January 2025 General Game Discussion

[Johnway]

I have continued to explore more shooters. This is a bit of a hodgepodge: a SEGA Saturn release of an arcade game that is part multi-directional shooter, part shmup; and a series of is a series of three doujin (Japanese amateur-made) games, which are related: Kamui, RefleX and ALLTYNEX Second. As such it varies from established production values to overambitious amateurs and somewhat original yet streamlined approaches to gameplay.
I'd peg them all of interest just for fans but someone might find a specific piece of interest and be tempted during a sale or something.

i use to be a fan of shootem ups, but the bullet hell like nature of modern shooters (especially Arcade ones) has put me off. I should play ikaruga, radient silver gun, r-type final but they're just too short and not worth investing full rrp for.

Still playing mechanicus, the death clock is at 37% and we've finally got my 5th member of the team. I probably have enough tech priests and 4 of the 5 are hardened veterans. Although most of them seem to be jack of all trades:

one of them is a fighty priest. with a mix of shooty and melee skills.
one is a healer with a touch of melee and shooty skills.
one is a support of sorts, being able to allow me to use various support defensive or troop (minion) skills.
Another is a shooty guy and working towards earning action points.

The fifth one? No idea? I think at this point i might get another person to mainly generate action points and maybe a healer with shooty elements.

The problem is that looking at the tech trees it doesn't seem all that inspiring and some of the skills aren't all that useful. In fact some of the most useful skills are starting skills. So focusing isn't a great idea.

 

[Pifanjr]

Played some more The Planet Crafter today. The area around my base is starting to look green and the water levels have risen as much as they will, so the world is slowly becoming less barren.

I'm running low on rare materials though. I just unlocked the tier 4 drills but I can't make any of them because they require resources that aren't renewable for me yet, so it seems I'll have to explore more and hope I stumble upon another source. Either that or I have to wait until I unlock the tier 2 ore extractor.

I also only just discovered that the production boost from rockets is permanent, I thought it was a temporary boost. So I shot two plant rockets up and got a 2500% increase to my plant production, meaning the world is going to get a lot greener a lot faster.

 

[Zloth]

The screenshot system in FF7 R2 is pretty weak. Why do built-in screenshot tools limit the camera so much??

Luckily, Universal Unreal Unlocker works great on the game. Page Down to stop the game, Delete to make the GUI go away, Insert to unlock the camera, zoom wherever I like, and click!

P.S. The Steam forums soon after a game's release are AWFUL! Most of the topics are people yelling at each other.

 

[BeardyHat]

i use to be a fan of shootem ups, but the bullet hell like nature of modern shooters (especially Arcade ones) has put me off. I should play ikaruga, radient silver gun, r-type final but they're just too short and not worth investing full rrp for.

Broodstar is worth a go.

BroodStar on Steam

BroodStar is a classic arcade shmup with roguelike elements. Acquire crazy item combos, encounter strange events and fight challenging bosses on a quest to destroy the living planet, the BroodStar.

store.steampowered.com

I also liked shooters, generally early, simple stuff; Life Force, Solar Striker, Gradius, but also find bullet hell off-putting.

Broodstar is nice because it has that more casual gameplay to it, but also all the Roguelike stuff that happens with those types of games, where you can just get lucky and have ridiculous combos that annihilate the screen constantly.

I only have 7 hours in it, but it's one of very few of those types of games I actually really enjoy playing.

 

[travishead]

I don't spend enough on games to warrant a spreadsheet. Maybe if I also tracked what my wife spent, but I don't really see a reason to do that.

I did recently open GOG Galaxy and sorted all of the new games into must-play, might-play and won't-play, which is much more important than tracking how much I spent.



All of these feel perfectly reasonable to me, but I'm one of the youngest people here.

I appreciate your perspective on tracking game expenditures. It seems that organizing your games into categories is a more effective approach for you. Prioritizing must-play titles can enhance your gaming experience without the need for detailed financial tracking. Thank you for sharing your insights on this matter.

