

I finished Donkey Kong Country for the first time yesterday. I didn't own this on my SNES growing up, but I currently have a Switch with the classic games on it so I thought I would play some. It's a pretty solid game with decent level design, it also does a good job of making Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong feel very distinct from one another. As you can imagine (or you know if you've played it) Donkey Kong is slow and strong, able to throw objects farther and defeat large enemies without the need for barrels, as to where Diddy Kong is smaller, weaker, and faster, making him a superior choice when trying to speed through a level. The levels are pretty well done in terms of design and each area has a unique style and mechanics, like navigating dark caves with light switches or riding cart through a mine. The save system seems a bit limiting at a first glance as you need to complete several levels before reaching Candy Kong's save point, but if you use Funky Kong's flight barrel you can fly to any previously unlocked save point and then fly back to continue progression, preventing you from losing too much progress on a game over.

The game has its problems, however. Like there are some instances where it seems like the devs were trying to force unfair situations that would cause a very likely death, especially on a first playthrough when you don't know the levels that well. There was also a strange problem I had where if a start to move too fast, the camera wouldn't be able to keep up with me and I'd end up falling or running into an enemy and dying, though I wouldn't be surprised to discover that this issue is exclusive to the Switch port. The camera issue is also easily avoidable by pacing oneself, so I can't fault the game too much for that. The major gripe I personally have with the game are the hitboxes. Many of my deaths in the game stem from colliding with enemies I seemingly shouldn't, especially when playing as Donkey Kong as opposed to Diddy. Also, there were a few instances where I jumped to a platform and missed because the platform had a deceptively small hitbox, and on occasion these missed jumps would result in my death.

Overall, it's a pretty fun game and I've always enjoyed platformers so I had fun with it. The game is pretty short and took me a little under 2 hours in total, however it can take longer if you want to do all of the bonus stages. I'll probably start the second game soon.

>>62341
I still need to play the first DKC despite finishing both the sequels several times (am not counting anything that comes after 3). But I have good reason to think they're both better games, DKC 3 gets a lot of shit for introducing an annoying new character into the main duo and having wonky aesthetics but it's still some perfectly good Dong.

Finished The Last of us 2 remastered. Amazing game besides some woke parts. Really brutal. I wonder how the tv series will turn out, gonna be one hell of a season 2.

Got a bunch of PS2 games at the thrift store, pic related was one of them. Just beat it. This game did some interesting stuff, especially relative to when it came out, but in the end it's just not a good game.

The attempt at an immersive experience was nice. There is no mini-map, instead you have to follow the blinkers of your car. This work, but just barely, leading to some frustrating moments, but it's not as bad as some people say it is. Your health being indicated by how bloody your clothes are and how much you're limping is great and I wish it had become industry standard for games like this. Being able to heal by leaning up against a wall is also kind of cool, although it breaks the flow of the game when you have stand still for 20 seconds in the middle of a shoot out.
There's some impressive technological developments here. There's pseudo-dynamic car damage that's almost GTA IV like which is very impressive for a game from 2002. Graphics were very good for their time, especially for a console title, and the motion-captured animations stand out as well, but that technological wow-factor doesn't have the same effect playing it today.
The game world is a 1:1 recreation of a large chunk of London, which is technologically impressive but doesn't lend itself very well to gameplay. London is notorious for its traffic in real life, and it's equally frustrating in game. I've never been to England and have no connection to England, so the faithful recreation didn't do anything for me, but for people who are from England it seemed to be a big selling point. It all seemed like on big grey and brown blur to me, but if you've ever been there it's cool to see it recreated in game I guess.
A lot of the interiors are also realistic and well made, but it doesn't add much to the game because these environments are otherwise sterile and you mostly just mindlessly run and gun past them.

Controls were terrible. Free aim that's useless during shootouts, and auto-aim that's unreliable. The X button does 10 different things including doing a combat roll, going into cover and grabbing a human shield if you approach an enemy from behind; this contextual nonsense became the standard in modern games much to my chagrin because it means you don't always have the control you want over the player character. You can't freely move the camera which is frustrating during shootouts, meaning you just have to rambo around corners while hoping for the best which leads to a very trial and error style of gameplay. Game has a couple of stealth sections which are downright awful. It's not always clear where to go, and without the ability to look around it's just one big trial and error fest, even more so than the shooting sections.
Apart from the shooting and stealth, you'll be driving around a lot. The driving physics themselves are fine, apart from the fact your car will auto-drift if you go around a corner too fast, simulating over/understeer perhaps. But, London streets don't serve themselves to street racing, being crowed and confusing, so the driving sections are mostly frustrating. Add to that enemies and cops will often times chase you during missions and crash into you, which is extremely frustrating on top of the already annoying navigation as it is, plus there is no ability to shoot from your car. All of this is compounded by there being no mini-map which means driving is just one constant frustrating scramble to get to your destination. You also cannot control the camera whatsoever when driving, just like on foot.
There's one section where you have to rush your cop buddy to the hospital and the roads are blocked off by other police cars, and the game spawns less traffic than usual for some reason; this is by far the best driving section in the game and the potential the game could have had with better design signs through. Because it's clear where to go and you're not constantly crashing into NPC's it gives the driving a nice flow and allows the decent driving physics to actually shine through.

