Topic: What (Non-PS4) game are you playing??

I've played about 12 hours of Avowed since the EA went live the other day. It makes a really strong first impression. I dunno if they can keep it up for the long haul, but its been a really long time since a game grabbed me this fast. It's like a delicious blend of old school BioWare cinematic RPGs, a classic Larian RPG and the Dying Light games. My monkey brain grins at the parkour challenge ahead of me, that I know leads to some loot. The monkey brain grins at the crunchy, tactile, first person combat and how impactful all the magic and abilities all feel. And the nerd in me grins at just how much agency appear present in how you resolve questlines. It may all be smoke and mirrors, but the greatest smoke and mirror is one that disguises a smoke and mirror from feeling like one, and they've near mastered that here. Oh and I have a big piece of wood growing out my face and everyone talks ***** about it who meets me.

A couple games into Civ VII and yeah it’s good. I would say it’s slightly more tiring than other games, less pick up and play, but there’s a lot of depth there. I do like the new system of switching Civs and it’s totally opened up the game. Definitely a lot of places to go once we start getting expansions.

Started playing WipEout Pulse on Vita. Still in a mood for racing games after having played through Project Gotham Racing 2 and 3. This is actually my first WipEout game that I'm playing through. I'm a bit unaccustomed to the floaty driving but other than that, I'm really enjoying this game. I like the campaign where there are different race events like single races, speed laps, zones etc., which is similar in structure to the campaigns in PGR 2 and 3 actually.

Decided to spend my Friday just trying out different games, while still grinding out ZZZ.

First up was Beastieball. A new early access Pokemonlike with battles that are based around volleyball (but still turn based). Makes a really solid first impression, but since its EA, I dunno how long it will be good for.

Tried out Path of Exile 2. Absurdly difficult. Felt like I hit a difficulty wall almost immediately and turned it off basically straight away.

Tried out Stalker 2. Made it further than I did with POE2, but still only about half an hour. Seems like an absolute slog. Not for me.

Stalker 2 did, however, inspire me to reinstall Singularity. The opening hour or two of that game still absolutely bangs, holds up way better than I expected it too. Pretty sure its only like 10 hours long, so might focus on getting a replay done of this this weekend. BioShock is my favourite game, and for some reason they don't really make many games like that, especially nowadays, so Singularity is like the next best thing outside of just replaying BioShock.

I also picked up Megaton Musashi W Wired, not had a chance to play this yet, but I loved Gundam Breaker 4 last year, and this seems like a very similar concept.

Gotta be hyped for Judas, eh?

@Pizzamorg Yeah Singularity is a banger and a under appreciated hidden gem.

Tried out Megaton this morning. It is mechanically very similar to Gundam Breakers which is what I expected and wanted. What I wasn't ready for is just how dark and twisty the story is, right out of the gate. Gundam Breaker is just about awkward teens playing an MMO together, this is certainly not... that. Not a negative at all, it just really caught me off guard, especially with the art style and general art direction it has.

Incredibly so! Rumours even suggest it could come out this year. I'm not sure it is ever going to feel quite real until it is in my hands.

I wonder if anyone has made a "Bioshocklikes" list anywhere, as I wouldn't mind playing through all of them. Feel like a lot of them just sorta got lost to time.

@Pizzamorg Have you played Atomic Heart? I've heard it's very inspired by BioShock. Haven't played it myself yet.

@Pizzamorg The ones that spring to mind are System Shock and Prey. Not played the former game yet, but Prey is awesome.

I've tried, and bounced off of it, a few times actually. Looks great, feels great, but I really hated that weird semi-open world design where you were endlessly attacked as you tried to move around from place to place. I have no idea if that ever got retuned, if it had, I'd probably give it another go.

I actually played System Shock OG when I was a lot younger, feel like it would probably be too hard for me now 😂 Also I really wish I liked Prey, cause it ticks a lot of boxes for me, but I dunnno what it is, I play for a few hours, finish up one night and somehow never end up coming back to it. Must have done half a dozen fresh starts and never got more than like six hours in.