 

[Rolfil]

So I've been playing D4 for the last week and the new season is my favourite so far. I levelled my Necromancer with Minions and then went over to Blood Wave two days ago. It actual didn't feel great at first but then I reapplied the Fastblood codex which reduced my Ultimate cooldown a LOT faster.

I've upgraded most of my witch powers to max so now it's grinding trying to find fugitive heads and restless rot to make the new Occult gems.

Once I have them and have my 5 glyphs to level 45 I can move from Torment 3 to Torment 4.

 

[Colif]

I remember seeing some anecdote that millenials actually had less computer literacy because when they grew up the designs were too user friendly, and they didn't know keyboard shortcuts, etc. In a way, being sure I never read the Windows or MS DOS manuals, maybe using a computer like a toy helped discover how it works better than just using it as something to play applications on.

Computer Literacy: There is a lack of knowledge about windows coming from younger generations as the first thing they given to play with is often a phone and they learn how either android or IOS work for much of their youth (unless they look into computers other than mac's and chromebooks, and even then they might use linux instead since its free).

So that means that if say you do know something about PC and take a ICT Cert 2 course, much of the info in it might seem too basic for you - seeing how Outlook worked was funny as I lost track of how many courses I have done on it.

So its not that they are stupid, its just what they learned was different. Give them a mobile and they are way better.

 

[BeardyHat]

Computer Literacy: There is a lack of knowledge about windows coming from younger generations as the first thing they given to play with is often a phone and they learn how either android or IOS work for much of their youth (unless they look into computers other than mac's and chromebooks, and even then they might use linux instead since its free).

So that means that if say you do know something about PC and take a ICT Cert 2 course, much of the info in it might seem too basic for you - seeing how Outlook worked was funny as I lost track of how many courses I have done on it.

So its not that they are stupid, its just what they learned was different. Give them a mobile and they are way better.

It's all one big, searchable bucket.

Gen Z Kids Apparently Don't Understand How File Systems Work

"These are smart kid. They're doing astrophysics. They get stuff. But they were not getting this."

futurism.com

I'm trying to familiarize my own with computers. Each of them has to at least use a mouse (trackpad) to use Steam and access the game they want when they're ready to play or find the icon on the desktop.

I've not been playing a ton of Aliens: Dark Descent, though I'm still putting 30 minutes in here and there. It's still good, but I just completed a mission last night that I'm kind of annoyed with; it ends with a horde attack, so I had setup all my 5 sentry guns, only to have them forcibly destroyed and then my unit forcibly evac'd out.

What's annoying about it is now I have to go back to that area (assuming I can) and make my way all the way to where the guns were and then repair all 5 of them, each using one resource that can be hard to come by and of which I have less than 10 of. It feels shitty because it doesn't feel like a choice I made and a consequence of it, but instead that the Devs decided this was how the mission needed to play out for the story (which who cares about that?) and I'm just along for the ride. I may just reload the save and setup maybe one gun, which I can afford to lose, but not all 5 of my only sentries.

My friends also sucked me back into Vanilla WoW on the private server we play on. I shouldn't play this game I've already spent thousands of hours on over the last 21 years, but I'll be damned if it isn't comfort food I'm craving right now.

 

[Frindis]

My friends also sucked me back into Vanilla WoW on the private server we play on. I shouldn't play this game I've already spent thousands of hours on over the last 21 years, but I'll be damned if it isn't comfort food I'm craving

This might be up your alley

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWMz7-7SGlo

 

[neogunhero]

Checked out Eternal Strands last night. It’s pretty good so far! The story is actually pretty intriguing, and the characters so far are full of unique personalities that I’m actually interested in exploring more. The gameplay is good, I really like the powers you have, and I know it will only get better as I unlock more abilities.

I only played about an hour and a half, and most of that was me just exploring and ignoring the main mission. It’s not an open world sandbox kind of a game, at least so far. I believe it will open up a bit more later, but it’s definitely not fully open world. It’s broken up into very large areas with lots of different things to explore and do, with the missions scattered about.

