General Game Discussion thread for April 2026

[neogunhero]

Played more Vampire Crawlers last night. Okay, I have to admit, I see some of the gripes the PCG reviewer had, but it's still a very fun game. One thing they pointed out is how each card uses a different amount of mana, and if you play them in numerical order (0 mana card first, 1 mana card second, 2 mana card third), it results in a big combo for extra damage. Great, but it does get repetitive after a while. There is no thought besides playing the cards in order.

The fix for this is finding a Bracer on one of the floors which draws another card to your hand each turn. I've found 3 Bracers in one run, so I had a total of 6 cards in my hand each turn. When you have more cards, there is more room for strategy, however I still defaulted to playing all 0 mana cards first, 1 mana cards second, 2 mana cards last. So far in the game there aren't many synergies that would be better than playing the cards in order. Kind of lame, but still fun overall.

I'm certain as I progress further into the game I'll see more room for strategy. Each world zone has a few levels, and each level has up to 4 floors. After killing the boss at the end of floor 4, the red reaper comes and kills you just like in VS. I do wish for an endless mode, but I have a good feeling that will come eventually.

So just as the PCG review pointed out, you play until you die, go back to the village to increase some permanent upgrades, and try again. Each time you beat a level, you unlock a new one that is more difficult. I've beaten a good amount of levels in the first 2 zones and each level does introduce a new card, so the further along you get, theoretically there should be more room for strategy other than mindless card playing.

It's fun, it really is, but there are a few gripes like that which stick out. I think I still prefer the original VS to this as that provides a crazy power fantasy as you mow down thousands of enemies a minute, this game is more challenging and you don't feel that some level of power. Maybe later down the game when you get some crazy combos and plays. This game seriously needs an endless mode.

 

[Frindis]

I heard a theory online somewhere, this was specifically about IGN, but this person said they believe IGN gives low scores to popular games on purpose so that it garners discourse and people start talking about IGN again. I kind of felt that was the case with PCGs review. 98% overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam versus one persons 50/100 score is quite jarring. It is very well this persons own opinion, and reviewers should not be subjected to hype as that could influence their opinion, but I feel the editorial team at PCG maybe should have picked someone who was going to be a bit warmer to the game. I've barely played to notice any real flaws but I highly doubt this game is as bad as that review makes it seem.

I think some game reviewers don't get some games, so they give them low scores, or they try an edgy take, trying to stand out and raise clicks. Some might also just be completely clueless, like those who can't even shoot or move their character properly.

Some games might not be for the reviewers, so when you have some middle-aged grumpy guy trying to hold on to his job and he gets a review copy of some indie RPG game doing something new, he's going to make his voice heard about just how much this game is not to his amazingly perfected 90's taste buds.

 

[Frag Maniac]

This looks fantastic. Please be good!

At least the combat looks much more nuanced than their new Hitman series, but I'm still skeptical whether they're going to have a small amount of missions in exchange for several ways to do kills, infiltration, etc like in Hitman.

 

[neogunhero]

At least the combat looks much more nuanced than their new Hitman series, but I'm still skeptical whether they're going to have a small amount of missions in exchange for several ways to do kills, infiltration, etc like in Hitman.

They do have that combat simulation mode in this game, and have announced that new missions will come to it over time. That is a nice way to add additional content without having to add it to the main story. Being an IO Interactive game, this might be better to wait a few months or year before picking up as there will be much more content in the game at that point. I also hope the story is done well as a 007 movie fan, I like the younger Bond learning the ropes of MI6 so I'm hopeful it will be an entertaining story.

 

[Frag Maniac]

They do have that combat simulation mode in this game, and have announced that new missions will come to it over time. That is a nice way to add additional content without having to add it to the main story. Being an IO Interactive game, this might be better to wait a few months or year before picking up as there will be much more content in the game at that point.