Missions in general were very frustrating because of the above mentioned issues with camera and controls, on top of the relatively poor design choices made by the developers, like enemies spawning behind you and things of that nature.

Story is dog shit like most video games, even though this game was attempting to be very cinematic. There's two story lines that are intertwined and you get to play half the game as a criminal and the other as a cop; an interesting concept but I didn't think the story was particularly good. I did enjoy the British atmosphere and the British authentic slang, which something different for a change.

All in all, it feels like a tech demo for a more promising game which never came about (although this game did have a sequel which I also picked up and will play). It feels like a game that was way ahead if its time technologically, but undercooked in the actual game department. Unfortunately, nobody ended up picking up or incorporating any of positive developments this game made. Grand Theft Auto games would have greatly been aided by adding some of the stuff like car deformation, player-is-the-health-bar system, motion captured animations, etc. but no game ever did from that era and the game feels kind of like wasted potential as such.

>>62362
I had this game when I was younger. I liked it because it reminds me gta. the game was difficult to me and I liked the challenge. I used cheatcode to spawn beautiful cars and drive through the citye, it was funny. I lend this game to a nigger I knew and when I ask him to give it back to me after he had it some weeks, he said to me his nigger older brother sell it because he thought it was his game. he gave me another game to apologize because his brother sold my game. (the game he gave me was medal of honor). I was pretty angry at that time

Finished The Room, an atmospheric puzzle game. Only problem with it is that at times it devolves into 'find the spot to click'. Other than that I had fun with. Not interested enough to try the others for now.

I just finished Myst, the 2021 version. Overall, I enjoyed it, but it's a game that tests your patience from time to time. There are a few good puzzles in there, but a significant portion of the game consists of writing down a set of numbers you find in one location, then running to another location to insert those values into some gizmo to progress. The plot is good enough for what it is but you can tell the developers had a bunch of environments they wanted to create and then tied everything together with a generic story. It worked for me, though.

Apart from two or three puzzles that I really liked, the best part of Myst is the relaxing, comforting atmosphere. There's a good variety of places for such a short game, and I enjoyed running around for the most part. The music is mediocre and I actually turned it off because it was much louder than anything else. The game does a good job of hinting at more events happening in the background and teasing the many sequels this game received down the road. I don't know if I feel like playing them right now, though. I'm a little burned out from the less enjoyable aspects of this game, like the ridiculous, incredibly dull mazes, long animations for elevators and doors that you have to watch each time you activate them, and a couple of other things that make you feel like you're wasting your time.

I don't know if this is the best puzzle game I've ever played, but it's certainly a very good one.

So I finally finished the original Diablo, a game I probably began and gave up on at least a dozen times over the years. I was a little bored by it at points, but not in a bad way, if there's such a thing as positive boredom. The gameplay is very repetitive and it involves intense clicking, and while it can get dull, there's a satisfaction in methodically clearing a level in this game. The feeling of clearing all the monsters was the only thing that kept me going towards the end. The last couple of levels I was simply tanking all the damage by using an insane amount of health potions.

One thing I didn't like is how skewed towards the fighter the game is. I played as a rogue and I used maybe 3 types of bows and 3 or 4 pieces of armor during the entire run. Meanwhile there were tons of different shields, swords, maces, axes, clubs, scimitars and many other weapons intended for the fighter class. There's very little options in terms of equipment if you're playing as a rogue or wizard. All I had to do was make sure to combine the right jewelry for the best resistance bonuses. In fact there's so little to do in terms of equipment that in the last third of the game I had enormous amounts of cash that I simply had nothing to spend on. The blacksmith never had anything interesting to offer rogues. I beat the game with over 80k taking half my inventory, and it would be a lot more had I not decided to tank the dmg with health potions in the later levels.

Music is good, the atmosphere is very, very good, the monsters are interesting to look at and the animations are pretty cool. I'm glad I decided to play the original game in the end instead of Diablo II. The second game looks a lot more cartoony, it doesn't have the same grit and appeal of the first.
Playing without the expansion was also a good move, kiting enemies for another 6 or 7 levels was going to seriously hinder my enjoyment of this gameplay. The original ends just before overstaying its welcome. I just didn't get the ending. Was it written anywhere that the plan was doing what your character does at the end? I read the fluff without paying much attention to it. Oh well, it was a pleasant couple of evenings descending into hell.

