July 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Zed Clampet]

They have turned one of our thread ideas into an online competition

Game Guessr - Guess the Game from 360 panoramas

With Game Guessr, guess the video game in total immersion with 360-degree screenshot panoramas. Adjust the difficulty, choose your favorite console and many other things.

www.game-guessr.com

That would be interesting if they weren't trying to force me to give them my data.

 

[Colif]

I did see the need to create a user

 

[Pifanjr]

Imagine if they had statistics on how many times you blow yourself up.

Last time I played I died because I was polymorphed and got crushed under the corpse of an enemy I just killed. Apparently you're only immune to fall damage as a wizard.

The thing is, how would the game know that I killed myself in that instance? It could definitely show you statistics on how you died, but I think it's pretty hard to give statistics on whether any death was your fault.

 

[Frindis]

Of course, I had to have it. As an '80s child, RoboCop was both super cool to watch and a bit violent and a little scary. The melting face and the scene with Murphy getting shot in the back are both pretty gnarly.

Robocop: Rogue City Alex Murphy Edition | PC Steam Game | Fanatical

In Robocop: Rogue City Alex Murphy Edition become the iconic...

www.fanatical.com

 

[Zed Clampet]

I don't understand the logic behind "endless" mode in Balatro. You have to be ready to go nuts right out of the gate. You don't have time to build up. Ante 10 makes you get something like 1.2 million. But then ante 11 makes you get 7.2 million. I fell short at 6.2 million. But if I had managed that, the next one went up a few million, too. By the time you get to the end of ante 11, you need over 14 million.

There are still a few good jokers I don't have unlocked, but endless mode is all about luck. You have to get the perfect combination of Jokers.

 

[Zed Clampet]

To make matters worse, it forced me to sell a Joker during the final round of the main game. If it hadn't done that, I'd have gotten at least the 7.2 million one. That Joker gave me 1.5x plus it raised my straight level every round. My straight was at something like level 29. But then what happens? They arbitrarily take the coins you need up x6. And two hands later? X14.

 

[Pifanjr]

I don't understand the logic behind "endless" mode in Balatro. You have to be ready to go nuts right out of the gate. You don't have time to build up. Ante 10 makes you get something like 1.2 million. But then ante 11 makes you get 7.2 million. I fell short at 6.2 million. But if I had managed that, the next one went up a few million, too. By the time you get to the end of ante 11, you need over 14 million.

There are still a few good jokers I don't have unlocked, but endless mode is all about luck. You have to get the perfect combination of Jokers.

To make matters worse, it forced me to sell a Joker during the final round of the main game. If it hadn't done that, I'd have gotten at least the 7.2 million one. That Joker gave me 1.5x plus it raised my straight level every round. My straight was at something like level 29. But then what happens? They arbitrarily take the coins you need up x6. And two hands later? X14.

This was exactly why I dropped Balatro. It felt too much like I was dependent on RNG and even if things were going really well, one bad case of RNG could mean the entire thing fell apart.

 

[Frindis]

I asked for a refund for Ghost of Tsushima. I can see why a lot of people praise the game. It looks beautiful, seems to have an interesting story to follow, and I do like the fox and the smart way they use the wind as a guide to locations.

Unfortunately, the game borrows too many mechanics from similar games in the genre, like the Assassin's Creed series, making it too generic for my taste. A couple of reasons for this: I don't like how materials are scattered all around and how you open chests to collect some of them. Opening areas by capturing camps is not interesting enough for me.

I think its main problem is that the game feels a bit too small while having cramped materials and such inside it. Why I think this is because a game like Assasins Creed: Origins also have a lot of these materials, but I don't notice it much because the world is (and feels) much larger. It feels less intrusive, if that makes sense.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I took a little of my precious time this afternoon to review bomb every Krafton game I own.

 

[Johnway]

After a point and click adventure i needed some indie action, preferably some shooting involved. So i randomly selected Super Hot as i suspected that it would be fairly quick to complete. Sure enough its very quick to complete the main story, i managed to finish it in less then 2 hours (apparently 101 minutes on the clock so far).

So... i can stay and play more of the game, like the challenges, endless mode and the such or move onto the DLC stuff. Might do the latter and if i'm suitably motivated play more of the original or just move on to the next game as i need to complete some more indie games.

 

[DXCHASE]

Kinda mad at myself that i went to bed early the last 2 nights and didnt game overnight on my weekend.