That's not very reassuring for me because it's the same exact thing they did with the new Hitman series. Even if you wait until they're all released, I doubt it will feel like a full fledged globe trotting adventure to several places around the world like in the movies. It's strange that the movies got much better with the ones starring Daniel Craig where they were finally made with more grit than sarcasm and still good global scope, but despite the games looking good graphically now with fancy theatrics in combat, it seems we're stuck in a loop gameplay wise.

 

[Frindis]

I don't have hope for 007 First Light because of how IO Interactive did everything possible to scam people with their bloody confusing Hitman series packages for purely "fk you" for profit. I loved Hitman, Hitman 2, Contracts, Blood Money, and after that, they started to get greedy leeches.

 

[Pifanjr]

My friends and I continued our Barotrauma campaign yesterday. Now that we have our tier 3 attack submarine, things have become a lot easier. We fought two of the strongest enemies in the game and got out without a single death. Well, kind of, we did restart when my friend accidentally shot a nuclear rail gun shell point blank and it blew up our sub as well, but other than that it went really well.

Which isn't to say we had no deaths at all. We had a quest to retrieve a relic from a base and these quests are always a pain, but this time the base spawned somewhere we could park the sub right next to it, so we decided to give it a try only for me to get caught in a trap and die. We gave up after that.

We also had a quest to blow up the reactor of an abandoned outpost to smoke out the bandits that had taken it over. One of my friends decided to throw a molotov cocktail at it, but this did not destroy the reactor. So my other friend tried putting the fire out so he could get close enough to just overload it manually and ended up succumbing to burn wounds.

These were only minor setbacks though and at the end of our session we managed to reach the start of the last biome. We're getting close to finally finishing the campaign, though the last biome has no outposts in it at all so we're going to have to either stock up on a ton of supplies to get through it in one go or slowly help make the biome safe enough for new outposts to be created.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I heard a theory online somewhere, this was specifically about IGN, but this person said they believe IGN gives low scores to popular games on purpose so that it garners discourse and people start talking about IGN again.

Previous to this, the joke was always "11/10 IGN" because people thought they were too positive/in publisher's pockets, etc. The Internet turns everything into a conspiracy of some type.

That was exactly my experience when I tried out the demo. I don't quite understand why PCGamer gave it a 50 in their review...I'm pretty sure the reviewer just didn't click with the game, which is just a thing that happens. Personally I would've reviewed Vampire Survivors as a 7/10 at most, fun to kill some time with but not something I'd recommend to anyone, but PCGamer gave it 87/100 and it has a 98% positive rating on Steam.

The "opinions can't be wrong" saying is inaccurate. It's only true when a subject is 100 percent subjective, like "Did you like the game?" However, the question answered by a review should be "Is this a good game?" and that is not 100 percent subjective, so reviews can be wrong. (As usual, this lecture was mostly for myself...I was using pi-fan-junior's thoughts to think things through)

Played more Vampire Crawlers last night. Okay, I have to admit...The fix for this is finding a Bracer on one of the floors which draws another card to your hand each turn. I've found 3 Bracers in one run, so I had a total of 6 cards in my hand each turn. When you have more cards, there is more room for strategy, however I still defaulted to playing all 0 mana cards first, 1 mana cards second, 2 mana cards last. So far in the game there aren't many synergies that would be better than playing the cards in order. Kind of lame, but still fun overall.

Accurate, but to me, the battles aren't the strategic part. The battles are where you find whether your deckbuilding and upgrade strategies worked. Those are the fun parts to me. And the deckbuilding and upgrades are happening so rapidly that the whole thing, for now anyway, works for me.

That's not to say the battles are completely mindless.

 

[neogunhero]

That's not very reassuring for me because it's the same exact thing they did with the new Hitman series. Even if you wait until they're all released, I doubt it will feel like a full fledged globe trotting adventure to several places around the world like in the movies. It's strange that the movies got much better with the ones starring Daniel Craig where they were finally made with more grit than sarcasm and still good global scope, but despite the games looking good graphically now with fancy theatrics in combat, it seems we're stuck in a loop gameplay wise.