>>62341
I beat the second DKC today and I can immediately say that I like it better than the first. As I said before the first is solid, but the sequel makes a number of nice improvements and feels nicer to play. The hitbox issue I had with the first seems to be largely fixed. The story in the sequel is that Donkey Kong has been kidnapped and you must play as Diddy, now accompanied by Dixie, to save him. Diddy is still a speedy character, and while Dixie has neither Diddy's speed or Donkey Kong's strength, she has the ability to glide by spinning her ponytail around like a helicopter, which is incredibly useful in much of the game and almost feels required at some points. So where in DKC1 I had a slight preference towards Diddy Kong, in DKC2 I found I have a slight preference for playing as Dixie, though my time spent in the game was nearly an even split between the two Kongs.

Level design has also been improved upon and just feels more fun to play in general. Like the first game, levels and area's boast their own style and gimmicks, but the levels in the second stand out more, being more varied and intricate. There are also an number of paths in the levels that offer bonuses if a specific Kong or both Kongs are present. The game in general puts a larger emphasis on the 'duo' aspect and gives a feeling of 'you can survive alone, but thrive together.' As one could imagine, the levels increase in difficulty as the player progresses. However, unlike the first I felt like there were fewer instances that felt unfair in any sense. There were a handful of levels were the gimmicks of that level were a bit frustrating, but nothing too egregious. The only levels I thought were outright obnoxious were a couple levels that took place in a beehive-like environment where the floor and walls were covered in sticky honey that made it impossible to move from without jumping, and at some points if the jumps weren't made precisely it would result in loss of a Kong or loss of a life. Also, one of the very last levels has you transform into a parrot and race an enemy bird, if you lose the race you die instantly. You're basically destined to die a few times before you learn the correct route to winning the race, which is a little annoying. The final boss can be a slightly lengthy battle and may also take a few tries, but it's pretty unique and fun.

One last thing I'll note is the minor change to the save system. In the first, Candy Kong is a simple and straight-forward save point. In the sequel, however, Candy is replaced by Wrinkly Kong who offers the first save for free in any area but will charge 2 banana coins for repeat saves. This isn't too bad except for the fact that banana coins are reset when the save is loaded, so the player will need to collect at least two coins during a play-session in order to save again. It's not terrible, just inconvenient. Also, as I mentioned in my rundown of DKC1, I'm playing on my Switch. The only issue the Switch port seems to have in DKC2 is that too many enemies on screen can sometimes cause the game to lag, which was annoying but not horrible. Overall, DKC2 is a noticeable improvement to the first in basically every way and a great example as to why people remember these retro titles so fondly. I plan to finish up the trilogy with DKC3 fairly soon.

>>62350
The first is definitely worth a play if you have access to it, but you're right that 2 & 3 are better. DKC3 was actually the only one of the three that I had on my SNES as a kid, and although I didn't beat it at the time, I still remember liking it a lot and I look forward to completing it soon.

>>58615
I mean, the guy is a severe alcoholic and drug user, his body is shutting down.

>>62387
know a guy who worked on this, they just laid off tons of people just last month

>>62387
i really liked riven, the old point and click version.
never played the 2024 remake

>>62425
I've beaten that one before as well. It often gets overshadowed by D2, but it's a great game in it's own right.
>I was a little bored by it at points, but not in a bad way, if there's such a thing as positive boredom.
I know precisely what you mean. In fact, 'positive boredom' is often a draw for me in games these days. If I can relax and play a game without always needing to exert considerable effort to perform well, then I will often find myself having a good time.
>One thing I didn't like is how skewed towards the fighter the game is.
Back when I did a playthrough of Diablo 1 I played as the warrior, so the game seemed very 'full' to me. I thought about doing more playthroughs but never got around to it.
>I'm glad I decided to play the original game in the end instead of Diablo II. The second game looks a lot more cartoony, it doesn't have the same grit and appeal of the first.
The second Diablo is great as well, but the Diablo 3 is where the series gets seriously cartoony and shallow, and I haven't even bothered looking into D4.
>I just didn't get the ending. Was it written anywhere that the plan was doing what your character does at the end?
In game? No. Your character's purpose in the game was exactly as it seemed: enter Tristram, investigate the cathedral, fix the monster problem and save the town. What the protagonist does at the end is meant to be a surprise to the player, and sets the groundwork for the entire story of the sequel. However, I'm not sure if the devs at the time knew that they would be greenlit for a sequel, or if it was just a fun twist they made up on the spot.

Beat System Shock 2, the original, not the remaster version. It's been a long while since I saw a game accomplishing so much while also having a number of significant flaws. This could have been the game that redefined the FPS genre in the '90s; it could have been bigger than Half-Life. The potential was there, and it got so damn close, too. I'll list the things that I really liked about the game first.

