December 2025 General Games Discussion

[BeardyHat]

I'm no Zed, so I did what I could generating a festive picture with my own Stable Diffusion instance. I tried for something a little more interesting, but things just got weirder and weirder!


December 2025 General Games Discussion Thread

Still at it with Darkest Dungeon 2 over here and if anything, I'm loving it more and more. My current team is making headway through the second act, but I don't think they'll end-up making it all the way to the end boss, as they're missing something and I'm not quite sure what that is yet. But I think I need to swap out my Grave Robber for the Bandit, though partly it might be due to the way I have my Grave Robber's skills configured. I really need to make some notes for myself on what I'm thinking, because I felt like I had some good ideas yesterday morning, but by now I've forgotten them; I do think I need to more reliably hit the backline without needing my current group in particular positions. It can be a bit of a faff trying to get the Grave Robber and Barbarian into position.

 

[neogunhero]

Been a long weekend with the holidays and all. I did manage to get a bit of gaming done.

I modded GTA IV once again. I did it earlier this year, but since I've moved SSDs and now running Win11, so I started to get an itch to play again. I used Gillian's GTA IV Mod Guide to get the main basics installed (FusionFix 4 most notably), this guide makes it incredibly easy, once you got the prerequisites like .NET and other Visual C++ redistributables installed, it's just a matter of dragging and dropping the mod archive to your root install folder.

I also downloaded this first-person mod, which was a bit tricky to get installed. There was a reply there posted just this past August 30th by a user Billbobjr123 which broke down the installation for the latest version of the game, no downgrading required. It was even trickier as it required two more downloads to get the mod to work as mentioned in that post. Finally, I installed this trainer/cheat engine mod to manipulate the game even further.

This whole process was pretty convoluted but in the end I was able to get everything to work, and pretty flawlessly at it too. I get random frame rate dips below 60FPS, but I think part of that is just FusionFix which is a pretty massive graphical overhaul mod. One of the most noticeable visual improvements is all the fine details being rendered in full HD. Shop front images, signs, graffiti, random stickers and papers posted around the city, everything is fully readable and clear to see now. Lighting, shadows and reflections also got a huge boost in visual fidelity, making the game look as realistic as ever.

I'm having fun just messing around with the NPCs and goofing off in the game. The Euphoria ragdoll physics are still so fun to mess with. Watching NPCs stumble around after getting shot in the leg never gets old. Driving in first person is also a ton of fun especially in high-speed police chases. I'll never get bored of this game or modding it.

 

[Frindis]

Right now, I am fishing as one of the activities you can do in the Runescape 3 Christmas event.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Played a few hours of The King is Watching, just what I was looking for. Its not the same but Im getting similar feelings as I did a few years ago from Loop Hero. Its not an idle game but you are kind of watching stuff happen and pulling levers and placing stuff on the map, trying to anticipate resource shortages and so on. Its really good so far.

 

[Frindis]

@Kaamos_Llama That courtyard, or what you call it in that game kind of reminded me of that Ball X Pit games gathering yard. I could be way off, but just seemed similar,

​

 

[Johnway]

Well, a year is nearly upon us. Another year wasted probably.

Anywho, gaming wise still on haruka's set of chapters trying to make it big in osaka and winning the princess league. Its been pretty interesting so far with the the idol world filled with cut throat characters and politics. mean while trying to make cash on various activities.

As previously mentioned, the mini game jobs were going to be the toughest of the bunch. mercifully, the claw machine challenge was completed with a stroke of luck but i doubt i want to repeat it again. The Bowling mini game? not a problem. beat the opposition with a fairly comfortable win despite choking on the last throw. The table hockey game was slightly more dicey prospect due to the horrible camera angle. Tried it both with keyboard and mouse and had to attempt it a few times to make it work. The Pool table game was a disaster and nothing short of a massacre. i think i potted one ball out of the 8 in total.


On the whole i'm still enjoying the game. The only tricky one is perhaps the comedy duo mission. The problem is that there is very little time to read what is being said and you have to pick the right answer with the right timing as well. its tough, really tough as you don't have time to think and respond properly. They really need to tone down the speed dial for foreign audiences. i might have to consult a walkthrough and preemptively memorize the correct answers.

 

[Frindis]

Well, a year is nearly upon us. Another year wasted probably.

I believe Fifth Element said it best with this scene:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SJnReLKQvM

 

[neogunhero]

Forgot to mention another game I picked up yesterday, Captain Wayne - Vacation Desperation. @Johnway would be into this one.