True, and they're like "VR" simulation missions. I'm certain they can use that as a way to introduce some cool areas, but it's not more of the main story, they're just challenge missions essentially. I personally liked Hitman World of Assassination after they gutted the three reboot trilogy titles and merged them into one. It wasn't a very consumer-friendly move, but the end product was still fun and jam packed with content. As for a 007 game, I do prefer it to be one major adventure spanning the whole globe, rather than have the same replayable challenge missions as Hitman did.

I don't have hope for 007 First Light because of how IO Interactive did everything possible to scam people with their bloody confusing Hitman series packages for purely "fk you" for profit. I loved Hitman, Hitman 2, Contracts, Blood Money, and after that, they started to get greedy leeches.

They have done some weird things with Hitman. World of Assassination has like 5 different editions you can buy, and the cheapest one goes on sale for $3 but only gets your access to Hitman 1 levels, so you're missing like 75% of the whole game all things considered. The game is great, but their pricing model is just weird.

Accurate, but to me, the battles aren't the strategic part. The battles are where you find whether your deckbuilding and upgrade strategies worked. Those are the fun parts to me. And the deckbuilding and upgrades are happening so rapidly that the whole thing, for now anyway, works for me.

That's not to say the battles are completely mindless.

I also started to look at the basic enemy battles and ways to level up before the boss battle. It's the only way to get more cards and perks. You could sprint straight to the boss, but you'll be severely underpowered. Because of that I try to clear the whole floor before heading to the boss, as I'll be as strong as I theoretically can be at that point in the level. There is some strategy to it, but the beginning moments where you only have 3 cards and 2 mana are a bit too easy.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I also started to look at the basic enemy battles and ways to level up before the boss battle. It's the only way to get more cards and perks. You could sprint straight to the boss, but you'll be severely underpowered. Because of that I try to clear the whole floor before heading to the boss, as I'll be as strong as I theoretically can be at that point in the level. There is some strategy to it, but the beginning moments where you only have 3 cards and 2 mana are a bit too easy.

I pretty much do that, too. There have been a couple of times when I started taking a lot of damage and started going straight to the treasure or even straight to the boss, but that's only happened twice, and those runs were doomed from the start. Plus, I kind of like grinding, anyway. I've got 7 hours now, and I just now did the bridge. I'm having a lot of fun, so I'm not in a hurry.

Speaking of the bridge, I was set up for shields for the first time and had the relic or whatever it is where shields carried over, and I got a little carried away. I was finishing battles with 400+ shields, and it was taking forever. My deck wasn't set up for huge damage, though, so I didn't really have much way to speed things up, and those guys have a ton of health.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShUy3fxUOzY


This looks fantastic. Please be good!

I don't have hope for 007 First Light because of how IO Interactive did everything possible to scam people with their bloody confusing Hitman series packages for purely "fk you" for profit. I loved Hitman, Hitman 2, Contracts, Blood Money, and after that, they started to get greedy leeches.

Remember they were almost closed down by their owner, managed to set themselves free and were in dire financial condition. They might have been a little desperate. That doesn't exactly excuse them, but I won't carry a grudge if this game is just set up and sold normally.

The thing that concerns me about this game, and it's likely fine for everyone else, is that it appears it's going to be predominantly a stealth game, and out of all the things I'm terrible at, that's what I'm terriblest(ha) at. I'd rather it be a cover shooter, maybe with some occasional stealth. But stealth is sort of their wheelhouse, so I expect I'll just have to take a pass. That's unfortunate for me because I've been wanting to play a good Bond game since Goldeneye.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I personally liked Hitman World of Assassination after they gutted the three reboot trilogy titles and merged them into one. It wasn't a very consumer-friendly move...

What it was to many of us is validation that a lot of their fanbase are upset with the new ways to kill formula that trades content for gimmicks touted as "replay value". I'm not sure they're fully owning up to it though.