1. Story
I find that the plot for most games tends to be pretty bland. The best stories in games tend to just be a good premise that ties the gameplay with the environment the game takes place in, with Yume Nikki being one such case. It's very easy for the story in games to get convoluted, but then bottleneck it at 'there's this evil guy, go kill it.' anyway. Now, the story for System Shock 2 is no masterpiece of subtlety, but the fluff adds immensely to the environment, the characters, and the gameplay. It ties everything together in a way that made me feel like progressing through the game to see what was going to happen next, and at the same time, I wasn't entirely sure how things were going to play out since the protagonist is pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place during the entire thing. The plot is not shoved down your throat, either; you piece things together at your own leisure and if you want to do it. The idea of having the story for the game in files you find around the levels is pretty great, and I'm not sure who did it first. Regardless, System Shock 2 does it pretty well.

2. The RPG elements
I really enjoyed leveling up in this game. I particularly liked the research part of it, where you get to examine the weird stuff you find around the ship. Having to use chemicals is also a very nifty idea. That said, I suspect some of those skills are wildly less useful than others, not that I care about that at all, as long as the skill itself provides something fun within the game, regardless of how useful it is. So maybe not the most balanced skills out there, but they're pretty fun to play around with.

3. Atmosphere
One of the very best atmospheres I've ever seen in a game. There's a huge caveat here, though, I'll have to talk about it later. The industrial, Alienesque environments, the bizarre creatures wandering around the ship, the weapons, doors, computers, and textures, everything looks pretty damn cool and creates an environment that was a joy to explore. I feel like the designer behind this game likes pretty much the same stuff I do (Alien, Star Trek, Starship Troopers), and it shows, but they managed to have their own spin on it, particularly with the industrial, cyberpunk visual elements of it all.

Those three elements make me want to say this is one of my favorite games of all time, but I'm not quite sure about it. Some very important elements were a mixed bag:

1. The voice acting
Sometimes it's incredibly good, sometimes it's painful. I'm very forgiving about voice acting in games, but System Shock 2 is such a feast-or-famine type of situation. You get incredibly competent, terrifying monologues with one file you find around, and the next one seems like the person was reading it as a joke, it's all very uneven.

2. Exploration
When it was good, it was really good, but this game suffers from the tendency to become a maze. A lot of old FPS games were like that. It really hinders the flow and sense of progress when you end up running around not sure where to go. The other problem is the amount of backtracking you'll be doing to accomplish many of those missions. Now, I'm partially at fault here because I only realized you can actually make notes on the map with N halfway through the game! After that, it got a lot easier not to get lost, but the backtracking is still there. I wouldn't mind the backtracking nearly as much if it weren't for the next thing:

3. Respawning enemies.
I like my enemies to stay dead. They respawn just too damn often as well. Sometimes you turn around to take a peek at another corridor, and when you turn back again, there's a damn abomination swinging a metal rod or shooting at you. Goddammit. What's the point of killing these monsters, then, if they don't stay dead?! But that's not the worst part of it; there's also the issue of…

4. Enemy placement.
Later in the game, the enemy placement is just complete bullshit. I lost count of how many times you have a turret or a monster just waiting for you at the top of a ladder or just around the corner, already aiming in your direction. I guess they're just too fucking well placed. The respawns are also pretty bullshit. Often they'll appear right behind you. It's odd that this game allows you to peek through corners. What's the point of being stealthy when the enemy is just going to pop up behind you anyway? Being careful simply doesn't pay off in System Shock 2; the incredibly well-positioned turrets and enemies respawning four steps behind you render all sneakiness almost pointless. Forget about using sound to try and locate the monsters, by the way. They might be located on a floor above, but still sound like it's growling behind you. It's hopeless. Basically, at this point, the game is full of shit, and that leads to another problem…

5. It pretty much expects you to engage in save scumming.
ALT+S, your most effective weapon in System Shock 2. Unless you're planning to put some serious effort into this game, memorizing the maps and objectives and making your run very optimized, yeah, this game pretty much demands you to save often. At points, I was saving every time an enemy died. The monsters in SS2 are no pushovers; they can and will kill you. Add that to the fact they're always respawning, and many times they respawn behind you. I felt bad for abusing the saves, but once the ninjas were introduced, yeah, no shame at all about the save scumming. Perhaps I wouldn't save scum if I could afford to actually use my weapons more freely, and this was one bizarre aspect of System Shock 2 for me…

6. You won't be using your guns.
Seriously bizarre decision on the part of the developers with this one. You'll spend most of your time using a wrench to kill the monsters. Bullets are insanely expensive, and even when you have them, you won't use them anyway because the weapons themselves are all made of plastic and deteriorate rapidly. You need a tool to fix them, BUT that tool also breaks after a single use; it's disposable. You can buy those tools in replicators, BUT they're incredibly expensive. What if you have plenty of money? Well, you could buy plenty of them, BUT they're not available in all replicators. It's all a huge loop that leads back to spending most of the game using a shitty-looking wrench. I checked on this, by the way. I figured maybe I was playing wrong, so I went to YouTube, and lo and behold, even veterans of the game spend most of the game using the wrench. It's so weird, too, because you put so much effort into finding, maintaining, upgrading, and learning how to use those firearms, and in the end, you barely get to actually use them. Fucking sucks. I think it's the first FPS game where one could arguably remove the S from the term. It's more like First-Person-Wrenching.