I thought Pirate Yakuza was just meant to be some silly spin off, but it might be the most I've ever enjoyed a Yakuza game out of the gate? Like I'd kind of accepted that every Yakuza game has a drawn out, 10 / 15 hour, borderline slog, of an opening you just have to push through to get to the good parts, but this basically skips over that entirely and the positive impact this has is immeasurable.

The ground combat is still messy like in all of these games with the real time combat. I feel like the brawler combat still felt tighter in the Judgement games, but fun seems to be the name of the game here, rather than having super refined feel. I remember being surprised that, especially in some of the older Yakuza games, but even Gaiden, were actually quite hard and demanding in context to how sloppy the mechanics felt, and I always thought that was kind of at odds. PY feels substantially easier, and just clearly wants you to enjoy the combat, and so it makes how janky everything feel not feel like something that just exists to punish the player.

Mad Dog is your traditional Majima fighting style only now with air combos, and is a lot of fun. Sea Dog is the style Majima adopts as he tries to live out his pirate fantasies. Mad Dog feels really fun out of the gate, whereas Sea Dog... doesn't. I played the demo that had a lot more of this fighting style online, so I know it's gonna end up in a super fun place, but right now I'm just swapping back to Mad Dog every chance I get and enjoying utterly dominating my foes.

There's also some pretty basic ship combat now which is kinda whatever (and of course managing your crew is basically an entire extra RPG within the game, that could be its own game if it wanted, like so many Yakuza sub-games before it), but the massive brawls that kick off when you board the enemy ships are so fun. You can also use Heat Moves now that combo you with your crew, and some are spectacular.

The tone might be polarising for some, the framing device with Majima telling his own story allows them to get really weird with It, even by Yakuza standards. And at least in these early chapters, while it does function somewhat as a sequel to Infinite Wealth, it has largely moved away from the Yakuza melocrimedrama into its own isolated side story about Majima climbing the ranks of some kind of pirate tournament. I personally think it is all a lot of fun and who knows, maybe it will end up back squarely in the Yakuza world in the end. I kind of feel like it must have to, if this is the game that is going to bridge Infinite Wealth to whatever the next mainline game is.

There is also that fine line with RGG games with how much of their assets they reuse (they couldn't pump the games out at this pace without it, though) and so some might mark the game down for putting us back into the Honolulu map from Infinite Wealth. However, while it may just be a cost saving measure, I do think there is this strange comfort and even nostalgia about space in a Yakuza game, cause the games take place in the same areas over and over again and I did feel that with this one too, reminiscing about stuff I experienced in Infinite Wealth as I got to Hawaii and started seeing memory jogging landmarks.

I'm on the final chapter of Pirate Yakuza and I kinda think I love this game? It's not lost on me why some diehards in the community disliked this, it - for the lack of a better term jumped the shark so utterly - I kinda think huge parts of this game will never be referenced again. As such, it's hard not to think of this then as just some filler title, but man, I just thought this was so much fun.

I can't remember the last time a game made me laugh out loud, let alone one that made me do it as often as I did here. It does all kinda feel like a tech demo at times with how much stuff is kinda rammed into this, but it also helps it avoid the sometimes sluggish pacing other games in this series have for me.

Like, I dunno, even if this really is just nothing more than one long filler game to test ideas, and 95 percent of those ideas are tossed out, whatever makes it into future games will absolutely be better for it.

Picked up The Hundred Line. Probably wouldn't have ever ended up on my radar without the cross promotion with Expedition 33. Its like 80 percent a visual novel, with a little Fire Emblem and a little Persona mixed in for good measure. The combat is... fine. I don't love it, but there isn't that much of it anyway so it doesn't hurt the experience. I did think the fact so much of the game is basically boxes of text and static images would really put me off, but the story has been really engaging so far. Like I dunno where it'll all end up, or if they'll land the plane, but there are so many twists and bonkers escalations, the game is never able to be boring, even despite the presentation limitations.