 

[Johnway]

path of exile and the 28 challenges complete is in site. it would have been 26 if i realized that i had all the unique items i need. Sods law that the ones i want aren't dropping again. no matter, i suspect once i fight the boss it will drop one. failing that i buy it. Assuming someone is selling. The grind has been also fruitful, i've managed to get 115 of the 150 maps done. just 35 more and we're finished there. So by next week it should be 28 challenges completed if the stars align.

the only thing that stands between me now is the boss challenge. Need to read up on the attacks and fingers crossed, i do it within 14 attempts. failing that, i'll try another challenge. The astrolabe one looks promising. I'll try and buy cheap ones and see if i can get the 200 alters. there's usually 2 or 3 around.

 

[Zed Clampet]

@Pifanjr @neogunhero You know, the other thing about that review on Vampire Crawlers is that the game bills itself as "The Turbo Wildcard..." It's the ascending order bonus that makes it "turbo". Of course, that doesn't mean you have to like it, but the farther I go, the more interesting deckbuilding strategies there are, so there's absolutely no lack of strategy. That's just crazy. It's kind of like American football. You strategize and then you perform.

edit: I finally read the review. She's mostly got it right. She just didn't like it. Based only on her screenshots, though, she doesn't know how to build a deck or understand/know the color bonus or the things you should level up first. All her cards are red, she drew very few cards, she hardly had any mana, and she was much farther in the game than I am. Honestly, if that's the way she played, I'm a little doubtful that she was able to finish the game, which could make you frustrated enough to give the game a 50.

 

[Frindis]

I was playing Dark Souls 3 and wondered why the hell the game was lagging all of a sudden (this was after an hour or so of playing) so I decided to quit and start it again, and while doing so, I noticed that I also had Path of Exile 2 running in the background 🙃

 

[Pifanjr]

I started Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader today. I decided to start on the Daring difficulty and made my own custom character even though I had no idea what I was doing, but so far it's been a breeze. I'm pretty sure I'm only like halfway through the tutorial though, so I assume it'll get harder once I get further into the game.

It did suck a little bit when one of the first companions I got had the same class and origin as my own character, but it turns out they actually compliment each other pretty well.

 

[Zloth]

BattleTech Advanced is still cruising along. I've been getting frustrated with the melee, though. If an enemy unit is next to a hill of some kind, the game seems to get confused when you try to select the option to kick/punch them, making it impossible. I've got a couple of mechwarriors that I want to use in melee a lot, but that issue keeps making juicy targets immune.

It did suck a little bit when one of the first companions I got had the same class and origin as my own character, but it turns out they actually compliment each other pretty well.

For a long time, I would look up the characters you could get in RPGs as companions, try to guess which I would be most interested in, then pick my own class accordingly. Modern games are a lot better at finding ways for characters to stick around. If they don't fit your alignment, maybe you can convert them. If they are they class you want to play, maybe they let you respec them (Larian-style) or maybe the class would have subclasses that let the characters play differently. So, I don't check so much these days - which is far better for avoiding spoilers. Definitely one of the good 'modern gaming' things.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I was playing Dark Souls 3 and wondered why the hell the game was lagging all of a sudden (this was after an hour or so of playing) so I decided to quit and start it again, and while doing so, I noticed that I also had Path of Exile 2 running in the background 🙃

I've done that before. Even worse, I was playing a game the other day, and I thought, "This game has never run poorly before," so I decided to save it and relaunch, but when the game shut down there was my AI video generator sitting on the screen using up 96 percent of my VRAM, so the game was having to use regular RAM.

I started Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader today. I decided to start on the Daring difficulty and made my own custom character even though I had no idea what I was doing, but so far it's been a breeze. I'm pretty sure I'm only like halfway through the tutorial though, so I assume it'll get harder once I get further into the game.

It did suck a little bit when one of the first companions I got had the same class and origin as my own character, but it turns out they actually compliment each other pretty well.

I loved everything about that game except for the maps, which were actually worse than useless for me, but I'm game navigation challenged, so maybe that won't be a problem for you.

BattleTech Advanced is still cruising along. I've been getting frustrated with the melee, though. If an enemy unit is next to a hill of some kind, the game seems to get confused when you try to select the option to kick/punch them, making it impossible. I've got a couple of mechwarriors that I want to use in melee a lot, but that issue keeps making juicy targets immune.