The Platforming
Exceedingly clunky. I got stuck in invisible corners so many times I lost count. Your character sticks to the edges during jumps in a climbing motion, but often the game seems to want to force a climb, and this causes you to fail jumping over things that are knee-high. And I know they know it, too, because you can see elevations on the ground close to several places you're supposed to jump over to make the transition easier.
Last but not least, perhaps the most controversial thing I'll write down in this post:

7. I turned the music off.
Yup. Don't get me wrong, though, the music is pretty good, but it just didn't blend well with the atmosphere. You're inside a spaceship filled with dead people, ghosts, monsters, and a murderous AI. The music broke that sense of horror way too often for my taste. It's this heavy, loud industrial music. It didn't feel like I was in space fighting for my life; it felt like I was in a rave in a warehouse in Berlin or something.

Looking back at this post, I wrote more cons than pros, but that's just my pessimistic approach to things. System Shock 2 is an amazing game, and it's because it's amazing that I even bothered to write about it. In fact, I liked it so much I intend to actually play the first one and this one again, back to back.

>>62515
is this game cyberpunk?

>>62517
Yeah it does contain plenty of cyberpunk elements.

>>62425
in the og Diablo basically the story was you can't kill a Prime Evil like Diablo. Only trap him in a soulstone, the Warrior decides to self sacrifice himself and stick it in his head to contain Diablo. Then wanders to the east to find a solution.

>>62451
i remember seeing previews of diablo 2 and it didnt look anything like the finished product. It looked like a really high concept adventure game.
Same thing happened with 3, 3 was supposed to be something more like Dark Souls.

Finished turn-based indie RPG called Keep Driving, it was okay, beautiful pixel art with a lot attention to details, great soundtrack made by ton of actual bands, very comfy, atmospheric game.

Gameplay is a simple resource managment game, but it can change quite a lot depending on what kind of random party you build.

A lot of the game carried by hitchhikers (i. e. party members) you pick up along the way, they all felt somewhat interesting to learn about, they also have unique reactions to certain events and to each other, nice hiker grandpa scolds you a bit you if you drive while drunk, escaped convict has verbal arguments with punk and talks car stuff with mechanic, I think punk also comments on your music choice etc etc, there's quite a lot of them.

Besides few minor bugs and only 14 (13 actually since two come as a pair) party members only real flaw I found is how some quests end sorta abruptly and without much payoff, and endings with the same kind of issue, it's not a big deal though. I got two endings and drove around with most possible party members and felt like got the most out of the game, it's a fun game to play around in for a week or two once in a while, but can get somewhat repetitive with events and combat sometimes.

>>62515
I really like your review style man. Post some more if you find anything fun to talk about.

>>62515
of all the psycho A.Is in games SHODAN is the best and deserves a System Shock 3, so she can lord it over me while telling me I'm shit throughout the whole game>>62515

>>62527
>abrupt endings are not a big deal
Yes. Its a huge deal.
I had everything. A cat in the trunk that I was about to turn in. The succubus that pees every other mile and whose quest I finally figured out. That idiot guy who just switched my car cage upgrade for useless flowers (picked him right after offloading the mountaineer). Still planned to do the race anyway. I had the time, I could get the cage again. The car was packed with goodies like that tent that I supposedly will need half a month later, tons of consumables for every possible debuff ever, that tire upgrade that gives armor and a fresh coat of paint to make the cut in a sidequest money event.
Lemme just offload that drggie chick real quick and
NOPE ROLL THE CREDITS
What a slap in the face. I had a long-going plan for like 20 quests at the same time and the game ends with the very first thing on a huge bucket-list? Thats terrible.

>>62362
Another PS2 thrift store haul game finished. Bully (or Canis Canem Edit in PAL regions because of censors).

I must say, it's a good game, especially for its time. The way they designed the open-world is particularly commendable and I think modern games could even learn a thing or two from it. The game centers around different cliques and groups and what really makes the world feel alive is that they will organically interact with one another based on their disposition, starting fights, bullying each other and so on. There's also a bunch of items like stink bombs, itching powder, marbles, which the AI will liberally use causing all sorts of emergent chaos which is neat. NPC's will also commit pranks or bully each other and if spotted by authority figures they will give chase and try and bust the perpetrator. All of this creates a very organic feeling world and it's something modern open-world games could learn from.
Instead of randomly generated NPC's each character in the game has a name and unique personality and plenty of voice lines they like to repeat (to the point of annoyance really) which adds to the aliveness as well, although there's not quite enough of them which creates some strange moments where you see someone going somewhere and then when you round the corner they've spawned in front of you again.