It's a standalone GZDOOM engine boomershooter with some pretty unique features. First off, the hand-drawn art style and aesthetics are 100% up my alley. The cutscenes intentionally look like absolute crap and cutscene audio is bit-crushed to hell, just like the very poorly made Flash games from the early 2000s I grew up on. The story is quite hilarious, Captain Wayne is basically just a pirate version of Duke Nukem. He steals a bunch of priceless artifacts and sold them all, so when confronted by the evil rulers he stole from, he just infuriates them even more. He is trying to go on a free vacation but the evil cronies just so happen to be at the beach as well. He has some pretty hilarious quips and one-liners throughout the levels which made me crack a smile.

Gameplay wise it's top notch. Super frantic and fast paced shooter. You have a shotgun arm with a satisfying feel and sound to it. Chaingun makes the whole screen shake to really give it that all-powerful feeling when using it. You have a kick attack that's really useful for stunning enemies, and you can perform a jump kick to fling yourself pretty far forward, helpful for clearing large distances quickly. Enemy variety is very nice, and they can easily fill up arenas. Level design is also amazing. I'm only three levels in, but I'm loving the nautical aquatic themes to the levels. Level 2 is a large beachside resort full of secrets that took a good 30 minutes to pour over. I picked it up for $8 on a bundle with another game I already have, but it's only $10 full price. Highly recommended for any boomershooter FPS fans.

 

[Johnway]

Forgot to mention another game I picked up yesterday, Captain Wayne - Vacation Desperation. @Johnway would be into this one.

It's a standalone GZDOOM engine boomershooter with some pretty unique features. First off, the hand-drawn art style and aesthetics are 100% up my alley. The cutscenes intentionally look like absolute crap and cutscene audio is bit-crushed to hell, just like the very poorly made Flash games from the early 2000s I grew up on. The story is quite hilarious, Captain Wayne is basically just a pirate version of Duke Nukem. He steals a bunch of priceless artifacts and sold them all, so when confronted by the evil rulers he stole from, he just infuriates them even more. He is trying to go on a free vacation but the evil cronies just so happen to be at the beach as well. He has some pretty hilarious quips and one-liners throughout the levels which made me crack a smile.

Gameplay wise it's top notch. Super frantic and fast paced shooter. You have a shotgun arm with a satisfying feel and sound to it. Chaingun makes the whole screen shake to really give it that all-powerful feeling when using it. You have a kick attack that's really useful for stunning enemies, and you can perform a jump kick to fling yourself pretty far forward, helpful for clearing large distances quickly. Enemy variety is very nice, and they can easily fill up arenas. Level design is also amazing. I'm only three levels in, but I'm loving the nautical aquatic themes to the levels. Level 2 is a large beachside resort full of secrets that took a good 30 minutes to pour over. I picked it up for $8 on a bundle with another game I already have, but it's only $10 full price. Highly recommended for any boomershooter FPS fans.

I've indeed seen it around with the boomershooters reddit posts and seen some of the videos. Will look into it and get it when its cheap enough. i still need to get the other GZDoom built games that are available like selaco and supplice, will add to the wish list and see what happens. Speaking of Doom wads, i'm still playing Russians all over the world. i do have a few things to say about it the TLDR atm is that the Wad is great fun, but it has one or 2 glariing flaws that are like ugly, deep scratches on what is a well made megawad.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played PEAK with two of my friends today. It went a lot better than I expected, though it obviously took us a bit to get used to the controls and to gauge how far we can climb. We did two attempts and made it pretty far onto the ice mountain, but two of us fell down and the third player got attacked by a skeleton.

We definitely need to stick together more, it happens far too often that someone takes a risk, falls and takes damage that could've been prevented if someone was there to catch them.

 

[Zloth]

I played a ton of Dragon's Dogma 2, doing lots of quests. People complain about how hard the quests are to follow sometimes, but coming off Elden Ring, it's just a pleasure to be able to do multiple steps without having to look at a guide! I think I've finally adjusted to the shorter max falling distance compared to Elden Ring, too.

The only minus is that the best armor for a sorcerer at this stage of the game is... well... a rather low-cut dress. Not a great look for me. However, it's also a game where your expected to switch classes now and again. About time to find that mystic archer trainer!

 

[dxchase]

Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays or weekend. I had last week off with pay so it was def. nice. I think ill also have christmas week but we will see.

My game schedule for the last week has been kinda 1-sided. Have been playing Arc Raiders mostly for my stream (check it out if you have one! Shameless promotion for follows ). Its been really fun, no need for too many details, the game is great! I dont really have much to complain about, any of the big topics in the games community dont bother me (no pve mode, nothing to chase, extraction campers etc.). Embark has done a great job here imo.