So while playing easy mode with one of my characters in Diablo 4 (every season theres 1-3 builds that make the game super easy because blizzard is terrible at balancing) i tried out Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 + 4

So, the good. Visually the game looks great for THPS. It runs butter-smooth so its well optimized too. Getting well over 150 FPS at any given time. There are a lot of skaters to choose from and some of the special hidden characters are nice (im currently skating as Doom Guy and one of Dooms most iconic enemies, The Revenant). New maps are nice. They have a mini-endgame where you get new challenges after completing all of the ones on the boards already. Lots of customization of decks and players too.

The gameplay loop is also just as addictive as it once was for the skating part and its great to go back and do it on old maps with a facelift or new ones with new challenges.



The bad? Well they absolutely gutted the old soundtrack which, for me, was half the fun of the game back in the day. I understand needing to add new ones, but after searching and seeing that songs that were cut wasnt due to licensing fees and it was just decisions made, its maddening. Lots of good songs i was personally hoping to hear and now wont. They added roughly 10 songs from 2 different games that were from the original track out of the 50-60 songs that are available, so roughly 80% of the original soundtrack is gone.

They got rid of some old maps too which i think is unnecessary. One map in-particular thats missing for me is Chicago and i loved that map mainly because it had an appearance by Matt Hoffman, a popular BMX'r (bike) from that time and didnt bring him back for this, but they went out of their way for Bam Margera to come back

On top of the adding/deleting boards, they also changed how THPS 4 played as a game. THPS 4 originally had a free-roam quest-giving style of play, a change up from the 2 minute windows you were given in THPS 1-3 to complete challenges. For 4, they made it so you can walk around and skate outside of a timer. All that is gone. They made THPS 4 in the same structure as the first 3 which is sad.

So, yes ill continue to play it. Its pretty easy to pick up and jump in and do some tricks and dip out, but it wont have an nostalgic pull outside of the fact im playing a game from my childhood and it has a couple songs and boards in it.



tl;dr: Skate part fun, nostalgic feel missing

 

[Zed Clampet]

We tried Void Crew yesterday, a first person space battles sp/co-op game that involves a lot of manually operating your ship. After the tutorial, during which I kept falling asleep, I told Guido we needed to wait until I was more awake and could do the tutorial again.

Then we played some more Diablo IV. I kept falling asleep, so we just called it a day. I got maybe 2 hours of sleep this morning, so I'm in a little better shape today.

 

[BeardyHat]

Kinda mad at myself that i went to bed early the last 2 nights and didnt game overnight on my weekend.

So while playing easy mode with one of my characters in Diablo 4 (every season theres 1-3 builds that make the game super easy because blizzard is terrible at balancing) i tried out Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 + 4

So, the good. Visually the game looks great for THPS. It runs butter-smooth so its well optimized too. Getting well over 150 FPS at any given time. There are a lot of skaters to choose from and some of the special hidden characters are nice (im currently skating as Doom Guy and one of Dooms most iconic enemies, The Revenant). New maps are nice. They have a mini-endgame where you get new challenges after completing all of the ones on the boards already. Lots of customization of decks and players too.

The gameplay loop is also just as addictive as it once was for the skating part and its great to go back and do it on old maps with a facelift or new ones with new challenges.



The bad? Well they absolutely gutted the old soundtrack which, for me, was half the fun of the game back in the day. I understand needing to add new ones, but after searching and seeing that songs that were cut wasnt due to licensing fees and it was just decisions made, its maddening. Lots of good songs i was personally hoping to hear and now wont. They added roughly 10 songs from 2 different games that were from the original track out of the 50-60 songs that are available, so roughly 80% of the original soundtrack is gone.

They got rid of some old maps too which i think is unnecessary. One map in-particular thats missing for me is Chicago and i loved that map mainly because it had an appearance by Matt Hoffman, a popular BMX'r (bike) from that time and didnt bring him back for this, but they went out of their way for Bam Margera to come back

On top of the adding/deleting boards, they also changed how THPS 4 played as a game. THPS 4 originally had a free-roam quest-giving style of play, a change up from the 2 minute windows you were given in THPS 1-3 to complete challenges. For 4, they made it so you can walk around and skate outside of a timer. All that is gone. They made THPS 4 in the same structure as the first 3 which is sad.

So, yes ill continue to play it. Its pretty easy to pick up and jump in and do some tricks and dip out, but it wont have an nostalgic pull outside of the fact im playing a game from my childhood and it has a couple songs and boards in it.



tl;dr: Skate part fun, nostalgic feel missing

Honestly, not even my style of music, but that stuff is iconic and just what you want to listen to when you're playing those games. Actually kind of makes me want to emulate it and see if I'm interested in playing it.