I don’t have much more to say now besides that I will definitely keep playing this game. The writing was incredible! Can’t wait to start unlocking even more powers.

 

[Colif]

Oh no... I seem to have misplaced my really small violin and I could use it right now

I can't think of last EA game I bought.

 

[isleepinabed]

Wow, don't know where to begin. They all sound very interesting, but they all also have things that would drive me nuts, like the screen filling up with text or having to do quick or long presses of the same key/button. On the other hand, infinite continues wouldn't bother me at all, in fact I would prefer it that way, as I get bored easily redoing things. It's why I can't fully get on with games like Slay the Spire or Hades. I start off really enjoying them, but about the third time I have to start over I begin to feel the boredom creeping in.

The problem with infinite continues is that you're not playing the same game.. or a game at all. Interactive media.. ok. But if there's no challenge it doesn't work the same way.

As in most arcade-type games the setting, graphics, etc pull you in. But when you get "in the zone" (and I mean this as that point when eyesight, mind and fingers are all concentrated and working together) it's the gameplay that matters and you could be playing the same game in a Mickey Mouse setting with the same vigour.
I would equate it to playing an adventure game by following a walkthrough.

Restarting over and over again is part of the game because when you finally pull through the other side it feels a lot more satisfying that you've finally conquered that mountain. If the sense of danger of losing a life isn't present then it loses meaning. Somewhat like learning a new song, the more you play it, from the start, you progressively get better at it.

For the effect of just playing through to see the ending I personally prefer watching a youtube clip. I have done this many times, for games that were simply beyond my ability (or would require too much improvement).

i use to be a fan of shootem ups, but the bullet hell like nature of modern shooters (especially Arcade ones) has put me off. I should play ikaruga, radient silver gun, r-type final but they're just too short and not worth investing full rrp for.

I too have felt this, I think in particular for Ray'z Arcade Chronology, Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours and Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade. I personally think they're worth it but they sat on my wishlist for a long time until I was finally ready to commit. But Ikaruga is regularly $5 and at $10 RRP I'd still say it's a bargain.

Broodstar is worth a go.

BroodStar on Steam

BroodStar is a classic arcade shmup with roguelike elements. Acquire crazy item combos, encounter strange events and fight challenging bosses on a quest to destroy the living planet, the BroodStar.

store.steampowered.com

I also liked shooters, generally early, simple stuff; Life Force, Solar Striker, Gradius, but also find bullet hell off-putting.

Broodstar is nice because it has that more casual gameplay to it, but also all the Roguelike stuff that happens with those types of games, where you can just get lucky and have ridiculous combos that annihilate the screen constantly.

I only have 7 hours in it, but it's one of very few of those types of games I actually really enjoy playing.

Just to make this clear, about the ones I posted, only Psyvariar Delta is bullet hell.
I wasn't aware of Broodstar. From the videos it reminds me, aesthetically, a bit of euroshmups (not necessarily as a criticism), you know, the ones made for the Amiga. And since it has a demo I'm going to give it a try!

 

[Pifanjr]

The problem with infinite continues is that you're not playing the same game.. or a game at all. Interactive media.. ok. But if there's no challenge it doesn't work the same way.

[...]

I would equate it to playing an adventure game by following a walkthrough.

At least with infinite continues you progress using your own skill in between deaths, whereas following a walkthrough requires no skill at all. If you only die a couple of times in the entire game you're still mostly relying on your own skill.

 

[ZedClampet]

The problem with infinite continues is that you're not playing the same game.. or a game at all. Interactive media.. ok. But if there's no challenge it doesn't work the same way.

As in most arcade-type games the setting, graphics, etc pull you in. But when you get "in the zone" (and I mean this as that point when eyesight, mind and fingers are all concentrated and working together) it's the gameplay that matters and you could be playing the same game in a Mickey Mouse setting with the same vigour.
I would equate it to playing an adventure game by following a walkthrough.

Restarting over and over again is part of the game because when you finally pull through the other side it feels a lot more satisfying that you've finally conquered that mountain. If the sense of danger of losing a life isn't present then it loses meaning. Somewhat like learning a new song, the more you play it, from the start, you progressively get better at it.