I checked out the new MindsEye demo. It has a campaign mission and a couple of the side missions available from the game. Theres also going to be a rotation of content in the demo to try other aspects as well. I played MindsEye and i didnt like it all that much, very stiff combat, very limited enviornment etc. So i just stopped playing it.

Now, this demo has all the updates/patches from the game (they FINALLY added a dodge roll) and seems to run really smoothly. I never got into the side stuff because i had lost interest well before that but what they give you to do there its pretty cool and apparently you can also make your own stuff. The game has a creator of some sorts. If you were ever thinking of trying it, nows the time.


And then theres... DESTINY 2

If you ever known me to talk about Destiny 2, you know i have a love/hate relationship with the game. It used to be a big part of my gaming for several years, leading a clan of 100 people most of that time. I stopped playing it about a little over a year ago (15 years, it seems, in Destiny 2 years).

Today, they are dropping a new star-wars-type expansion. Im not going back for that really, but for the "returners boon" that bungie says they are going to give players who have lapsed play. I clearly fall into the guidelines (dont remember but 1 of them is not getting over level 15 in the pass which i used to be able to reach in a day lol). What it does is for 6 months, yea 6 months, is give players with this boon huge amounts of extra XP and loot.

Along with that, Bungie has reversed several of their old systems that made the community leave in droves and annoy the ones that stayed. They have also powered up old guns/gear, got rid of the power creep so no reset there (even if mine is already really low) and last BUT NOT LEAST. All content over the last year (pretty much EVERYTHING ive missed) is available for free for i think 2 weeks. So im gonna take an advantage of that.

So bungie is really trying hard to get its numbers back (hasnt top 20k players daily in, id say, a couple months? Which is bad considering it used to sit in the top 10-15 for a couple years. So well see.

I also wound up getting a 5060ti 16gb (wtf buys an 8gb version if theres a bigger one lol) for my son for christmas. He plays at 1080p and has a 3050 so he needs a small upgrade. Its not the best card obviously but it was on sale for 400 and its usually 470 or something so, for his dual monitor 1080p set up, it should be fine, even if he moves to 1440p. and YES, i missed the sale on newegg where 5070s were selling for like 300 or something....


Not much else to add, if you ever come by my stream say hi!

 

[neogunhero]

I checked out the new MindsEye demo. It has a campaign mission and a couple of the side missions available from the game. Theres also going to be a rotation of content in the demo to try other aspects as well. I played MindsEye and i didnt like it all that much, very stiff combat, very limited enviornment etc. So i just stopped playing it.

Now, this demo has all the updates/patches from the game (they FINALLY added a dodge roll) and seems to run really smoothly. I never got into the side stuff because i had lost interest well before that but what they give you to do there its pretty cool and apparently you can also make your own stuff. The game has a creator of some sorts. If you were ever thinking of trying it, nows the time.

I'm still keeping an eye on that game for now. What I was most interested in was the side-project/game attached to MindsEye called EVERYWHERE which was a user generated content game, similar to Roblox or Garry's Mod. I believe they have stopped making that game and now have moved it inside of MindsEye as build.Arcadia which is somewhat similar, but lacks the major hubworld that was supposed to be a big feature in the original iteration of it.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

@Kaamos_Llama That courtyard, or what you call it in that game kind of reminded me of that Ball X Pit games gathering yard. I could be way off, but just seemed similar,

I havent played Ball X Pit, but from a quick look this is totally different.

In The King Is Watching there's a castle to defend, inside it is a tile based grid. You can interact with the map by populating the grid with different resource tiles, or tiles that generate soldier units using different resources.

The problem is there are only 3 squares you can collect from at a time and you have to move your 'gaze' around in order to collect whatever is the most needed at any given moment. You can upgrade to eventually 6 tiels worth of gaze, but it costs a lot of resources for each step, and maybe you should also spend those resources on defending your base.. There's a hard limit on the number of troops you can field, which you also have to manage upgrading over the course of a run.

There are regular waves of enemies trying to break down the walls for your soldiers to fight, and you can see exactly when and what is coming, and also pick the type of reward you get for beating them. You dont have any direct control over the units, but there are various spells you can cast which you earn or buy from different places that buff your troops, debuff or do direct damage to enemies.

Its complicated to explain but actually quite intuitive once you start playing. Recommend it to anyone who liked Loop Hero or Against The Storm, its not like those games but it shares some of the same vibes.