There's also a lot of side activities. Bike races, go-kart races, a carnival with a bunch of mini-games, jobs like lawn mowing and paper routes, a boxing side activity, classes, arcade machines with simple (and admittedly pretty shitty) games, errands you can do for people (extremely simple side-missions that organically show up in the world), and so on.
On top of that there are several types of collectibles scattered around the map which unlock various things when you gather them all. In general, even outside of the collectible rewards, there is plenty of stuff to unlock like new bikes, a moped, a go-kart, bits of clothing, weapons such as a bottle rocket gun or high-powered spud gun, etc. You can also unlock new combos for combat throughout the game by completing gym classes and learning moves from a hobo that lives behind the school.
You can also buy an impressive amount of clothes, and there's a decent number of hair styles and you can even get tattoos in towards the end of the game.
There is a good bit of content here although admittedly a lot of it doesn't have much depth.
You can unlock new moves, but the combat is pretty basic so it doesn't really matter. You can unlock a bunch of BMX bikes, but apart from appearance, they all mostly feel the same apart from being slightly slower or faster. Races are trivial and not too fun because the driving physics are kind floaty, etc. This "breadth with no depth" is very typical of R* games (GTA SA suffered from the same thing in my opinion) but quantity has a quality of its own and the game doesn't overstay its welcome so the shallowness isn't too bad. For a PS2 title this type of open world is quite good.

A lot of thought was also put into the art direction in this game. Characters have their own personality, the town is well realized, etc. It's all highly stylized and very unique. The score is also very good and memorable. Each clique has their own theme song, there's different themes for when you're riding around on a bike versus just running around, there's a unique theme when being chased, etc. It's a very charming game, is the best way too put it.

The weakest part of this game is by far the story. It's strangely paced and it's clear the story was much bigger at some point but had to be significantly condensed during development which leaves these weird gaps and creates moments that are downright nonsensical. This gets particularly bad towards the end of the game, the last chapter feeling extremely rushed. The mission design is also quite mediocre and the second worst aspect of the game. It's the classic R* design they've stuck to even in the modern age which is "drive here, now fight or do something scripted, mission end". Because of that, the game gets a bit repetitive towards the end. The side content is too shallow to entertain you for too long, the combat becomes stale, and the missions become a bit tedious.

All in all, a mostly good game with some flaws that makes up for it through its charm in my opinion.

Welp, I just beat Void Stranger. Twice. It's such a strange game, particularly in how it fails. It's a Sokoban game, and the puzzles are very good for the most part. If you've played your fair share of these types of games, you know that many of them contain huge amounts of busywork puzzles, it's obvious what you have to do in the room, and then it's just a matter of pushing the boxes into place for five minutes. There's little of that in Void Stranger. Most rooms are fun to solve, and I estimate that maybe only 15 or so rooms fall into the busywork category. The game slowly introduces new monsters and floor types, bringing some very nice variety to the approximately 250 rooms the game expects you to solve. Of course, it's still a Sokoban clone, but there's thought put into it, and it's fun to play. As far as the puzzles go, it's very good indeed. They're far from being hard puzzles; in fact, about half or more are rather plain, but that's Sokoban for you. You might get stuck on half a dozen of them for quite a few tries, or at least I did. The monsters look cool, the graphics harken back to the Game Boy, and they are very sleek and visually pleasing. The music is mostly good, though there are a couple of grating tunes towards the end. Overall, it's pretty decent, especially the first four or five tracks.

And then there's the reason I said Void Stranger is a strange game: the writing is complete garbage. Now, I'm very forgiving about writing in video games, especially in a puzzle game. Who cares about the plot in a Sokoban game, after all? Well, unfortunately, the writing in Void Stranger is awful and insidious. They doubled down on this one. I think the most blunt way of describing the writing is that it's sloppy coomer shit. I don't like using that term, but it describes the characters too accurately. I know exactly what they were going for, and it fails pretty badly. They wanted to create "waifu material" out of every character, but they can't write charming, cute, or funny characters, for that matter. The small cast in this game consists of a team of vapid pixel bimbos who can't make any sense. And that's just part of the problem. You can tell they tried to create endearing characters to make you care, and when that failed, they just wrote monologues pretending you already have a connection to the characters. They're always spouting this odd, casual nonsense that makes you scratch your head.