We tried Void Crew yesterday, a first person space battles sp/co-op game that involves a lot of manually operating your ship. After the tutorial, during which I kept falling asleep, I told Guido we needed to wait until I was more awake and could do the tutorial again.

Then we played some more Diablo IV. I kept falling asleep, so we just called it a day. I got maybe 2 hours of sleep this morning, so I'm in a little better shape today.

To be fair, I feel the same way about the Diablo's after 1 so it might not be you...

 

[Zed Clampet]

Void Crew says it's for 1 to 6 players, but you are going to be at a distinct disadvantage trying to operate those ships by themselves. The only concession the game makes for SP folk is to offer ships that you can put auto-guns on so that the computer shoots stuff for you. That's great, but you still have to run all over the ship adjusting the power, changing which systems are online, making repairs, etc. And while you are doing this, there's a great chance that people are going to be shooting at you as your ship sits perfectly still because you can't do any of this stuff and pilot at the same time.

I'm not sure Guido is liking Diablo IV. He says he likes it, but then he always picks a different game for us to play. I may start a solo character because I'm liking it pretty well. My only complaint is that I keep pressing Q to rotate the screen and taking a health potion instead because you actually can't rotate the screen.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Save 35% on 9 Kings on Steam

A fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder. Grow your empire and fight massive battles against powerful rival kings. Break the game with thousands of insane builds to become the King of Kings.

store.steampowered.com

@Pifanjr this is pretty fun and still on sale for under $10. I've only played one run so far and it was on "easy", and I won it, so I can't say anything about balance except that Easy is very easy, and it probably isn't possible to lose on Easy.

 

[Zed Clampet]

After continuing to read articles on the situation, I've deleted my negative "Krafton" reviews for now. It seems at least possible that they are telling the truth at this point.

 

[Pifanjr]

Save 35% on 9 Kings on Steam

A fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder. Grow your empire and fight massive battles against powerful rival kings. Break the game with thousands of insane builds to become the King of Kings.

store.steampowered.com

@Pifanjr this is pretty fun and still on sale for under $10. I've only played one run so far and it was on "easy", and I won it, so I can't say anything about balance except that Easy is very easy, and it probably isn't possible to lose on Easy.

Thanks! I've added it to my wishlist for now, I'm hoping it'll get a demo when it comes out so I can try it before buying.

I find that with a lot of these rogueli(k/t)e games I really enjoy the premise but I get bored of them pretty quickly. So I might play the demo a couple of times and then feel no need to buy the full game.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Some of the bosses in The First Berserker Khazan are Sekiro level good. OTOH I'm not using half of the combos in the combat system I'm unlocking, the deflect and a couple of abilities to punish are all thats needed so Im not sure why I need 5 different moves other than for style points. Good game anyway.

 

[Zloth]

Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children starts off really easy. They've got a lot to teach you, so I think they make sure you can get through the missions even if you haven't figured out how to slot mastery skills yet or even change your armor. After a while, the difficulty starts to ratch up a little - bosses might hit you for half your health in one shot, but the rank & file baddies can barely scratch you.

Then you get to your first mission with snipers, and it's when the game takes off the kid gloves. In my first playthrough back in 2020, it was the first time my party got wiped out. Then it wiped them out again, just to make sure I understood the new reality.

I got to it again last night. In my new playthrough I'm playing on highest difficulty, but I'm also a good 5 levels higher than the mission recommended level and I turned on an option that eases some of the restrictions on mastery slotting. Thank goodness I didn't put it in 'challenge mode,' which brings enemies up to your party's level, because I barely survived it. Out of my party of 5, only 3 survived. A couple of the police sent along with me were killed, too, and the chief suffered major injuries. Ouch!

And, of course, I got back to the office with all sorts of ideas on how to change some of my builds to better handle the situation - which is what makes that sort of thing fun.

 

[Johnway]

I'm currently playing Super hot: mind control delete, at first i thought it was just DLC, but its actually in its own game. So far its been easy going, problems begin when the more unique goons enter the fray. They wouldn't be so annoying if they weren't indestructible. I do have some things to say about this one, i should be done before the end of the week.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Oh hells. Last night I figured out my problem with Hades and finished the game in my very next run. Given that I just finished a V Rising playthrough and am playing two other games with similar combat, it was immediately obvious to me this time that the game was handling things very strangely.

For instance, when I dashed, I always dashed in the direction of my mouse curser. This was causing me confusion and making me take a lot of damage because I'm used to games dashing in the direction my character is looking.