For the effect of just playing through to see the ending I personally prefer watching a youtube clip. I have done this many times, for games that were simply beyond my ability (or would require too much improvement).

I too have felt this, I think in particular for Ray'z Arcade Chronology, Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours and Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade. I personally think they're worth it but they sat on my wishlist for a long time until I was finally ready to commit. But Ikaruga is regularly $5 and at $10 RRP I'd still say it's a bargain.

Just to make this clear, about the ones I posted, only Psyvariar Delta is bullet hell.
I wasn't aware of Broodstar. From the videos it reminds me, aesthetically, a bit of euroshmups (not necessarily as a criticism), you know, the ones made for the Amiga. And since it has a demo I'm going to give it a try!

I was raised on arcade games. Unfortunately action arcade games don't do much for me anymore. But that's a me problem.

No offense intended, but it's simply incorrect to imply that infinite continues eliminates most or all challenge. I understand your position and why you feel that way. I just think you are going a bit far with it. Most games, including many really difficult ones, have infinite continues. What infinite continues eliminates is stress. If you feed off that stress and it creates adrenaline rushes for you, then that's great. but it doesn't do anything for me except make me bored when I have to start over.

Anyway, when I get good enough at a game to beat it, I believe that I could beat it with or without infinite continues. I'm still improving the whole game. I'm just not backtracking. In many difficult games, like Vermintide 2 and Darktide and V Rising on higher difficulties, by the time I finish them. death is extraordinarily rare. I played Darktide for almost 100 hours over December and January and died twice (I'd already put about 40 hours into the game). I'm not bragging. I think this is the normal way it works. You always improve at things you put time into regardless of the life/death setup.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I like a good checkpoint system with infinite continues fine, you have to improve enough to get to the next one. I would say generally it the ability to save scum that makes me feel like Im not really playing or learning the game personally, not judging anyone else. That also varies by game, so not saying it as an absolute.

But I do also get bored repeating the same stuff for too long, unless theres a lot of build variation, like in Slay The Spire and other rogue likes. Things may look the same but I get engaged thinking about how to make different cards or whatever work together to beat whatever the challenge is. RNG keeps things interesting a long time if its designed well.

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Kind of related to that I mentioned a while ago in The Last Spell you cant make your own saves. Youre stuck with your decisions, although you can freely rewind moves to the last time you made an attack. Attacking or using an ability locks things in, so misclicks and mistakes arent so much of a problem, as long as you notice before you lock in.

Theres several maps and each run can take quite a long time depending on how much you like to think. The screenie above is from a run that lasted 17 hours and this is the last turn of my 4th attempt at the map. Without knowing the game its probably hard to see whats going on, but basically the final boss of the level has the smallest sliver of health left and when it dies I win.

Its a turn based tactical base defense game. You have to defend the Spell in the centre of the town until the boss dies, here the town is completely over run, nearly all defenses and buildings wrecked apart from the innermost ring. The ! denotes the enemy is standing on a tile inside your base area. 2 heroes left from 6. One of those has no Mana so is reduced to basic attacks, with one of those left to play, the other is stunned and misses the turn. Long story short, I had almost given up several times before this point. Eventually it boiled down to this: the next enemy turn the spell is broken or the boss dying ends the level. With 6 basic ranged attacks left on the little guy with the red health bar, it wasnt even close to enough to kill the boss, who had tons of HP left and resistances. I clicked anyway just to finish off, but on the third attack it hit a critical, and because of different bonuses and skills that got applied there was massive damage, enough that the last 2 attacks would kill the boss as long as they didnt miss, and thankfully they didnt.

After probably like 35 hours trying this map, the first time I made it to the boss I beat it by the skin of my teeth. I wouldnt be able to have that kind of moment if I was able to just reload everytime something didnt go my way. I understand its not what everyone is looking for, but Im glad there are people making that stuff out there for weirdos like me

 

[Pifanjr]

I played some more The Planet Crafter. I hit a point where I need osmium to continue upgrading my stuff, but I've already cleared the only osmium cave I found. So I started exploring and found an entirely new area with a lot of really cool environments, including new resources and wrecks. I built a new base there and I found a lot of really cool loot, but sadly only a single osmium.