Sorry, if you mentioned this, I've either missed or forgotten it. What is BattleTech Advanced? Is that BattleTech with a mod, or a completely separate game? I didn't know there was another BattleTech.

 

[Zloth]

Sorry, if you mentioned this, I've either missed or forgotten it. What is BattleTech Advanced? Is that BattleTech with a mod, or a completely separate game? I didn't know there was another BattleTech.

Yep, a mod. It changes the game so that it takes place 50'ish years after when the vanilla game took place, allowing some of the rarer technologies to be more common. There's a whole BattleTech ecosystem of mods now. Mods like this one include several built-in mods, plus there's a lot of work done by this mod. BattleTech Extended and RogueTech are the two other big, compound mods covering the game.

I don't know if the melee issue is a problem with BTA in particular, one of the common mods, or if it was in the base game and I just forgot about it.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I think Vampire Crawlers is supposed to give you a feeling that you are killing it because I definitely feel like I'm killing it.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I was playing Dark Souls 3 and wondered why the hell the game was lagging all of a sudden (this was after an hour or so of playing) so I decided to quit and start it again, and while doing so, I noticed that I also had Path of Exile 2 running in the background 🙃

Yeah you'll often get a warning that you already launched a program if trying to use it's exe twice, but unfortunately it can't discern whether two different programs should be running. 🤣

 

[Pifanjr]

For a long time, I would look up the characters you could get in RPGs as companions, try to guess which I would be most interested in, then pick my own class accordingly. Modern games are a lot better at finding ways for characters to stick around. If they don't fit your alignment, maybe you can convert them. If they are they class you want to play, maybe they let you respec them (Larian-style) or maybe the class would have subclasses that let the characters play differently. So, I don't check so much these days - which is far better for avoiding spoilers. Definitely one of the good 'modern gaming' things.

In Pillars of Eternity I made my own character a ranged based build without looking anything up, but the player character gets a bunch of special abilities that mostly work in melee range.

I really hope Rogue Trader isn't one of those games where specific skills are semi-required to spend points in, but I don't want to look anything up. Though if someone here wants to give a hint on which skills are particularly useful I wouldn't mind the advice.

Yep, a mod. It changes the game so that it takes place 50'ish years after when the vanilla game took place, allowing some of the rarer technologies to be more common. There's a whole BattleTech ecosystem of mods now. Mods like this one include several built-in mods, plus there's a lot of work done by this mod. BattleTech Extended and RogueTech are the two other big, compound mods covering the game.

I don't know if the melee issue is a problem with BTA in particular, one of the common mods, or if it was in the base game and I just forgot about it.

From the wiki (https://www.bta3062.com/index.php?title=Melee_Combat)


Melee attacks like this are actually fairly complicated under the hood and that can lead to some weirdness. You'll notice that sometimes you won't be able to make certain attacks despite being in normal range. This is because the attacks are partially tied to their animations and HBS BT will not allow certain animations sometimes. This mostly comes up when at a higher or lower elevation than the target. If you are too high above them, you cannot hit them with a physical weapon or punch. If you are too far below them, you cannot kick or charge them. Nothing we can do, just gotta roll with it.


It does also say that the game automatically picks the type of melee attack for you but you can pick it manually as well. Maybe the game sometimes picks a kick automatically even if it can't hit where a punch might be able to land or vice versa.

I think Vampire Crawlers is supposed to give you a feeling that you are killing it because I definitely feel like I'm killing it.

Vampire Survivors was the same way. You'd mow down hordes of enemies with ease, right up until a boss fight or a wave of enemies that didn't die quite fast enough.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Rogue Trader looks great, I have a little doubt about getting it if its not on a big sale because I really liked both Kingmaker and WOTR for a good amount of hours until they let me down with totally unnecessary and poorly designed mini/side games, I dont know exactly what you would call Crusade mode and the Kingdom(?) mode, but those. I really got into the CRPG parts, combat and story, but the crusade mode suuucked, I assume Rogue Trader has something similar?