It gets worse. You see, there's a huge bait-and-switch in Void Stranger. It pretends there's a full-fledged, deep story behind it, but then it only offers bimbo talk that makes you scratch your head. It's a mystery as to why they didn't use the characters to actually flesh out the story while you're playing the game. They keep the monologues as coomer shit and then expect you to play the same 250 puzzles over and over again to get more cutscenes. This is very egregious because, as I said, the writing is quite terrible. There's no real incentive to replay the game other than the puzzles themselves. Anyway, when you do get those extra cutscenes, it's mostly boring tropes crudely stitched together. The drama is forced and ridiculous, the plot is disjointed, it has an inconsistent tone, and lacks focus. You can see the stitching all over it, and worst of all, none of it really reflects on the game itself; it all feels like a facade.The actual rooms you're in to solve the puzzles are this generic medieval dungeon type, brick and mortar and stairs. If you're surprised to read this review complaining about the plot and characters in a sokoban game, let me assure you I was very surprised myself.

Anyway, you can mostly ignore the plot and the characters and focus on the fun gameplay; that's what I did. Like I said, it expects you to replay the game several times to give you a story. It's funny, had they offered nothing at all, it would've been better. This is an obvious case where less would be a lot more. Just give us a couple of wordless cutscenes, that would be more effective. But Void Stranger is not done with this crap. It gets insidious. It simply cuts you off in the middle of a puzzle and starts playing the ending theme—music with lyrics so awful I was embarrassed to listen to it. Then it puts you back in a random puzzle and fades the screen out of nowhere. It just cuts to a blank screen. This game has a few of these awful gimmicks. It simply stops whatever you're doing and offers you a shitty cutscene that really doesn't explain anything consistently. It's terrible. I had read that there are more endings if you finish the game more than once, and since I had all the rooms fresh in my head, I just gave it a couple more hours and finished it again. Same slop, but now with a little more nonsense thrown in there. Definitely not worth it.

It's definitely a game with a vision, even if that vision is rubbish. I don't remember a Sokoban game turning sour due to writing, but wow, there you go—there's a first for everything. I was reading the reviews on Steam, and they're mostly off, in my opinion. A lot of people complain about the lack of undo for movement and the difficulty, but Void Stranger is actually on the easier side, especially because the rooms are fairly small, so it's no trouble at all. I attribute that to the fact that most people playing Void Stranger don't usually play these types of games. I read that there were a lot of people trying this game due to the "deep lore in a puzzle game," and that, of course, is complete nonsense. Also, the fact that there are a number of characters with huge boobs contributes to the casual gamer trying a sokoban type game without fully understanding what he's getting himself into.

Oh well, it was okay for the most part and now that I’ve vented my grievances, I'm definitely done with it. I'll try Mech Engineer soon.

>>62429
So, I have now successfully cleared the 3rd Donkey Kong Country. I took me a bit longer to get around to, since I recently got a new job, but it's done now. I had fun revisiting this old classic, and I think would I probably put it on par with DKC2 in terms of quality. Compared to DKC2, this one made a couple changes that I liked fairly well. For one thing, areas are not necessarily accessed in a straight line like the previous 2 entries, the player more or less explores freely by using one of Funky Kong's vehicles, and in one notable instance the player can actually choose between 2 different areas at the same time, rather than one after the other. The 3rd game also did away with the 'payed' save system I mentioned from the second game, which is nice. Once again, the protagonists from the previous game have been kidnapped and must be saved, and this time Diddy is replace by Kiddy Kong, which for all intents and purposed is basically Donkey Kong in a onesie, minus the hitbox issue I mentioned in my rundown of the first game. Having played all four characters I think I would rank them as follows: Dixie>Diddy>Kiddy>Donkey. Although any Kong can tackle nearly any challenge, Dixie was just the most fun for me personally, but they're all good. As far as level design goes, I think the design and layout of levels are on par with DKC2, but I personally prefer the visual variety that the 2nd game offers in it's levels. One minor nitpick about DKC3 was that I didn't enjoy the final boss battle as much as the previous 2 games, something about it felt a bit underwhelming, but the boss battles are never really the highlight for me in most platformers. Also, there is supposedly a secret area that can be found, but I didn't do it out of laziness, though I will likely replay the DKC games again in the future with the intent of performing much better in my runs.

All in all, DKC is a fun trilogy of games for the SNES and it's easy to see how Donkey Kong and the Kong clan retained popularity and relevance throughout the years. I really enjoyed playing these and I'm glad I can add all three games to my list of completed titles, more 'feathers in my cap' so to speak. Also, playing these old classics actually made me nostalgic for Donkey Kong 64 and even Diddy Kong Racing, two other DK games from my childhood, though sadly I no longer have access to them. Really not sure what game I will take on next, but I have several in my backlog to choose from.