There's still a lot in this new area I haven't explored yet though, so I expect I'll find some next time. And if not, I'll unlock ways to generate osmium if I just keep exploring long enough.

 

[ZedClampet]

I played some more The Planet Crafter. I hit a point where I need osmium to continue upgrading my stuff, but I've already cleared the only osmium cave I found. So I started exploring and found an entirely new area with a lot of really cool environments, including new resources and wrecks. I built a new base there and I found a lot of really cool loot, but sadly only a single osmium.

There's still a lot in this new area I haven't explored yet though, so I expect I'll find some next time. And if not, I'll unlock ways to generate osmium if I just keep exploring long enough.

Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that there is a lot more osmium. I can probably guess which one you found. Also, you will eventually unlock a way to get more, but that's going to take awhile. It's one of the last of the regular unlocks.

 

[Pifanjr]

Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that there is a lot more osmium. I can probably guess which one you found. Also, you will eventually unlock a way to get more, but that's going to take awhile. It's one of the last of the regular unlocks.

I saw that osmium eventually starts falling down as meteors. I looked it up when I got 3 massive meteor showers suddenly when I got to the new area (and unlocked the achievement for getting hit by one). I was curious whether my game was broken because it dropped so much loot, but apparently you unlock new kinds of meteor showers with different materials as you progress.

 

[ZedClampet]

I saw that osmium eventually starts falling down as meteors. I looked it up when I got 3 massive meteor showers suddenly when I got to the new area (and unlocked the achievement for getting hit by one). I was curious whether my game was broken because it dropped so much loot, but apparently you unlock new kinds of meteor showers with different materials as you progress.

Yes, but the ones that drop osmium almost never hit. But that's okay because you are going to be desperately wanting something else anyway.

 

[ZedClampet]

Current game I was enjoying just has too many bugs for me to continue. I reported the main one. Hopefully the dev will get around to it soon.

 

[neogunhero]

Played more Eternal Strands last night and still having a blast. Only played for about 30 minutes, because Lonely Mountain Snow Riders was calling me instead. I did a few quick play races, I really like this game a lot. The controls and camera angles are hard to adjust to, but once you learn how to control your player better and start doing good, it becomes so satisfying as you feel yourself get better and better.

The races are so much fun. The thing about this game is that there are so many shortcuts you can take, some you may not notice until about your 6th time riding a trail. They seem to keep revealing themselves to you as you get better, or more practically, you start to get more confidence in yourself to take the risk so you’re more keen to these shortcuts. Pulling one off successfully is extremely satisfying. As you get better you start to add some tricks to your jumps which also just feels so great to pull off.

After that I went back to Dolphin emulator. Playing more Tony Hawk American Wasteland for GameCube. This is perhaps my most played GC game as a kid, and never did I realize there is a classic mode akin to THPS, complete with brand new levels and revamped levels from earlier games. I played a ton of that, it’s so much fun. As much as I like the main story mode, I really like classic THPS score attack as well. I then decided to do some research about the new and remade levels, which is when I
stumbled upon a mod called reTHAWed.

reTHAWed is basically a complete overhaul of American Wasteland, with tons of content pulled from other Tony Hawk games, revamped mechanics, “cheat engine” type menu with tons of settings, and so much more. Makes it run perfectly smooth on modern PCs as well. I haven’t checked it out yet, but I watched a video going over everything and it seems awesome. There is even full online multiplayer. The community around it seems to be people who are insanely good at the game, but the improvements are totally customizable and could make the story mode more enjoyable as well.

 

[BeardyHat]

So, I had ordered a new laptop around Friday; think I made a post about that. It took forever for the seller to ship and in my waiting, I started looking at other computers and ultimately decided it would be a better idea to spend about $100 more and cancel the one I had ordered.