Currently though Ive been playing a couple of games I started and didnt finish before.

Warhammer 40k Boltgun is a good fast paced retro FPS. I'm somewhere into chapter 2 and its pretty mindless but fun. Each level roughly takes 30 mins to finish so it fits my daily schedule well. Im not really excited about it, its a fun retro shooter with a 40k skin. The enemy variety is a bit lacking so far, but theres a lot of guns and its a little tactical with the weapon selection for different enemies. The level design is kind of retro Doom maze like, but theres a Dead Space style wayfinder to help out with finding the next objective without which I would have stopped playing most likely. I will probably finish it, but Im not loving it whole heartedly.

Jedi Fallen Order takes some design hints from souls games with bonfires and respawning enemies in levels that interconnect via shortcuts. This is a really fun game to play, the combat feels really good, theres force powers like push and slow to play around with and a lightsaver parry. Navigating the levels is also exciting in a kind of Uncharted way withe climbing and QTE style jumps and slides that flow well and throw you back in straight away if you fail so it doesnt feel frustrating. It also looks great and has some really nice story and voice acting. Some of the level design so far though has been confusing, and I had to check on how to do a couple of things because I was getting frustrated. It just doesnt make things clear in some places what is required. For example I was in a dungeon and made it to a point where a cut scene played and the game told me to return to the ship. I assumed that I had to back track or find another way back the way I came, but actually I still needed to solve a multistage puzzle before I could make it out. Its the kind of game where you get new powers that open up areas of maps that you can revisit later, so its not always so clear whether youre supposed to do something right away or much later. I went from feeling like this is a very very good game to having reservations, moment to moment and aesthetically its top notch, but the level design early on is a little ropey in a couple of ways.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Finished Vampire Crawlers

I can see why someone, perhaps like the reviewer, might struggle with Vampire Crawlers if you aren't paying enough attention. Obviously, you want to increase your damage, right? So you go to the store and spend a fortune to upgrade your damage by 20 percent. WRONG. You upgrade your Crawlers and Crawler capacity. Not the one that says "plus whatever to damage". You want the ones that say "Amount". Thing is, the game, so far as I know, doesn't tell you what "amount" does. You have to pay attention and figure it out yourself. "Amount" increases the number of attacks your attack cards make. So if you spend a fortune on the upgrade shops damage increase and increase your damage by 20 percent, your 100 damage card now does 120 damage. But if you work your Crawlers and increase your "amount" by 5, that same 100 damage card does 600 damage. Amount does a lot of other things to. It's the most important stat in the game. Not that you don't want to improve other things like mana and hand size, but in the end, it's amount that gets you through.

I can really only think of one bad thing to say about the game, which is that the passage of time is the only reason I will ever replay it. If I started a new game right now, there isn't a single thing I would want to do differently. Maybe I could set some sort of speed run goal or something. This isn't really a problem for me. I don't replay the vast majority of my games.

 

[Johnway]

The end is in site for me in Path of exile! i after i dinged to lvl 98 last night i decided to take a crack at the league boss and was prepared for a real grind (saved up a load of attempts, researched attacks etc). Tbh i was expecting to take at least 3 attempts as i thought it was going to be near impossible for me to succeed in one go.

Well, turned out i did manage it in one attempt. i lucked out and the boss wasn't so tough at all. So i was absolutely relieved that was crossed off so quickly. The other challenge for crafting? i decided to splash the cash for the item. A mere 10 chaos (i have 1500+ and each map i play i walk away with 10+ thanks to selling harvest juice) and that was crossed off as well. I didn't need to spend the cash as eventually an item did drop but what ever.

So were are we now? We're about 12 maps off from the 150 target before we get the 28/28 and i can quite. A shame to see all those resources i never spent like the divines, the nightmare maps, the unique maps etc but meh, not my problem.

if i was going to take an educated guess, if i kept playing till league end i would probably get about about 5 challenges done, taking me to 33/40 not enough to get the helmet, but frankly its not that important. i have ideas as to what i can replace that cosmetic with.