>>62771
>you can chain roll through things to go retardedly fast.
I kind of picked up on this in my playthrough of DKC1, but as I mentioned in that post it became easy to 'outrun' the camera and I got killed a few times that way, but that may have just been an issue with the Switch port I played.
>Most enduring old platformers are designed for replayability, more specifically to be replayed a hundred times and beaten in under 2 hours.
I'm not really on that level with any game, but I'm sort of close to that with Super Mario World. It's one of my favorite games that I've played many times over the years, and although I'm no speedrunner, I can run through levels faster than most people I know. It's honestly one of the only things in this life that I'm 'good' at.

>>62788
>>62794
When I say 'outrunning the camera' I mean that I would go so fast to the right that I would go a bit off screen. I assumed that this was a defect of the Switch port and after seeing that video I'm now certain of it, because as you say the Switch has shitty emulation. It's serviceable for playing the games in a general sense, but isn't capable of smooth gameplay of the originals. I still had fun, but I guess if I want to enjoy these games at their best I'll need to find a good emulator on my PC, but I honestly haven't done that in quite a while though I remember it being pretty simple.

>>62802
Neat. I might look into this in the near future. Thanks wiz.

>>58838
>>58874
>>58910
>>58936
>>58963
>>58980
>>59006
Cute anon who loves megaman , thank you , you made my day
I really love you , God bless you .

Played some fighting games on the PS2.

Fight Night Round 3: the Fight Night series is probably the biggest boxing game series that exists and save for a couple of other stragglers they're pretty much the only boxing games around. It's a shame though because the game doesn't offer much depth and does a poor job at mimicking actual boxing. No footwork, no in-and-out type of distance management -just planted feet and haymakers. Basically rock 'em sock 'em robots with fancy graphics. Damage is also poorly modeled and is just an unrealistic video game style health bar system which is absolutely dreadful in a boxing game. Forget about knocking your opponent out with a well timed hook, instead just whittle down his health bar until you score a TKO. Game technically doesn't have an ending, but during career mode your stats deteriorate to the point the game becomes unplayable and you have to retire, so I consider it finished.

Victorious Boxers: based on the Hajime no Ippo manga. Both movement around the ring and head-movement are tied to the left stick. Big movements move your characters, small movements more your head -at least in theory, in reality it's way too finicky and not having ultimate control in a fighting game is a no-go for me so I quickly dropped it. Good thing I only bought it for $1.99. Didn't finish it, but might as well include it in this post.

Kengo: a samurai sword fighting game. Nice atmosphere, really feels like you're a samurai dedicating his life to learning swordsmanship. The game has these little mini-games like meditation and slicing bamboo to improve your stats. Kind of fun in terms of immersion, but get repetitive after a while though. Combat is pretty simplistic with only a single attack button which goes through various combos you can assemble yourself in a menu. You learn new moves by fighting other guys at various dojo's. Most moves are kind of useless though and there's a couple moves you unlock pretty much at the beginning of the game that are basically the best combo in the game, so there's no incentive to use anything else which is a shame.
You also have a parry which is mostly useless high-risk low-reward and block button which blocks everything and requires no timing. Game was fun at first, but the simplistic combat became frustrating after a while. There's no way to get an attack in through angles or switch-ups and the enemy AI has a tendency to just block everything which makes it feel like luck instead of skill whenever you do get a hit. The game does have a credit roll when you win the imperial tournament and defeat your own teacher, so I guess I finished it but you can keep playing afterwards and continue to battle other dojos.

>>58061
I've beat Barbie: Explorer on PS1 recently. Why did I even play this? Well, I love the PS1 era, and Crash Bandicoot, so I'm all about the many Crash Bandicoot clones from the era as I love the hallway/corridor 3D platformer style. This is one of the few I hadn't played yet, it's Crash Bandicoot levels with Tomb Raider controls for some reason, and it feels off at first, though I got used to how it works, especially when I figured out that walking with R1 made it so you didn't fall off of ledges, meaning I could always make the farthest jump possible from platforms by walking to the very edge before jumping. It's surprisingly difficult for the IP, you'd expect it to be braindead, but the controls make this harder to 100% than Crash 1 for me, which is why I didn't even bother.

It's solid if you like the IP and gameplay style, but nothing special even though I'll admit enjoying it.

>>62967
Reminds me of when I was a kid and so starved for new games I would take pride in dominating my sister's games after getting bored of my own.
Then when she complained I would offer for her to play my games to make it fair but the vast majority of the time she couldn't even figure out how to get them to run or learn the controls.
I think at around 9 or so I just decided games were games and cartoons were cartoons so target demographic doesn't matter as long as I am having fun.
That said the games industry did succubi dirty, at leastin the 90s and early 00s. A lot of the games targeted at succubi were pretty bad and just low effort cash grabs. Even the good ones were mid compared to other stuff in the same genre of gameplay.

>>62969
Indeed, often it seems succubi didn't even enjoy the titles targeted at them all that much, preferring more "neutral" titles. My mom and sister loved to play Sonic in our Mega Drive more than any of the more "girly" titles.