So I did that and again, it took the seller ages to cancel the order (3-days) and then another two days for the credit to be reflected on my Paypal account. In that time I thought to myself, well if I spend an extra $250ish, I can get something even better and potentially be happier for longer.

So today I'm finally free and clear, able to purchase something different and after all this waiting and thinking: I'm not sure that I want to. Looking at my Steam Year in Review and reflecting back on my favorite things I played in 2024, Skald: Against the Black Priory and Felvidek, neither require a graphics card and both of them I played on Deck. I guess I did do Dishonored 2 on my laptop, which I encountered some issues with running via eGPU, but I could have also played it on Deck. I also really enjoyed HROT, which was on my laptop, but again doesn't require a dedicated graphics card.

I don't know. Does anyone ever obsess over the games they could be playing rather than the games they actually are playing or have played? I feel like this is a constant struggle for me and causes me to buy new stuff that really isn't necessary. Do I really want to blow $950 on a laptop that I think is too big and too heavy (16", 4lbs) when I actually have been fairly content with my little ultrabook?

 

[neogunhero]

I don't know. Does anyone ever obsess over the games they could be playing rather than the games they actually are playing or have played? I feel like this is a constant struggle for me and causes me to buy new stuff that really isn't necessary. Do I really want to blow $950 on a laptop that I think is too big and too heavy (16", 4lbs) when I actually have been fairly content with my little ultrabook?

This is such a huge problem for me too. I look at all the fancy new games… wish that I could play them, then I think about how much the game is, and how I probably need a new GPU to play them nicely. I then start to look at all the GPUs on Amazon… the RX 7700 XT is only $400 and could last me a few years… then I snap back into reality and think nahhh I’ll be fine. It’s a constant battle within myself lol.

 

[BeardyHat]

This is such a huge problem for me too. I look at all the fancy new games… wish that I could play them, then I think about how much the game is, and how I probably need a new GPU to play them nicely. I then start to look at all the GPUs on Amazon… the RX 7700 XT is only $400 and could last me a few years… then I snap back into reality and think nahhh I’ll be fine. It’s a constant battle within myself lol.

Oof, it drives me nuts. Thankfully I have most of those games in my library already and could play them, often on my Deck or my main desktop, but I get all weird about wanting to play them on my laptop.

Odds are, I wouldn't even end-up playing them right off anyway and go back to lower end stuff, then feel guilty that I blew a bunch of money.

I don't know about you, but it also accelerates! This all originally started with thinking that I could spend $400 on something much older with dedicated graphics, but then I think, well I don't need two laptops, so I could sell my current one and buy something even better and then the dollar amounts just go up more and more.

I'm still sitting on the fence, trying to remind myself that it's a dumb idea. I could buy all kinds of new parts for my RC cars with that money instead...

 

[Pifanjr]

I downloaded STEINS;GATE on my phone. It released recently and I could get it for free via my wife's Crunchyroll account. I'd heard of it before from a friend of mine who really loved it and I had looked into the anime that was based off of the game, but most people seemed to agree that the game is generally a better experience.

I often find it difficult to stick with phone games for very long, but a virtual novel actually works really well as you can put it down whenever you want and it's really easy to get back into. The only problem is that the mobile port isn't working properly yet. The main menu closes itself whenever I try to open it and when I do manage to quickly press a button before it disappears it crashes 95% of the time. You can also check your phone at any point, but that too isn't working properly. The actual story is working fine though and is really intriguing so far.

Does anyone ever obsess over the games they could be playing rather than the games they actually are playing or have played?

That's textbook FOMO. I occasionally get wistful thinking of all of the great games I'll probably never get around to playing, but then again life isn't about playing as many games as possible. That's not where lasting happiness or satisfaction comes from. Which holds for buying new gaming hardware too: it only gives a fleeting sense of happiness before it just becomes the new normal and you start wanting something even better.

You have to practice mindfulness and living in the moment and all that crap so you can appreciate what you have instead of what you don't have. It's not always easy, but it works a lot better than trying to buy happiness by endlessly chasing something "better".