Just about as bad, attacking was the opposite. Instead of attacking in the direction of my mouse cursor, as I would expect, it was attacking in the direction I was looking.

So I went to the controls settings, and sure enough there were different options for these sorts of things, and they were easy to change. No idea if I set it up this way during my original playthrough.

 

[DXCHASE]

Then we played some more Diablo IV. I kept falling asleep, so we just called it a day. I got maybe 2 hours of sleep this morning, so I'm in a little better shape today.

Can confirm playing Diablo 4 at night, or when you're tired can and will make you fall asleep, maybe for not long but. Have nodded off several times to open my eyes and im running into walls in a nightmare dungeon.

 

[neogunhero]

Well I've been gone for a while. I was on "vacation" all last week, but didn't go on any major overnight trips. It was the first time I've had that many days off of work in years, and it was great. Let me recap everything in my world of gaming from the past week to two weeks.

Everything I picked up during the Summer Sale: DayZ Frostline expansion, Riders Republic, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Besiege. Not a lot, couldn't think of much that I absolutely wanted to buy besides the DayZ expansion, the rest were dirt cheap.

I've been playing tons of DayZ of course, still in a major phase with that game but I think I'm starting to ween off it. One thing that somewhat ruined this phase for me was stumbling upon a massive player base that was completely unlocked and absolutely stuffed to the gills with high tier loot. I spent almost an hour looting the base, cooking food, getting warm, and gearing up. I stole their car and drove very far away, only to be left with a sense of "now what?". It was like entering the developers cheat level in Bethesda games that contains one of every single item in the game. I restarted a few more characters, made it to 8 hours in the new expansion map before dying to a pack of wolves while freezing, now I think I'm about done with it for the year.

I also dabbled in a bit of Riders Republic. Luckily I had my old save from years ago, so I was able to quickly jump in, do a few races, free roam and chill out. It's not a simulation game by any means, every sport in the game handles like an arcade game. The skateboard is cool, but by no means is it realistic. I really like the multiplayer aspect of it, it's cool seeing so many people randomly throughout the world just doing their own thing. However one thing I'm not that big of a fan of is all the fake NPC's running around, I wish they were all real players instead. It's kind of like joining a multiplayer game where everyone in the server is actually a bot, it's not the same as being with other real players.

I also got Game Pass to play the new Tony Hawk game. It's a ton of fun, I really like the original arcade career mode. It's tough trying to knock out as many challenges in such a short time limit but that adds to the fun aspect, you gotta be fast and precise.

After playing this, I got an urge to play Skate 3 on my Xbox One. Skate 4 is right around the corner, so I figured let me see if the online servers work for this game still. To my surprise they do and there are people online still. I was able to join some freeskate sessions that had up to 6 other people, all skating around and doing their own thing. Unfortunately I didn't get to play the multiplayer mode for this game when it was at its peak 15 years ago, but I am so happy to get to experience it now. With online support for games dropping all the time, it's a miracle this one is still online, but Skate has always had such an incredibly strong community of dedicated fans, I suppose that's why they kept it online.

 

[BeardyHat]

After spending several hours last week getting Might & Magic 4 + 5: World of Xeen working on my Steam Deck with DOSBOX Staging, I've been pretty addicted to it. One of the helpful things in getting me moving and helping me understand what I need to do was the Clue Book that comes with the GOG version.

With that I've managed to make it reasonably far, now having a level 10 party and finishing off the early stages of the game. Now I'm trying to figure out where I should go midgame and kind of wandering around, killing stuff and trying to do quests to level up some more to tackle the stuff at end game. Then after that, I can jump over to the Darkside of Xeen, which is the other half of the world and technically M&M 5. It's quite a bit tougher apparently.

Anyway, I've been enjoying myself so much, I decided to get the real, physical guidebook. Picked it up on eBay for $25 then went through and bookmarked with PostIts the important sections. It's been nice having a physical book over the PDF, as it makes things quicker and easier, but the book is only black and white versus the color PDF.

Been trying and mostly succeeding at trying to play it "old school" and not referencing the Internet. Just using the guidebook and the clues within the game to play and it's been a good time.

 

[Zed Clampet]

@neogunhero was this your Nashville trip?

@BeardyHat mainline Might and Magic used to be my favorite games.

****
Well, of all the games I'm not good at, Void Crew is solidly the worst, which is bad because it's Guido's favorite game at the moment. I've been playing all morning by myself and have yet to survive a mission. Think I'm going to offer to buy his friends copies.