@Pizzamorg Did you play Danganronpa and/or the Zero Escape games? I was wondering how the game compares since The Hundred Line is from those creators.

I am aware of both, but never played either. My understanding is both are more visual novely with no combat. That just on the outside doesn't look like my kind of thing. But then again, there isn't a huge amount of combat in Hundred Line, a lot of that is also optional, and I'd argue it was maybe the weakest part about the game, too. So maybe I'd go back and enjoy those other two if I played them now.

@Pizzamorg I’m currently playing Pirate Yakuza and really enjoying it too!

I’ve spent quite a long time running around Honolulu completing all the substories and recruiting everyone I can so it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve actually been on the ship

I agree though that it’s refreshing not having to be weighed down by such a massive main story so spending so much time on other things means I haven’t forgotten what is actually going on. Even the side content has been pared back proportionally with Dragon Kart not taking so long to get through.

Infinite Wealth was such a slog but this is just fun. The combat is a bit mutton mashy but still good enjoyable.

Yeah @Thrillho I was confused by Infinite Wealth's story direction. Like I liked that game overall, I thought all the refinements they made to gameplay and pacing and stuff was all excellent. But I thought Like a Dragon was meant to be this on ramp for new players, because they had recognised that the Yakuza series had become a little unwieldy for new players to join in on. But then Infinite Wealth basically sidelined the new cast from Like a Dragon in a mostly sorta irrelevant side plot, so they could bring back the old protagonist and create a story for him who absolutely no one would care about if they joined the series with LAD like they were told they could. Just makes no sense to me to this day.

@Pizzamorg They're more like point-and-click adventure games than visual novels. Zero Escape has a ton of escape room puzzles, and Danganronpa is filled with environmental exploration and minigames.

Danganronpa definitely sounds the more appealing of those two based on those descriptions. Maybe I'll circle back to it one day.

Played about three hours of Doom the Dark Ages on GamePass PC.

Firstly, the preload I had installed for months I guess was broken by the pre-launch patches Bethesda did for this? So that really sucked, as I had to do a fresh install. Also, I had heard the latest Drivers caused issues, but DTDA wouldn't even let me save basic stuff like my acceptance of the T&Cs without installing the latest drivers, so that also really sucked.

It is a shame, as as a game I am really enjoying this, honestly. It is all probably a little too edgy, cool via the lens of a 14 year old teenager, but the game feel is just excellent. It has granular difficulty options, a very generous parry which weaves really nicely into how the Slayer naturally plays, turning up incoming damage feels great cause it really forces you into that push forward style play with aggression constantly rewarding you with topping back up your health, which then lets you live out that Slayer fantasy of just being this unrelenting sledgehammer. I feel like a lot of games present you as really OP in cutscenes and then fragile af in gameplay, but the way Doom Guy is hyped to all ***** in the cutscenes, and then you get to live up to that hype through the gameplay, is just really cool.

In terms of the mech missions and the dragon missions, I've only done one of each so far. If we are gonna pretend the Eikkon missions in FF16 were actually good, then we can appreciate the mech missions in Dark Ages. The first dragon mission I was less impressed with, as the dragon is tied to this weird perfect dodge mini game... thing... to lower shields and do damage. It doesn't feel great to do, and just generally feels out of place within the wider experience, in the way the Shield doesn't.

There is a wider conversation to be had too, absolutely, DTDA is "just" a campaign shooter and whether that is enough in 2025, especially as I think its the full 80 dollar asking price outside of Gamepass or whatever games go for these days. I guess we've been kinda conditioned into expecting more from our titles when they have that kind of price tag. But at least so far, I can't think of anything that I could add to DTDA that would actually truly enhance the experience and generate more perceived value.